This weekend I attended an air show for RC model planes. It was put on by the Thermal-G RC Club based out of Erie, PA. I had never attended one of these, so when I was invited I decided to see what it was all about.

RC pilots from all over came to fly their different crafts. There were gas powered planes, electric jets, these stealth-looking things called Diamond something-or-anothers (they made a drone like a swarm of angry yellow jackets), and even a jet that had an actual jet turbine that ran on jet fuel. It was quite impressive!

One of my favorite planes was a Tri-plane. It was completely home made and the details were incredible. I was told that it was exactly like the plane that the Red Baron flew in WWI. I had read a Jeff Shaara novel that focused on some of the pilots in WWI so I had somewhat of an idea of what these things were capable of doing:

Please forgive me if I get any of this information wrong because I’m not that familiar with aircraft and I didn’t have anything to write it down. Also I don’t have my aircraft expert at hand to help me out.

Here is this same plane taking off down the runway:

I must also ask your forgiveness with my pictures. I tried to take a lot, but I was so busy watching that I forgot to take pictures. Also, it’s hard to take them when the planes are moving at such a quick rate. lol

I am new to the world of RC aircraft so my experience had been with the smaller jets, like in this picture here:

This picture wasn’t taken this weekend, but these are the size of aircraft that I’m used to seeing (also, isn’t Jay handsome??).

When I saw the Python sitting next to our area I had to take a picture of the guys dragging it out so that I could get a size comparison:

I was surprised by the number of spectators who showed up. As one way to keep the kids entertained they organized a candy drop. I was recruited to put together the parachute guys for the candy drop:

Jay and his friend Cliff had drop boxes on the bottom of their planes, so we filled them up and got them ready to fly:

They took off and did a few circles while the kids were lined up on the runway. Here is Cliff’s plane:

When the planes were in a certain spot they opened the drop boxes. The tiny white dots below the planes are the parachute guys. Also, Jay had decided to surprise Cliff and managed to sneak a streamer into the drop box. When Cliff opened the box he didn’t expect anything except parachutes to come out. I can’t repeat the words that were said, but Jay got a kick out of Cliff’s reaction:

Cliff’s plane and surprise streamer:

The kids enjoyed the parachute drop because each parachute guy had a piece of candy attached, plus one of them also had a prize ticket attached as well. Here are the kids after scrambling for parachutes:

Here are some winners:

One of the more interesting things that I enjoyed watching was the Flying Lawnmower. It was cute how they did it. They acted like there was a spot on the runway that was giving the pilots trouble, so they were going to bring their push mower out to cut it shorter real quick. The guy goes pushing the ‘mower’ out there, and suddenly it speeds up and takes off on him… and you see a lawn mower flying! It was the weirdest thing. I tried to get a good picture of it, but this was the best that I could get:

You can see the shape pretty well. I managed to get a slightly better picture when they were landing it:

Throughout the day the pilots were allowed to take their own personal planes out there to free fly:

Some pilots even fancied their planes up with streamers:

Isn’t it pretty?

By the end of the day we were all tired. Some pilots got lazy, though, and paid the price:

It was a very good day and I had a lot of fun! I definitely look forward to my next air show. 🙂