We all took a day off from the news and flew model airplanes today. A good number of flyers showed up, and they brought an unbelievable variety of airplanes. I'm too tired for a full report here, but a few tidbits are provided below. Our fun fly sponsor and namesake, Tony Naccarato came out and brought his own selected 1/2As. He said he hadn't seen some of the designs in a long time. A good time was had by all!
*Video and stills were taken by Tony Accurso, so keep an eye out if you could not attend
*We kept trying to count the planes, but more kept showing up three and four at a time, so we postponed the count to about 10:30. Last year we had 126, or 127 if you counted the one I forgot in my truck. I think the final tally this year was something like 255 airplanes of all types--but all were 1/2A or 1cc control line planes
*By my guess--which involved only counting from one end of the pit area, and giving up around a quarter of the way thru--somewhere around 20% of the planes were scale models of some type. A lot of scratchbuilt scale models, not just plastic ones. Here is just a sample: Warbirds: B-25, P2V, Mustangs(!), PT-19, Corsair,....; Race planes: LIT Special, Rivets, Hall Bulldog, Gee Bee, Cosmic Wind, ......
*I'm not sure how many different types of plastic airplanes were sold, but we had a bunch of different ones. I didn't try to count. Larry Renger pointed out quite a few that he was responsible for, and then there were still more.... Would be fun to look at the video and try to see how many different ones were represented. My favorite was a gold plated Pitts Special with a Cox Pee Wee. (Note: go look in the 1/2A forum, where Larry listed some of the many different types of ready to fly planes that he identified.)
*We all had fun and there was no carnage making the event only newsworthy to modelers.... Only one crash I can recall. Of all things, it was a "flyapart" PT-19. And one minor prop cut from too much flippy, not enough glove
*The club agreed that next year, we will put some emphasis on flying more of the scale planes. Still a fun fly, run whut u brung kind of informal deal. So check out your engines and bring a fresh battery--'Cause we're gonna fly it!
Come join us!
Dave Hull
Pres, Valley Circle Burners (Los Angeles)