Maiden Flight Day

Today was the Winter Build Challenge (WBC) Maiden Flight day.

This is the eleven foot BTE Super Flyin' King and that is Tony walking towards it.

Barry is getting his planes inspected, not our Barry but one we met last year at the WBC when we were camping next to them. The first thing we did was register, then they had two safety inspection stations set to check all the planes before they were flown.  The inspectors were very friendly and polite when they told people what fixes needed to be done.  I never heard one person get upset about having to make a change.

Dale, one of the WBC entrants had passed away just last week.  He had finished his plane so the Sanderson Field club had a short memorial before the maiden flights began.  The club members prepared the plane and flew it for the family members in the picture.

Then they had all the WBC planes line up on the runway for a photo session.  That is Chuck one of the Lewis County club's members standing behind the two red and white planes that I flew for him during the maiden flights.

There is my Vortex in the middle of the lineup.

There was lots of different types of models flown today.

I also flew our friend Horty's Robinhood for him.  I gave him the kit last year and he built it for the WBC.  It looked great and flew fine.

I flew a little while after Horty and the Vortex flew great.  I did a few rolls and loops, then remembered I hadn't retracted the landing gear.  I retracted it and made one low fast pass and discovered it has a nice whistle when it is going fast.  Barry had came over from Olympia to watch so I had him video my flight and when Bruce Tharpe the designer of the Vortex stopped to look at it.

A little later I flew Chuck's two winter builds, one from last year and one from this year.

Before

After, this F-35 would not turn left after take off and ended up crashing out in the field.  It was the only crash of the planes doing their maiden flights.

Jody and Sharon did a great job of putting on the event.  I am really looking forward to next year's WBC.

After all the flights were done, they put the names in a hat and drew names, when your name was drawn you went back and picked the prize you wanted.

I was lucky enough to be the third or fourth one drawn and picked out this delta to build.

When you completed your maiden flight they gave you this coin.

During the closing ceremony they present a plaque like this to each person in the Winter Build Challenge.

The field was opened for any type of flying after that.  This fantastic turbine powered Hine helicopter was flown, it looked and sounded real.  Since Michelle's birthday pizza party was tomorrow we decided to leave rather than spend two nights like we had originally planned.  We had a nice drive back on our slow route and it felt great to sleep in our own bed.