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Wingin’ It

The 20-mile an hour northerly winds on Sunday, June 8, may have kept some pilots away, but the Bay Flyers put on quite an aerial display anyway at its first of four public flying exhibitions of radio-controlled aircraft planned for this summer at its airfield behind the Peninsular Agricultural Station just north of Sturgeon Bay on Hwy 42.

“If you really want to enjoy this hobby, you have to adapt and move with the flow as far as the wind and the weather goes,” said club President Joe Little.

Individual aircraft would take to the sky, and soon another would be up, chasing the first one, but not before performing a breathtaking stunt as if to declare its unbridled independence.

“They’re really holding back today because of the wind,” Little said. “A lot of people say, they’re toys. No, they’re not toys. If you took a regular airplane and shrunk it down, that’s exactly what you’ve got, the same as its full-size counterpart. These are not toys. Open it up and they’ll hit 70 to 80 miles an hour. It’s definitely something you have to respect.”

That’s why pilots who fly on the Bay Flyers’ grass airfield must be Academy of Model Aeronautics members – for the insurance members carry by being part of the organization.

Despite Little’s comment that the pilots are holding back, it doesn’t seem that way. The airplanes seem to be flying hard, and Jim Doumouras, club safety officer, has the skies all to himself when he takes out his radio-controlled helicopter and makes that thing swoop with jaw-dropping dexterity.

Little says Detroit Jim, as he says the club members know Doumouras, is “probably one of the best in the Midwest. He’s that good. He can do anything with that helicopter in the air.”

But after the flight, ask Doumouras how long it took him to master the helicopter, and he becomes Zen and says, “I have not mastered it.”

Doumouras will tell you there are many better RC helicopter pilots, but I think if there are, you probably won’t be seeing them in Door County any time soon.

If you want to know more about his helicopter and other things RC, stop by The RC Shop in Fish Creek (dcrcshop.com). Doumouras opened it in April of this year so RC enthusiasts in Door County would no longer have to make the long trek southwest for supplies.

The Bay Flyers have three more monthly public air shows at their field this summer (11 am to 3 pm July 13, Aug. 10. Sept. 7), and they hold monthly meetings at 7 pm the second Monday of every month at the airfield through the summer (“Those meetings don’t last long because everyone wants to fly,” Little said), and at the Sturgeon Bay Public Library during the winter months.

“We encourage people to come out here and talk to us,” Little said. “If you have any questions, please talk to us. We’ll get you started if you really want to get into it. We do have a system out here for new pilots. It’s called a buddy box, a master-and-slave system. An instructor will have the master and the student has the slave. Basically what it does, it keeps the student out of trouble. If he gets into a hairy situation, the instructor flips the switch and he’s got the airplane.”

Video games have given the younger generation a boost up with radio control skills, Little said.

“Kids are naturals at it because of video games,” he said. “When I started out, I was probably the worst pilot on the face of the planet. These kids come out and take to it like a duck to water.”

So, Little said, bring the youngsters out to the next shows.

“That might be the seed that needs to be planted for a career in aviation,” Little said.