“Just a brief note. Guys the warm spell we are experiencing right now is a perfect time to visit the slope in Frankfort. Dick Weidner and I went up there yesterday (Thursday). The air was some of the best I have ever seen. You could roll or loop to your hearts content with NO loss of height. The lift band went very far out from the hill.”

And then on Sunday (12/17) we put out the notice that LASS was heading out for a full-frontal attack on the Frankfort slope!

10 pilots from all over showed up. Tom Hill from Tennessee even made the trek to fly with us and showed us some great DS maneuvres with his Moth 60. Gordy brought out his trusty RnR Synergy 5 and whipped some DS doughnuts. I finally had my Polecat Hammerhead in a groove and made it squeal through some DS turns. Dave Smith was flying a slick Halfpipe.

Tony Utley experimented with some aerial photography with mixed results – more info on that to come, for sure! Ken Marks showed up with his trusty Bowman’s Hobbies Scooter and his mountain bike for a little excitement afterwards on the Capital View Trail.

Photos were taken!

First our flying site:

RC Soaring Clubs have co-existed in Public Parks all over the USA…the reason RC Sailplanes work in parks is because they don’t fly around making noise, but mostly they don’t fly ‘around’.  When a RC sailplane guy or club is using a park field, he and his activities are mostly invisible. Even when a club is having an active day of soaring, other park users take little notice since for the most part the sailplanes are gone…either up high or away from the field.  Othe park users may see someone standing in the field looking up, but pretty much take no notice….so when sailplane activity is there, its not really “there”. Birds can be heard, other activities can be going on the field. Sailplanes fly ‘from’ a field, not over a field.  No flight lines are needed, safety fences, or locked access gates.  When we are flying we are mostly invisible….in fact testimony of local neighbors find our sailplanes are a value, beauty and emphasis nature, in general beneficial as an attraction to the park.

Over the years we all flew some electric powered aircraft before or after and sometimes during our club soaring days (mostly Thursday evenings and Sundays)…but then it was carbon brushed motors and Nicads which equaled a few 4 or 5 minute flights.   This past year The Chinese entered the Park Flyer scene with good flying exceptionally cheap foam powered aircraft, ready to fly. Visitors saw us flying our old electric stuff and figured it must be “okay” to fly electric powered aircraft in parks…specifically on our club park soaring site…and that lead to a HUGE increase in guys showing up to fly electric powered foamies (Parkflyers).  It really wasn’t a problem until it was explained that the site was not a “flying field” but rather a club rc glider site. That lead to the guests getting very agressive during a club soaring contest… to the point where the Park Security Officer was contacted and he dispatched the Police.  This scenario has been repeated over and over around the country as guys who purchased their “toy” model airplanes felt that parks were public and so they could do what they wanted in them….our club by the way has no authority to restrict or block any kind of activity at the park, but since we have had a permit/contract to fly rc gliders on the site since the early 90′s and Charlie Vettiner has been the official soaring site for the Louisville Area Soaring Society since about 1952 we are the legal users of the field for rc. 

The police arrived and found that the sign on the site stated “Model Airplane Flying Field” as did the Park Website…and our permit was not in proper order, so they didn’t feel that they could stop anyone from flying any kind of model at the field.

The incident worked against the LASS members and for the LASS members….in that it was clear that we could no longer fly the occassional electric powered model at the site and for us because the incident mentioned inspired a new Permit to be issued to the LASS specifying RC Glider Flying Site, and improved from a couple days a week permit to 365 days per year.

The park is under a plan to improve and modify its design for the future and a number of ‘town hall’ type meetings were held to offer up several different plans for the neighbors and users to choose from. ALL of the plans included our flying site field on them…and the final version was turned into a 3D archectual model…with scaled down versions of our sailplanes actually flying above the field and the park!!!

At each meeting a park neighbor stood up to say how much the enjoyed the model giders flying over head, so quietly, naturally adding to the beauty of the park.

A huge thanks to Club Co-founder, Club President, LSFV, LSFVP Ed Wilson for being there at the Flying Field and club’s start and for carefully protecting the soaring site for generations ahead.

