This page contains a report about the MDA Benefit R/C Air Show by Shaun Zimmerman. He alone is responsible for the comments, which do not necessarily represent the experiences of other JCRC members or JCRC. Other JCRC Club Members who attended the event are welcome to share comments about their experiences at Taylor and have them posted as well. Submit your observations to info@jcrc.com  Click on the links above or below to return to the photo pages. Last updated 01/08/2006

Taylor 2005, by Shaun Zimmerman

Some of our members have been thinking about going to the R/C Air Command's 19th Annual MDA Benefit R/C Air Show (or as it is affectionately know; "Taylor") for weeks, possibly months. It is a great place to debut a new R/C creation since they have such a wonderful flying facility and large crowds of spectators. As with most R/C events where more than 50 pilots turn out, it takes a lot to impress the crowd; you either have to be a truly exceptional pilot or you have to have an exceptional airplane, sometimes you need both if you care to keep the attention for more than one pass over the runway. Taylor doesn't disappoint. The entire weekend was full of exceptional airplanes and pilots of all skill levels.

Taylor is a small town located in the northeast corner of Missouri, just across the border from Quincy, Illinois, which can be seen on the distant horizon. Many of our members booked hotels in Quincy for the three-day event. The R/C Air Show is held at the full-scale airport facility in Taylor, which is shut down to full-size traffic for the entire Labor Day weekend (excepting, of course, in the case of any emergency that might arise). The site is also the home to one of the nicest hobby shops around, the "Top Hat R/C Junction Hobby Shop" which is run by Roger Geers. It is so very nice to have an on-site hobby shop when you suddenly realize that you need a part for your airplane or fuel for your engine.

There is open flying that starts on Friday afternoon and the event continues through Sunday afternoon. The 2005 event took place from September 2nd through the 4th. Several JCRC members went up Friday to help assure a good location along the flight-line which fills up fast and also to test fly their new airplanes from a field that is open enough to help assure a successful first flight (especially if something were to go wrong - nothing did).

The weather was absolutely perfect. Blue skies, very light (or no) winds that blew right down the runway. The light breeze was actually welcome as it knocked off the edge of the heat and that weather continued throughout the entire event.

I took off work on Friday to get ready for the event and didn't plan on going to Taylor until very early Saturday morning. As with many R/C events, plans change at the last minute and this was no exception. We always say we'll plan better for next year, but end up making last minute choices; but that's all part of the fun. You may notice a few extra photos of the red & white Sukhoi. That airplane belongs to Stacy Gillmore. I sold it to him while it was still "in-the-bones". Maybe eighty percent of the plane had been constructed by Charlie Little who built it for me as a favor since he didn't have any other winter projects that year and I wasn't going to get around to finishing the Sukhoi any time soon, so it was reluctantly sold to Stacy because he really wanted to own a Sukhoi in the worst way, plus he is such a good friend and I knew that he would finish it right.

Stacy put many hours of work into finishing the plane and getting it ready for its first flight. Many of those hours were dedicated to it during the last two weeks prior to the Taylor event because he was trying as hard as he could to have it ready to fly by then. Stacy had hoped to test fly the plane during the week prior to Taylor, but as we all know, the finishing touches on a new R/C model are the things that can take most of the time. Stacy was going to have the plane completed in time for Taylor, but just barely, and only if he could get there on Friday in time to test fly it there. You're not supposed to test fly airplanes at an A.M.A. sanctioned event, so he wanted to get the test flight done plus one or two more on Friday during the open flying time.

When I heard that he had decided to test fly it at Taylor instead of at our JCRC flying field, I immediately started to change my plans. If for nothing more than sentimental reasons, I wanted to be there when that plane made its first flight. I know I'm probably giving it more importance than it really has, but since Charlie died in 2003, there is no doubt that this will be the last time an airplane he helped to build is ever going to take to the air again. Additionally, Stacy is such a great friend and has truly done an exceptional job completing the Sukhoi, I wanted to be there to see it and to take pictures of it as it headed skyward for the first time.

Being there was going to be a bit of a problem. Even though there were plenty of hotel rooms available, I wasn't sure a hotel would be an option for the Friday night stay because of budgetary reasons and then the gas prices skyrocketed to the point that a hotel was out of the question anyway. I simply decided to sleep in the van. The seat reclines, it is comfortable and the weather forecasts sounded perfect for sleeping out. Once that was decided the other arrangements were fairly easy to take care of. I loaded the van and departed for Taylor around 4 P.M. in hopes of arriving on time to see the first flight of the Sukhoi.

