So I took The Boy over to the annual airshow today. We only spent two and a half hours there but considering that the trip cost me all of $3 for parking, $5 for drinks for the two of us and another $5 at the end for a toy plane as a reward for good behavior, I think it was a decent way to spend the morning.
There were a lot of planes on display, and The Boy did a really good job waiting in line to check out the planes we could climb in to - he did much better than I would have expected a four year old to do…
I don’t have any pictures because The Wife took my camera with her to Alaska, and well she conveniently couldn’t find her camera before she left…
But while we were waiting to board an old Soviet built passenger plane there was a model airplane demonstration going on that was fascinating. One guy was flying an electric powered model of the Boeing 777 airliner, that was all well and good, except I’ve never seen (and don’t expect to ever see) a 777 flying upside down! Or for that matter doing barrel rolls!
There were several models of WWII vintage fighter jets that were just stunning in their detail - and sound. There was also a rather large - 5 and a half to 6 feet long- model of a stunt plane that was flying in circles balanced on it’s tail!
There other flying models that caught my eye were the helicopters. They didn’t appear to be detailed in any special way although they spent most of their flight time - upside down! The announcer was talking about how maneuverable the helicopters were, and that they were built so well that they could do maneuvers that real helicopters couldn’t… Actually I think the reason why real helicopters don’t do some of the stunts these models were doing is because a real pilot would have been smeared across the windscreen from the G forces being imparted on them. Besides the loops and rolls, these helicopters were flying balanced on their tails snapping back and forth as if on a rubber band. It’s impossible to describe how these things were flying, as I was standing there and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Model aircraft has always been something that has fascinated me. But the price and stress of owning and flying such impressive aircraft as these has always kept me out of the hobby. Some of these aircraft cost well over $1,000 and several hours to build - and the thought of trashing something like that thanks to a botched landing is just too much for me to handle….
