Turkey Shoot Photos - St Louis MO

[Fred Cronenwett]

The weather was really bad on Saturday with rain and wind but it cleared up to blue skies and light winds on Sunday. Since a cold front had just come thru the temperature was 26 degrees when we got there so we put plastic around the picnic area, we also had heaters and hot food.

We had 6 entries and happy to announce the frozen Turkey's all found new homes but probably did not survive yesterday's thanksgiving!

This is the updated webpage with photos

https://lafayetteesquadrillecl.wordpress.com/lafayette-esquadrille-cl/photographs/photographs-2015/turkey-shoot-photos-nov-2015/

Fred

[Fred Cronenwett]

Some of the combat action with Jason Pearson and myself during the first round of combat

[Fred Cronenwett]

Jason scoring a direct hit on a balloon

[Fred Cronenwett]

Gary Frost closing in on Jason Pearson during combat round 2

[Clint Ormosen]

I miss Turkery Shoot contests. 

[Russell Shaffer]

Now that looks like fun!!

[Dan McEntee]

  It was a lot of fun and Jason did a fine job of putting it together. Lack of an "expendable" airplane and a flu bug along with wet, rainy weather kept me from it last year. I got an old Skyray.35 fixed up enough to be dependable for the competition. I had some bad luck in the balloon bust. On my first balloon "kill", I must have had a defective Master Airscrew 10-6 prop, for as soon as I hit the balloon, it shed a blade right at the hub. About 1/4 lap later, the vibration made the airplane shed it's tail feathers! The model rose up into a wing over and it was right over my head when I finally realized what had happened and I had no way of controlling it. I remembered Bob Hoover great words, "Fly the airplane as far into the crash as possible!" (or something like that!) and when it got to the other side of the circle, it changed direction and was coming right at my nose! And the engine was still running!. It passed over my head again and landed right where all the other pieces had landed, so at least I had an easy pile to pick up! And it got me out of having to fly combat, and I was able to retire to the heated pavilion!! I'm working on gluing everything back together tonight, and will be ready for next year!!
   Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[Fred Cronenwett]

this is a really fun event because the rules are simple you can truly fly your worst or ugliest model with honor. It is probably the only event where a really bad engine run is what you are looking for during the slow speed run.

My model limped off the ground in 3/4 of a lap and barely stayed airborne during the slow speed portion. Time to ready for next year!

Really a great event to get club members out and flying....everyone is welcome to attend this contest, it is not just for club members

Fred

[john e. holliday]

Great pictures and all I can say is you guys are having way too much fun.

[Andre Ming]

Really enjoying this thread. The pictures are SUPERB!  Especially the combat pic with one of you inverted, as well as the balloon bust pic!

Dan:

Your experience jogged a memory file...

In the late summer/early fall of 1970, toward the end of the flying day. You know, that wonderful time of the day I call "The Witching Hour" where it cools off, the wind dies down, and everyone scrambles to put in their last flight of the day. Anyway, one of the last flights was being flown by a youngster by the name of David Jamel (very good flyer). He was putting a 36X powered Voodoo through its paces, tearing up the air. (God I love the sound of a vintage combat engine on a vintage combat plane tearing up the air!)

As he did so, suddenly there was an ever-so-slight hitch in the RPM of the X engine, and then it suddenly revved up to a zillion RPM. A part fluttered to the ground. (A prop blade?)  With the engine sounding like a high pitched screamin' demon, the Voodoo glided in quickly for a landing... castor smoke boiled around the grounded plane as it continued to scream. (It MUST have been hitting near 30,000 RPM, given the pitch tone of the exhaust note.)

Dave's dad, Joe, ran to the model and grabbed it up to stab its nose in the ground to stop the run-away revving.  Well, that only works of there's still a prop hub!  Trouble was, the prop shaft had broken off! So, he began to hurriedly open the needle valve until it finally stopped screamin' its guts out.  As I recall, the engine was no worse for the experience, and once the crank was replaced, flew many times afterwards.

Amazing the things that can happen in a C/L circle!!