Well we finally got to hold our annual fall aerotow event. This years event was held at the Pomona Valley Flying Club field at Prado Regional Park which is located in the vicinity of Chino California. We have had several different locations in the past, and we think this will be the permanent home of our event. Last years event was held in the high desert near Apple Valley. Due to the fickle nature of the winds in the desert, we went looking for a new location that had predictable weather patterns so pilots arriving from out of town would not be disappointed. Back in February, we held a small makeup event at the Harbor Soaring Society field located in Costa Mesa, Ca. At this meet, we met Paul Kopp who happens to be president of the Chino club. Paul ,as well as his club, fly a lot of giant scale aerobatic machines. Paul expressed an interest in scale gliders, he even showed up with a 1/4 scale ASW-24 he was finishing. After much dialogue, Paul expressed an interest in possibly hosting our aerotow at the Chino flying site. To make a long story short, we were approved to hold our event at Chino. ( I understand Paul is working on a story of how the event was setup, with considering that Chino is in FAA controlled airspace, I will let him go into detail about that!).
We settled on the date of September 21st, 22nd, and 23rd with the 21st being a sort of fun, get acquainted with the field day. Like I said, Chino is a powered aircraft club, and has a wonderful facility. Paved 800 foot runway, safety fence, dedicated pit area, and ample parking, and NO obstructions! They do have a 400 foot ceiling which was lifted to 1500 feet for the 3 days of our event Everything looked good leading up to the event, our notices went to all the hobby shops, clubs, etc. The September 11th terrorist attacks changed everything. Since we had gotten an FAA waver, we were informed we were under their jurisdiction and we could not fly. I will not get into the details of what happened afterwards, but the we were able to reschedule the event to October 26th, 27th, and 28th On Friday the 26th, I got to the field around 10:00 am to get setup. Steve Dentz from Seattle, Fred China from Vancouver B.C. Canada, and Tony Elliot from Sacramento had just arrived and all seemed pleased with the Chino field. Several other familiar faces were arriving at the same time. I was busy assembling my new Bruckmann 1/3.5 scale Piper Pawnee I recently acquired, built by John Derstine. It was to be a backup tow plane to the ISSA club Pegasus which has proven to be real workhorse! ( A fine design complements of John Derstine!). The other tow planes were Tony Elliot’s Pegasus with a large 3W twin for power, and Mike Lance brought his gorgeous Pegasus with a customized Brison twin by Kenny Laskey. Fridays weather turned out perfect, with the high temp probably about 78 degrees, with smooth lift and very little wind. About 15 pilots enjoyed the flying and socializing. I didn't attend, but I heard that there was a good time by all at the restaurant that many of the pilots attended that evening. Chino is in close proximity to several nice hotels and restaurants, unlike the desert which was very limited in that regard. Saturdays main event brought more people and pilots. It is a neat trend to see the paths of our hobby coming together, there were many power guys that had not been exposed to our large scale gliders, and I of all people, now own not one but two power planes! I expect next year we will see the same guys not watching but flying their own large scale gliders! In between the fun fly format of the weekend, we added a little competition for those who were inclined. We had a scale flying routine and static judging. The flying portion consisted of a scale like tow, the objective to fly smooth with no abrupt maneuvers. After release, 2 thermal turns, straight and level flight and a smooth scale like landing were performed. Three judges were assigned to monitor the flight. Static was next, with several criteria for judges to consider. This is where it pays to have your documentation available, an otherwise gorgeous model can be heavenly penalized for not being accompanied by photos and three views. Dave Sanders of Dave’s Aircraft Works was kind enough to donate his time and hand made our scale awards. Rick Briggs with his Schueler ASH-26 took first in modern, one and a half points in front of Tony Elliot’s monster scratch built SB-10. Steve Addis was third with his Roedel ASK-21. Fred China took first with another 1/4 scale masterpiece, the Nemere. Second was Mark Foster with his huge Tom Augustine scratch built T-21B and third was Cris Pratt with his KA6E. Many long flights were enjoyed by all on Saturday, and Steve Dentz got to tow with my Pawnee while we refueled and charged the Pegasus. Saturday night, many of the pilots got together for dinner again, and Tony Elliot is rapidly tuning into a legend! You really need to experience an evening with him! Sunday we all came back for more, the weather continued to be ideal for flying, considering it was almost November. The two ASH-25s in attendance seemed to have some bad luck, nothing terminal. All in all, everybody seemed to have a good time flying throughout the weekend, and I cannot say enough thanks to the pilots who generously provided their tow planes and the towing all weekend! Without them, it would be like a thermal duration contest without winches! Thanks again to Steve, Tony, Paul, and Mike. For the icing on the cake, we had a great number of raffle prizes to give away. Hobby People donated a small glider and a radio as a spectator prize. Paul Kopp was instrumental in getting many many retailers and manufacturers to donate raffle prizes for the pilots only raffle. Special thanks to Airtronics for donating the RD-6000 radio and the certificates. Mark Foster had some connections for prizes also. And a very special thanks to Raul Blacksten of the Vintage Sailplane Association for donating the new Martin Simons book, "Sailplanes" to the lucky winner of our special tow pilots award, Mike Lance. I hope to continue to give something special to the tow pilots for their time and expensive tow planes. So if you didn't attend this time, try not to miss next year. It should be sometime late September. And with the Visalia soaring club coming on board with an aerotow event, we hope to see many new pilots enjoying the pleasures of aero towing |