It worked out perfectly. The drive was beautiful, peaceful and relaxing. I had the windows down, the music cranked up and the DJ from KFMZ even played a song I requested along the way! For what it's worth, I requested the Black Crowes; "Seeing Things For the First Time". I kept in contact with Stacy and his family via cell phone and even though he had left much earlier in the day, they arrived only a few minutes before I did. We drove completely different routes since he detoured to take his family to other destinations along the way.

After arriving I didn't even bother messing with my airplanes, I simply got out the cameras and started taking pictures. Stacy and Tom were getting the Sukhoi assembled while Matt & Lori unloaded other items and got set up under the JCRC tents along the flightline that were graciously setup by Jim Crago and Rick Poire who had arrived earlier in the day. Rick also had his wife, Debbie, and son, Richard, with him at the event. Paul Pennington and his wife were also there. Although I didn’t remember seeing Paul until Saturday morning. Many pilots bring their families with them to this event. There are lots of nice antique, quilt and other shops to enjoy in the rural setting.

The moment of truth for the Sukhoi was finally here! While I setup to take pictures, Stacy was assisted by Tom and Rick Poire. They tuned the Webra .91 with a Sound Master muffler to the maximum RPM that it would allow, then headed out to the flightline. 

In the late afternoon light the plane was a thing of beauty as it proudly taxied around in the trimmed grass. Rick walked Stacy through a pre-flight servo direction check which showed Rick's years of experience shinning through. Nevertheless, Stacy had everything setup properly and the plane was ready to go.

Stacy lined the plane up on the centerline of the runway and steadily pushed the throttle gimble forward while expertly keeping the Sukhoi tracking on a straight line all the way down the runway until it lifted perfectly out of the grass. I thought Stacy might be enjoying the take-off run and that's why he let it stretch out a little longer than normal. However, it was quickly obvious that the plane did not seem to be developing the full power that the Webra .91 should offer. Even so, Stacy got the plane trimmed out and flying across the sky, straight as an arrow. What a handsome airplane! It looked so good as the saturated light of the sunset illuminated the airplane in flight. He continued to fly laps around the bean field until; at last, he settled it in for a perfect landing and roll out back to the flightline. Although there were issues to be ironed out, at least this proved that the plane was airworthy!

Part of the problem with the Sukhoi was the unexpected fact that the airplane turned out to be nearly 2 pounds heavier than the advertised weight on the side of the box. It would be very difficult to get the weight of the plane to weigh within the advertised weight that is stated by the manufacturer and unfortunately some non-functional nose weight had to be added to the nose section of the plane to get it to balance properly. Therefore, the Webra .91 only provided marginal power, certainly nothing in the realm of 3-D, it was barely even enough to do common aerobatics. This was perplexing because the same engine used to pull a Phaeton 90 biplane around with a lot of authority and this should be doing the same with the Sukhoi because the Phaeton had two wings easily the size of the Sukhoi, yet it appeared that the Sukhoi was flying around at 1/2 throttle. 

The troubleshooting began with different propellers and a lot of head scratching. I suspected that the issue was being caused by the Sound Master muffler, but that was hard to accept because I had paid a lot of money for that muffler. It was advertised as being able to drastically quiet an engine, while at the same time increasing performance. The advertising may have claimed it, but that didn't appear to be the case. It was no doubt quieter. In fact, it was amazingly quiet, almost to the point where it couldn't be heard if there were any other airplanes in the sky, but the promise of added performance eluded us. 

Stacy tried other props and was only able to get it to turn about 9000 RPM no matter what he did. Most of the time it ran around 8000 RPM and the plane flew sluggishly all weekend long, which, of course, frustrated Stacy to no end. By Sunday he was nearly ready to sell it! I and others had to convince him to wait until we could try another muffler. Sometimes these are things you have to go through with a new airplane. There can be lots of growing pains, but in the end, the Sukhoi was still in one piece, still one of the best looking airplanes I've seen and can yet be worked on. 

Returning to the Friday afternoon open flying and activities; Rick & Richard Poire were flying their giant Extra. Richard made his first flights with it and subsequently his first landings. While he was a little wobbly on the first one, it still came in just fine and after that he had it down. He's a good pilot. It's amazing how he and Tom Gillmore have grasped R/C flight and strangled it! Both were fearlessly flying in front of the crowds and among as many as 6 to 8 other airplanes in the air. Tom was hovering his Katana up there, unintimidated by the big guys, while men two or three times their age were to afraid to go up in that kind of congestion. Plus both Tom and Richard are figuring out all of the whoop-t-do's that their airplanes can do; also to the embarrassment of those much older. Keep it up guys!