Next installment will be “Exciting Member Achivements 2011″ – And we have a BUNCH!

Gordy

Our winter meetings are set for:
January 18 (3rd Sunday)
February 8
March 8

Meetings start at 1PM, with doors open at 12:30PM

Site is the same as last year. The meeting room at Kennedy place. Located on the north side of the Gene Snyder and Beulah Church Rd. The site is on Aspen Glen Way across from the third building counting the buildings on the left as you enter the complex driving past the fake guard house. The meeting room is located across from the third building.

One rule – do NOT park in the numbered parking spots. These belong to the patio home owners and they get out of shape if someone parks in their spot. Please don’t.

Google Map to Aspen Glen Way

Skyliners 19th Annual Swap Meet
The Skyliners will have their 19th annual swap meet Saturday January 17th. The doors open at 9:30 and close at 2:00pm. Admission is $5.00.

Charlestown Civic Center
150 Steve Hamilton Dr
Charlestown, In 47111
Phone: 812-256-6634.
Google Map

Upcoming Contests

Reminder we are the host club for the Mid-South this summer. The dates are Memoral weekend. May 22, 23,24.

Note also Bruce is setting up a multi day hand launch contest on his farm for late summer. More info at the meeting.

Time 1:00 PM

Aspen Glen Way, Louisville, KY Map

Meeting room at St James Place Patio Homes, Aspen Glen Way, Louisville, KY.

Location is just north of Gene Snyder Freeway at Beulah Church Road

Directions
From I-64 or east Louisville take first exit AFTER Bardstown Road. (second exit after Billtown Rd)
Turn right. About 200 feet turn right into complex.

From I-65 or from the west.
Exit at Buelah Church Road and turn left. Make first right which is entrance to complex.

After entering complex count three buildings on the left. The meeting room is across the street from the third building. IMPORTANT- Park in parking spots that DO NOT HAVE NUMBERS PAINTED IN THE SPOTS. There are open parking spots on all sides of the meeting room building.

The first 2007 LASS Club Contest is in the bag! Gordy Stahl was the CD and we did 4 rounds. 1st round was a warmup and then the remaining rounds were an 18-minute add-em-up with an 8 minute max per round.

In the end, Ben Wilson was victorious by a hair over Tony Utley and Bruce Davidson. We had 8 guys show up to compete, and we’ll be adding more dates (hopefully one every two weeks) very soon.

You can check out the contests section of the site to take a look our club contests results and the new 2007 Mid-American Championship contest that we’ll be hosting in August.

The dates are January 14 2007 and February 11 2007.

Doors open at 12:30.

Although guys bring items to sell at most meetings we will have a swap meet scheduled for the February meeting.

We need as many members as possible in January to discuss special activities the comming season.

Last Sunday (December 17th), the LASS crew headed for the Frankfort Slope. A group of about 10 guys from around Kentucky, Ohio and even Tennessee sloped in light to moderate conditions. Tom Hill came up from Knoxville (I think) and brought along a bunch of DS machines. Dave Smith from Versailles cranked out his Halfpipe on the frontside and Gordy brought out his trusty RnR Synergy to rip some 3-meter DS laps. LASS’ own Tony Utley pushed the technological envelope with some aerial photography!

Speaking of photos, there are some photos here: 2006.12.17 – Frankfort!

Wanna know when we are going to the slope the next time? Join our email mailing list!

As a way of catching up let me start with some of the more recent activities and go backwards in time. As of today (11/26/06) our own Gordy has completed his LSF level 5 contest wins. The well traveled Gordy got both of his last two wins flying in the Tangerine soaring contest in Florida over Thanksgiving weekend. He took first both days flying in unlimited class. Congratulations go out to Gordy for completing what is to most people the hardest task toward achieving Level 5.

Gordy got his wins the same weekend the rest of the club stayed home and flew in the dark in our annual “UFOs over J-Town”. We had seven pilots meet in the dark at Vettner. Three pilots were from the Lexington club just to prove the Louisville guys are not the only ones that are a little unscrewed at the socket.

Using a short winch line there were a lot of flights made. Most successfully! I am not going to single anyone out but there were several “strong” landings and one brush with a tree plus several electric flights for a little variety. Note do NOT bring your best plane to one of these.

