Mar. 8, 2008

(Mike Hainen)

Snow, still white and lots of it, get in all the snow-mobiling you can. Ice still thick enough to fish, discount lift tickets and spring skiing. Spring is in the air, are you home getting ready to change the wardrobe, prep the garden and yard junk. Only 5 weeks until April 15th, are you doing taxes? Is your house full of college kids on spring break? Are you getting ready for a springbreak trip? With all these options, it is tough to decide weather to score honey-do points, work on winter project, or go indoor flying. Solution, multi-tasking is the only way. Do it all.

Well today was session #5 of the indoor flying fun up at Leelanau Sands. I arrived and within minutes a half dozen vehicles arrived as we waited for the doors to open. At first attendance appeared to be light with but pilots, friends and observers drifted in to enjoy the day. Tony Lahead, myself, Mike Devincent, Nick Harwood made up the TREX 450 gang. Scot Anderson, Stan Hyman, Jim Eggart, Ben Rufli, Jamie Vanwingen made up the Park Zone airplane squadron. The "Blue Max" Dick Jerue has mastered the blue foam biplane. The Vanwingen family was all present and flying their fleet of electric wonders, dragonfly, foamy twinjet, Airhog heli,Blade CX and the Park Zone Cessna 206. New guys Chris Pina flying a Blade CP and Eugene Simionescu with a brand new Blade 400 heli were also present to get some adjusting and setup help and to start taking those first awkward heli steps, skidding and sliding around trying to teach the left and right hands what the left and right sticks do. New prospect Mike Torello drove up with Nick and will be joining TRAMPS flying planes and helis while studying hard at Great Lakes Maritime Academy. Scot Anderson was so excited when Nick Harwood showed up he ran home and got his hot new 3D biplane. Nick did a little trimming with Scot's bi-plane and began having lots of rolling, flipping, hovering and having fun with the neat little biplane. See the attached pictures. Last session I recounted how I was ganged-up on by the Park Zone squadron of little Cessna and Citabra airplanes flying around, above and under my TREX helicopter. We all survived that round. Today, new Park Zonie Stanley Hyman joined ranks with a pretty new white and yellow Citabra and he was really enjoying his move the wonderful world of pleasant indoor flying and spread spektrum freedom. Well just like Ikarus flying too near the sun, Stanley decide he wanted to have an up close and personal look at Tony Lawhead's Trex 450 sporting carbon blades. Let's just say, a pair of carbon blades turning 2500 rpms trumps a foam and plastic Park Zone airplane everytime. Tony sliced Stan's tail off like a Benihana cook slicing the tail off a shrimp. Oh well, Stan has the catalogue of Park Zone parts at Trains & Things and the little bird will fly again. Speaking of hobby shops, Jim Oviatt and wife drove up to witness the happenings at the Strongheart Center Indoor flying session. Jim has been selling lots of helis this winter and sending his customers up to get help from our group. Hope the seeds get planted and we see more pilots this flying season.

All in all it was a good day and got even better when 7 of us adjourned to Sutton's Bay to the Village Inn for a nice lunch and the telling of lies and tales. Don't forget we will be taking an extra week off, so the next and last indoor flying session of the year will be March 29th. Final score for today Airplanes 1, helicopters 2. Stan lost his butt/tail, Nick tried to land his Trex 450 very fast on a vertical brick wall like Jason Krause. Didn't work. And my night Trex 450 tried to do a 180 steep turn flying low along the floor and the blade tips of my carbon blades nicked the floor breaking the plastic blade grips and plastic swash plate. The blades survived without a mark and I just have been waiting to install my complete new metal head assembly, now I have a reason.

Just in case you have a severe case of heli spring fever, Chris Zolen wants to fire up the fire ring and fireplace at his Heli Haven in Kalkaska on the Saturday before Easter. Sort of a Snow/Slush/Mud season kick off, just depends on the temperature. He says Lars will plow a path into the clubhouse and clear out an area big enough to get the helis into the sky. Sounds like a good reason to bundle up, drink hot liquids, bury brown bottles in the snow and make yellow spots next to trees. Time to get the field box in shape, charge the ni-starters, burn up the old fuel and see what works and what doesn't. After all Toledo Show is 2 weeks after that April 4,5,6 and you can drive down and get all new stuff if yours is junk. Get those projects done and get ready.

Have you seen those H&R Block ads, "I got people", well I am here to tell you, "I have people" and good helibuds, Tony Lawhead, Dave Johnson and Chris Zolen have been helping me get my gaggle of helis built and ready for this coming season. Thanks guys. The wrenching sessions are good fun and a great places to learn. Find some airplane buddies, a few soft drinks and cheap pizza and get together with your buddies, it adds so much to the fun. See pictures of my buddies, Tony, Chris, Coastie Steve.

Feb. 18, 2008

(Mike Hainen)

It's getting lighter each morning. Just think, in 3 months we will hopefully have already had our spring round-up. I am holding back until talking to more folks, but the tentative plan is to have our 3rd Round-up on Saturday, May 17th.  That should ensure some nice and maybe even ensure some warm weather with sweet green grass under our feet.

