midweek flying!
Posted on July 6, 2008 by aaronredbaron
Last week on Wednesday July 2, I went flying with Tim from Tammies Hobbies, Darren Brooks and a few other flyers at the Sandy River Airport. Darren and Tim both brought out their Synergys, a new flyer named Anthony had his Trex 450, and I had my Protos. Tim and Darren both took a few flights to get acquainted with the field. They pointed out that it seemed like the trees were really close. But, once you have a few flights in to get used to it, it really is more than enough room. There is about 75 feet of grass from the flight line to the tree line, so some really wide maneuvers may not be feasible, but once you get comfortable with the depth, most anything is possible. Darren and I reminisced about a day both of us remember well.
At the Canby Duster’s old flying field outside of Donald Oregon, Darren put in a flight i will never forget. On a winter morning over ten years ago, the fog was so bad that day that most people gave up on trying to fly. Back then, small electrics were almost a joke, and barely capable of sustained flight, so nobody dared to fly their gas models in the limited area close in and under the fog. I was there with a friend flying an old foam Super Chipmunk my friend got from the “used airplane room” at Coin Corner Hobby shop in Oregon City. Coin Corner used to let us kids dig through some of the old models they had in the back, and sell them to us at prices we could afford before they switched to an all antique and model railroad store years ago. The Chipmunk probably had been picked up for $5, and after an afternoon with epoxy, it was airworthy once again. Originally designed for a .19 cubic inch engine, I had mounted an old plain bearing Tower .40 engine to the nose. My Chipmunk would torque roll really bad on takeoff if I was ham handed with the throttle, but it was actually a blast to fly once I got the hang of it.
I was barreling around with my Chipmunk in the fog and feeling like quite the pro when Darren arrived with his Carl Goldberg Extra 300. Those were the days just before 3D became the hot thing, and airplanes like Darren’s Extra flew much more like a full sized airplane, and were not flown in high alpha or hovering maneuvers. Darren proceeded to pull his Extra out of his car and fuel it, despite the fog. I was probably asking him questions at a frantic pace as I was often like a little kid in Disneyland any time anything I could relate to my hobby came up. I was impressed that Darren had mounted a Webra 1.20 on his .60 sized Extra, but I was almost sure the guy was nuts because there was no way he was going to be able to fly that thing in that fog and put it back on the ground in one piece. Sure, I had just done it with a fast, snappy little model, but mine was already well broken in, and I wasn’t afraid to crash it. Darren had built that Extra from a box of wood, and it cost so much I didn’t even want to think about how long it would take me to save that much money.
Darren didn’t seem the least bit intimidated as he started the Extra and taxied out the flight line. As the airplane accelerated and took off, I watched in amazement as Darren did a snap roll immediately upon breaking ground, leveled the wings, and did another snap that stopped dead on with the wings level. I knew I was in for a memorable flight as I watched that Extra dart in and out of the fog, being deftly flown at times when the pilot couldn’t even see it, and then it would reappear right where he was expecting and rip down the runway. It was almost as if Darren was so in tune with that plane he could fly it by the sound for extended moments. The flight was incredible, but what sealed the memory in my mind as one of the best I have ever seen was the ending. Darren took the Extra up to a hundred feet or so where he could barely see it, rolled it over, and killed the engine. He then proceeded to glide the model in a perfect approach to the ground, inverted, and what happened next blew my mind. Darren swooped in, dragged the top of the rudder through the short grass, popped it up, rolled it over, and greased a perfect landing! After the flight there was actually a grass stain on the top of the rudder, with zero damage. I will forever think of that flight when I think of incredible flying, and to this day, I admire Darren for his skill and Nerves of steel to do what he did, and in the fog no less!
Wednesday was not as memorable as that foggy day over a decade ago, but it was a fun day, and after flying out in Sandy, I went to Oregon City to hang out with my friends from FlexPro, Mark and Scott. FlexPro is releasing their new type of gear with a better look, and I wanted to play with my new camera, so we spent some time at the neighborhood flying field with Scott’s 450 taking pictures.
till next time, Happy Landings
-Aaron