JCRC's Bryan Zang and several other Midwest 3-D Bandits were on hand with their multi-thousand dollar, beautiful giant-scale airplanes. They took advantage of the perfect Friday afternoon weather to show how well those big Carden's and H9's fly! Zang certainly does the best custom graphics I've ever seen on any model airplane and the color schemes they choose are always cutting edge. Bryan's Edge 540 is one of the best looking planes on the planet, period. Click here to see Bryan's Aerographix website, especially if you need any decals or covering ideas for your next project. So many beautiful airplanes took to the sky this night. If Friday afternoon was just a preview of what would be there on Saturday, I was glad that I made the trip.

Right before it was going to be too dark to fly one of the guys brought out a very nice looking BVM Bandit that was powered by a turbine engine. Especially at a show like this, whenever one of these cranks up, most everyone stops to watch and listen. They are truly unique and this one was no exception. It could move! The sound was awesome. The cost is astronomical! It really looked sharp against that late afternoon sky.

John Light took up his 46% Ultimate Biplane and does this trick with his smoke system. I don't know what he calls it, but I like to call it the "Space Shuttle". He will hover the Ultimate in a large, very low level circular motion with the smoke turned on so thick that you have to wonder how he can even see the airplane. With no wind the smoke cloud just keeps building up on the ground like a giant fog machine. Somehow, as the smoke hangs in the air for a short while, it starts to turn gray in color, then after he has sufficiently filled the air with smoke, he will center the Ultimate in the middle of the smoke, go down as low as he can and then slowly pours on the power so that the Ultimate comes billowing out of the gray smoke and heads straight up with a fresh column of white smoke trailing behind it. To me, it resembles a Space Shuttle launch. It's incredible. I also took one of my favorite photos of the event of his Ultimate. It was one of the last flights on Friday evening as the sun was going down; I took this photo of his plane as it lifted off the runway. The purple on the plane combined with the yellow sky reflected on the side, just makes for a nice color combination.

It goes without saying that as the sun faded on another day, the flying slowed, but didn't stop. Several electric airplanes with lighting systems took to the air on Friday night. There was even a lighted helicopter with a light on the tip of the blades which drew out a perfect circle in the sky wherever the blade disc was located. Very neat. 

Since the flying for us had drawn to a conclusion, this finally gave us a chance to visit together and look around a little bit. We took the opportunity to give a good look at the "Top Hat R/C Junction Hobby Shop" which was kept open late for the pilots. The ladies inside there couldn't have been friendlier. They had a good selection of items and they have been doing it long enough to be able to answer your questions and sometimes you can find some neat older R/C items from the past among their inventory, plus all the new stuff! 

The R/C Air Command members provided a free meal for the Friday evening crowd as well. It was great! Grilled hamburgers and hotdogs with all the trimmings and as if that weren't enough, they even had a band there playing live music! The overall event is held to benefit MDA and the female lead singer of the band announced that she has a son with MDA, so apparently she and the band donated their time and efforts to set up and play for everyone who was there to help raise more money for MDA. That was very nice. They even took requests, but when I submitted a request for another Black Crowes song, they didn't know who the Black Crowes were - oh well, one out of two requests isn't bad. Pretzels & popcorn were set out on the tables for all to freely enjoy. I felt like I was at a Drury Hotel rather than an R/C flying event. Wonderful hospitality

Jim Crago and I sat listening to the music, and had a great time trying to converse between the songs (it was rather loud) and we were joined by one of his long-time friends named, Dave Woodley. Dave told us all about the virtues of over-powered R/C airplanes and how that extra power gets you out of trouble, yet at the same time he admitted that it could also get you into trouble. It was the usual R/C BS that one who does this sort of thing enjoys hearing and debating over and over again. We're certainly glad and honored to have Dave Woodley among our circle of friends. Stacy even returned for a brief while to the field after he and most of the others had left earlier to check into their hotels. He had forgotten a charger and wanted to make sure his batteries were ready for the next day. Gratefully he wasn't in too big of a hurry to get back to the hotel, so he joined in on the BS session as well and contributed appropriately.

As the night wore on, some alcohol started flowing, popcorn & pretzels started flying. The band finally called it a night after entertaining us for a nice long time. The night-flying electric guys had finally exhausted their battery packs. All of the big planes were tucked away into the full-scale hangar along side the Cessna's and other full-scale planes. The chargers were getting batteries prepared for the next day and those of us who don't own any R/C airplanes of this size, stood and gazed in wonder as we thought about what it must be like to own one of these behemoths. That hangar contained many thousands of dollars of airplanes that evening. One quick trip to the airport facilities and it was time to go camping. Jim Crago slept in his own R/C cargo trailer which really works out great. If it only had some kitchen facilities he might not ever have to leave. I mean workshop, airplanes, sleeping facility - a man doesn't need much more! I slept in the reclined comfort of my Astro van just down from Jim and a few other camping people were scattered throughout the airport. Gratefully it was cool enough to keep the windows on the van closed which helped keep the mosquitoes outside and after I had killed off the few that did make it inside the van, it was a fairly good nights sleep. 

