Warbirds Over the Midwest

On August 15, 2009 we attended the Warbirds over the Midwest Airshow held in Fond du Lac Wisconsin. You can see our photo album at http://www.uncontrolledflight.com/photos.htm Overall it was a very good experience. These guys had planes in the air from 9AM to 4PM Friday and Saturday. There was plenty of action and the club that runs the event were very accommodating, allowing us to park our camper on the grounds for a very small fee.
The weather was hot and had the potential for storms. One of the clubs members stopped by on a golf cart and offered us shelter at his nearby home in the event of a storm. Now that's hospitality! The grounds were absolutely spectacular, clear testament to the hard work of the people who put this event together.

We got there Thursday night and witnessed an a turbine F-4 Phantom wizz by. This gave us great hopes for the next two days. We were not disappointed with the quality of the planes or the skills of the pilots. We witnessed dozens of beautifully constructed WWII replicas and quite a few circa WWI biplanes. Examples included the P-51, Corsair, Sky Raider, P-40 Warhawk, P47 Thunderbolt and the F-4 Phantom to name a few. Make no mistake, these are warbird pilots. They have no interest in aerobatics. If you want to see a warbird in a flat spin or go into a dive and pull out 2 feet from the deck, you will need to come to Abrams and watch Crazy Glenn at our flying field.

This was not exactly an airshow in the sense of other shows, such as Joe Nall. Even the Green Bay show had some choreographed events to entertain the kids. This event was simply lots of flying. While I have nothing but respect for the people who put this show together, I would compare it to eating beefsteak several days in a row. The first day is pretty good but you soon get too full of the rich goodness and it loses it's appeal.

There were occasional highlights such as flybys by full scale aircraft and bomb drops but these were too few and far between. The club's shining star is the modeling expertise of Carl Bachhuber who flew his 6 engine B-36 bomber and the Boeing Stratocruiser. Both were stunning in detail and a pleasure to see fly.
Kudos to the event organizers for providing excellent refreshments and food. The brats and burgers were a big hit. The big band music was a nice touch. The announcer would have benefited from information about the planes and pilots. You could tell these guys had a significant investment in time and money. It would have been nice to hear a few more details about them. We were expecting lots of vendors but could only find two, Balsa USA and a guy selling servo extensions. We came prepared to spend some bucks so if vendors selling gizmos, ARF kits, motors, batteries or servos were present, they could have easily taken advantage of our weakened state, i.e. lack of female influence and and poor judgment. Instead we went home with full bellies and full pocketbooks.

The event ended abruptly on Sunday, apparently due to a weather front coming through. From what were heard, their attendance was down quite a bit this year. This may be due partly to the hot weather but the lack of activities for kids may have played a part.

Overall, this was a very well run event. With a few enhancements it could rival some of the more nationally recognized shows. What can I say, after attending Joe Nall we were spoiled. This is a nice ltille gem to have right here in our our state.

The 90 degree SPAD

August 5, 2009 we met at Kevin's airfield. the weather was perfect, warm and low wind. Jerry brought a couple of friends and buddy boxed them on his SPAD. Jerry did some amazing stuff with the SPAD but eventually ended up where all good airplanes end up, in the wheat field. After a horrific sounding crash, this was the result.

I flew my F-4 Phantom, and did an experiment with the Superstar. A gyro was added for additional stability in the ailerons and the test was an amazing success! The gyro reduced the tendency of this pane to tip stall on landings and as a result I had a very stable landing in low wind.

The evening was coming to an end and I decided to take the slow-stick up. After all what could happen? I plugged in the battery and checked the controls only to discover that things were not quite right. It was then I realized I had the Tigermoth model selected on my radio. What would be the prudent thing to do at this point? Unplug the battery and switch the model in the radio of course. What did I do? Left the battery plugged in and started switching through the models on my radio. Apparently one was selected that had the throttle channel reversed and the Slow-stick went full throttle, running into Jerry's Twist which was parked on the runway. It was a horrible sound but to our surprise there was no damage to either plane. Looks like I got away with that one.

Slowstick in the trees

I decided to put some ailerons on my slowstick tonight to give it more control. They didn't work like I thought and I ended up in a tree on the street in front of the house, about 16 feet off the ground. I had to get the limb cutter on an extension pole and with the help of a passerby, I got it down.

The problem was the linkage had too much flexibility and the ailerons didn't move evenly under the stress of actual flight. I will need stiffer wire to prevent this.

New Field

The new field is great place to fly both electric as well as gas. Impressed with Glens landings on the grass. He did a very nice job with his P-51 scale flights. Which is pretty unusual for Crazy Glen. Wasn't much for prop noise. It sounds so cool though! Cant wait to get something in the air there...so many options for landing.

