Some random thoughts on Carrier flying in the District VIII area:  About ten years ago, with the likes of Bill Bischoff, Mike Greb, the Kirby brothers, et al, Carrier was a busy business almost every weekend at Dallas Hobby Park. Practise was ongoing for the Nats, where these guys, and newbies like myself, enjoyed some real success competitively. New people have to have help, unless they are really gifted mechanically and modelly (is that a word, modelly?) and they provided help-a-plenty.

 One of the drawbacks to flying a contest locally is always the "floating of the boat", getting the deck in position. Decks are bulky, and heavy. Pilots such as myself are getting , er, more mature, shall we say? and weaker. Floating the boat in 100 degree heat is tough, after a day's flying, taking down the deck and storing it even tougher. How many old toots does it take to launch a Carrier? Well, try as a club or group might, the strain just gets to be too much. Enter Dick Perry with his light weight, quick launch deck, which he unveiled in Albuquerque last summer.  In a nutshell, it's easier to transport, quick to erect and take down. In our Dallas area, Lt.Col Dave Ek, USMC, took Dick's design and began cutting wood.  I "enjoyed" priming and painting the thing, Dave fitted the connectors, George Hamby made the decals. At the recent DASH contest, Mike Greb flew the inaugural mission with the beloved MO-1, Richard Staight followed suit with his Hellcat. It made its maiden voyage, conducted sea trials, needs work, but is a vast improvement over the old ship, which served well for over a decade.

As interest in Carrier has waned locally, Dave has persisted in his Carrier efforts, you have no doubt seen his A7 Corsair II, the end-all for those who don't like MO-1 (take it to the Nats , Dave!) , and through his efforts, I feel we will see anewed participation in these parts. Thanks, Col, Semper Fi!

Another aspect I've pondered is having our Carrier Contests on a different date instead of combining with Stunt and Racing Contests. Many of our DMAA club members participate in all the events to some degree, and again, the 100 degree heat we endure so often is problematic. Try flying qualifying heats of Quickie Rat, Sport Goodyear, and Goldberg Race, then finals and you've just flown, what, 640 laps?  Say you flew Classic and Old Tyme Stunt yesterday also, and now that it's Sunday, you're entered in CLPA stunt. Time now to go over to Carrier and put up a flight in Profile, .15, Class I or II?  If we flew Carrier and Carrier only at a contest, we wouldn't be spread so thin, and we might even live to a ripe old age....

In case anyone wonders, the USS George Fogerty is named after a close friend of the afore-mentioned Bischoff, Greb, Kirby gang. He passed away tragically, but we like to remember him for his contributions, mostly engine and design ideas, as he was an engineer at LTV.

Like I said earlier, these are just random thoughts, maybe some of them can have a positive effect in your neck of the woods. I'll try to post a picture or two, there are some nice Russum Carrier photos over at SSW.     dg

I too  would like to see construction details.  The first carrier contest in Topeka years ago did not have a deck.  Lines were marked on the circle at the appropiate distance.  Then sand bags and lines stretched across it at the locations called for.  Had quite a few flights even had people using other people airplanes.  For practice all that is needed is an arresting line or two.  Have fun,  DOC Holliday

Any details on the deck in Albequerqe?
Thanks
Wayne

Dale, unfortunately we lost our paved circles in Cleveland years ago. So we fly off of grass these days. Storage and handling are the number one ssues with a deck. Something light and easily set up is the key. We have satisfactory storage and security for most of the year except at Fair time. We utilize the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds so thats an issue in August. So we are looking for ideas with those things in mind not to mention our age. I do remember the days of putting together the usual size deck, it was really work and time consuming. The Albequerqe deck looked interesting.
We have a core group of five here flying carrier. Years ago Cleveland was a hotbed of Carrier activity plus Dayton and Detroit werent more than three hours. At one time in the seventies there was a deck in Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Detroit. No lack of contests either.
Thanks
Wayne