As usual, even without an alarm clock, I still woke up with the chickens, except this time, I was also outside with the chickens so I took advantage of the opportunity to step behind the van and take a picture of the sun as it came up over Quincy and a patch of fog that most certainly rose up off the river, as well as the runway at Taylor. Jim Crago had a great idea. Another acquaintance of his owns a truck stop just down the road in Palmyra which has nice, clean facilities, for taking a shower for a small fee. He drove us over there and we were able to face the day refreshed after using the very clean facilities of this truck stop. They even provided the towels so we didn't have to deal with wet-towel smell in our vehicles. Afterwards we ate breakfast at Hardee's and we were back at the airport in plenty of time to be ready for the Pilot registration - heaven forbid we miss out on the opportunity to be the first in line for a door prize! I think Jim and I did much better than those who stayed at the hotels as far as overall travel expenses are concerned, of course, we didn't have family members with us, so it made it much easier for us to camp out it this way. It was a great start to what, again, promised to be a great day.

Saturday, September 3, 2005. It didn't take long for every good parking space to fill up quickly on Saturday morning. We were greeted by John Dussold's smiling face, then the folks who stayed in the hotels started arriving. Rick was already smiling from ear-to-ear when he walked up to the JCRC tent, since he had already stopped by the Swap Meet and probably found the only great deal(s) of the day, but we've grown to expect that with him. He also had a couple of airplanes that he took to sell and didn't have any problem selling them. About the time we started to wonder where Stacy was, he and his family arrived. We all started out at the Swap Meet area and tried to find good deals after Rick had already scooped them up, which was nearly impossible, but we came across a thing or two. Sorry, details must be kept to a minimum to protect the guilty. :-)

Lots of spectators started to arrive as well. With our purchasing activities behind us, it appeared that the pilot's meeting was being formed around the entrance area of the hobby shop. So on the way back to the JCRC tent, we stopped to listen in on what they had to say. This is when things started to get a little strange. First of all the Contest Director, Kent Wassen, stood on the entrance platform to instruct the pilots on the flying rules for the Air Show, but he wouldn't use the microphone. He had it in his hand, but wouldn't use it! So I barely heard anything he said and to top it off, I had an extremely nice, elderly gentleman & R/C pilot, standing next to me, smoking, who was much more in the mood to talk to me rather than listen to Kent. No matter, I couldn't hear Kent talk anyway. I was somewhat concerned that most of the people around us could also only hear the smoking elderly gentleman rather than Kent too! Some suggestions (not by me) were made that he use the microphone, but apparently those suggestions weren't heard or he just doesn't like to use microphones, because it never happened. Occasionally, event announcer and hobby shop owner, Roger Geers, would say something and I had a little more luck hearing him talk without the aid of the microphone, but very little.

What I was able to pick up was that they were adamant about the 3-D flyers staying over the bean field beyond the runway. That's perfect in my book! Without complaint, I'm all for keeping the hovering things out of the way of the pilots who are trying to make a pass over the runway or perhaps even take-off or land! I've never been much of a fan of 3-D, especially hovering over the runway, when you're trying to make a fly-by pass or a touch-n-go landing. I mean, after 5 minutes of watching an airplane hang over the runway, revving and revving and revving its engine, you've pretty well seen it all. We started seeing it around 1995 and it hasn't changed since, nor has it gone away. If nothing else, it has gotten worse, with little electrics joining in on the fun. So they told the 3-D guys, in fairly strong wording, to stay out over the beans or be reprimanded or leave. Then they said that if the 3-D pilot was the only one flying at that time, then they could hover over the runway or do whatever they wanted until another pilot took off, then they had to move back out over the beans. It seemed that what they said was clear and fair, yet it was all said in tone that if I had been a 3-D guy, I think I would have been offended.

At that point, I believe they wanted to show their gratitude to the man who assembled the raffle prize. A very nice looking Hangar 9 P-40 Warhawk was this year's 'piece de resistance.' If I heard correctly, this man has built their raffle prize airplanes for the past several years. They gave him a rubber chicken because he hasn't flown at the event or perhaps doesn't fly at all. He said that he just likes to build the models, not fly them. That seems incredibly generous on his part. Unfortunately I didn't win that beautiful plane, which is not surprising, especially if Rick Poire happens to buy a raffle ticket too, but somehow, he didn't win either.

