SEFF 2012 – Day 2

Posted on May 1, 2012 by civilwarrose5

Sorry that it has taken me so long to update my blog with the rest of my SEFF adventure. I tried last night, but it just wasn’t cooperating. Hopefully tonight my blog will behave itself!

The wind was still blowing pretty good on Thursday when we arrived at the field, so we knew that there wouldn’t be a whole lot of flying going on. I think that Jay only took his Meteor up once the entire day. We were just happy to see our canopy still in its spot.

 

 

 

Since flying wasn’t much of an option some time was spent on repairs. Just to the F16, though, which had some difficulties the night before and had taken a nose dive into the ground.

 

 

 

Even though there wasn’t much flying taking place, there was a lot of shopping! We took a few walks to see if the other guys had anything new sitting out, or if the vendors had added anything new to their wares. I’ve read that quite a few vendors left the event with empty trailers!

 

 

This was the main area near the vendors. Golf carts, mini bikes, motorized scooters, bicycles, and other types of conveyances were quite numerous. Depending on what you brought to fly you might have to traverse the entire length of the area just to spend a few minutes flying your plane. Having a mode of transportation made that easier on some of the guys. Jay and I just walked. lol

This is the corner of the hobby shop’s porch. You can see some of the campers, cars, and RVs in the background. There were more people there on Thursday, but we hadn’t seen anything yet! By Friday every spot for tents would be occupied. The official pilot count was 407 for the entire event, and that doesn’t include the pilots’ pit crew (as Jay called me… lol).

 

I began taking pictures of anything that I thought was interesting. This caught my eye. I’m really not sure what the story was behind it, but it reminded me of the plane that the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk for the first time. It was large and quite impressive!

 

 

Look at the detail. Isn’t that amazing? And guess what… it wasn’t just for looks.

 

 

 

 

 

They actually flew it! It was put up into the air a few times, which irritated some of the pilots because it interrupted their flying space. I thought that it was neat.

 

 

 

 

Besides the Combat event, I was looking forward to watching something else that the organizers had scheduled. Paintball!! You bought 100 rounds for $15 and then you could shoot the snot out of the foamies that they would fly in front of the designated spot.

 

 

 

You would think that it should be easy to hit a giant foam wing with the paintball gun, but you would be surprised. Heck, just watching Combat every day proved that theory wrong! lol

 

 

 

 

These are the foam wings that were used for paintball. Typically I saw these modified and used as an extreme speed aircraft. In fact, one of the pilots clocked his wing doing 204 mph! I didn’t really care for them because they had a high-pitch shrill sound to them and it drove my ears crazy. Thus I felt that paintball was a perfect use for them.

 

 

I took this picture especially for you R/C guys out there who recognize that orange receiver. They finally found a good use for it! lol

 

 

 

 

Even though it was more difficult than it looked, the wings would get hit. There were chunks torn out of them, rips torn into the foam, and other dings. When that happened they were tossed up on the table and repaired. Can you see what they are using to repair them?

 

 

 

That’s right! Packing tape and a hot glue gun! lol. It doesn’t get much easier than that, does it? 😉

 

 

 

 

I took lots of pictures, but I forgot to ask anybody to take a picture of me and Jay together. Can you believe it? On the forum where Jay hangs out lots of pictures have been posted, but this is the ONLY ONE where we can be seen. So, this is our only official Together at SEFF picture. lol

 

 

So Thursday was spent mainly hanging out, chatting it up with our neighbors, and visiting others around the field. There was some flying that was done, but not a whole lot. It didn’t matter, though, because we were having a great time!

