darock

My greatest sadness since returning was to learn of Rolland McDonalds death a few years ago. A nicer man there never has been and I do miss him. Bob is still flying stunt actively, in fact he is Bill Werwage's coach. He is also president of the Signal Seakers RC Club (which he claims to be perenially stuck with) but they have a nice area for CL flying at the club there. A nice core of fliers thru expert level call it home. Frank Carslisle got the thing going at RCCD and I joined last month as well because the cl fliers have the old rc field as their own there. The contest I referred to with the combat also going on was at the Old Rouge Site that the Strathmore club flew from and in fact they were the hosting club!

I was there very early (like 7am) to get some practice in because in returning I have had to go thru 4 airplanes to get my pattern back (another wonderful use for ARF's) to the point where I am now done with that. I had just finished setting my plane off the circle when I look up to a mustacio'd head of curly white hair with a huge smile and grasping me in a huge bearhug and asking if I was serious enough to accept some suggestions. BIG ART has only changed in weight, he is now quite thin... but just a Big in his heart. His wife is quite ill and requires full time nursing care from him, but he "gets out" when he needs to and a contest by the Strathmore Club was one of those needs to. He still does mufflers and engines. He offered 2 suggestions that jumped my pattern 50 points. Still a great joy of a man! Denny does not fly now, Archie only occaisionally.

Frank Carslisle I mentioned earlier. He returned after probably almost as long away as myself. He is ever the promoter of anything Control Line. He is a Brodak Dealer and helps us with anything we need from them and is just returning coming back into his previous form. He has his first competative plane just finished... a 19 appearance point plane at his first contest with it!

I wish I knew all the others but being new I really don't alot of the names. John Paris flying Expert classes, Curt Nixon and Paul Smith in Advanced are some other names I know but they were not flying back when I was previously. In Flint, Michigan there is a very large core of fliers.

Bob McDonald is as creative as ever and just breathtaking to watch. He is markedly better than he was 20 years ago.... but you'd expect that from someone as much on the cutting edge as he and Rolland always were. He is just as generous as Rolland was with his help and advice. In all the South Eastern Michigan CL faternity is alive and very well due in large part to the generosity of the fliers involved.

Personally, I've gone thru a Brodak Oriental ARF (not a good plane for me, I only have flown modern planes), two Brodak Pathfinders, and a Brodak Vector 40, all ARF's. The Brodak 40 is a wonderful out of the box stunt motor. Doesn't even need any custom rework to work well, just about twice the breakin the manual recommends... but that could be me. The Brodak 40 in the Vector 40 is a very good combination. Superb flier that will definately take someone thru Advanced level stunt with teh Brodak .40. I have a second Brodak 40 ARF i have just finished that has an AeroTiger .36 in it and a non stock control system, more like what I used to fly with ei, fully adjustable system ala McDonald's. A full build Vector 40 will get the AeroTiger once I settle on the control system in this last ARF and get the fuel system worked out for the AeroTiger. The ARF will become my backup and the first V-40 will go to an upcoming intermediate flier as a gift at the end of the season. The Brodak is going into a Profile Pathfinder so that I have a Profile-40 class and classic class plane in one package. Its fun to be back. RC is fun. But even 3D is nothing like the juice I get from a horizontal square 8 with the bottoms at 4 ft. Now that's a rush! Its good to be back.

bob branch
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