Models fly the skies

Last Saturday, March 2 was a beautiful day to go flying, so a group of men put skis on their planes and lifted off a field about eight miles east of Sisters for a short spin.

Without their feet leaving the ground.

These pilots fly radio-controlled model airplanes. And while one member said the group was made up of "a bunch of rascals playing with toys," these model aircraft represent a serious hobby for the 20 members of the Cascade Flyers.

After all, it can take hundreds of hours to build one of these airplanes.

Flyer Lynn Osborn pointed out that the builder of a radio-controlled airplane had to be fairly detail-oriented.

"Miss a few details and you end up with a pile of kindling," he said.

Still, builders vary in the amount of detail they are oriented toward. Osborn is one who likes competition, so he doesn't put a lot into the final finish of an "expendable" airplane that probably won't get through one complete racing season without crashing to the ground.

Other builders can lavish a couple years on exact flying replicas of full-sized aircraft, meticulously hand placing each rivet on their scale model where one existed on the original.

Then there are the pattern flyers, who like to do what Osborn described as an aerial ice ballet. Others still who fly radio controlled sailplanes and search for updrafts.

Osborn said that simpler models can be built in 30 to 40 hours. Most builders spend two or three hours at a time at the bench.

There is a wide variety of models available. The level of completeness varies from scratch built to complete, ready-to-fly racers. Hobbyists can spend $300 or ten times that amount.

Osborn estimated that about a third of the Cascade Flyers are certified or retired pilots. Their field, just east of Plainview, is a leased 66 acres off Highway 20. They don't usually use all of it, but sometimes signals get crossed, or a pilot suffers from "dumb thumb" and sends his plane careening out of control.

For more information in the Cascade Flyers, which Osborn said is not a club but a co-op of active members that shun politics, call Gordon Grubbs at 923-7671.