Yesterday Jay’s RC club held their annual winter Fly In. We were lucky that the weather held out. There wasn’t any snow and the wind wasn’t bad. The only thing that was unpleasant was the cold, but it’s winter so you can’t really get away from that, right? It was a lot of fun and I really enjoy hanging out with this group of guys. They are so much fun!

The Thermal G RC Club even had a few new guys show up yesterday, so it was definitely a good turn out.

As always, it was hard to decide just which planes were going to make the trip. Jay decided that he was only going to take four, but three of them were ones that he had never flown before.

He had his Jumping Jay (the red one), the adolescent A-10, and his current favorite jet his Fabu (fake Habu). The Jumping Jay and A-10 had never been flown before so I was a bit nervous about their flights. I should tell you that the red one is actually supposed to be called a Jumping Jack, but I cut up the stickers just right to turn it into ‘Jay’. lol

 

 

 

The fourth plane that he brought to fly was his new Concept X that he received for Christmas. This is the one that he assembled in my living room.

 

 

 

Here she is before Jay taxied her down the runway and took off. I didn’t get any pictures of her in flight because I was so nervous. It was determined that the Concept was a nice little jet, but there will have to be a few modifications before it travels to SEFF with us.

As we were heading back to the car to put the battery on the charger and get the next plane, Jay was called over by one of his friends. There was a fairly new flyer there and he had a beautiful plane that he wanted help ‘trimming’ out. Now, as far as I can tell by the conversations I’ve overheard, ‘trimming out’ is when you have a plane in flight and you are doing the necessary tweaks to the rudder, the flaps, and everything else to get the aircraft to fly nicely. Jay doesn’t hesitate at the chance to fly so he agreed.

Here they are as Jay (the skinny guy in the light brown coat) helps the new flyer (the guy in the dark coat) trim out his plane and get used to how it flies. These planes are not cheap so a newbie is nervous about crashing one. If you look you can see a wire hanging between the two. This connects the two radios together and makes them into a ‘buddy box’. Jay can give control over to the new guy and if something goes wrong he lets go of the switch and takes it back under control so that it doesn’t crash. This is a great way for a beginner to learn how to fly without constantly being in fear of their investment ending up in pieces on the ground. When the weather gets better Jay is going to bring the buddy box with us so that I can learn to fly, too.

A good pilot always has his eyes on his aircraft, even when his girlfriend is being annoying by taking pictures of him as he flies. As you can see, Jay is the one with control of the plane at this point.

 

 

 

There were all kinds of guys there yesterday. It doesn’t look like it because you only see these three in the pictures above. It’s interesting to watch one of these events because you would think that guys would be itching to be flying. The most consistent flyer is Jay by far. I think that he gets the most flights in at one of these events. There are always way more guys standing around than flying at any given time.

I enjoy listening to the conversations as they are standing around, too. Mainly because I know that at some point I’m going to hear Jay’s name involved in something, and 99% of the time it’s a good thing. If the guys know that Jay’s going to be putting something in the air, then a crowd gathers to see what he will do next. Or what he will fly next. There are some videos of Fly Ins where Jay has done some pretty crazy things (like strapping rockets to a foamie jet!).

After the trimming was done, it was time to get the adolescent A-10 up in the air. Again, this was the first time that it had flown. It was an inexpensive purchase so I was interested in seeing how well it would fly.

 

 

 

You can’t see it very well, but this is the Warthog in flight. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to try to figure out where the jet is going to be so that you can snap a picture as it quickly flies in front of the camera.

 

 

A-10 still in flight…

 

 

 

 

Here’s a better picture of it. The distinctive outline of a Warthog. You don’t think that this is what they mean when they say, “Do pigs fly?” Nope, but hogs do! 🙂

 

 

Jay wasn’t the only one flying. Here are some more pictures of planes in flight:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seemed like every time we headed back to the car to drop off a plane, or pick up another one, there was somebody else saying, “Hey Jay! Come take a look at this.”

We even had a younger pilot there, itching to get his hands on a radio.

If you’ve noticed, you haven’t seen any women in these pictures. I didn’t realize that there were any other women there until we happened to be walking through the parking lot to take a look at a plane that one of the guys had in the back of his car. That’s when I saw the women. The ones who had accompanied their men were sitting in the cars with the heaters on. How boring! Ladies, please! If you’re going to go there with your man then be there fully to support him. Be by his side as he’s flying. Watch as he demonstrates his skill in the air. Be there to help pick up the pieces when he crashes. And reach out to hold the plane for him while he makes a little adjustment. Was it cold? Yes. Did my nose run? Yes. Did I have fun? Yes. What was the best part? Just being there WITH him and sharing in the day with him. It doesn’t count if he’s not having as much fun because he’s worried about you waiting for him in the car. He’s worried that the longer he’s there, the more upset you are getting because you have to sit there. Don’t do that to your love. If you want to be there with him then be there 100%. If you make him happy then he will turn around and want to make you happy, too.

There was some video shot so if I can get my hands on it I will post it here for you to see what it’s like to be one of Jay’s planes in flight. 🙂