They played the National Anthem and had a fireworks salute at the end of the song which was one of the few sounds that I did hear because it scared the snot out of me and nearly everyone there. Then they opened up the flightline to the pilots. It was great to see that the first two pilots on the line Saturday morning were both JCRC pilots. John Dussold didn't waste any time getting his plane in the air since he was first up! Jim Crago followed him with a flight on his NexStar to get his thumbs loosened up to fly his 4 Star 60 a little later in the day. Both did great and all of the JCRC pilots had good experiences at Taylor this year. After helping spot for Jim, I sat up off the end of the pilot's stations to try to get some good pictures of all the wonderful planes that were on hand this day. That's the problem with covering an event like this with a camera and wanting to fly at the same time. It is nearly impossible to do both, something has to give. I also wanted to help my buddies with all of their airplanes and help them as a spotter whenever they went flying. Smartly, a spotter was required for each flight. It's the spotter's job to watch out for other airplanes as the pilot tries to concentrate on flying his airplane. When you're concentrating on keeping your airplane flying, it is difficult to also watch where the other 4 to 7 pilots might be in the air, so the spotter lets the pilot know whether or not he has a clear sky ahead or if he needs to divert his flight path. 

Between spotting for friends, going to the Swap Meet area and taking pictures, there wasn't much time left for me to fly. I wanted to fly my Prime Cut but it turned out to be too nose heavy to fly, but with the help of Rick Poire I was at least able to test the engine again. He was able to use his starter to get it running and man does it run! Amazing power, but at the same time causing the plane to be very nose heavy, so it went back in the van until something else can be figured out.

They also handed the microphone over to Roger Geers and he started making comments about every plane that he liked, telling stories, attempts at humor and also talked about the planes that he didn't seem to like. I guess it's a personal issue for me, but I have never attended an R/C event where the announcer actually made the event better. Most of the time it seems like the person is handed a microphone and a license to suddenly become a stand-up comedian or an agenda-based newscaster when they simply don't have the talent to do either. It drives me slightly more crazy than I already am and I can't begin to tell you how many times I've wanted to walk over and tell the announcer to SHUT UP! No exception here! It's one thing if the announcer is trying to inform the unindoctrinated crowd about what's going on, but many of the announcers end up having one-sided conversations with the pilots who are trying to concentrate on their flying and can't talk back except maybe through their spotters who will yell something back on their behalf, which just fuels the announcer to say more inappropriate things. At least at this event there was a second guy named Roger who took over the announcing duties later in the day and he was far more professional and acceptable than the first. IMHO.

One of the first airplanes in the air on Saturday was Mark Trent with his beautiful composite Yak-54 done up in orange and mother-of-pearl decals which really looked impressive as it twisted around in the sky. Unfortunately those decals never show up the way they should in still photographs, this plane truly needs to be seen in person to be appreciated. I don't know what size fuel tank Mark has in that big Yak, but it appeared that he could fly for an hour. He outlasted everyone on the first round of take-off's and ended up being the only guy in the air. I thought; "Great! I'll be able to get some nice close-ups of the Yak over the runway and possibly get him touching the tail!" since no one else was in the air. Keep in mind again that I'm not a big fan of 3-D hovering, some of the 3-D maneuvers that actually require more piloting skill are impressive such as the rolling circles or a single roll while looping. These require complete mastery of the control sticks. Those maneuvers should impress nearly anyone who sees it done properly. Hovering is hovering. Yawn. However, when done with a $7,000 to $10,000 airplane just inches off the ground, that too, takes a certain level of testosterone that most don't have.

I don't want to enlarge his head any more than necessary, but Mark Trent is one of the best pilots I've seen behind the controls. The guy knows what he is doing and it is impressive. Not only can he hover, but he can fly the really difficult routines and make it look so easy. Anybody should be glad to have him at an event, yet when the air cleared and there were no other planes in the air, except for Mark, he sat up over the runway to do some of his work and was immediately reprimanded by both the CD and the announcer for being over the runway, when not less than 20 minutes earlier they said that if you were the only one in the air you could do 3-D over the runway! Mark politely obliged and moved back out over the beans without saying anything. Then the announcer starts ripping on him as if he were some red-headed step-child. "An airplane isn't supposed to do that!" As if light-weight, over-powered, massive-wing-area airplanes were to be shunned. It wasn't said in a tone that would lead one to think; "WOW! Look at that! An airplane shouldn't be able to do that, how impressive!" It was more like; "Get that thing out of the sky, no real airplane is supposed to fly like that!" 

