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During the week of August 22nd through the 28th there were
an unusual amount of good things happening around the JCRC Flying Field.
First of all the weather was nearly perfect for flying all week long,
which made it difficult to stay inside. Secondly there was an unusually
high number of airplanes made ready for their maiden flights. We ended up
with so many nice photos that we separated them out into their own page
instead of adding them to the normal Photo
Gallery pages. Starting off the series of photos is
John Dussold's brand-spankin' new Profile P-38 twin-engine Lightning.
After months of work, John had it ready for its maiden flight on
Wednesday, August 24. This was John's first experience with a twin-engine
airplane, but as expected, all went perfectly. After some minor trim
adjustments after an uneventful take-off, John was ripping up the sky with
not one, but two propellers. The greatest thing about any twin-engine
airplane is - the sound! John's is no exception. Without failure almost
every pilot at the field has said; "That sounds so cool!" when
they hear it for the first time. It lands rather hot, but as John becomes
more acclimated to the airplane and when he knows without a doubt that he
can trust these engines to run consistently, he should be able to slow it
down some more. In the meantime it is fun to watch it as John guides it to
a landing. The next set of photos were all taken on Sunday,
August 28th. Very much like the Sunday we recently enjoyed down at the
LORCS flying field, we had nearly perfect weather for a great day of
flying. It was still quite hot and for some reason, no one complained when
the breeze would pick up a little to cool things off ever so slightly. Tom
Copeland brought out two beautiful model airplanes for all to see and
enjoy. He unveiled his brand new SE-5A Biplane for the first time. Again,
it is an absolutely beautiful model with many details that are
characteristic on nearly all of Tom's masterpieces. He appears to be in
his 'building prime' as he continues to bring out masterfully crafted
model airplanes. Unfortunately, the O.S. .91 four-stroke engine that he
has mounted in the SE-5A did not want to cooperate on this particular
Sunday. We know he will work out the bugs and when he does, this plane
will no doubt look stunning in the air. Luckily Tom
Copeland also brought out his Fokker D-VIII which didn't have any engine
problems. In fact, it appeared to fly flawlessly, except, maybe for the
1st landing of the day where it appeared to have a mind of its own as to
where it was going to end up. Eventually the plane slowed down and flipped
over on its top. Luckily there was absolutely no damage, except that underneath the scale pilot-figure was found a small pile of Messerschmitt in
exact 1/4 scale! The rest of Tom's flights were great and the plane looks so nice
flying. As you can see, John Dussold also returned to fly
his P-38 on Sunday, which was great, because a great many more people had
the opportunity to see it in action. The spectators loved it. We even
overheard an elderly man who stopped by say; "Wow! That
was a good landing!" Then the elderly lady that was with him, said; "You should
give me a kiss!" We're not sure if that's some sort of a superstition
or tradition that us younger people are not aware of or what, but hey, as
long as there's a good excuse to kiss, we're all for it! Another
great thing about this day was the fact that Kent Imhoff returned to the
flying field with two new planes. An Ace Air Scout, which is a
three-channel airplane that looks something like an Aeronca and he brought
out his nearly-ready-to-fly Lanier Stinger 60 that he has been working on
for a long time. He ran up the older O.S. .91 four-stroke and it ran
perfectly. It was obvious that Kent knows what he's doing when it comes to
engines! Unfortunately the center-of-gravity balance on the Stinger was in
question, so he wisely decided to postpone the maiden flight for another
day. Stacy & Tom Gillmore took a short break from
working on their Goldberg Sukhoi and brought out their Cloud Dancer and
Katana profile 3D airplane. Getting a picture of Tom's Katana is tough, it
is constantly doing crazy aerobatics and never flies in a straight line
for very long. The Cloud Dancer with the K&B .65 Sportster is flying
like a champ, but Stacy has decided to put it up for sale, so if you're
interested contact him quickly as it will be taken to the Swap Shop area
of the Taylor Fly-in over the Labor Day weekend. Finally in
the photos below you will see Rick Poire's new (to him) slightly-used
Pilot Extra in 33% scale! It has a massive Zenoah GT-80 twin engine
mounted up front and has a really cool sound to it as well. The
'pucker-factor' was high as this was Rick's first time to fly this
mammoth, but as always, Lady Luck is with Rick and everything went
perfectly. The plane rolled majestically down the runway and jumped into
the air and after some trim changes was flying like it was on rails! The
colors look really nice against the blue sky. The engine ran
perfectly. Rick sat up on a long approach and had
everyone gasping for air as he expertly guided the plane in for its first
landing by skimming right over the tops of the trees at the end of the
runway and, yes, of course, he meant to do that! The plane uses up the
majority of the runway to bleed off the speed and comes to rest at the
other end of the runway. As seen in the photos, Rick
has been working on his airplane-hauling trailer and has everything neatly
tucked inside without wasting any space. Very nice. Afterwards
he took the big Extra up for a second flight and rolled into knife-edge
right after take-off. The plane appears to be a confidence builder because
it flies so well. Rick let Stacy Gillmore take the controls for a few
passes over the field. Stacy appeared as if he enjoyed flying the big
bird. Now, nearly all who are going, are ready for the
Taylor, Missouri, Fly-in to benefit MDA. Some are still rushing to get
finished. Check back for a photo report on that event as well.
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