This Is A Test, Of The Blogger In Draft Video Upload System.

Here's a quick aerial video of a double glider tow shot from the top of Dick's Telemaster Electro at the recent Billings Flying Mustangs fly in. In this video, we had one of Bob's gliders on top of the plane in the launcher, and Eric's big 100 inch Spirit tagging along behind by a 120 foot tow line. It's an awesome sight to behold, or at least it is if you're into doing different and interesting stuff with model airplanes. I know, the camera angle sucks, but it was the first time that we tried it so give me a break already. Now that the FlyCamOne is available in the United States, there's likely to be a few more of them showing up at the field, which will make multiple camera angles on the same flight possible. Imagine the possibilities!





Sorry I didn't get a lot of video from the Fly In. To be honest, there was just so much interesting stuff going on, that had I filmed it all it would've taken me a month just to edit everything down to a form in which it would've been presentable. Couple that to the fact that it would've required me to watch the whole show on a little 1 1/2 inch screen, and I just wasn't too excited about filming the entire thing. The Fly In was advertised all over the place, on TV and radio and otherwise, so I figured that if anyone wanted to see this stuff they were welcome to stop by and watch for themselves. If you're not from around here, just keep an eye on your local media for a Fly In near you. You can also check the calender of events at the AMA Website.

The Fly In featured some pretty cool demonstrations this year, probably the most popular of which was Clay's rocket plane. Basically, Clay took an Estes Centurion rocket powered glider, rigged it up with a remote igniter for the rocket engine, then we strapped it in the glider launcher on top of Dicks big Telemaster and took it for a ride. Dick would kick the thing loose at altitude, then Clay would glide it around for a bit until it started getting close to the ground. When he was just about out of steam, he'd make a low pass down the runway and fire the rocket, sending the little red bullet back skyward with a trail of rocket exhaust. Clay, being the first class showman that he is, would usually toss in a few vertical rolls as the plane blasted straight up at breakneck speed. I didn't keep track of how many rocket engines they burned up, but considering the number of encore requests that were floating around, I know it was a bunch. I've got some video that I shot during the testing phase a week or two before the fly in, I'll try to find time to post some of it soon.

Another popular demo was the night flying. John had his helicopter all decked out with light wire and night blades, and put on a pretty awesome show in the dark. John night flies his heli every year, and it's always a highlight, well worth the trip out to the Mustang's field. John even managed to talk Brian from Heliproz into taking the sticks for awhile. Brian is a first class heli pilot, and after wowing the crowd with his flight demos in the daylight, didn't disappoint anyone when he got his chance to do it in the dark. Before the night flying got underway, John even took the sticks of my T-Rex a couple of times just to prove to me that it will indeed fly inverted . . . . . . now I just need to practice up until I can get the pucker factor under control.

I did a little night flying with the Mugi Nightfighter, but found that the lighting was insufficient. It's back to the drawing board for me, but I haven't given up by any means. It was flyable, but telling which way was up got a little difficult unless I kept it really close, and really slow, and after two really close calls I decided to put it away before something bad happened. I've got some ideas about how to remedy that problem though so stay tuned. Clay lit up the night sky with his lightwire equipped Abell RC Adrenaline 3D foamy, and Chris put on a pretty good show with his T-Rex 450 heli in night dress as well. I did try to get some video of the night flying, but soon discovered that my video camera just wasn't up to the task. You'll just have to take my word for it, it was awesome.

There were of course many more fun and interesting things going on, but as my sporadic posting of late attests, I simply don't have time to go into all of them. Here's a few pics that I did manage to shoot though. This is just a small sample of what you can expect to see at a typical RC Fly In.

Clay's big Sukhoi gets ready to take to the sky for another awesome 3D demonstration . . . . . complete with the newly installed smoke system adding to the visual effect.

A large scale Staudacher sits on the flightline waiting its turn to get airborne.

Check out the color scheme on this beauty.

Clay poses for the camera with his rocket plane just before the first test flight. The background is pretty empty in this picture, but during the fly in it was full to the gills with cars, trucks, vans, trailers, RV's, and whatever else. The turnout for this year's fly in was phenomenal. Over 50 registered pilots, and countless spectators.

The rocket plane strapped into the launcher and ready for the start of its first powered test flight. Ralpho's Kadet sits on the taxiway in the background ready to fly chase. You can't see it in this picture, but my FlyCamOne is attached to the bottom of Ralpho's plane in an attempt to capture the rocket plane from the air. The amazing thing is, that we almost pulled it off, which is really amazing when one considers that Ralph had no way of knowing what the camera was capturing until after he landed and we downloaded the video for viewing. If you watch closely, you can see the smoke trail, and hear the sound of the rocket motor firing. An inch or two farther forward, and we would've gotten the whole thing. Looks like a good excuse to try again if you ask me!

A typical view along the flightline.

Steve's electric pylon racer. A totally one off design, built entirely from scratch, and man does it haul ass!

Bigger is better, and when Dick gets involved, electric power is sure to be involved. The Axi in the nose of this YAK is as big as my fist, with three 5000 mAh 4 cell lipos providing the electron flow. More juice than a typical lightning storm, and power to spare for awesome flight performance. No need to tear apart your weed whacker for awesome giant scale performance anymore.

Here's the Mugi Mobile from above, shot with the FlyCamOne from Ralpho's Kadet.