Southern California PSS Festival 2015
by Dave Garwood
dave.garwood.518@gmail.com
Here is a report about a national Slope Soaring event by my old flying buddy, Joe Chovan, who lives in Syracuse, New York.
How does one describe a Scale modeler who labors for months to create a museum-quality airplane from scratch, then travels a great distance through Memorial Day weekend traffic to climb a dusty mountain to throw his or her creation off of a cliff and into a howling wind with doubtful prospects for a gentle landing among jagged rocks and flora? Certainly, the term hardcore describes attendees of the 2015 Spring Power Scale Soaring (PSS) Festival, hosted by the Inland Slope Rebels (ISR) of Southern California.
The Slope community is a cohesive group that spans the globe thanks to online forums such as RCGroups. Practitioners of the Slope discipline may converse daily to plan and share information.
Each year, a group project is selected for a single design to be modeled. This event saw 17 B-17 Flying Fortresses
It’s great to see the effort put forth in creating these projects and share in other modelers’ achievements—having watched the aircraft germinate from concept to fruition, soaring over the high vistas of San Bernardino National Forest.
It was inspiring to see Nick Taraz of Team Taraz with his
Me 163 Komet, and his father, Matin, with his B-17 Flying Fortress, at the May 21-24 event. This was Nick’s first PSS build and his Me 163 is a potential prototype to be produced by their company, North County Flying Machines (NCFM). The 48-inch wingspan Me 163 weighs 39 ounces. Construction is EPP foam with carbon-fiber spars, an aluminum spar joiner, and a balsa fin covered with silver Solartex and Tamiya paint.
Matin rendered his B-17 as a copy of the Army Air Corps Air Rescue Service’s Dumbo aircraft that were retrofitted to drop lifeboats and supplies to downed airmen when seas were too rough for ships or seaplanes to help. The vacuum-formed boat is held by a rubber band strung between two short wires protruding from the fuselage. The front wire is retracted by a servo to release the rubber band and boat. For fun, the boat was filled with paintballs, but needed to be jettisoned during a period of light lift to maintain flight, much to the delight of the onlookers.
Veteran Wade Kloos of Scale Pursuit Models flew his giant 10-pound, 75-inch wingspan TV2. The full-scale aircraft on which it was based was an early 1960s Navy version of the famed T-33 Shooting Star. The prototype has a scalelike outline (no stretched wings) and is fully covered in polycarbonate skins. A kit will soon be offered that will have many CNC-machined or CNC hot-wire-cut EPP parts, a clear canopy, polycarbonate leading and trailing edges, a tail cone, basswood spars, most wood components, and some hardware.
Dave Munson won Best of Show with his 56-inch wingspan, 72-ounce scratch-built Cessna A-37 Dragonfly. His one-piece lost-foam fuselage design was enlarged from plans. The tail is balsa covered in Solartex. Paint is Rust-Oleum rattle can with airbrushed insignias and decals for lettering.
The highly detailed cockpit is made of balsa, pen parts, a printed instrument panel, and athletic tape for the seat belts. Dave thermoformed the canopy with PETG thermoplastic sheeting.
Although there were cool temperatures and fog at times, we enjoyed plenty of flying throughout the long weekend. It’s great to reconnect with distant friends to share the sky, inspirations, and a hearty meal afterward. Kudos to the ISR and all who partook in this memorable event.
SOURCES:
RC Groups PSS Fest Event Discussion Thread
www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2333825
NCFM
(858) 485-1137
www.northcountyflyingmachines.com
Scale Pursuit Models
(720) 596-4044
www.scalepursuit.com
League of Silent Flight (LSF)
www.silentflight.org