What's new?  Well last Wednesday, Coast Guard Rich and Coast Guard Steve hosted the TRAMPS, February meeting at the Traverse CityAir Station. They provided coffee and a nice pastry for us to eat while conducting the meeting.  It was a nice meeting but the best part was all the new helicopters displayed by many of the TRAMPS and guests. Rich Schultz did a nice job of playing Vanna White and describing all the helicopters for meeting guests.  Naturally Rich's big Hirobo USCG Dauphin was displayed. She is ready for another season of flying. Then surprise,surprise, Rich debuted his new TREX 600N PRO with every upgrade available and sporting a complete Curtiss Youngblood outfit of Radix blades, paddles,tail blades and Curtis's' Solid G gyro and ATG governor.  Needless to say, it has more bling and goodies than anything Chris Zolen or Nick Harwood has.Rich financed this beauty by selling his very nice Raptor 50 package. Truth be told, I think he had to dip into the Mustang Convertible savings kitty. Rich also brought another one of Bill Oliver's neglected projects for display. Rich has thoroughly cleaned, reassembled, and touched-up Bill's bigVario Bell 47 helicopter powered by an OS .91 four stroke motor. Rich also did the same thing for Bill's Robinson 22 four-stroke last fall. He has eventaken on the programming/setup of Bill's new Trex 450 SA.

Guest Chris Zolen showed off a freshly arrive new Hughey AH-1 body that arrived to make a nice little scale project out of his old TREX 450 HDE. This cutiewill even be sporting a 45 degree tail rotor gear-box, doors and lots of rivets.  Steve Horacek displayed his pair of helis, TREX 450 HDE and RAPTOR 50 and also hisneat little electric flying disk airplane.  Next on display was the new and nearly complete SYNERGY N9 of Nick Harwood's. The heli is a looker and light weightand like Rich's Trex 600N, is will be sporting the latest $ervo$, a hot motor, 2.4ghz receiver, lipo battery regulator system, and the new Spartan gyro, V-blade main blades,paddles, and tail blades.  Next on display was Tony Lawhead's very nice looking Raptor 50 packaged in a Funkey fiberglass Hughes 500 Defender military helicopter. She isgoing to be a very bad heli in the air.

For a change of pace, Ben Rufli, "Sparky" displayed a pretty little electric biplane on skis. Ben states that it is a good flyer and skis system works very well. Two new youngsters, the Brady boys attended the meeting and showed the nearly completely framed Great Planes Piper Cub. This is their first scratch build project and itlooked fantastic. These fellows have the right stuff and started flying last year so we should be seeing a great deal more of them this summer.

After the meeting we had a nice tour with question and answer session over in the hanger with all the helis in the coupe for the night. Everyone had a chance to get in, sit in andtouch all the buttons and switches on the big beautiful USCG helicopter.  Thanks so much Rich and Steve for letting us play in your world.

Afterward, many of us adjourned to La Seniorita for some nachos and chicken wings and liquid refreshments.  A really great meeting was had by all.

For all of us with new scale projects or night flying birds I found this link for some cool lighting systems for helis and planes or whatever. http://electrodynam.com/rc/EDR-117/117cmp.shtml  

If you haven't visited the new WWW.TRAVERSEMODELPILOTS.COM, take a look, Jeff Loshow has nearly completed the new site. Nice Job.  Write somenotes, take some pictures, and send them in.

Don't forget, we will be flying again up at Leelanau Sands Strongheart Center from 10AM to 2PM. Keep an eye on that weather, you may be able to squeeze in a few outsideflights too. Forecast is for 32 degrees. Now, let's get rid of this ice and snow so we can drive safely.

Have you got your Toledo Plans made?  April 4,5,6. You can find the link on the internet.

Now for other news and gossip. My fleet build continues with the help of Dave Johnson and other friends.  Dave has been selling airplane engines and airplanesand is now the owner of a new Futaba 7C 2.4ghz system. Rich Smith has splurged for the same system also along with Tony Lawhead, Jeff Devincent. Jeff has evengotten his son, Mike, flying a new Mini-Titan electric and he is progressing fast. I heard from Mark Bonofiglio and he has been modifying his helis. The Ecriuel 50 Raptor hasbeen electricified. Wow.  Brad Matznick has been on RR describing his scale build and with the help of Troy Raymond the big A109 project has flown naked,and is now sporting a beautiful newblue scale paint scheme.  We want to keep Brad in our prayers as he will be in the hospital for 2 weeks in March as the big C has made a return visit.  We are thinking of youBrad and look forward to seeing you this summer flying that big heli all over Michigan.That is enough from me, time to grade papers, and get busy on my helis, time is a wasting and spring will be here faster than you think. Wear out that sim, Lars is flying inverted backwards and Chris and Nick are trying to out piro-flip each other.