Event Coverage by Ken Isaac {
RCKen } & Mike Buzzeo {
Minnflyer }
October is the month for ghosts, goblins, and
monsters. But in Central Florida the monsters are
planes. Big Planes. I mean REALLY big planes. Frank
Tiano (of Top Gun fame) has put together a new event
that focuses on the bigger planes in our hobby. So just
what makes a plane a monster? In order to enter in to
Monster Planes the plane needs to be at least 35 pounds
in weight, with no upper limit to how big it can be. So
with those numbers in mind you can imagine that there
are going to be a lot of REALLY big planes. And when we
arrived at the event I can tell you that is exactly what
we found, a LOT of really big radio controlled
airplanes!!
With this being a
new event there are a lot of people that are asking what
Monster Planes is all about. I spent a few minutes with
Frank to find out what Monster Planes was all about. His
answer was immediate as he looked at me and said that
it's time to show the world that big planes can be flown
safely. Current restrictions on the weight of planes
comes from times past when building materials weren't as
good as they are now, and these restrictions were put in
place for safety reasons. These restrictions are now
outdated and we want to show the world that big planes
are just as safe as smaller ones. Monster Planes was
designed specifically to showcase those big planes and
show the world that there is nothing unsafe about them
at all.
Here are Frank's own words on the event:
"The
idea was to start an event for model aircraft that
perhaps would not be allowed to fly at normal AMA
sanctioned events without first obtaining a special
"waiver". Several modelers from Europe promised to
attend, but the shipping company dropped the ball and
did not deliver the container to be loaded in a timely
manner. So the really, really large RC Models never made
it. However, of the 103 airplanes that did show up,
approximately 17 were quite huge, weighing over 55
pounds.
Most important to me was to rekindle some sort of
"spark" in those who can still build, but stopped, for
one reason or another. And I think we did a good job of
doing that. I?m guessing that at least 3 dozen men
approached me and told me that this event inspired them
to get back to building some large model they gave up on
years ago. Some that come to mind are "blow-ups" of Don
Smith's A-26 and Tiger Cat, Ziroli's Skyraider and
several B-25s, B-26s, B-17s and B-29s.
Getting back to the event itself, I think we proved that
large models can be flown safely and for the most part
are flown safely. Many models were looked over carefully
before allowing them to fly and all appeared to have
heavy duty electronics and hardware. And installation of
that hardware was in line with the way it should be
done. The general opinion of the pilots present was that
the event would grow, probably pretty quickly, because
of the lay back atmosphere and great flying site.
Overall spectator attendance was just under 3,000. I am
expecting that number will grow as well.
Interesting fact: All radios except for about 15 were on
2.4
Frank"
As Mike and I arrived at the Monster Planes event we
really didn't have any idea what to expect as this was
the first year for the event. Monster Planes was held at
the Lake Wales, Florida municipal airport, and I will be
the first to say that Frank did an outstanding job of
coordinating an event such as this so on an active full
scale airport. Monster Planes was located on an unused
portion of the airport that kept it out of the way of
the active runway.
In the past most of Frank Tiano's
events are competitions, with
Top Gun and
Florida Jets being two prime examples. So we were
really expecting to see this as a competition. Arriving
at Monster Planes we discovered that this was not the
case. While there were awards given out, they weren't
the main focus of the event. For the most part this
event was simply a Fly-in, with it's focus being
promoting large size planes. This led to a great
friendly atmosphere throughout the event. Everybody here
was having fun, and it showed in the flying. From the
start to the finish of each day there skies were almost
constantly filled with planes flying. And the
approximately 3,000 spectators that showed up to watch
the event were treated to some great flying!!
As Frank said in his goals for this event, he wants
to show the world that it's safe to fly large scale
planes. Of note on this is that this event was held
without participation from the AMA. Frank spent a lot of
time and effort to make sure that the event was covered
for insurance purposes, and was conducted safely. In
fact, with the exception of the weight limits most of
the rest of the event was conducted using safety
guidelines from the AMA. One of Frank's goals with this
event is to get the AMA to reconsider it's weight limits
for planes.
While this was just it's first year, I will say that
Monster Planes had all the "spit and polish" of any
other show in the country. Frank Tiano sure knows how to
put on an event, and how to please the crowds. His goals
are to make this a yearly event that grows each year. If
the success of the first year are any indications I have
no doubt that this will become the premier big scale
event in the country! I know that I will be back next
for Monster Planes.
Every event has them, it's hard to fly
planes without having some incidents. There were a few
minor incidents below with things like a wheel coming
off or the plane flipping over at the end of it taxi out
from landing. And while the even was handled and
conducted in a very safe manor, there was one event that
I would like to comment on in order to do some rumor
control. If you look at the first 7 pictures below you
will se a small sequence of what happened. Bob Levine
and his team had both of their A-10 Warthogs in the air
flying formation. At the same time another jet was
attempting to land with on one of the main landing gear
not down. When the plane touched the runway it
carwheeled a bit and then slid off the runway in to the
construction fence of the pilot stations. Unfortunately
it hit right where Bob Levine was standing causing him
to lose his balance as he tried to get out of the way.
This caused him to lose control of his A-10 which did a
full power dive into the ground on the other side of the
runway. As you can see below, the A-10 was completely
destroyed. Fortunately nobody was hurt in the incident.
While all the pilots, builders, owners, and planes that
attended Monster Planes are winners, there were some
that stood out from the rest. Frank and his team
recognize those winners:
heh, talk about making it safe ?? guy is taken out by jet and blows up his big jet.... i wonder what would happen if instead of jet it was a big 30" prop.... where are the spotters ??
Hey guys its Ross from monsterplanes. Two days ago we lost a very good friend who brought giant scale to the U.S. He was like my grandpa Jim Messer. He past away with cancer and the cancer was in every part of his body and the doctor said he had only 2 days to live. He had one hell of a life. His plane was the red stinson on monsterplanes. IN MEMORY OF JIM MESSER
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"The
idea was to start an event for model aircraft that
perhaps would not be allowed to fly at normal AMA
sanctioned events without first obtaining a special
"waiver". Several modelers from Europe promised to
attend, but the shipping company dropped the ball and
did not deliver the container to be loaded in a timely
manner. So the really, really large RC Models never made
it. However, of the 103 airplanes that did show up,
approximately 17 were quite huge, weighing over 55
pounds.