During the evening someone (hard to tell who in the dark) gave a new meaning to the letters UFO. They now stand for Unlighted Flying Objects. Our own Ben Wilson was the exception. For less than $5 Ben had purchased a battery powered set of LED Christmas lights. The low power consumption of these LEDs worked very well in the dark. The 25 light string allowed Ben to run the lights down the wing, along the fuselage to the tail, back up the fuselage, and on out to the tip of the other wing. There were people stopping their cars as they drove through the park just to see what this object was in the air. I must say the lights were VERY bright. After this success expect to see more of these LED lights at our next night fly. When we were done flying we retired in mass to eat Mexican in J-town.

Backing up further in time to the first weekend in November, Cincinnati hosted their annual Pumpkin Fly. Some conflicts and other issues caused the club to push back the contest into November, instead of the usual October dates. Driving up on Saturday morning Lee and I were in and out of light rain, fog, and a cold wind. Now Lee only needs two more point scoring contest to complete his LSF level 2. Driving up in that weather I just did not have the heart to freeze my tail off to fly in a contest that day. So before we got to our exit I had decided to continue on to Wright Patterson AFB and visit the Air Force Museum. A place Lee has never seen before.

If you have never made the trip to Wright Patterson and toured the museum you are missing one of the best aviation historical sites in the country. There is so much to see you can not do it justice in one full day. We did try though.

Sunday’s weather forecast showed promise of some improvement. It was still cold but the rain was gone. Local LASS flyers there to fly were Lee, Gordy, Ben, myself, and Bruce Davidson.

The trio of Ben, Gordy, and Bruce stayed in the leader group all day while I staked out a spot in the next group just lurking a spot or two below the leader board. Lee was struggling with flight times with his Olympic 2. Switching to his 2-meter Sagitta about half way through the day Lee began to put in some maxes and finished strong.

It was so tight between pilots on the leader board that if anyone could break away and max out over the other pilots in the group they would likely win. As it was that is what did happen. I had maxed out my group before the leading group flew sitting myself in a position to move up in case one of the leaders stumbled in the last group. Mark Gellart launched and turned downwind and went for broke after a thermal that my group had worked earlier. Everyone else went looking upwind for new air. It was not there. At four minutes several pilots were looking for the landing zone. Finally it was Mark, the only plane in the air, putting a major hurt on all the leaders. When it was done Mark had won. Gordy was second. I moved from 8 place to third just beating Ben by 10 points who got 4th. The loser here was Bruce who fell from second to 9th.

Note awards went to 5th place and LASS flyers took second thru fourth. Not a bad weekend.

The annual LASS Night Fly went down on Saturday evening with a group of guys from the Bluegrass Soaring Society showing up and strapping glow-sticks to sacrificial planes.

Photos were taken: 2006.11.25 – LASS Night Fly!

We had a good day of flying here in Louisville yesterday (Sunday) and we met some new folks, helped out a few more and managed to meet some LSF goals! All together a good day of fall flight. Read on for more!

I showed up the field yesterday (Sunday) on what one might consider our real first “fall” day. I figure it’s officially fall when either I have
to wear long sleeves to the field, you can call it “Fall”.

I noticed some electric stuff flying around the field, and upon further
inspection, I noticed it was one of those foam-core profile “3D” planes.
It was doing loops and rolls, level inverted flight, flat spins,
knife-edge stuff, the whole kit. I figured we must have pulled in one
of the acro guys from the the gas club from the North side of town.
Searching the field, I was surprised to see our own “little” Lee
Atchison tearing up the sky with this plane that I’d never seen him fly
before. 10 years old and putting us all to shame! He’s told me before
that he uses RC flight sims quite a bit, and based on what I saw at the
field, I’d have to believe him. Amazing stuff.

Lee left the wings to his Sagitta 600 at home (Lee is known for being a
little forgetful when it comes to that stuff – then again, I’ve seen
Gordy drive home to get his wing bolts on occassion), so Ed decided that
he’d let Lee try his Soprano RES. Lee was admittedly a bit afraid of
such a big plane, being that his Oly II is the biggest thing he’s flown,
but Ed knew he could handle it. Ed threw it the first time for him, and
Lee guided it up the line – and picked up an 18 minute flight! That
fulfilled his LSF Level II thermal duration requirements, and he even
picked up a handful of landings, the last of which was 18″ from the nail.

