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The staff of the Jefferson City
Parks & Recreation office opened the doors to
their 
prized
facility and we held our first-ever Indoor Electric Fun-fly event. It was
inside the Washington Park Ice Arena which is located on Kansas Street,
just south of Missouri Blvd.
Of course there was no ice in the building, just a huge slab of smooth concrete with open spaces above and it seemed to be the best indoor flying facility available in Jefferson City.
The event was held on Saturday, September 13, 2003. Being our first event, we made a lot of preparations and many of our members came through with needed items. We are also very grateful for everyone who contacted friends and fellow R/C Pilots across the Midwest to publicize this event. Especially grateful to Brad Dudenhoffer of Park Flyers Net, who helped spread the word. Also want to thank Rick Taylor for getting the word out on several electric airplane on-line forums he participates in.
Chris Byrd helped by generating many prints and signs on his computer. More importantly, he also brought a truck load of extra gear to the event including a computer with his R/C Flight Simulator for spectators and pilots to enjoy & experience virtual R/C flying.
Jim
Sander helped with the
impound by bringing a large "white board" and finding a place to hang all of the
frequency pins that were loaned to us by Brian Nutt and the Show-Me R/C
Extravaganza. Brian also went well out of his way to pick up one of the donated
door prizes. Rick Taylor, John Dussold, Tom Copeland, Chris Wilson and Chris
Byrd all helped with setting up tables, chairs, signs, etc.
We
started a little later than we had planned, but by 9:15 we were holding the Pilot's
meeting. Shaun Zimmerman's wife, Paqui Zimmerman-Lopez, helped by greeting everyone with a smile and
getting the pilots registered at the registration / raffle table. Her assistance
was very much appreciated. Daniel Smith of
Eldon donated the tickets we used to hold the raffle - Thanks, Crash99!
We owe a great deal of gratitude to those who donated items and sponsored the event. First of all, Parks & Recreations for allowing us to use the facility at a much discounted rate, otherwise this would not have been possible. We're also grateful for the help of the employees on duty that day for their help and for keeping the concession stand running all day to help keep us cool while we played in the rather humid conditions that day. We also recognize the help of our City Liason, Brian Nutt, for coordinating this event and procuring the location with the City of Jefferson.
Mike Anderson, owner of HobbyTown
USA, located at, 3906 
Peachtree
Drive, in Columbia, Missouri, (573-817-0698) donated a GWS "Funny Park"
electric airplane to the event which was greatly appreciated. Two employees from
his store were also
registered pilots! Mike was even kind enough to attend the event and help out by
replacing broken parts and taking them personally to Columbia for an exchange!
Now that's Customer Service!! Chris Wilson of Jefferson City won the "Funny Park"
and with a very contented look of disbelief, he kept saying; "I never win
anything!" (Well, Chris, you can no longer say that!)
The fine folks of Quick-Tech
Hobby ( http://www.quicktechhobby.com/
) (660-584-8755) donated one of the hottest kits available right now, a GWS F4U
Corsair!! This kit was raffled off to only the registered pilots and everyone
wanted to win this one. Brad Dudenhoffer of Columbia was the lucky winner!
Bo Peters of Mid-Mo
Hobby ( http://www.midmohobbyshop.com/
) (573-632-7062) also attended the event with his son, Seth. As always it was great to see him
and his enthusiasm for all things R/C. He and his wife, Denise, helped
us out with a GWS Slow Stick that was raffled to any one who wanted to purchase
a raffle ticket. In the end, Kenny Johnson, of Jefferson City, one of our newest
members, won the plane and seemed to be very happy about winning.
One of the nicest donations came
from Bill Birmingham of Park Flyer
Motors ( http://www.parkflyermotors.com
). Bill attended the event as a pilot and brought along an assortment 
of
electric R/C items for sale and display as well. Bill was very helpful to have
around as he conversed with pilots and spectators alike to help them better
understand electric R/C flight and flight systems. He helped clarify many
questions and misconceptions, but to top it off he donated FOUR Nickel Metal
Hydride battery packs as
door prizes! This is what Bill does full-time though, so it's no wonder he knows
what he's talking about. He also had some of the best prices we have ever seen
on electric R/C accessories and hard-to-find battery packs and chargers. We
encourage you to check out and patronize all of the businesses 
that
supported our event. We know we won't forget their generosity as we shop for R/C
products now and in the future.
There was a very cute little 4 1/2 year old boy named, Andre Lising, of Ashland, Missouri, who did the honors of drawing the names for the door prizes. Thanks Andre!
