Brooks Heli Fun Fly Fall 2008
Posted on September 21, 2008 by aaronredbaron
September 12th, 13th, and 14th, Brooks Oregon. This BiAnnual event is one of the Northwest’s premier RC helicopter gatherings. The host field is a private grass runway about 2000 feet long, and we line it from one end to the other with campers, trailers and tents. With nearly a half mile of flight line and 2.4 ghz radios, flying can continues pretty much uninterupted. There is enough room to have as many as 10 flyers in the air at once.
Held just north of Oregon’s capitol of Salem, the at weather this year’s event did not disappoint, but unfortunately the manure did. The surrounding fields had been fertilized days prior to the event, and rumors of the cause swirled as everyone gagged on air that was so thick and putrid you could taste it. The smell was the worst during the evening hours when the wind calmed down. During much of the day a mild breeze brought blissfully fresh air but the evenings and the event’s popular night flying were plauged by the rotten stench.
Despite the smell, the Northwest flyers put on an incredible nightflying display. The highlight of the night flying was Mike Scoles, Jeff King and Sean Whitney doing a flight together. They were tearing up the sky and having a blast doing it. Saturday we held the Northwest Freestyle Championships. Sean Whitney flew very well with aggresive stops and precise, aggressive flying with a smooth touch. Despite loosing a governor magnet and being forced to compete with only throttle curves at the last second, he won the competition.
Johnny from Fantasy World Hobbies in Tacoma took second place with aggressive smackdown 3D, and I took 3rd flying my Protos. Although my flight justified no higher than a 3rd place ranking, I was disapointed in myself because I did not fly nearly as well as I usually do. For some reason, my flying did not feel as “connected” for actually several weeks leading up to the event, and only toward the end of sunday did I start to feel comfortable slinging it around like normal. I need to dedicate small amounts of time every day to improving my flying, and I feel like I have something to prove now. Baron’s Hobbies donated a Protos for the raffle, and the response from everybody who saw it fly was very positive. Scott Malone Flew his Turbine Powered airplane several times during the weekend and managed to clock a respectable 248 MPH with an onboard GPS data logger.
