My involvement in model aviation has been one of the great joys of my life but my greatest gift and joy is my daughter Evelyn. She always amazes me and recently expressed an interest in how I began flying RC aircraft. As I explained to her, it all started with the Cox .049 PT-19 control line model and then on to the Cox .049 Cessna Centurion which debuted in 1977. My good friend had one sitting on a shelf in his closet after it crashed during the maiden flight. I asked him if I could fix it and we could try to fly it. He said "Sure!" With the model repaired, my buddy wanted me to fly it since I had been hanging around RC fields for years and watched other pilots fly. I had no stick time when I started the .049 engine on that Cessna and I was nervous! My buddy hand launched it with a great toss and a solid runnning .049...the model climbed beautifully! I began a gentle left turn and kept the model off my right shoulder so that I wouldn't have to worry about control confusion. Remember it was my friends plane, so the pressure was on for this first time flyer. He trusted me and I didn't want to disappoint him. After 4 minutes of run time, the .049 quit and glided, still keeping it in a shallow left turn till I approached a 150 foot strip of grass. I over shot and landed safely in 7 foot tall corn field. We were jumping up and down in celebration then ran another 300+ feet into the corn rows trying to find the plane. A few minutes later, I spotted the plane resting on...Continue Reading

Here's photos of the New Durafly de Havilland DH 100 Vampire Mk.6 from Hobby King. This is my new favorite 70mm foamy EDF jet! I've now flown the aircraft 5 times using an 14.8v 40C 2200mAh battery and I love it. Per the Hobby King description, she can easily handle up to a 3300mAh battery.

The maiden flight was a little tail heavy using the CG from the manual. I immediately landed and moved the battery to where the front edge of the 2200 pack is centered over the nose gear retract motor and the aircraft was a dream to fly. My flight times were right around 5 minutes with the 2200 mAh pack. Just like the Hobby King item description states, this aircraft is a glider power off yet moves out nicely at WOT. One of the pilots from my club said, "It floats like a Muliplex Easy Star!" That is does! Another nice surprise...the sound of the fan. You would think someone put a sound card and speakers in this thing. It has cool stock jet noise. The landing gear retracts slow and smooth and has handled all five landings on the Dry Lake here at Edwards AFB, CA. This Vampire is unique EDF jet subject and a lot of fun to fly! She's a keeper!

All the best,
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This year's AMA Expo 2012 was packed with lots of great demos, featured projects like Aero Telemetry's Hughes XF-11 and NASA Droid as well as lots of vendors. One of the great rooms was the Free Flight/Make & Take room which feature the Black Sheep Exhibition Squadron. My daughter and I spent a lot of time hanging out flying free flight models and visiting with the finest free flight modelers in the AMA including Don Butman and Dave Gee. What a great way to introduce the public to such a fun part of Model Aviation. Free Flight and Control Line Models is where it all started for me more than 35 years ago and now my daughter is taking an interest in balsa stick and tissue models, all due to the AMA Expo.

Unfortunately, after two days of photographing the event, I returned home to find the auto focus feature did not like the indoors, so many of my photos did not make it on here. Time to invest in a new camera.

If you can, try to make it to the AMA Expo 2013....you'll have a great time!

Best,
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