Posted in Jets, RC Planes, SEFF | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

SEFF 2012 – Day 1

Posted on April 29, 2012 by civilwarrose5

This previous August I was reading through one of Jay’s AMA magazines and they had an article about SEFF 2011. SEFF stands for Southeast Electric Flight Festival and it’s held in Americus, Georgia every April. To be honest, that’s not what initially grabbed my attention. The fact that Americus is right next to Andersonville is what perked up my ears, or my eyeballs in this case. If you aren’t aware, Andersonville was the location of one of the most notorious Civil War Prisoner of War camps in the South. It was not a nice place at all. You will learn about that later when I post the pictures that I took of my visit there. For now, though, this post is about aviation and having fun. No depressing thoughts allowed!

Now, keep in mind that as of August Jay and I had only been dating for a month. He had been in the shower when I was reading his magazine so when he came out I informed him that we needed to go to SEFF. I wish that I had taken a picture because the look on his face was stunned surprise. I think that his next two questions were, “How do you know what SEFF is? And why do you think we should go?” lol Poor Jay! I don’t think he had any idea what he was getting into when he started dating me. 😉 Yes, part of my reason for wanting to go to SEFF was selfish. I will freely admit that. I’d always wanted to go see Andersonville and this was my opportunity to get somebody to go with me. Also, Jay’s birthday is April 20th so it would be a perfect birthday present for him. In November I made hotel reservations and that was that.

We cut up the first part of our trip so that it wasn’t too much all at once. We spent a few days at my sister’s place in North Carolina, and then headed down to Georgia on Tuesday. SEFF took place all week, but we were only there Wednesday thru Friday. It was a 16 hour drive home so we needed to leave on Saturday to give us some time to rest up on Sunday before heading to work. Ick. What a four letter word that is!

We arrived Wednesday morning, bright-eyed and bushy tailed! We had borrowed a canopy from my mom, so we staked a claim right on the front row in front of the sport plane flying area. Most of the people wouldn’t arrive until Friday and Saturday so we managed to get a nice spot. There were already a ton of people there with campers, tents, and RVs!

 

We were able to back the car right up to our canopy and unload. It was a gorgeous day and we were excited to finally be there! An hour or so after we finished setting up a gentleman and his grandson showed up and staked a claim to the spot next to us. Alec and Jordan were from Florida and were very nice guys. They were helpful and we had a great time being camped out by them all week.

 

There was only one problem… the wind! I took a picture of the flag so that you could see what we were dealing with for the first two days that we were at SEFF. It was so windy that most of the planes weren’t able to be flown. Apparently it had been like this all week so very few guys had been able to get anything in the air. It was frustrating, but it gave us a chance to walk around and chat with the others.

One of the really fun things to watch was Combat. In fact, Jay and I are hoping to talk a few of the guys from his club into doing something similar for their air show in August. This was a riot to watch! Guys would build cheap combat foamies because they knew that they would more than likely get damaged. The guys would get lined up…

 

… and into the air the foamies would go! Despite the wind these planes flew really well! It was so fun to watch because you had this mess of things in the air and you thought for sure that it wouldn’t be hard to be hitting this swarm of stuff.

 

 

They were all prop-driven foamies so when they were up there in this mass it sounded just like a swarm of bees. The most amusing, and surprising, thing was the fact that it was a lot harder for these guys to knock into each other than you would think! I expected them to be falling out of the sky left and right, but they weren’t.

 

In fact, at a certain point they had to call out that the guys had five more minutes. In that time they had to get as many hits as possible because that was part of combat. This last part is important because the guy with the most hits is the winner. You might not be the last one left flying, but if you had more hits than the others before you went down then you won!

 

A good portion of the guys ended up on the ground due to the fact that their batteries ran out of juice. Very few were actually totaled, though it did happen. They would have their backup ready for the following day and could transfer the surviving electronics from the destroyed foamie into the new one.

