New Year's Day Freeze Fly

[Chuck Baker]

It is our tradition to hold a Freeze Fly at the field on New Year's Day morning to see who can be the first to fly.

Remember that no glow/gas powered planes allowed prior to 8am, due to the noise.  Of course daylight doesn't arrive until 8:05 anyway.

Predicted weather conditions are a temp of 16 degrees with flurries and winds of 16 out of WNW.  So, you will want to dress warmly.

I'm planning to be there early. 
Hope to see you there!

[Chuck Baker]

Has anyone been out to the field lately?

Just curious what the road/field conditions are.

Thanks!
Chuck

[Chuck Baker]

There were four fearless, foolish, frigid flyers at the frozen field this frosty morning.  The cold temps had re-frozen the road and parking lot, so no problems getting to the field, other than the gate lock being frozen.

Jerry Sharp was the first to arrive, with his glow-powered Ultra Stik around 7:30am.  Dan Campbell was the next to arrive with a Lite Stik, but was unable to get a flight in because his equipment was too cold - he had kept it in the bed of the truck.  Chuck Baker arrived next with a Parkzone Radian and was readying it for flight when Bill Rugenstein showed up with an MS Composit Blade Dancer.

Chuck was the first to fly, barely, with Bill a very close second.  Bill was actually ready to go, but let Chuck have the first flight.  Dan got in a short hop with his plane, but the battery was still cold.  Bill had the first "crash" of the year when the motor popped off on "landing".  He mentioned that EPP gets brittle when it gets that cold.

Jerry got the first "real" (glow-powered) flight of the year as the fourth flyer.  It took a bit of coaxing to get the four-stroke engine to run, but it did finally fire up.  The cold temps adversely affected the trim of our planes - control rod shrinkage, but we managed to get them trimmed out without incident.

As soon as Jerry shut his down, we all posed for a picture and then decided it was time to go home and warm up.  Looking forward to many more flights this year, after it warms up a bit!