Not everyone may care, but if you ever wondered what got me into model aviation, here it is! When I was born in the summer of 1970, my dad (Doug Smith) began a 10 year build on a full scale "Baby Great Lakes" aerobatic biplane. He labored on this airplane construction while creating tooling, learning techniques needed for construction, purchasing materials as he could afford them, working and getting out to fly full scale when he could. I was always fascinated with what my dad did while I was growing up, and his love of aviation was contagious. I always used a good portion of my allowance buying those little balsa gliders and wind up rubber powered airplanes to keep a flying fleet airworthy. I graduated to stick and tissue covered "peanut" and "walnut" scale planes by the time I was 7 or 8, and I even used the 3 views on the instructions for plastic models to make balsa gliders from them.

High school was pretty busy, but aviation still had a hold on me and RC was an option, since mowing yards and other odd jobs could give me some capital to work with. I bought my first RC airplane when I was 15 (CG Eaglet w/ OS 25F, Futaba 5 ch. Gold FM) and began flying on the weekends. I of course then wanted faster, bigger and more aerobatic planes, so I began to design them for myself. I also got pretty good at building doing this, and soon began framing and finishing airplanes for club members to make a few bucks to continue my projects. My downfall...Continue Reading

A couple of years ago, I decided to put on a pylon workshop to assist the new race pilots, aspiring pilots who were to scared to just show up at a race and all the pylon regulars who wanted to help out the new guys and get in a little practice as well. We ended up with about 10~12 new or newish 424 pilots, and about 17~20 regular pylon racers there too. We began the day with a short class and some Q & A, then got all the regular pilots to break out with a new guy and help them get there equipment set up. After some set up modifications, the pros took the new guys out on the course, and helped getting their planes set up, trimmed and race ready. The rest of the day we worked with the new pilots on race strategy, calling, racing lines and anything else we could think of to help the newer pilots. By the end on the afternoon, we were running racing heats and settling some "grudge matches" between pylon regulars! All in all, it was a great success as we gained a few new racers, and all had a great day of racing without the stresses of racing!

This is a document I put together and we gave out to all the pilots, which is just about every "trick" and hint to get a new guy competitive right out of the box. Feel free to use it if you would like to, just please drop me a note and let me know if it helped you. If you have anything you think should be added, let me know that also and we can revise it and give you credit for your contributions.

Enjoy!

Well, here are some pictures at my field from the 2011 Team USA FAI F3D selection event I held in Mulberry Florida back in September of 2010. It was a very warm event in the low 90's, with nothing but sunshine, a slight breeze and a field full of the best pilots in the world racing around the poles. It was amazing how stable the standings were through the first day, and after the first round on Sunday, it had all changed! Travis, after missing the first round Saturday and fighting to the top of the charts, was trying to stay on top. Richard Verano (who held a solid 2nd place) began slipping back. Randy, Gary and Ray all pushed the envelope and did what they had to to gain all they could. After the dust settled, the 2011 Team had emerged. Congratulations to Randy Bridge (1st place), Travis Flynn (2nd place), Gary Freeman Jr. (third place), and to Ray Brown (alternate).