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Gimli Model Air Fest remains a huge hit


By Roger Newman
Friday August 25, 2006


Organizer Jeff Esslinger flies the B-57 bomber.

ROGER NEWMAN
Interlake Spectator — Gimli’s model aircraft show gets bigger and bigger.
Despite high winds, more than 1,500 people attended the third annual Model Air Fest last weekend in a farm field on PR 231. west of Hwy. 8.
“This is the largest show we’ve had,” enthused show organizer Jeff Esslinger, regional director for the Model Aircraft Association of Canada. “Besides the big crowd, we attracted approximately 100 pilots from Winnipeg, Brandon, Kenora, Dryden, Yorkton, Swift Current and other places in Saskatchewan.”
Esslinger said the ferocious wind grounded some of the heavier and more exotic models like a “flying lawnmower” and a “flying witch”. Still, spectators sitting in their lawn chairs were able to view a stunning display of model flying by the owners of everything from replica military aircraft, jets and turbo props to float and vintage planes.
Esslinger himself was at the remote controls of a B-47 bomber, while Horace Smaczylo and Mike Connellan, both from Winnipeg, displayed their respective skills in flying CF-15 and CF-18 fighter planes.
Smaczylo said some pilots spend as much as $13,000 on their models. “My new engine in the C-15 cost $3,700,” he added.
The vintage period was covered by pilots such as Earl Patterson of Brandon who flew a “Great Lakes Special”, a scale model of an aerobatics plane from the 1950s.
“This is the second time I’ve flown at the Gimli model show,” Patterson said. “It’s a great setting in a nice town by the lake.”
The overwhelmingly positive response from pilots, fans and volunteers is prompting the sponsor -- the Gimli Tourist Board -- to move the show to a larger site. Next year both the Saturday fun fly and the Sunday flying displays by experts will be held at Gimli Airport.