 

An interesting part of the week was the fact that Jay became infamous at the show for a couple of reasons. One was due to his MiG (more on that later), and the other was because the story got around the festival about why he was there. When we signed in on the first day he told the guys that this was his birthday present from me, and that it had all been my idea (he left out the fact that it was due to my Civil War obsession and the proximity of Andersonville). They asked him if I could cook and he said that I could. “You better hurry up and marry that girl!” they kept telling him. lol. We would be walking around and chatting to somebody when they would ask, “Are you the guy who is here because it’s his birthday present?” Or he would mention where we were from and they would say, “You’re the guy whose girlfriend brought him here for his birthday!” It’s amazing how quickly word spreads. Even on Friday there were guys coming up and asking him if that was true.

There was definitely a lack of female presence at this event. There were some there, but for the most part they were hanging out around the campers or under the canopies. You rarely saw any of them at the flight line with their significant others. You should have seen the surprised looks when, acting as Jay’s spotter, I would call out “Taking off!” or “Landing, left to right!” I don’t believe that any of the women acted as spotters. A couple did go up to the flight line once or twice, but that was it. On Friday as we were leaving one of the gentleman who had involved us in conversation a few times stopped and actually thanked me for being there for Jay and supporting him in his hobby. As I’ve noted before, there aren’t many women who do that. This guy then gave us some advice about how to make a relationship last since he’d been married for 40 years (no, his wife was not at the event with him) and he thought that we already had things figured out. Wouldn’t that be nice! I did have to laugh because as we were saying goodbye to some of the event staff they again mentioned what a lucky guy Jay was because that was the one thing that had stuck out in their minds every time they saw him, how I had brought him down there for his birthday. This older gentleman, maybe in his late 50’s or early 60’s, said to me, “Darling, if he doesn’t do right by you and marries you then you give me a call! You can come down here any time!” All of those men and the only one to hit on me was old enough to be my father. lol

 

 

 

Posted in Jets, RC Planes, SEFF | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Amusement Sunday!

Posted on April 24, 2012 by civilwarrose5

Sunday wasn’t a very nice day, at first. It was rainy and chilly. After watching the weather report, though, we decided to go for it. Jay had been looking forward to going to Carowinds and we figured that the park wouldn’t be very busy. We were right! Many of the rides we could walk right up to and hop on. In fact, on one of the rides Jay and I were the only people on it!

This was my favorite ride at the park. It’s called ‘The Intimidator’ and is named after Dale Earnhardt, Sr. This one is supposed to be scarey, but I really enjoyed it. And that’s saying a lot because I’m not usually one for amusement parks, let alone roller coasters.

 

 

This is how it looked after the rain finally stopped. I think that we rode this ride three times. The first time my sister was behind us and all I could hear was, “Oh God! Oh no!!” lol I had my eyes closed the entire ride. The next two times, though, I did have my eyes open.

 

 

Look at that first drop! Yes, that is an airplane that you see in the picture. Jay was in heaven. Roller coasters and planes!

 

 

 

 

I think this was the second ride that we went on. I didn’t care for this one because you were locked into a harness and you flipped over completely so that you were hanging from it. Not exactly my idea of fun. Jay really liked it, though. We ended up riding this one twice, I think. We stopped after Jay thought that he had lost his wallet. He lost his lighter the first time. Luckily his wallet was still in the seat, but barely!

You can somewhat see how they are hanging from their harnesses in this picture. Every time I just hoped that the engineer who designed the clasp knew what he was doing!

 

 

 

 

 

It was very hard to try to get pictures of this coaster as they were flying overhead. You can’t tell, but they are hanging upside down in this one.

 

 

 

Here you can see the latest ride. It’s called the Wind Seeker. It’s the tallest ride in the park. It’s so tall that they had to put lights on the top for the planes to see it. I believe that it pulls you up 300 feet into the air and then you spin around on the swinging seats. It wasn’t too bad, but it was the end of the day and the spinning made me feel dizzy.

 

My sister and her friend Danielle went with us. My sister is the one on the left. They had a good time, too.

 

 

 

 

Jay and I had our picture taken, too. lol

 

 

 

 

 

We were at the park from around 11:30 a.m. until almost 4:00 (I think). It was a long, but fun day. Jay was double checking the map to make sure that we had ridden everything decent.

