Bartman
Defender of the Noob!
I arrived at the site last night a little after 7 PM and it was a gorgeous night with a lot of folks taking advantage of clear skies to do some night flying. the guys from my local flying field had invited me to join them for dinner so I found my friend Scott, got settled in and then joined up with the guys from the Round Valley RC Club for a warm meal.
After two beautiful days (Thursday and Friday), Saturday (today) was noteworthy in that it didn't stop raining for almost four hours through the middle of the day. Flying started early but was quickly slowed by on again off again rain that started around 9 am. By about 10:30 it was steady. Bust you say? Hardly! The vendor tents were very busy keeping people dry and offering lots to buy throughout the day. Finding a UMX Pitts S1 was difficult by 1 PM as they were a popular item. People were hanging out, working on planes, eating, generally having a good time despite the steady rain. Scott and I wandered around meeting up with people and taking photos.
A lot of us have the good fortune to fly in some very pretty spots around the world but the little valley where the NEAT fair is held is an absolutely beautiful location for an event. It's a flat area rimmed by ridges on each side that are probably 300 to 400 ft high and the east branch of the Delaware river runs right along the camping area. I fell in love with the site and can't wait to get back next year with an airplane.
One person I spent some time with was Curtis from Easytiger Models. He's a good guy and had his 150" Lockheed Constellation on display. Any airline guy would love to have had some time in the front seat of a Constellation and I'm no exception so I sat there oogling it, thinking about the glory days of four round engines pulling people and machine through the air. It was his last one of that kit and it's been sold so I don't have to worry about him asking me to do a product review of it anytime soon! :winking-thumbs-up-s He's got a lot of other stuff and he's personally built and flown at least one of everything he sells which says a lot to me about him. I (almost)begged him to make a giant scale Grumman Duck and while he appreciated my enthusiasm he wouldn't commit. Who's with me here? Anybody up for a 150cc Grumman Duck ARF??
We then went over and hung out with the nice people from Hobbico. Dan Landis was one of the people at the tent and he showed me his custom weathered FW-190. I'm pretty sure it was a Top Flite ARF that started out all nice and shiny but you'll see in the photos he did a nice job of mucking it up to look more like what a front line fighter would have looked like midway through the war. He's going to come by the site sometime soon and explain how he went about weathering it.
HobbyKing had a double tent set up and had a lot of stuff on display. I give them credit as their Durafly line of foam planes has been getting increasingly better over the years and some of the ones I saw up close looked really nice! They were also happy to tell me that they've got an office out on Long Island (NY state, East of Manhattan for those of you that aren't familiar) with a staff of almost twenty people doing customer service for the US market. They're still getting the kinks worked out but the budget is there for whatever they need. I ragged on them a pretty good amount for being an impenetrable wall of pain for a lot of us that tried their stuff out over the years but the guy took my whining in stride and assured us that they're on it and striving to be a better participant in the community.
The volunteers were busy as always and the show manager was great about hooking up Scott and me up with press passes. Congrats to them for putting on a great event. Even with the rain, everyone was smiling and laughing. Sunday's weather is forecasted to be much better so have fun to those of you that will be there.
Bart
www.neatfair.org
www.easytigermodels.com
www.hobbico.com
www.hobbyking.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_J2F_Duck
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After two beautiful days (Thursday and Friday), Saturday (today) was noteworthy in that it didn't stop raining for almost four hours through the middle of the day. Flying started early but was quickly slowed by on again off again rain that started around 9 am. By about 10:30 it was steady. Bust you say? Hardly! The vendor tents were very busy keeping people dry and offering lots to buy throughout the day. Finding a UMX Pitts S1 was difficult by 1 PM as they were a popular item. People were hanging out, working on planes, eating, generally having a good time despite the steady rain. Scott and I wandered around meeting up with people and taking photos.
A lot of us have the good fortune to fly in some very pretty spots around the world but the little valley where the NEAT fair is held is an absolutely beautiful location for an event. It's a flat area rimmed by ridges on each side that are probably 300 to 400 ft high and the east branch of the Delaware river runs right along the camping area. I fell in love with the site and can't wait to get back next year with an airplane.
One person I spent some time with was Curtis from Easytiger Models. He's a good guy and had his 150" Lockheed Constellation on display. Any airline guy would love to have had some time in the front seat of a Constellation and I'm no exception so I sat there oogling it, thinking about the glory days of four round engines pulling people and machine through the air. It was his last one of that kit and it's been sold so I don't have to worry about him asking me to do a product review of it anytime soon! :winking-thumbs-up-s He's got a lot of other stuff and he's personally built and flown at least one of everything he sells which says a lot to me about him. I (almost)begged him to make a giant scale Grumman Duck and while he appreciated my enthusiasm he wouldn't commit. Who's with me here? Anybody up for a 150cc Grumman Duck ARF??
We then went over and hung out with the nice people from Hobbico. Dan Landis was one of the people at the tent and he showed me his custom weathered FW-190. I'm pretty sure it was a Top Flite ARF that started out all nice and shiny but you'll see in the photos he did a nice job of mucking it up to look more like what a front line fighter would have looked like midway through the war. He's going to come by the site sometime soon and explain how he went about weathering it.
HobbyKing had a double tent set up and had a lot of stuff on display. I give them credit as their Durafly line of foam planes has been getting increasingly better over the years and some of the ones I saw up close looked really nice! They were also happy to tell me that they've got an office out on Long Island (NY state, East of Manhattan for those of you that aren't familiar) with a staff of almost twenty people doing customer service for the US market. They're still getting the kinks worked out but the budget is there for whatever they need. I ragged on them a pretty good amount for being an impenetrable wall of pain for a lot of us that tried their stuff out over the years but the guy took my whining in stride and assured us that they're on it and striving to be a better participant in the community.
The volunteers were busy as always and the show manager was great about hooking up Scott and me up with press passes. Congrats to them for putting on a great event. Even with the rain, everyone was smiling and laughing. Sunday's weather is forecasted to be much better so have fun to those of you that will be there.
Bart
www.neatfair.org
www.easytigermodels.com
www.hobbico.com
www.hobbyking.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_J2F_Duck
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The rain must have fogged and smeared the lens 