Well, the weather was just great this
last Sunday, so the field was as full as I've seen it all season. The more, the
merrier. Many of the RCers present were not Dawn Patrollers (yet!), but we put
on a good display of WW1 flying for them. We also fed them (Fairbury dogs,
Brats, Hot Links (2 kinds!), etc. Nobody left hungry!)
I got in a couple of good flights with my H9 Camel. She went over on her back
hard on the last landing, with the usual results to the top of the rudder. (All
fixed now!)
Terry was there with his newest toy: a 1/4-scale Fokker D8, complete with Glenn
Torrence lozenge fabric. He was a bit nervous about the maiden (actually it had
been flown previously, but not by him), but after a few flights on his Great
Planes Fokker Triplane, he fired up the Zenoah on the D8 and proceeded to
commit aviation with it. And again. And again! (I think he likes it! *grin*)
Now he can hardly wait to get his big 1/3-scale Triplane going.
Terry's friend Mike showed up near the end of the evening, and got some stick
time on Terry's 1/4-scale Fokker D8. Mike is the proud new owner of a 1/4-scale
BalsaUSA Fokker D7 sporting the red-and-white Jasta 18 ("Jasta
Raben") colors, and we all hope to see him with it at the next "Dusk
Patrol" on August 2nd.
Roger had his H9 Sopwith Camel "Cheerio" with him, and proceeded to
fly it remarkably well. He made several exciting flights, and put his Camel
through a nice set of aerobatics. Sadly, this Camel was the only loss of the
day, when unknown factors caused it to spiral into the beanfield on the
southern side of Cobras Field. Roger has another H9 Camel NIB, so perhaps
"Cheerio" will rise again? Roger also has a VK Nieuport 17 and a
Dynaflite S.E.5a nearly ready, so we will undoubtedly see them airborne soon as
well.
John Gilbert brought his Dynaflite S.E.5a for a re-maiden after getting new
covering on the wings. I had been the previous owner of both plane and radio,
so I did the honors. I flew it twice for him, and it flew just like it always
did: Great! I had forgotten how low that old OS .91FS would idle. Sure lands
easily, too.
Larry Puls brought his little Great Planes Fokker D.7 electric. Attempts to fly
it with a 2-cell battery pack weren't successful, and the motor tore out of the
mounts with a 3-cell. He intends to replace the stock wooden motor mount with a
fiberglass one and try again.
We had a newcomer to our gathering, in the form of Fred Becker. Fred is a
recent arrival from California. He brought a very nice scaled-out GWS Tiger
Moth 400 and a Great Planes Fokker D.7 (also tricked out) for their maiden
flights. Both flew well and looked great in the air. We look forward to seeing
him at Cobras Field often.
We had lots of flying, lots of food, and (most importantly) lots of fun!