New Flying Spot

Tonight we scoped out a new park in Howard and found a great flying spot. Present were Kip, Kris, Glenn and Bill.

Spring Green Park

This is a village park which we found on satellite photos. It turned out to be a great place to fly. Glenn flew the electric P-51. I flew the slow stick, rebuilt Tigermoth and a P-47. A beautiful, calm evening.

July 22, 2009 Midair collision

A warm summer night with mild wind. We met at Kevin's for "Electric Night" along with some newcomers, Jerry and the "Sarge". Kip flew his EFlight P-47 and I was flying a vintage GWS Tigermoth. We began a deadly game of cat and mouse. The P-47 won this round with a spectacular midair collision. My Tigermoth was sliced up by the prop of the P-47. The Tigermoth tumbled down into the wheat while Kip managed a deadstick back to base. After examining the wreckage I decided this Tigermoth will be back in the air tomorrow with the help of some epoxy and Spackle.

Glenn flew the electrified Nitroplanes P-51. The sun was low in the sky and planes were getting harder to see. Glenn did a number of high speed flybys, inverted flight and various other stunts. At one point the P-51 disappeared behind the house surely headed for the ground. Suddenly the P-51 appeared above the horizon again, setting up for the final approach. Only Crazy Glenn could get away with that one.

Jerry and the Sarge flew a couple of Spads designed from plans found on (www.spadtothebone.com). These things are made from corrugated plastic and drain spouts. For about $12 they constructed very functional aircraft. Another nice addition to UncontrolledFlight.

We ended the night with a burger and beer at the the new Wouters Sport Bar.

July 18, 2009 Warbirds over Abrams

Saturday was a perfect day at the flying field. Glenn, Kip, Kris, Joel, Nick Jared and myself spent the day either flying, watching or taking video. Glenn received his new Hawker Hurricane that I picked up at Northern Hobbies on my way to the field. We flew a variety of planes but the highlight of the day was formation flying with 3 P-51's. I used my "FlyCam One 2" positioned facing the rear of my plane to capture aerial video of the other two birds. I am in the process of editing the video but there are a couple of sections where Glenn's plane is so close you can read the writing on it. Kris pulls off some barrel rolls in view of the aerial camera.

No real crashes occurred Saturday but there were a few dead stick landings in the wheat field. Kris' Extra experienced a burn out but he brought it down gently. Glenn's electrified P-51 had some sort of electrical problem but he too was able to drop it down in the wheat. Jared made the trip and retrieved the plane. I had the camera attached to the bottom of the wing so we got some really great high speed flyby's.

Kip showed up and ran the camera for a bit. Nick showed up for a while and flew his Mini Titan. As usual he dazzled us with a bit of 3D helicopter flight. I did get the Superstar and the F-4 Phantom airborne. Great flights but a tough landing for the Superstar ended up with bent landing gear. By the end of the day I had flow 8 missions, 2 short of my goal for the day but considering all the video and action I was more than satisfied. The day ended with a campfire at my house.

All in all a great day for the UncontrolledFlight guys.

Flying at Kevin's July 18th

We will be at Kevin's airfield on July 18th. I will be flying the electric Superstar , Glow powered P-51 and the TREX. The weather promises to be decent. 8-10 mph winds and temps in the 60's.

July 11 new website launched

The www.Uncontrolledflight.com website has been totally revamped. I locked myself in the basement until I learned how to use Dreamweaver. As my skills grow so will the website. Checkout our new trailer video on the website and on YouTube. Our YouTube channel is rustyz123.

TREX crashes causing LIPO fire

On July 4th I attended a rib cookout at Kips. I was entertaining the guests with my TREX and all was going fine until Glenn noticed the blades were out of track. Suddenly the TREX was hurled to the ground. I believe The crash was the result of a broken blade grip. This would explain why the blades went out of track right before the crash. In hindsight I should have landed as soon as that problem was detected but I thought it just needed adjustment. When the blade grip let go, one of the blades apparently reversed pitch, slamming the TREX into the ground. As the blade rotated it cut through the beautiful Hughes fiberglass fuselage and sliced open the 2500 MAH lipo. The lipo flew across the road, and one cell emitted a small flame and then lots of smoke. The other 2 cells were salvaged by Glenn. The TREX needed a rebuilt head. My fancy fusalage was scrapped and now I am back to the stock one.

Cause: This TREX has been upgraded with a Scorpion motor and a larger pinion gear. The result is an extremely fast head speed.

Lesson learned: If you are going to run the head speed higher than stock, use metal blade grips. The plastic ones can't take it.