CUMBERLAND 2023
By Neil Liptak
neil@courtroommodels.com
Photos provided by the author and Stephane Ruelle
The 57th annual Cumberland Fall Soar for Fun event was held on November 2-5, 2023, at HighPoint Aviation Airfield in Ridgeley, West Virginia. I found out about this event on the RC Glider Universe website on Facebook. I asked the group if this was the same event that was once called the Cumberland Wave Meet. The answer came back that it was, and that this year would mark the 57th annual event. I could not believe that this was the same event that I attended along with a handful of RC enthusiasts in the early 1970s, and that it was at the same gorgeous site!
I could not resist the temptation of making the effort to travel from Tucson, Arizona, to Cumberland and seeing for myself how the hobby has progressed in 52 years! There was a bit of nostalgia, wanting to see how the site has stayed the same and how much it has grown with the vision of Jim Dolly, the owner of the hilltop modeling paradise, right along with the technology of the model sailplanes.
What Jim has done with this former cow pasture is nothing short of fantastic. With his addition of the spacious clubhouse overlooking the acres of manicured lawn and the backdrop of the valley miles below, it is truly a sight to behold. The site is breathtaking, and the modelers who sojourn to this spot with their trailers packed with world-class RC models is an experience that should not be missed.
Many great memories started to flood back, including the winding drive up the gravel trail through the canopy of trees that opens up to the vista, where we hand-towed our simple two- and three-channel, 6- to 10-foot wingspan, mostly originally designed sailplanes. Polyhedral was pretty much the order of the day, but there were a few more scalelike models sprinkled in the mix. The high-tech model of the day was the all-fiberglass Ka6, kitted by the world-famous Jerry Nelson, but it was nothing like these 4-meter (and larger) Scale models that raced over the valley on this day. They truly were a sight to behold! These models are the models that we only dreamed about as we flew our balsa wood models off of the same hill back in 1971!
REVISITING A SPECIAL EVENT 50 YEARS LATER
Another highlight for me was watching these gorgeous sailplanes being towed by a gas-powered RC towplane. With hardly any effort, these towplanes hauled the sailplanes up to a decent altitude, and just like their full-scale counterparts, cut them loose and dove back to the field to hook on another sailplane, including a 1/3-scale Schweizer 2-33.
An electric motor assist, along with a folding propeller, is now commonplace among these large, Scale sailplanes. The ability to power up to a substantial altitude, turn off the motor, snoop around for lift or dive down and streak across the field doing a slow, 360° roll, and then switch the power back on and climb back up or safely get back to the field, is practical, as well as impressive.
Radios, in the hands of these accomplished model pilots, are yet another wonder unto themselves. The mixing of controls that can be accomplished with
these miracle radios are scenarios we tried to implement in the ’70s with linkages and mixing trees. Today, it can all be done in the friendly confines of the transmitter.
And then there is telemetry! For me, this was the icing on the cake. Airspeed, altitude, and GPS tracking can all be sent to the transmitter and read in real time. We didn’t even think of that possibility back when our little group of modelers perched on the Cumberland hillside, flying our little two-channel, 3-pound Eppler 385 airfoiled floaters!
Technology has come a very long way since the days that I was an active modeler. I admit that I have “Rip Van Winkled” away 50 years and missed the stepping stones that led from the early ’70s to the present day, but the one thing that has stayed with me is that once you are a modeler, you are always a modeler! The enthusiasm that was there years ago is the same enthusiasm that I felt as I walked through the pit area, taking in all of the details of the present-day machines.
I would like to share that what I feel is rare. As I sat there in the clubhouse overlooking the 50 to 60 models that covered the lawn in front of me—sailplanes circling overhead, towplanes towing, and sleek, electric-powered models whooshing by—it occurred to me that rarely does a real-time experience match that of a memory, but this one did exactly that. I am so glad that I traveled the 2,200 miles to not relive but to bask in the joy that modeling has brought and continues to bring me.
SOURCES:
RC Glider Universe Facebook Group
www.facebook.com/groups/RCGU1
