Breezy Hill Flyers participate in Fly-A-Thon

Planes fly in all kinds of weather, even the model ones.

The Breezy Hill R/C Flyers Club participated in the annual worldwide Ringmaster Fly-A-Thon on Oct. 1 at the Richard P. McClure Memorial R/C Flying Field.

Modelers from around the world fly Ringmaster models on the first weekend of October every year.

Chester's event got 25 flights in despite a steady morning drizzle, with four pilots participating.

"Kim Stricker initiated this thing for me," said Breezy Hill Safety Officer Bill Lang. "He said last year they had this Fly-A-Thon with the Ringmaster, which is what I've got, and he wanted to see if we would take part in it.

"I thought it would be something new for our club to get something different going and maybe new pilots and stuff."

The Fly-A-Thon was borne out of an idea by Las Vegas CL Speed pilot Joey Mathison, who thought it would be fun to have a fun-fly of Ringmaster model airplanes.

Mathison's suggestion was to see how many flights were made in a single weekend. In its inaugural year in 2008, 62 Control Line (CL) modelers put up 255 Ringmaster flights.

"The Brotherhood of Ring are the ones that started this and they thought it would be fun to see how many flights they could put in," Lang said. "So they put it on Facebook the first year and it just took off.

"Now, they've got different countries all over the world putting flights in. Last year, they got over 7,000 (flights) and their goal is over 8,000 and we're hoping we can contribute a little bit and make that goal happen."

Control Line flying is different than Radio Control, as the pilot flies the airplane with a line attached (almost like a leash).

"Control Line is operated with two lines," Lang said. "On the bigger ones, we use .018" and 0.15" woven steel cable and there's a bell crank on the bottom that works the elevator.

"That's the only moving control that we have."

Lang's Ringmaster is a S-1 model, which was first kitted by Sterling Models in 1950 and is the premier CL model in the U.S. and Canada.

Several companies still sell Ringmaster kits, but the S-1 models are extremely rare.

"I picked this one up in a swap meet in Columbia two years ago," Lang said. "It's powered by a Fox .35 Stunt engine, that's one of the most popular Control Line Stunt engines ever made.

"They've been out of production for awhile and they're hard to find."

Lang said his S-1 has been out of production for around 30 years.

"If you can find a kit, they're extremely rare," he said. "I found this one, it had never been flown. The guy built it and decided to sell it and I happened to be the lucky winner.

"I've flown it now for two years and haven't had any problems with it."

Any Ringmaster variant can be flown during the Fly-A-Thon, but only the S-1s are eligible for Old-Timer (OT) events.

Participants of the Fly-A-Thon must record the number of flights, number of pilots, location of the flights, and any solo flight by a new pilot using a Ringmaster.

A first solo flight is counted as two flights. That data is then to be emailed to a designated address by noon on the Tuesday following the event.

"Control Line flying became an extremely popular hobby following WWII," Stricker said. "Radio Control for hobby flying was in its infancy, and very expensive, along with having very poor reliability.

"Control Line flying typical uses two lines, string on smaller models and cables on the larger ones. The models usually fly without throttles, running until their fuel is depleted, then gliding in for a landing."

Up next for the Breezy Hill Flyers is the Frozen Finger Fly on Jan. 7.

"Our club will do anything we can to promote model aviation," Lang said. "Kinda get these kids off of video games and doing something constructive.

"It's a great hobby to share with dads, a father and son hobby. The biggest thrill in my life was teaching my dad how to fly R/C models and he was the one who taught me to fly Control Line."

Those interested in joining the Breezy Hill Flyers, or seeking more information on starting model aviation in general, can contact Lang at 618-826-2553.