For anyone who doesn't believe that an airplane is supposed to fly in this manner, then I whole-heartedly invite you to visit the Red Bull Air Races website and kick back and watch some videos of how the real-guys do it. They do things with full-scale airplanes that R/C models can't touch. Similarly, R/C models can do a very few things that the full-scale guys would have a hard time doing. That's not to say that the full-scale guys couldn't do it, they could, but they don't have the advantage of sitting outside the plane to have that perspective like we do, so tail-touching for a full-scale guy would seem to be extremely dangerous. I'm sure some of them have done it, there's absolutely no doubt that the full-scale planes are capable of doing it and we've all seen them hover at nearly any full-scale Air Show we've attended, they just do it a little higher in the sky, but for this announcer to sit there an put down Mark and his Yak in the way it was done seemed to be completely unacceptable - again IMHO. Even though in the past I have tended to side with the non-3-D guys (if there is such a thing), because there are a very, very few 3-D guys who just have no respect for what other pilots are doing, they think they own the airspace and runway when others are trying to fly as well. However, if I were a 3-D guy at that moment, I think I would have packed up and left especially after I had spent who knows how much on gas to get there in the first place. These guys tend to haul their equipment around in huge trailers being pulled by huge trucks that obviously consume huge amounts of very expensive gasoline. Not to mention the other quantities of money spent in the local community because these guys gather at an event. I could only assume that the announcer and Mark were good ol' buddies because it would be rare that at host would treat or speak of a guest in this manner. Especially if the host ever hoped to see that guest at his party again. From this point on, which was very early in the day, I did all I could to simply ignore anything more the announcer had to say. It wasn't easy because they had a super nice sound system for the event.

Mark completed his flight, as well as many others on Saturday and I was certainly able to come away with some nice photos of his Yak, I especially like this one where his rudder is completely hidden by the beans. He's not flying behind the beans, he's dropping the tail down into them! 

For me, one of the most impressive planes at the Air Show was a PT-17 Stearman biplane setup by a pilot who I believe was from Columbia. I apologize for my bad memory when it comes to names and where people are from. I love the PT-17, especially in the larger models. What this guy did was very ingenious, he purchased one of the new Great Planes PT-17 ARF kits and he then stripped the fuselage of the Navy-scheme covering and re-did it in the traditional blue and yellow color-scheme of the Army Air Corps. He even took it a step further and used a steel-wool cleaning pad to sort of scuff up or scuff off the brilliant shine of the covering and made it look very much like a cloth covering. It faked me out. I thought for sure it was fabric until he explained what he had done. He left the wings as they came in the kit, except for the fake fabric trick. I only wish I had taken more pictures of his plane in flight. I thought I had done that, but in the end only a couple turned out worth showing. I'll do better the next time I see it. One of my favorite shots from this event was of another PT-17. It was a Ziroli PT-17 done up in yellow. I love how it looks as it is lined up over the farm house in the distance. By itself you might have a hard time telling that this was a model airplane flying over the countryside.

One of JCRC's friends, Marty Bertels of Laddonia had recently finished a Balsa USA Enforcer which really turned out nice. It's a pusher prop airplane that looks like a delta-winged jet. Marty did a very nice job on the plane and flying it. There were a couple of nice P-51's at the show. 

JCRC's Rick Poire has such a nice stable of airplanes to choose from and nearly every one of his big ones made it out to the flightline at least once on Saturday. He flew his big Extra, his Ohio R/C Super Chipmunk and his big PT-19, all of which looked great in the air! Plus he was helping everyone he could anytime they needed the help. JCRC's Paul Pennington also ripped up the sky. I saw his very nice Sig Astro Hog Bipe in the air several times on Saturday, again, we're lucky to have Paul as a part of our group!

Without a doubt one of the most amazing things to see at Taylor this year was not one but three huge models of B-17's. All of them belong to Larry Wells of Sturgeon, Missouri . Wells has invested over 2000 hours in building each of the models and has at least $3500 in the construction of each B-17. Wells actually owns a total of four of these beautiful B-17’s! Three of the B-17’s are airworthy and I found out that he is currently working on a fourth which is very near the test-flight stage and is all-around bigger and better with the ability to move the gun turrets remotely as well!  

