Hopes soar during Scale Classic 2022 competition
CLAY TWP — The sky above the Bruner-Waite Airfield was full of aviation legends Saturday.
Radio-controlled scale-model World War II fighters, World War I biplanes and Cold War-era jets took to the air to be judged on their aerial maneuvers.
It was the flying competition on the second day of the National Association of Scale Aeromodelers’ 2022 Scale Classic at the host club Butler Aircraft Modelers Society’s field in the Sylvania Conservation Area.
Butler society member Ron Hemphill said the three-day event began Friday with practice flying and static judging. Saturday was for the flying competition and Sunday would be for final competition rounds of the flying competition, if needed, and trophy presentations.
The association’s secretary, Gerry Garing of Schenectedy, N.Y., who was serving as contest director, said 15 competitors from six states were competing in categories such as free scale novice for beginners up to team scale in which a pilot flies a builder’s aircraft.
“The Scale Classic is the culmination of a series of regional event qualifications,” Garing said. “You have to be qualified to be invited here. It’s a championship.”
The weekend’s event was a homecoming for Garing, who used to live in Butler County and belonged to the Butler group before moving away in 1982.
Garing has been flying radio-controlled aircraft for 45 years.
“I like the challenge of building something unique and the challenge of flying it realistically,” he said.
Hemphill said those flying in the scale team competition Saturday were in two-person teams, a pilot and a spotter.
While the pilot flies the plane with his radio controller, Hemphill said, “The spotter makes sure what maneuver is coming next and makes sure there are no midair collisions.”
Judges rate the team on takeoffs and landings and various maneuvers in between such as loops, rolls and horizontal figure eights.
Hal Jones of State College, who drove down with four fellow members of the State College Radio Control Club, said the contestants are also judged on how well their scale-model aircraft replicates their real life counterparts.
“They have to copy as close as you can make it,” Jones said. “The planes will have rivets and cockpits with detailed instrument panels. Biplanes will have all the flying wires. You are trying to copy a full-scale as much as possible.”
Jones, who said he was just “an intense observer” at Saturday’s competition, said he has been flying radio-controlled models since 1981.
“I don’t like it, I love it,” he said.
Carl Handley of Columbus, Ohio, vice president of the Westerville Aeromodelers Association, said he put his P-40 Warhawk scale model into a tree Friday night during a practice flight. It was still there Saturday morning.
He chalked it up to bad luck and hoped to get it out of the tree so he could salvage the engine and be able to build another airplane around it.
He had entered a P-47 Thunderbolt into the team scale competition Saturday with Steve Eagle as the pilot. Eagle and Handley had met at previous competitions.
Eagle said his wife, Trish, was his spotter. It is unusual to have a husband-and-wife spotter team, he said, but they had been doing it for 20 years.
“I wanted to get her involved. We’re really quite good together. It’s brought us closer,” Eagle said.
Handley said it took him two and a half years to build the Thunderbolt and then he turned it over to Eagle to get familiar with it.
Eagle said he flew the scale model for at least 100 hours to get ready.
“The airplane, it’s beautiful. It doesn’t have any bad habits. It characteristics are good for the contest because it doesn’t have any bad characteristics,” Eagle said.
Unfortunately, a rough landing had left the Thunderbolt with a loose muffler and a cracked wing.
Garing said, mishaps aside, the event was running smoothly.
“The meet’s running fine, running like clockwork. The host club is doing a good job,” he said.
Spectator Ron Muhlenkamp, of Penn Township, was taking in the show Saturday while waiting for his grandson, Nate Miller, a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University, to join him.
“I’m impressed with the planes and the pilots. I saw their booth (Butler Aircraft Modelers Society) at the (Butler) Farm Show, and today fit the schedule,” Muhlenkamp said. “There’s a lot of amazing planes and pilots. They have a nice venue here and a great day for it.”
Hemphill said the Scale Classic marked the end of organized events for this year, although society members would still come to the air field to enjoy their hobby.
For more information about the Butler Aircraft Modelers Society, visit thebams.net
