5/26/08

Better than Indy

Memorial Day Weekend. Stay home and watch the Indianapolis 500 on TV? Not when we can fly in the gym at St. Vincent's.


Ed launches his EZB.


Brian's NOCAL Beechcraft Staggerwing.


Austin, who is already designing and building model airplanes, gets some pointers as he prepares to launch George's Puss Moth.


The Puss Moth is a good flyer.


Brad and Baxter ready to ROG.


Their Bostonian is starting to show its potential after a series of trim adjustments yesterday.


Peter's Honeybee. Notice I am standing in the background, after this tiny plane hit me in the face last month!


Volksplane


I'm not sure who owns this CO2 powered model. I have not seen it fly, and I'd like to know more about it.


Box-o-planes


Nickel scale Cessna


George has started the motor.


I need to make sure the nose block is right-side-up.


My Celtic achieved its best time yet, 1:10, after multiple near-misses with the beams.


Kermit's XE5 also had its best time yet, 1:04.


Richard's XE5 is also doing well, sometimes flying above and through the beams...and other places.

This is better than motor sports any day. Special thanks to Austin's dad, Chris, who took all these photographs.

Dave W.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

'Twas indeed a good day of flying, despite the unfortunate, but necessary, absence of our revered fuhrer, er leader!, Tom W.! The best time of my XE5 was actually 1:04.3, with one other flight of 1:03.7 and a couple of others right around a minute. I spent most of the day finding the right motor that would let the XE5 get up to the rafters from an ROG and cruise right below them, as I am not a fan of "rafter banging"! THe "right motor" turned out to be an 18" loop of "medium torque" 1/8" rubber. I think that maybe an even slightly longer motor (20"?) may actually be optimum. Something to try next time! That photo of Richard's XE5 hanging from the basketball net is a classic! You couldn't do that on purpose if you tried for a very long time! Ed S. also got some good flights out of his XE5 after some trimming. Richard also got a flight or two right around a minute. Turns out that the XE5, like its monoplane "cousin", the Akro, is a nice stable sport flyer, with a decent duration potential for its type of model. Now let's see all of the other MAC members who have started XE5's get theirs flying!