RC SLOPE SOARING
FUTURE PILOT
By Greg Schutte | gshooty@yahoo.com
ONE DAY I was talking to Sandy, the owner of Action Hobbies, which is the local hobby shop where I live in Meridian, Idaho. I was razzing him about his lack of airplanes in the store—specifically, that he doesn’t have any airplane kits to build. Although he does have some generic BNF and RTF kits in the store and stocks your basic model building supplies for airplanes, he definitely does not have Slope Soaring airplanes. He is primarily an RC car and truck hobby shop, so I can’t razz him too much. Sandy is a cool guy. Stop in to tease him about airplanes if you’re ever in Meridian.
During the conversation, he brought up a very good point. He asked me about the last time that I had I showed anyone how to build an airplane. That question caught me off guard. As I drove home, I really started thinking about that. When I was younger, I used to build just as many balsa airplanes as foam airplanes. In the last 10 years, I have built almost all foam models. Now I scratch-build most of them, so I have a lot of skills to pass along.
One of the things that I used to do when I was younger was throw build parties. In the wintertime, there is an active Indoor Rubber (Free Flight) group. I would get some Delta Darts or something easy to build in one night. I would set up a couple of folding tables in my garage and invite my nephews, nieces, uncles, brothers, and friends over on a Friday night. We would order pizza, talk to each other like we were all kids, and just build little airplanes until we couldn’t stay awake any longer.
The Indoor group flies every other Sunday, so that following Sunday after the build party, we would all go fly. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done. When I started working out of state, I stopped because of the lack of time. My friend, Roc, and I also put on a build clinic for the local Slope Soaring pilots. I had designed an airplane that flew well. We got the guys together and we showed them how to hot-wire and build the airplane. It was a good time.
So, where am I going with this article? Many years ago, I taught my son to slope soar. He is a good pilot now, and this year, he graduated from high school. I also taught him how to speed-fly and paraglide. He prefers those rather than flying little airplanes. This is where my youngest daughter, Ellie, comes in.
When I was scrolling through pictures I’ve previously taken, I realized that she is in most of them and that she is always up for going with me to fly. She is also the person who takes most of the pictures for my column.
Ellie was very excited to accompany me to Wings Over Wilson (WOW) in Lucas, Kansas, this year. The drive was 17 hours through five states, and she was nothing but excited about doing it. She ended up having an awesome time. She was most excited to see the Combat flying. That little stinker came home with three of her own airplanes! As per fashion, I was ribbed when the guys found out that I hadn’t taught her how to fly, which, in retrospect, is well deserved. (I’ll cover the WOW fly-in in another column.)
On my way home, I asked her whether she would be interested in learning to fly. She said, “Yes, of course.” Luckily for me, she won a Combat wing kit during the fly-in. The wing is made by Mike Bailey at Fancyfoam. His Combat wing design is one of the best that I have ever flown. He, along with a lot of other manufacturers and local businesses, donated prizes for the raffle that
was held at the closing dinner. I can see a build article for that airplane coming into view, and I’m not doing the building! It’s my turn to just be the camera person. Ellie was all excited when the kit arrived at our house.
My advice on how to keep the sport going is simple: Go razz your local hobby shop owner to carry some buildable airplane kits or throw a build party with whomever shows interest. I would recommend the Delta Dart. While it isn’t a Slope airplane, it is fast, cheap, and easy to build. You should then order some Combat wings and do a group build. Some of the Combat wing
companies offer bundle discounts on their aircraft.
Me? I’m going to teach my daughter how to build her Combat wing and fly it. This will hopefully stop the ribbing from the guys, and I will finally be able to tell my wife that not all of the airplanes are mine—and, no, we can’t get rid of some of them.
Fly safe!
SOURCES:
League of Silent Flight (LSF)
silentflight.org
Action Hobbies
(208) 658-4500
action-hobbies-0ch1ml.gamma.site
WOW
midwestslopechallenge.com/home.html
Fancyfoam
fancyfoam.com
