At dawn Saturday morning April 30, 2011 it was cloudy, cold, and damp in Cumberland, Maryland. By 10:00 am, that had all changed and we were treated to a beautiful day on the mountain at the HighPoint Aviation airfield. As a test of concept, Dave Darr worked with his contacts at the AMA to invite surrounding clubs to an aerotowing clinic sponsored by RCAeroTowing.com. A hands-on, no cost experience was offered.
Thirty participants took part with pilots coming from Pittsburgh, New Stanton, and Uniontown, PA; Morgantown, WV; Oakland, Grantsville, Cumberland, and Frederick MD; and Leesburg, VA. Although all had a background in RC flying the breadth of experience ranged from novice to expert, and interest levels ranged from mild curiosity to seriously wanting to learn.
Brothers Neil and Paul (who is a full-scale sailplane instructor) had tried aerotowing without great success. Their real interest is scale aerotowing, but jumped at this opportunity to learn without laying out the big dollars that scale requires and risking the pain of failure. The RCAeroTowing.com team quickly had them on the sticks and flying routine circuits. Needless to say, they were elated to find that their dream is indeed achievable.
Next was the medical doctor from West Virginia University with a long record of RCC soaring accomplishment using winch, bungee, and SLS systems who wants to fly like the full-scale counterparts. Truth be told, most of us long to emulate full-scale, and aerotowing is the “holy grail.” After a short bit of instruction, we had him flying routine aerotow circuits and couldn’t help but notice the beaming look on his face.
Then there were the array of curious old timers, hotshot youngsters, and novices. Aerotowing represented a novelty to most of them. One young man (age twelve) did some of his first outdoor flying, and his first sailplane flight. Others found new skills and new challenges and a few, with only mild curiosity, departed with a burning passion to push the envelope. One such person waited nearly all day to make his first flight and then we could barely pry the transmitter out of his hands!
The Winner of the Easy Pro Glider
To complete this amazing day, the RCAeroTowing.com crew jumped in and built the Easy Glider Pro and let this young man have the thrill of making multiple solo flights with his very own sailplane! Only a lack of daylight could bring and end to this most successful first ever RCAeroTowing clinic as the last of us drove down the mountain with our headlights on to show the way.
