I'm assuming that most of you were aware that this weekend was the Ringmaster fly athon. I wanted to be true to the spirit and devoted most of my day to catching up on old 1/2 a planes that I had. I have a baby Ring and also some of the beginner bipe Rings. This seems like a step in the wrong direction as my flying abilities have progressed way ahead of these planes. I used to have a lot of fun with these when I was younger. But today I met a fellow who just happened to be a 1/2 a flyer. He came equipped with a Goldberg Jumpin Bean and a Scientific Stuntmaster. I have to say I was delighted to find another flyer with similar interests. I myself typically and daily fly modern 1/2 a engines. It was nice to go back to the roots and play around with a Golden Bee and Black Widow for a change. I was quite frustrated initially due to the engines sitting around for a while, but they slowly came around. I just had my planes sitting in the grass more as decorations than to fly but this fellow inspired me to give it a whirl. I owe a lot of credit to Bernie at Xenalook who more or less helped me rebuild my 1/2 a collection. Although I never spoke directly to them, the person I met has and was a very satisified customer. He flew his Jumpin Bean first and got caught a tad of gaurd on the fuel consumption and doinked it in a bit resulting in the tip weight exiting through the wing but other than that no sweat. I took the more agressive approach and went right into the inverted flying which resulted in a overly rich run in which I almost couldn't recover from. He was truly amazed in the flying ability the baby Ring had as he also owns the kit and never built it. I left today with a good feeling of meeting a new friend and all planes coming home in one piece and just keeping  old engines running from years back. I never got to see the Stuntmaster fly due to getting sidetracked into a 3 up rat race but I surely hope to fly with this fellow again. Ken

I guess I'm not a good brother in the Brotherhood of the Ring.  I sat at home with my Ringmaster in the garage, neither one of us doing anything.  It did fly the weekend before, though!  I guess I'll have to pay more attention next fall, if they don't kick me out of the Brotherhood!