ZZ3Astro Senior Heliman Location: Panama City, Fl
| After nearly two years of KB'ing at the local plank club (including building and maintaining "their" website, sitting in the seat of secretary and treasurer for 14 months, helping out at field days and generally being courteous and not flying helis when it would be a problem to a planker) I have suddenly noticed a rift forming between "them" and the heli guys.
When I joined, I was the only heli pilot.. in the past year, two new heli guys have appeared and have recently become active. Another guy used to come out but disappeared six months ago while mumbling something about the attitude of the plank guys. I told him he was nuts..
Well, my term expired this month and I am now just a regular member (I do still maintain "their" web site"). I have noticed a change in the attitude of the guys I have come to know as my 'friends' in the past couple of years. The two new heli guys refuse to pull their raptors out of the car if anyone is at the field with planes. This weekend, I found out why....
I just got my 9C and other new toys after taking a three month sabbatical from helis. This weekend I finally got the heli ready to fly so I went out to the field.. I waited a while and the flight line dropped from four planes to two planes.. perfect for my first real flight in three months. I was already fueled and ready... out to the flight line I went, placing my heli on the edge of the runway and making sure I had the attention of the two pilots in the air. I spooled up and lifted off... before I was five feet up, a cap232 shoots under my heli in a takeoff roll! That was kinda close - maybe he didn't notice me.. I walked down the pilot line to the west end so I could get out of the main flight pattern and do some flips and more dialing in of my curves. Within about three minutes of flying, there were SIX planes in the air, four of those right in the area of my heli. I auto'd down, defueled and departed along with the two other heli guys who were just watching anyway. How things have changed at my beloved heli-friendly club. No, how about "how things have changed at THEIR beloved heli-friendly club" ?!
How does this relate to the topic of this thread? Well us heli guys have located an outlaw heli field in the form of a huge park. Fortunately the park is poorly signed and most people don't know about it. There are no houses in the area so the only kids you'll see are with their family. It's not as nice as having your own controlled field, but it's 100 times better than having to watch out for planks and dealing with what I have been seeing lately. This subject of park-fliers is a scary one though. Maybe NOT having a hobby shop within 75 miles is a good thing! I'll be sure to keep an eye out for them.
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