So today we went to “Warbirds over Salt Lake” (or, depending on who you believe, “Warbirds over Utah”). This is a R/C model event that’s all about flying the scale-model military aircraft.
It was pretty good fun. During the drive in, the weather changed from calm to 15-20MPH winds. Unfortunately, for many of these people showing off $4000+ model airplanes, that’s simply too much wind to fly in where they’re concerned about crashing the model. This basically meant that only the most devil-may-care pilots flew.
So not a lot of planes in the air, but the ones that were were flown with style, panache, and reckless disregard for the safety of the aircraft 🙂 It was great fun!
Unfortunately, there was one crash: a scale model twin-engine B-25. It was pilot error, clearly: the pilot initiated a downwind turn at far too low an airspeed and altitude, tip-stalled, and turned his beautiful bird into an expensive trash bag full of firewood. Alas, you never like to see that happen. This particular pilot had taken his bomber model up four times the same day, working hard to keep the fans entertained when so few pilots were willing to brave the wind. He easily had flown more than every other pilot, save one indefatigable P-51 pilot who kept his bird in the air most of the day.
Must have been exhausting.
Me? Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like shilling out the $10 pilot fee to get into the air. I had a “warbird”, of a sort… a ParkZone F-27 Stryker. It’s a foam model, darn near indestructible, and if you do crash it, repairs are just some 3M Super 77 adhesive and strapping tape away. Trying to herd four children, though (and later in the day, 3 children) pretty much precluded my participation, too.
Next year, I’ll have to arrange a babysitter for a child or two so I can actually fly in the event!
Anyway, despite the steadily increasing winds, we had a great time. The one big plus about the high winds–up to 30MPH at times!– was that the downwind passes were extremely fast. It was amazing to see a 35% scale Corsair blow by at greater than 90MPH land-speed while doing an 8-point roll.
I decided to haul out my Stryker for some backyard-field fun afterwards, but when the plane began flying backwards at full-throttle 8 minutes into the flight, I decided it was time to haul it in. The two little boys with me get bored after about 10 minutes of flight time with my plane… it’s much quieter and smaller than the big, noisy, gas-guzzling giants flown at the field today.
Anyway, if you’re in the mood for some cheap entertainment, this is a great time of year to find a local model airfield and learn what events are happening there. They’ll generally have food, friendly people, and lots of airplanes in the air.
— Matt B.