Some of the features of the B-17's are a wingspan of 141 inches. The one that is my favorite picture is powered by four O.S. 91 Surpass II four-stroke engines. All of them are scratch built from Don Smith plans, they all are completely made of fiberglass and painted with DuPont paints. They feature Robart retracts with brakes, including the tailwheel, and a smoke system that simulates the contrails of high-altitude flight. This one has had about 50 flights, the top turret moves, it has panel lines and nearly too many simulated rivets to count. This photo turned out so well that I'm hoping to get it published in Fly R/C magazine. The editors had some nice things to say about the photo and currently have it under consideration.

Steve Forrest was one of the pilots who expertly guided one of the big B-17’s and it was quite a sight to behold as all three took to the air in what looked like a WWII sortie of bombers leaving out of a London airfield. The owner, Larry Wells, says that he can fly the planes just fine, but, as would be expected, gets a little nervous landing the big plane in front of such a big crowd and after spending so much time on one project doesn’t want to rip it apart. Larry, anytime you need help flying one of your B-17’s please add me to the volunteer pilot list! :-)

Rick Poire and I shared a personal experience with one of the B-17’s on Saturday. Rick had just taken-off with his PT-19 and was flying around as three of the B-17’s lined up for an afternoon flight. The wind had switched around to a bit of a cross-wind coming from behind us as we faced the flightline. The bombers lined up on one end of the runway while Rick and I were standing at the other end of the pilot’s stations opposite. As one of the B-17’s started it’s take-off roll, as with any large, sluggish airplane with a huge vertical fin, if you aren’t careful or if you don’t plan ahead, the airplane with weathervane into the wind, which is exactly what the big B-17 did! The problem was that the big bird was coming straight at us! It’s a beautiful and frightening site to be looking down the barrel of not one, but four spinning propellers and thinking; “Eew! That’s going to leave a mark!” I was as serious as a heart attack when I grabbed Rick by the shoulders and started to back him up as he kept his eye on his airplane and I told him to be ready because we might have to dive to the ground. At first he thought I was kidding right up until the wingtip passed about 3 feet in front of us. Gratefully as the plane built up speed and due to the fact that we pulled back, the B-17 pilot was able to get it to veer back to the left and continue with a successful, yet butt-puckering take-off. I called and spoke with Larry a couple of days after the Air Show to get some of the information about the B-17 and we had a good laugh together when he found out that Rick and I were the ones standing at the other end of the runway, he sure seems like a really nice guy!

Shortly after the B-17 show, I was finally able to get my U-Can-Do .90 out of the van and setup for my first flight of the day. Tom Gillmore was (and always has been) a huge help in getting my plane setup. By this time of the day I was pretty well worn out, so it was great to get the help. While running up the engine, I had a sneaking suspicion that I may have leaned it out just a little too much, but it seemed to check out okay so I took off.

It was flying pretty good, not quite as sharp as it has in the past, but I thought it might be my nerves as I was up with about six other airplanes. Only 4 or 5 minutes into the flight the Super Tigre 90 decided to dead-stick on me. I knew this was going to be a challenging task and I wasn’t worried about getting it within 10 feet of myself as is the usual goal, I was just hoping to make it back to the runway! The U-Can-Do doesn’t have a lot of weight to build up much inertia after a dive. As soon as you level off, the plane all but stops, it slows way down. I had to use a stair-step approach to try to get the plane back to safe ground. The problem would be clearing the 4 feet tall beans to make it to the runway. Luckily I cleared and parked it right along the flightline.

Between the heavy traffic and the plane acting a tad goofy, I just decided that I wouldn’t fly any more. In the end I discovered that my decision was a good one. As I went to clean the plane I found that the screws that hold the tail group in place had all but come loose. The entire tail section was loose and moving all over the place. Again it’s a testament to how well these planes fly. I noticed a difference, but not enough to make me think that the tail section had come apart. It was also loaded back in the van and promptly repaired after returning home, but this time it was attached with screws and epoxy. That won’t happen again!

After my flight I just wanted to sit down for a while. I had pretty much taken a picture of every airplane that I could. I missed a few that I would have liked to shoot, but that’s how it goes sometimes. As I started to rest, I noted that my camera batteries were getting low and the cards were full. The Midwest Bandit 3-D guys were all lining up along the flightline again and I knew that I had lots of good pictures of these airplanes so I didn’t pay much attention to the camera. I was watching them and a few others fly which is about the time that I stepped under the tent to talk with Jim Crago and to set the cameras down.