We started with a brief welcome
and Pilot's meeting, then opened the arena up
to open flying. There were a total of 17 registered pilots, including, Tom
Denham, who came all the way from St. Louis! That long drive must have got him
excited about flying since he was the first one to take to the indoor air. He
started off flying 
with
his Todd's Models "Gym-E" that really flew and looked nice. Tom also
brought along a great looking Mountain Models Duskstick done up in transparent
red. There were at least two Dusksticks on hand for our event. It was really
neat to see the variety of planes brought and to be exposed to
other ideas for future projects.
We tried to have a variety of
events in an attempt to make the day fun for both 
pilots
and spectators. Just looking around at all the different models was lots of fun.
Bill Birmingham of Park
Flyer Motors brought two really neat electric models for all to see
including a couple of the kits that he sells on his website called a Laird Super Solution biplane as well as a
Zipper 010 pylon racer / pattern plane.
We held a "Slow" pylon
race to see who took the most time to fly around the circuit and
the plane was
not allowed to touch the ground during the circuit. All of the times were pretty
close, but Shaun Zimmerman, flying his GWS Slow Stick, had the slowest time with
32.74 seconds which was barely enough to beat Chris Byrd's time of 31:92. Here
is a list of all the times;
After the "Slow" event came the
"Fast" pylon race. Obviously to see who could complete a lap in the
least amount of time. As you'll see from the list of winning times, all were very close,
but the winning time was a little more than 9 seconds. Daniel Smith of the Lake
Ozark Radio Control Society of Eldon, who also goes by the user ID of "Crash99" in certain
on-line R/C groups showed us one of the reasons why he's called that. After
winning the
event by crossing the finish
line
with a time of 9.96 seconds, he got
the attention of everyone present, especially the crowd, as he pulled an yet
un-named 
maneuver that is hard to describe with
words. We will attempt to get some video footage and make it available in the
near future. After both races he inadvertently attempted to take out the pylon
turn balloons with a swooping attack that had to be seen to be believed. In the
end he only broke a prop, but no one knew that landing gear could be bent like
that and not break. By the way, those balloons were sponsored by the Hyvee
Floral Shop, so the next time you decide to send your wife flowers, please keep
them in mind. Here is the list of "Fast" pylon race times;
After that, the crowd wanted
more, so we setup for the "Limbo" event. We set up two T-Ball batting
stands with a streamer strung across both of them. Barely 3 feet off the ground,
the pilots had to fly underneath the streamer without touching the ground. I
believe there were only two pilots who were able to get the job done. Both of
them were flying GWS Slow Stick's. One was Chris Byrd, of Jefferson City, and
the other was amazingly, an 11 year old, named, Brandon Rex, son of Wayne &
Charla, of Tipton, Missouri. His mother reports that he often flies his Slow
Stick at a park in Tipton where the Mennonite kids gather to watch him
fly. 
We had planned on having a "night flying" event where we would turn off the lights and fly the planes that were equipped with lights, but we thought better of it for safety reasons, since it was challenging enough to keep the planes flying safely with the lights on - so we flew with our lights on - for safety.
Since Daniel Smith had already attacked the balloons and they didn't break, we figured the Mylar was just too tough for a balloon bust, so we opened the arena up to open flying again.
A little after noon, as mentioned above, Andre Lising drew the winning names for the door prizes.
We've received reports from almost everyone involved that they had a good or great time at the event. A lot of work went into this event and we're glad that most everyone had a good time. We even enjoyed watching the kids of the pilots running around the arena. Jim Sander's daughter, Julie, was a big helper in the radio impound and with the pylon races. She was getting around pretty fast herself with her roller skates!
Rick Taylor sacrificed a couple of planes in the opening hours of the event, but had a great time with his remaining planes. We can't explain it, but there appeared to be some sort of a "Bermuda Triangle" in one corner of the building where several planes mysteriously turned into the wall causing mostly minor damage, but very annoying.
Brad Dudenhoffer of Columbia,
along with the help of his friend, Aaron Hay, stole 
the show when he flew for
the very first time his Sig Demoiselle. It was a thing of beauty, both how it
was built and how it flew. Brad said that he had about 80 hours building time in
completing it. Very nice indeed.
Here is a list of the 17
registered pilots and the planes they brought. We hope that when we hold this
event again that all will return.
This page is still under construction, please check back for updates.
For more information about this
event, contact
JCRC President Shaun Zimmerman at 573-636-3003
or e-mail info@jcrc.com - to see a
map of the location click on thumbnail.
Last updated 9/17/2003