Boy Scouts Day at Eagle rated a major success

Says Charles Shafer and his crew, held Saturday October 23, 2010 at Eagle field.  The day started out a little questionable as the National Weather Service was issuing storm alerts all through west and south central Texas headed our way.  At 7:50 am Charles sent out his alert email the show was on.  So we loaded up as quickly as possible and headed out to the flying field.  Charles Shafer, Dr. Bruce, Greg Pulcini, Woody Woods Billy Slater and Jim Williams arrived first, followed by Ken Bill and Ed Nogar.  Charles quickly designated me as IT man so I was assigned to operate the flight simulator.  Charles and Woody would put on the presentation while Dr. Bruce and Ken Bill handled the food. 

The flight demos today were handled by Greg Pulcini and his turbine powered CARF Flash followed by Dave Steltz and the Extreme Flight Edge 540, Jim Phipps and his CARF Extra 330L followed by Billy Slater and the re-engine P51 and Woody Woods and his Top Flight Giant P-47.   The flight training was headed up by our legendary head trainer Jim Williams along with Woody Woods, Ed Nogar and Billy Slater, all handling the flight controls and buddy boxes.  

The scouts we hosted today were lead by head scout master Paul Hergert of BSA Troop 262 out of Flower Mound, Texas.  The presentation started at 10:05 am Charles had the scouts quickly take their seats and ground school began.  Charles and Woody gave the basics in aerodynamics of flight and the basic controls explanation on a 4 channel RC plane.  Next we had the basic explanation of helicopter flight and the comparison of the two.  Then we broke for basic buddy box flight instruction and flight simulator work.

I handled the flight simulator for the boys and while I was not on the flight line the scouts took to the flight simulator like a duck takes to water.  Most have Microsoft flight simulator or some other flight simulator at home on their own computers and some have played around with Real Flight down at the local hobby shop in Carrollton.  With that being said the boys really were quit good on the flight sim and most wanted to get better before they headed out to the flight line for one on one real flying. 

The lunch break was next with Dr. Bruce doing the honors along with Ken Bill as able assistant.  The boys enjoyed hot dogs, fixings, cold drinks and chips to go along with flying and Simulator work.  When everyone had at least two working on three hotdogs the chairs were pulled out and the boys sat down for the flight demonstrations put on by the club. 

Greg Pulcini and his CARF Flash were up first.  The Flash did exactly what it always does WOW the crowd and get their hearts pumping.  The boys were very vocal with excitement and Greg sure punched the NEED FOR SPEED button with the scouts.  Next up was Dave Steltz and the Extreme Flight composite Edge 540 and his new smoke system.  Followed by Jim Phipps and the re worked CARF Extra 330L his too with smoke. 

Billy Slater and the re engined P-51 powered now with a DLE-111 that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck when the 26x12 Zinger propeller went supersonic.  The scout master Paul Hergert asked me how he makes the plane do that.  Dave Schaeffer flew his TREX 600 performing low level aerobatics including inverted hovering, and Trevor Hendershott did some amazing aerobatics, considering the wind, with his Foamie Bi-plane.

A quick check of the ole smart phone let us know that our time was getting short, big storm clouds were bearing down on the field and we had to finish up the trainer session and the flight sims session.  Each Scout got to fly the simulator at least 10 times and a 5-6 minute turn on the buddy box before it was time to load up and head for the house.

Thanks to all the club members that participated in this event, thanks to the scouts of troop 262 for accepting our invitation to teach them more about aviation and hopefully we sparked some interest in aviation.

Johnny Snead