AMA Expo AAR

[Brenda]

Howdy Everyone,

Here is my recap of what I saw at the expo. Main room was full of toys (fomie and quad rotor). One room was nothing but stick and tissue ( I spent more time in there than any other). And yet another room was flight demo area. Not to mention the two small rooms of private sellers. I watched close at every place you could buy something. Kiddies where getting tiny quad rotor things as they where like $20 or less. I saw a handful of ARF foam birds sell. Balsa USA sold a bunch. Smith Brothers Hobbies sold a ton of balsa. Now...for the real kicker....the free flight guys in the stick and tissue room was PACKED FULL of parents and kids. Every single time I went near it and looked the flightline had 20 kids. Every build table was full. The folks selling the fomie stuff wouldn't give me the time of day (because I'm female or gay female one wonders), but the FF guys answered every question, showed me all sorts of nifty tricks and even flew a few NOCALS for me to watch. A million Guillows rubber ships where used there and I tell ya the kids loved it. MANY kids asked where to get kits, they where then directed to Smith Brothers as well as private sellers (who I went over and wiped out all the Comet things I could find). So stick and tissue is NOT dead NOR dieing but local hobby shops refuse to carry/deal with it for what ever reason they choose (at least here in South Bay).

Another notable group was Knights of the Round Circle. They had many C/L planes on display and at 2pm they had flight demo. The pilots where not trained stunt flyers but kids who wanted to try to fly. I jumped in on this and seemed to be the only adult flyer. Last time I flew C/L was in the 1970's. It all came back in a flash, this was the same group that was going to retrain me at narrows but expo worked just as well. Larry Reinger handed me the handle and walked away leaving me to do or die. The motor was controlled by remote and after a picture perfect take off and five or six laps the man on the motor control decided I knew what I was doing (little did he know I was shaking in my boots), he then slammed throttle full and that little bird went to what felt like mach 8. I went round and round for who knows how many times before cutting back power and settling in on main gear. It felt wonderful to fly again. And now that I have got that out of the way I feel better about taking out my Guillows Spitfire powered by a .061 for a few laps.

Big thanks to KittyFritters for helping stick and tissue GROW!!

Brenda

[scigs30]

I had fun in the freeflight area as well, and yes there were a couple of good booths but for the most part it almost appeared to be a toy Expo. I wish the AMA would get back to the roots of modeling and offer build demos and I would like to see more kit companies come back. I did by a Red Box Top Flite Piper Cub balsa RC kit for 40 bucks, should be a fun build.

[andywhitam]

You are lucky to live close enough to be able to attend the event. You talked about your 400 series spitfire doing a few laps. I assume you have one and it is set up for CL. I build a 400 series spitfire and set it up for rubber power but after having to poke 26 grams of weight in the nose to get it balanced, I do not have a lot of faith that it will fly. I have had great luck with the 900 series flying with rubber and some with the 500 series.

[Brenda]

You are lucky to live close enough to be able to attend the event. You talked about your 400 series spitfire doing a few laps. I assume you have one and it is set up for CL. I build a 400 series spitfire and set it up for rubber power but after having to poke 26 grams of weight in the nose to get it balanced, I do not have a lot of faith that it will fly. I have had great luck with the 900 series flying with rubber and some with the 500 series.

Back in the day I built one of each 400 series for C/L flying and they all worked rather well other than the FW190 as the nose was short. All flew great but the best flying one had to be the Bf-109. Very stable and rock solid. New kit you need to throw away the firewall and gear mount and make those parts out of ply.

[Mitch]

Thanks for the report Brenda. I was thinking about going but I was going back to sea. Maybe next year. As for the 400 Spit. I built one for rubber about 2 years ago. It struggled to fly for a few seconds. I have another kit and plan to build another. One really has to lighten up the structure for rubber power.
Mitch

[Brenda]

Thanks for the report Brenda. I was thinking about going but I was going back to sea. Maybe next year. As for the 400 Spit. I built one for rubber about 2 years ago. It struggled to fly for a few seconds. I have another kit and plan to build another. One really has to lighten up the structure for rubber power.
Mitch

Mitch was your ears burning? Few of us where talking about you and your wonderful craft!