Lee also has been doing his part to spread the soaring word, and brought
along a buddy of his (“Jake”) who is just itching to get a plane in the
air. President Ed is putting the finishing touches on a ship for him.
We’ve also had quite a few folks stop by the field with their kiddos,
and President Ed helped a guy and his kid tweak a HobbyZone parkflyer
into shape.

Meanwhile, I was scratching lift here and there, looking to maybe, just
maybe get a goal and return in. Ed predicted a “noon balloon”, and by
the 30-40 degree temperature differential, I concurred. However, things
remained a bit overcast and it never developed into booming skies. It
*did* remain effervescent near the ground – I had a handful of saves
with my DLG and with my EZBD that turned out to be good, workable
thermals. What I wanted to make Dave Register proud and do a
goal-and-return with my XP-3.5 handlaunch glider, it’s batteries were
down and I decided to switch to my other favorite Polecat product, the
EZ Bubble Dancer. Despite the fact that my EZBD #1 has been smashed
into the earth at Mach 1 (estimated) and spent 3 hours in a tree and was
beaten with sticks, I had taped and glued it back together for the World
Soaring Masters as a backup. It’s got “character” now, and still
launches and flies like a champ.

Tony, our club Jeep-driver and I pored over the street map and worked
out a few possible courses based upon wind-vectors. I kept getting into
lift, but it was so wide and soft that I didn’t think I was going to get
high enough – but Tony wouldn’t let it rest! Finally I summed up my
courage and Tony opened the Jeep door and I climbed in.

Kentucky, for those of you who haven’t been here, is a predominantly
hilly state with plenty of stately oak and maple trees. That certainly
makes cross-country a bit of a challenge, especially when rolling along
the tree-lined streets of elder suburbia – which is where the LASS
flying field sits. We drove about a 1/4 of a mile to the entrance of
the park in a clearning and sat there for a bit while I gained a little
more altitude. Did I mention also that our park is in a hole? That
complicates factors a little, too, and I wanted to get all the altitude
I could before pushing my EZBD over a fairly steep treeline and onto the
course.

The course was a fairly straight shot of 1.25 miles through residential
streets, often covered near-completely with trees. Tony let me know
when my view was about to obscured, and I made sure to “trust the plane”
while he gunned the Jeep under the obstructions. We made it to the
goal – a cul-de-sac, and turned around. Feeling elated to be heading
back downhill, we even had time to explain to the lady in her front yard
just what in the hell we were up to. Giving the EZBD just a hair of
down-elevator, I told Tony to “hit it” and we sped back to the field.

We had to cross a fairly busy stretch of two-lane to get back into the
park, so that was a little tense as Tony had to wait for the cars to
pass, but I had to keep the EZBD going for broke to get back to the
field. Much to my surprise, when we entered the park, I had plenty of
altitude! We made a run towards the rear end of the park, just to make
sure we went past our goal distance. Only when we were back in the park
did I start to lose altitude – not that it mattered! I had still made
my goal and return! I landed inside the 656 feet prescribed by the LSF
voucher, and walked her back to the winch.

We re-checked our distances, did the customary LSF voucher language
dissection and determined that everything was kosher. Tony signed on
the X — and I had completed my LSF Level IV requirements! Awesome! I was a happy man, and it was a fitting end to a great season.

Taking a look at my sheet, I remembered the contests, flights and the people that I flew with and helped me achieve this. President Ed pledged to help me “become the second Level V in Kentucky – both of them named Wilson”, so sorry Gordy! Hah! Actually Gordy called me today to tell me that he has been inspired by his RES win at the TNT to get back on the LSF Level V horse, so maybe that *won’t* happen. In any case, it’ll be a good time spent flying and pushing limits that otherwise might not be.

All things considered, it was a good day to fly in Louisville. Thought I’d let y’all know

A few photos here:
2006.10.15 – Sunday Flying