This past weekend, the RDRC club (Raleigh Durham Radio Control) hosted their Fly For Tots annual fundraiser fly-in. RDRC has been doing this since 1991 and for the past four years, their charity of choice has been Victory Junction. Victory Junction is a charity organization here in NC, founded in memory of Adam Petty by his mother Pattie and father Kyle. What is Victory Junction? Simply put, it's a camp for chronically-ill children that allows them to forget their troubles for a little while, and just live life and have fun! 100% of the proceeds from Fly For Tots goes to Victory Junction.... RDRC has raised a WHOPPING $100,000 in the past four years! It's truly an amazing fly-in to where all kinds of model aviation comes together to raise money for a good cause as well as having a blast enjoying our hobby. Big planes, small planes, foamies, plyon racers, turbine jets, EDFs, 3D aerobats, IMAC giant-scale, helicopters, warbirds... you name it, it's there!

The big draw for this event is the raffle. I have never seen more generosity from R/C product vendors than at FFT. The amount of prizes at this year's event was unlike anything I've ever seen. Check out the sponsors:



The grand prize this year was a Hangar 9 33% Piper Pawnee with all the trimmings: DA-100L engine with mufflers, DX8 radio, Duralite flight system with integrated Spektrum receiver, Vess CF prop, Tru-Turn aluminum spinner, etc., etc. The build thread is here, for those that are interested. They call the grand prize, "Win it, Fuel it, Fly it".



I never in my wildest dreams would think I'd win the grand prize, but I did! No one was more shocked than me!! Of course I had to fly it in front of a crowd of hundreds of people with who knows how many watching over the Internet. That's the whole point of "Win it, Fuel it, Fly it", right? Special thanks goes out to the Horizon guys who calmed me down, stood by my side, and helped me through the maiden flight of this GIGANTIC airplane! I'm an electric-only pilot so they had to show me how to start a 100cc gas airplane engine. The maiden flight went perfect and I am the PROUD owner of a Hangar 9 Piper Pawnee!! And believe it or not, it does fit in a 2007 Honda Pilot!

Guys and gals, I'm telling you... the next time you need to buy anything related to the wonderful hobby of ours.... everything from screws to servo arms to batteries to wiring to glue to complete airplane/heli packages... please please please support the companies such as the ones listed in the sponsor list. They are the ones that donated tens of thousands of dollars in prizes to make this event happen. Without their generosity, FFT wouldn't be possible.

The weekend can't get here fast enough - can't wait to fly the Pawnee again!

thats so awesome!! It looks like a lot of fun!!

Wow......you lucky dog......that is one sweet plane.

Yeah man, I still can't believe it. I went out to the workshop again today to look at it! And it flies sooo sweet.

Lucky lucky dawg!!!

I think you should sell it.

Originally Posted by afjetmech

I think you should sell it.

Heck no! If the rain hold out, it's flying Sunday!!

Congrats!!!!! Thats a very cool prize and a VERY cool cause!!

Originally Posted by HP^Matt

Congrats!!!!! Thats a very cool prize and a VERY cool cause!!

Thanks very much! It's so gentle and it's great fun flying this big plane like a small plane. I had some engine trouble last weekend but we figured out it was a bad ignition battery. I had no clue and thanks very much to everyone that helped. I know what an internal combustion engine is, and how it works, but I have no idea how to fix one. I was an electric-only flyer until now!