 

 

 

I’m so lucky! Isn’t he such a cutie?

 

 

 

 

 

That’s why I had to make sure that everybody knew that Jay was mine! Yes, ladies, that’s my crazy look! You don’t want to attempt to steal him from me…

 

 

 

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Dreadlocks (??!!)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by civilwarrose5

When you read the following words, what comes to mind? “The hair style is so full of character that they look great even when you do nothing.” They look great? What could they possibly be talking about?

YIKES!! Really? Somebody does that to their hair on purpose? When I was little my mother would have a fit if I managed to get a few “rat’s nests” in my hair. I remember the pain of having to sit there while she brushed them out. Also, if you’ve ever had your hair in a bunch of braids, or even in one braid for a long period of time, you know the itch and soreness of the scalp from the stress of that weight pulling on your head. I’ll be honest; while looking for pictures of dreadlocks my head started itching and hurting from just the thought of my hair styled like that.

Why am I posting about dreadlocks? I guess that it’s been on my mind lately. At my company there is this girl who works on the assembly floor and she has a giant head full of dreads. They aren’t pretty dreads, either. Wait… did I just say pretty dreads? Yes. Again, after having looked at a lot of pictures I can admit that some of the people do a good job and they look great with their dreads.

Again, it’s not my taste in hairstyling, but if you keep it looking neat then you can get away with it. I’m specifically trying to stay away from any pictures of African-Americans with dreads because they are typically the ones who sport that style and they usually do it in a way that it looks good. Dreadlocks and cornrows can look nice on African-Americans. These styles typically look out of place on white people. That’s just my opinion, though. Of course, maybe I don’t understand the desire to have dreads because I’m not a pothead.

Anyway, this girl at work has this horrible head of dreads that makes me itch and scratch every time I see her. I’m not sure if she was specifically going for the dread look, or if she was just lazy and decided to stop brushing her hair. Either theory is completely plausible because she also wears her pajamas to work.

When did it become okay to not get dressed to go out into public? How can you feel that it’s perfectly logical to wear your pajamas to work? How much lazier as a society can we possibly get?

I am blaming this entire trend on the younger generation and their feelings of entitlement. Why should they have to get dressed? Why should they have to ‘dress to impress’? They shouldn’t have to work for anything, it’s given to them. Therefore, why does it matter what they wear if they are going to be handed everything in life anyway? Our grandparents would have DIED before going out into public in their pajamas. Okay, maybe not after going senile ;-), but you know what I mean. What happened to the days when women didn’t go out without a hat on? Or even when men wore their hats out in public, and I mean the fedora-style and not the baseball cap. Have you attended a wedding lately? How many people show up in jeans? I was raised that when you go to church, a wedding, or a funeral that you always wear your ‘Sunday best’. It was called your Sunday best for a reason.

Okay, I realize that I don’t exactly keep up with the latest fashion trends. I have no idea what is ‘In’ right now.

I would wear outfits like this every day if possible. Just because my fashion sense leans towards the 60’s… 1860’s… doesn’t mean that I can’t give my opinion on the current styles that people are sporting. Or does it?

 

 

 

 

 

I just want to state for the record that I’ve always had great fashion sense and have always known exactly what works for me. Whether it’s glasses or one shoe… It’s a family curse, you see, we can make ANYTHING look good. 🙂

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The Kobra Project 4-15-12

Posted on April 16, 2012 by civilwarrose5

There have been a lot of other projects that were worked on this last week (including a jet or two), but some progress has been made on the Kobra. Last week Jay had just started to cover the Kobra in the gray:

The gray is on the bottom of the plane so that when it’s high in the air Jay will be able to determine if he’s right side up or not. There’s nothing worse than thinking that you’re inverted and so you tell the plane to move in a certain way… and you end up crashing into the ground.

