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Model Club Teaches How To Pilot Tiny Planes

Jesse Osbourne/Highlands Today

Doug Martin prepares his airplane for flight Saturday morning at the Lake Placid Aeromodelers air show. “Sometimes Snoopy gets a wild hair and turns around backwards so he can watch his tail,” Martin said.

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By Gary Pinnell | Highlands Today

Published: November 20, 2007

LAKE PLACID — The plane takes off with a buzz, and immediately climbs nearly straight up. Sergio Sofo is at the controls of a Banshee 3D.

What kind of plane is that?

"It's an extreme aerobatics model," explains Brian Miller, vice president of the Lake Placid Aeromodelers. "It does things a plane shouldn't be able to do."

One reason why: it has a two-cylinder, 100cc engine, like a small motorcycle. But it's so light, the owner can hold it in one hand. There's a 2:1 power-to-weight ratio, Miller said, which is why it can thrust into a nearly vertical takeoff.

A few minutes into the flight, Sofo put the plane into a Lomcevak, a quadruple, wing-over-wing, tail-over-head somersault that looked like it was in trouble and crashing to the earth. Then, about 100 feet from real peril, the Banshee sprang to life and flew off horizontally.

The club put on an exhibition of radio-controlled model aircraft on Saturday morning, and invited the public. Miller estimated about 100 people came. That included members, who brought five dozen planes that they showed off.

One was a $4,000 Yak, a model with a 100-inch wingspan that is 35 percent the size of the original. There was another, a red and white that looked like the equivalent of a '57 Chevy. Even people who know nothing about planes realize it's a classic.

The gasoline engines sound like a buzz-saw, but some run noiselessly on electricity, like R.L. Geiger's red and yellow Canard. The model is controlled by an old computer which Geiger liberated, but the plane is the new technology of the model airplane world, with stubby wings in the nose and longer ones at the sides. It can probably fly at 30 mph, Geiger said. Some models top 60 mph, Geiger and Miller agreed.

Geiger also has a stealth camera plane. After its flight, he can download the images.

Sometimes, the models fly so high against the sky they are lost by the eye. Ever really lose one?

"Yeah," Miller chuckled. "A couple of months ago, one of our members lost one over there by the radio tower," he said, pointing west. "Never did find it."

Next up, Sofo has a helicopter too. "This thing does things a helicopter shouldn't be able to do," Miller said.

You Can Fly Too

Miller wants the public to know they can fly too. Planes sell as cheaply as $300; one motorless white bi-plane with green and blue stripes had a $110 price tag on it Saturday.

Some members buy planes already assembled, others buy "a box of sticks," Miller said, and assemble the model themselves.

In the bed of a pickup is a P-51 Mustang, a beefy, silver warplane with wide wings which helped win World War II. It's selling today for $1,000.

Members of the club are at their field – on Placid Lakes Road between Lake Placid and S.R. 70, nearly every morning, Miller said. On most days, there's an instructor who will teach beginners how to fly the club plane.

"He won't let you crash," Miller promised. Like a driver's education car, the club's model has dual controls. If a crash seems eminent, the instructor locks out the student and takes over.

More information: Don Bortz, treasurer, 699-2110.

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