warbirds over texas
After its inaugural run in 2011, the warbird event of Texas just keeps getting bigger and better!
By Larry Kruse PHOTOGRAPHY: LARRY KRUSE E
agerly anticipated since its success- ful debut in 2011, this year’s second edition of “Warbirds over Texas” did not disappoint. Held at the North Dallas R/C Club’s first class site, just north of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and close to the communities of Aubrey and Provi- dence, pilots and their planes began arriving on the Thursday before the three-day event. By the time things were well underway, over 120 airplanes and representative flyers from Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi were present to enjoy the pas- toral flying field, complete with cattle and a small herd of burros as a backdrop. The field itself has a generous 720 × 40- foot paved asphalt runway with mowed, gently sloping grass aprons on both sides, perfect for pilots of WWI ships and others more comfortable using grass runways to land their planes. It also has a well-thought- out pit area, fenced pilot stations, and a wide paved taxi-way that lends itself well to entering the actual runway area to prepare for take-offs.
The inaugural 2011 event was the brain- child of Terry Farmer who remained at the helm of this year’s event, ably assisted by a host of North Dallas R/C Club members. In particular, Ed Kettler served as the Contest
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Director and Charles Shafer headed up the grounds crew that prepared the site for pi- lots and their families and hundreds of vis- itors and spectators who came and went over the three days.
Unlike last year, the weather was consid- erably cooler and more conducive to spec- tating. In fact, Friday, the first day of the event, welcomed rain showers in the morn- ing—a decided contrast to the searing tem- peratures of last year’s record-breaking heat wave over the Southwest.
The collective organizational skills of the
North Dallas R/C Club provided a very smoothly administered event where safety concerns were preeminent. As was the case last year, engines were run up and prelimi- nary tuning took place to the south side of the entry ramp to the runway, and planes and pilots waited in two lines just off the taxi-way to be called to fly.
During the preparation to enter the run- way for take-off, Ed Acklin and other North Dallas R/C Club members who volunteered as safety officials made sure that all of the planes underwent an initial safety check be- fore flying the first time. That safety check encompassed planes of all sizes and power systems. While many of the planes were of the Giant Scale category, there was a good
representation of smaller .60 to .90 size models, and an increasing number of elec- tric powered ships. The smaller nitro-pow- ered models began as either ARFs or kit- built efforts, but most of the electric powered ships were either ARF or RTFs right out of the box—and they flew well.
Two of the electric powered prop-driven planes that drew attention were a 79-inch Boeing B-17 from Banana Hobbies brought by Gary Mills, and a very realistic Douglas A-1 Skyraider also distributed by Banana Hobbies and flown by Tom Blakeney. Both came receiver-ready with motors, ESCs, ser- vos, retracts, and flaps already in place and functional, and both are most realistic in the air.
While there were no turbines at this year’s event, a representative collection of EDF jets were present including an inter- estingly configured Russian SU-34 from Hobby Lobby flown by Joel Kirsh and sever- al jets flown by Dave Schaefer, including his “Best Jet” F-14 Tomcat. Among Dave’s oth- er models were a neat T-45 Goshawk that made pretty passes down the runway, and a most unusual rocket powered SR-71 Black- bird that was launched vertically and went almost out of sight before the completion of the rocket motor burn.
NOVEMBER 2012
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