 

 

Here is the bottom of the fuselage as of Sunday. You can see that he has begun to stripe it with the blue. Oh, and if you look under the wings you will see the tail has been covered in the bright green that was chosen for it. I’ve changed my mind on the name of the plane. It’s not easy being green, so I think that this needs to be Kermit the Kobra. 🙂

 

See! Green! Lots of green! That will stick out big time against a blue or gray sky.

The wings have been glassed where they needed to be and they are ready for covering, too. We are gearing up for our southern vacation this week so we’ll have to see how far this one gets before then.

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Rocket Car

Posted on April 16, 2012 by civilwarrose5

On our way back from Toledo we were tooling along I-90, driving through Cleveland, when we spotted this:

Jay and I were both speechless. What in the world??!! How can that be street legal?? Of course, we forgot we were in Ohio where you can run almost anything on the road as long as it’s licensed. This vehicle certainly had a license plate on the back. We tried to get some closer pictures, but he was going amazingly fast and changing lanes.

This is where he started to slow down. As you can see we were going 63 and just barely able to catch up with him. I have no idea where he was going in such a hurry!

I can’t quite decide if I would want a ride in this or not.

It has a side mirror, but no windshield. He wasn’t wearing a helmet or face mask, so I can only imagine how many bugs he must have eaten!

This was the last picture that I managed to get in the side mirror. He soon got off of the interstate using one of the exits.

I had already published this post when I decided to see what I could find online about this car. After all, something this unique has to show up somewhere! According to the website you can rent this vehicle!

The Rocket Car website

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2012 Toledo Weak Signals Show

Posted on April 16, 2012 by civilwarrose5

This past weekend was the 2012 Toledo Weak Signals tradeshow for R/C enthusiasts. They have everything from gas powered planes to electric jets to electric cars and boats. There is almost anything and everything for the remote control hobby. This place was HUGE and every inch was filled with either vendors, people, or displays. It was amazing.

Here’s a good overhead shot of the show. I didn’t take this picture, but it gives you a really good idea of what I’m going to be showing you. This picture probably only shows you maybe a quarter or a third of what was there. It took place Friday, Saturday and Sunday. By Sunday most of the vendors were almost completely sold out of merchandise.

 

Down the middle of the hall was a length of tables that held various pieces that had been entered for competition. I had to take a picture of this because it was absolutely gorgeous. I wish that I could have taken a good picture of the detail work done to this because it was breath-taking. The dragon actually breathes fire!

 

Here’s a picture of it in flight. Don’t try that YouTube address because it won’t work. If you search YouTube for R/C Flying Dragon you will find it.

 

 

 

There would be times when Jay was looking at something and I felt like I was in the way of the other shoppers, so I would find my way to the end of an aisle and people watch. Also, it seemed like every where you turned there was something else to see. This booth had planes hanging down from the rafters.

 

 

There were people sitting; People walking; People gawking; Kids crying; Wives nagging; And adult men drooling. Speaking of drooling…

 

 

 

Just look at all of that… you can’t get any more drool worthy than what you see right there. Oh, and Jay thought that the fasteners were pretty neat as well. 😉

 

 

 

I believe that this booth was where the battery chargers were located. What we did was we went and did a big loop, looking at everything. Then on the second pass we took a closer look at some things and made some purchases. Each time we went around there was either a new person to talk with or else something else that caught Jay’s eye. It was a fun time, though.

 

We were parked in a great parking lot, so it made the trips out to the car a lot easier when the packages started weighing me down too much. On one of our trips to the car I noticed this sign that read “Compact Cars Only” and this is what was parked in those spots…

 

 

A Toyota Rav4 and a Tacoma pick up! Definitely NOT compact cars. lol As you can see they stick out beyond the ends of the yellow lines. It did make it a bit difficult for Jay to back out of our spot, but we managed.

 

 

 

Once we got home the packages could then be opened and pulled apart. It was like Christmas had come yet again. Doesn’t he look so happy??

