Some of the lineup of planes at the Eugene Fun Fly on Feb. 19, as Floyd Carter's Wildman 60 flies with the Eugene airport tower in the background. Flying Lines photo.
Chilly weather but enthusiastic fliers greeted the first of three fun-fly days hosted jointly by the Eugene Prop Spinners, the Western Oregon Control-Line Flyers and The Evergreen Aero Modelers.
Fliers gathered at the Eugene Airport on a cold, cloudless, sunny Sunday, and did a lot of flying and a lot of "hangar flying," too. It was mildly breezy, but not enough to prevent flying; the biggest hazard for flying was the sun, dead downwind. At times there we up to three circles in use simultaneously.
Profile Cardinals were the most popular airplane, with three putting up flights. Bruce Hunt was down from Salem with his Profile Cardinal. Jerry Eichten rolled in from McMinnville with another Profile Cardinal. And local Eugene flier Tom Kopriva had his Profile Cardinal flying very well.
Floyd Carter got a maiden flight in on his Wildman 60 with the Anderson Spitfire .65 sparker. Floyd also flew his Larceny (a disguised Legacy).
Mike "ZZ" Hazel came off the farm to return to model airplane flying after a long layoff, putting up flights on John Thompson's Cierra and Bi-Slob.
Dave LaFever of Corvallis continued his comeback to model flying with an original stunt plane that suffered an unfortunate mishap, and a brand-new Northwest Sport Racer ready for shakedown.
Mel Marcum was the other Prop Spinner playing a major support role for the fun-fly and showing off several of his beautiful scale and stunt planes. Dave Shrum from Roseburg dropped in on his way home from Portland to visit. Dave and Frank Macy are producing some new American Junior vintage modeling products. Stay tuned for a report on that topic.
It was a fine flying day and a great start to the season.
Next up in the trio of Oregon Winter Flying Fun is the March 18 fun-fly in Salem, followed by the McMinnville fun-fly on April 9. For more information on those and a link to the flyer pdf, see Where the Action Is.
More fun-fly photos:
Mike Hazel (left) and Jerry Eichten quickly learned how to wow the crowd with hovering and other exotic maneuvers, while flying John Thompson's Fox .35-powered Bi-Slob, shown below in close-up with Mike at the controls. FL photos.
This page was upated April 13, 2006