While Jim was talking we heard the loudest mid-air collision that I have ever heard and a huge collective gasp was heard all across the airport. I knew two of the Bandits had hit, but I didn’t know which two. I grabbed the camera and tried to focus on any debris that might fall, but something really strange had happened; there was no debris from the crash falling for a good 20 seconds, the heaviest pieces hit before I could even look, then it took a while for the wind-blown light pieces to settle in. Stacy was about in shock and said that the two big biplanes had crashed in the air. Both planes were doing loops, one was finishing a loop while the other was starting a loop when they hit nearly head-on with those huge 46% multi-thousand dollar airplanes. When the debris started falling, it didn’t stop. Stuff was falling all along the beans to the side of the runway and way downwind as well.

I immediately focused the camera on John Light, the pilot and owner of the large purple Ultimate. He was just standing there with a look of disbelief on his face. Even 30 seconds after the crash had happened, he was still looking up in the sky, he still had the throttle gimble forward and his friend, Bryan Zang, was also looking up in the sky even though the biggest pieces of debris had long since settled to the ground.

I then looked over to Jim Lanzendorf and he had his face buried in a towel with a feeling that the rest of us could only imagine, yet to some degree we all felt a portion of what he was feeling. It was a sickening sound as the huge models collided and a stunned silence fell over the flightline for at least 5 minutes. All the other planes immediately landed. The professionalism and good will that these two guys showed was truly exemplary. Neither was at fault, both were doing what those airplanes do, it was just horribly unfortunate that they both occupied the same airspace at the exact same moment.

A large contingency of friends and helpers marched out into the bean field to recover the parts and pieces of the fallen airplanes. This shut down the event for at least 15 minutes and even after that nearly everyone gathered around the carnage to see if what we saw actually happened. Both planes were completely destroyed. At best, both will be able to recover some radio gear, but both engines were badly broken with the mufflers and cylinders broken off or bent. The biggest pieces of either plane were the tailgroups, everything else was destroyed. Light carried back his tailgroup with pieces of Lanzendorf’s airplane embedded into it.

It turned out that JCRC’s John Crow had come to the event to watch and film the airplanes and he was the only one who captured the moment on video tape or camera. He suddenly became very popular as everyone wanted to see the video to review what happened. At some point the video may make its way to the internet and if or when it does, we’ll set up a link to it. This event kind of knocked the wind out of the Saturday flying for the rest of the day, but the organizers decided to dedicate the late afternoon hours to electric flying only. It was so beautiful out, seemed a shame to only have electrics in the air, but I couldn’t have flown anyway, so I didn’t really care.

We all sat down to an absolutely wonderful meal and had a great time socializing between Jim Crago, the Gillmore family, the Poire family and myself. We were able to stuff ourselves silly. They announced the winner of the Pilot’s Choice Award and the Best of Show Award which went to this really nice Zivko Edge 540. Tom Gillmore & Richard Poire both won door prizes. Tom won a nice blanket and I don’t recall what the others won, but at least they got something! After dinner it was time for me to load up and head home. As much as I wanted, I was not going to be able to stay for the Sunday activities. Gillmore, Poire and I believe, Paul Pennington stayed for the Sunday show.

I started back to Jefferson City down Highway 61 through Hannibal. Again it was absolutely perfect weather for driving and it was great to be out and about even though the gas prices were so high it was scary. What's worse is we'll probably be used to paying $3.20 per gallon some day or even look back and say; "I remember when..." Frightening. While traveling down 61 I tried to call my Dad on the cell phone, but the reception what horrible. He was telling me that he had just returned from Marion, Indiana, where they had an old car and and old airplane show combined. We got cut off so much that we finally gave up. Oddly enough, while passing through Hannibal I came across an old car show too, so I stopped to take a look at the cars and take a couple more pictures. Very nice cars. The turquoise blue seems to be a very popular color among the car restorers. 

As I was leaving Hannibal, I noticed a gas station that had the price of gas set at $2.99 per gallon, so I stopped to fill up, knowing that it was .20 cents higher in Jeff City. While I was filling the van a rather funny scene presented itself as a father and his little daughter pulled up next to the gas pumps, not in a car, but on a garden tractor and I couldn't help but think that we may all be traveling around like this if gas keeps going up! Ha! I took a quick picture, then enjoyed a laid-back relaxing trip home.

Jim Crago reported that the Sunday activities were great. He even said that if I had stayed, I would have won a door prize since they called out my name, but you had to be present to win - just my luck! He was joined by his wife and other family on Sunday which I'm sure he enjoyed. As the show closes, they fly combat on Sunday afternoon. I'll have to make plans to try that next year. All-in-all it was a good show and definitely worth the trip for many reasons. Hopefully they'll fix the very few things that weren't quite right, either way we'll probably be there next year! Hope to see you there!

 Report Page - Click here to go to Photo page 1 of 2, Photo page 2 of 2 or the News page