 

 

 

The stuff scattered all around on the floor is what was purchased on Saturday. It doesn’t look like much there, but it definitely filled up the back of the car.

 

 

 

 

 

And here is the big purchase of the day… the 58″ Edge from 3D Hobby (I think that’s the vendor). It is a gorgeous acrobatic plane that I know will give Jay lots of fun flying time. I am in hopes that at some point I will be good enough to fly it.

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Warthog Project 4-8-12

Posted on April 8, 2012 by civilwarrose5

Are you ready for some Warthog?? I am very fond of this jet and I can’t wait to see it in flight. I have requested that the maiden flight be done when I can attend, but we’ll have to see how itchy Jay gets to put this up in the air. It’s very close to being ready for that first flight. The only worry is… will it fit into the car?? lol

Here is the A-10 back in February. As you can see everything has been painted. It is all gray in color, it just needs some details and the canopy put into place.

 

 

 

And there she is! Okay, I know that you can’t see her face very well. Don’t worry. You’ll get a closer look in a little bit. First you have to stand back and just admire the beauty before you. Look at all of the power that whispers to you from the fans. The wings are itching to take flight. The gun is yelling, “Let me at ’em!!” I can almost hear the strafing runs…

 

Awww! Isn’t she pretty! Don’t you just want to go and pet her under the chin? “There’s a good Warthog… coo-chee-coo!!”

 

 

 

 

The guy who made up the stickers for Jay really did a great job. Between the hog face, the Air Force decals, the miscellaneous lights and hooks… they all look really great.

 

 

 

You can somewhat see the “hooks” on the wing in this picture.

 

 

 

 

To give you an idea of just how much these stickers add to the detail of the plane, here’s the vertical part of the tail after Jay had done his detailing to it. It looks nice, but still needs a few details…

 

 

 

 

 

Isn’t it amazing what a few extra little things will do?? We have hooks, formation lights, and some more identifying marks on here. I really wish that you could see it in person so that you can soak it all in. Jay has really done a great job on this build and I couldn’t be prouder. It is VERY impressive.

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The Kobra Project 4-8-12

Posted on April 8, 2012 by civilwarrose5

It feels like forever since I last updated you on this project, doesn’t it? A lot of that is because other planes have jumped ahead in the line, so Jay had to put it off to the side for a little while.

There it sat… naked and shivering; waiting for when it could finally be covered up and ready to fly.

 

 

 

 

Technically I was supposed to be the one to pick the colors for this plane, but I relented and didn’t make Jay use orange and aqua. I thought it would go quite nicely with a #13, but the look on Jay’s face was enough to tell me that though he loves me, asking for a Miami Dolphin – themed plane was a little much. lol. So we went with the colors that his mom had suggested. It has blue and gray, so it’s a Civil War plane now. 😉

This afternoon the tail was given some attention. Doesn’t that gray look pretty? I would refer to it as Robert E. Lee, but Jay would think of the Dukes of Hazzard first before he thought Civil War. Maybe I’ll just have to start referring to it as Bobby Lee. 😉

 

 

This was as far as he got before having to put it down. Work sure does get in the way of a lot of things!

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K is for Karen Cross Stitch

Posted on April 8, 2012 by civilwarrose5

Jay’s mom has asked me to sew together a cover for her passport. Up to this point she just had a plain old envelope for it, and that just was not pretty enough. Sure, we could have glued rhinestones to it and drawn some pretty flowers on it with markers, but that just wouldn’t have been the same. I thought that what I would do is cross stitch a ‘K’ on it because her name is Karen. Makes sense, right? I seriously considered doing an ‘R’ for a little bit because I liked the rose that was part of the design, but I figured that I should probably stick with the ‘K’. While at Jay’s this weekend I started it and managed to get quite a bit done.

As you can see I’m stitching it over two on 28 ct Opalescent evenweave. It is sparkly and very pretty. 🙂 I think that this will be cute once I have it all together.

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