Perfect Thursday expedition - and some new blood in the Gang too

For the foreseeable future we've got great flying weather forecast, Temps in the mid 80s and light winds out of mostly the southwest. can't pass this up, so all the Jackson Flyers are ready for some Thursday action. we have a new one too, Mike Lindler, an old friend of Wayne's.

Mike's an American Airlines pilot, and he and his Dad have been lone CL flyers for some time now.  He has nice equipment and knows how to use it pretty well. For a long time, Wayne's been twisting his arm to learn some stunt and come out for a contest, but he was afraid of making a fool of himself and wouldn't try. Finally I met him when he came to Huntersville to watch on Friday, had a great time and drove back to Columbia that night. I had talked him(hopefully but doubtfully) into coming to fly Profile on Saturday. Sure enough, he showed up in the morning with a beater to fly over the asphalt. He had a great time, flew the Beginner pattern in both rounds, and met and talked to all kinds of people. He bid us farewell and headed home where he had Sunday chores awaiting, so he wouldn't be back for PAMPA Stunt Sunday.

Sunday morning they had combined Beginner and Intermediate the same circle. About half way through second round, look who shows up, Mister Thanks-but-no-thanks himself Lol... carrying a sharp red and black Oriental ARF hat had obviously been thoughtfully upgraded from it's lowly ARF status. Being the loose atmosphere that Huntersville is, they let him get his first and second round flights in. Dad pits and Mike flies. That Double Star stunt engine sounded like the ones the pros fly.I wonder if tomorrow at the Fort will be his first time ever flying without his Dad. Mike and Holley and I were sitting and chatting between flights, and Mike was commenting on how so unexpectedly this was about the most fun he recalled having in recent time. I agreed, that this was the most fun I've ever had in my adult life, and it had caught me completely off guard too. I'd also had my arm twisted. Not only by Wayne, but people here and RC Groups, like Mark Boesen, Jim Thomerson, and Ron Cribbs too. He used to watch my churchyard videos and say, "Rusty, if you ever went to one of those contests, you could bring home the Gold!" Anyway, Mike said, "You know I've been here meeting people for 3 days, and there's not one Dick here Lol. The boy went on to win 2nd place Beginner Sunday out of 3 contestants. So the two of us brought a 2nd and a 3rd back to Columbia. Last year Wayne and I brought 1st and 2nd back home in Int.
He looks proud proud doesn't he.


Not too bad, 2nd place. Pretty close scores too. He signed in as Carl. For some reason he goes by either name.


Two weeks later He showed up at Triple Tree with the same Oriental and won 1st place, beating a bunch of people too. I think we've got him hooked. He's meeting me at my house in the morning for our excursion. Looks like it'll be Me, Wayne, Bob and Mike. Maybe Rich Malik too, but haven't heard back from him.

I've been thinking about 1/2A a lot lately, so I got my old red, white, and blue BFS-I off the hook and made her a new bladder. The old one from September's 1/2A day looked like it would work fine, but I don't want to do any field fixes if I can help it. The old TD .051 is about out of compression, but still screams pretty good. I plan to use the camera as much as possible tomorrow. With the calm weather, I want to see just how good or bad I really can fly the pattern, so the Cardinal will get a workout out too. We're going to lay some cones around the circle at 45degrees separation and see just where we're putting or stunts. It's time for us both to break out of Int this Summer and bring a new game to Huntersville in October.

Stay tuned for a flight report.
Tomorrow,
Rusty