Flyday

Last Sunday I took my Great Planes PT-40 to the Johnson Space Center Radio Control Club (JSCRCC) field and did some pattern work, and loop-the-loops of course. Constructing this plane was a labor of love that I undertook during the winter of my freshman year in college. It was a good distraction from some pretty heavy things happening at the time. Family deaths, pet deaths, having no idea what to do with life and knowing it, the sorts of things that keep you in bed all day if you concentrate on them. Wow. Buzzkill!

Believe it or be stupid, I had a lot of fun, and here I have some photos of the wonderful day I spent with model aeronautics.

Here she is on the pit, fueled up and ready for action. That shoe and leg on the right side of the photo belong to Dave, my instructor who kept me from totally demolishing my plane and looking the fool. Out of two flights of 12 minutes or so, he only had to take over twice. Not bad considering I revived it from about a four-year hibernation in storage.

While I was prepping at the field I got to see some of the other club members' flying art. Above is a scale North American P-51 Mustang in flight and just after landing. The pilot was the president of the Club, and the flying was deft indeed. I can understand why people get into scales, when you do it right it can fool you into thinking this is a full scale warbird, it only looks small because it's further away....

Somehow I neglected to have someone to take pictures of my craft in the air. It's sort of tricky to get a good shot of these things flying (as seen above), so it's probably nothing to toss about in the night over. Here I have quickly arranged an even BETTER view of the PT-40 as it might have looked, tearing through the cloud-blanketed sky:

I can tell you are totally jealous of my photo splicing abilities. Try to hide it a little more.