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Zip, whip, flip - miniplanes thrill

Tricky maneuvers wow the crowd of 250 at the Bay City Flyers Spring Classic, a competition of miniature acrobatic aircraft.

By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published April 25, 2005

	[Times photo: Lance Aram Rothstein]
	Scott Kantrowitz of Plant City flies his Hangar 9 model of a Russian Shkhoi SU-31 airplane during the freestyle competition at the Bay City Flyers Spring Classic on Sunday in Land O'Lakes.

LAND O'LAKES - Mark Charneske had a radio-controlled model airplane as a kid, but it never did stunts like the ones he saw Sunday.

Charneske, 39, of Land O'Lakes, braved the chilly, whipping wind in a field off State Road 52 to watch the closing day of the Bay City Flyers Spring Classic, a competition of miniature acrobatic aircraft.

"What I'm seeing here today is absolutely phenomenal," Charneske said as he watched the freestyle event. "This is art."

The planes - all built to scale of real acrobatic airplanes - looped and twisted, plummeted and zipped across the cloudless sky in time to music. They run on gasoline engines and are piloted by a radio controller on the ground. They range from one-quarter to one-half the size of real planes.

David Moser, a 15-year-old pilot from West Palm Beach, took up flying the miniplanes six years ago, a hobby he inherited from his father and grandfather. On Sunday, his 3W Modellmotorem from Germany wowed the crowd with tricky hovering maneuvers and flat spins set to the bass-heavy wrestling theme song Let's Get Ready to Rumble .

"I like getting better and better and better," said David, who plans to become a pilot in the Air Force and then fly commercial planes.

Dave Link, a member of the Bay City Flyers who organized the contest, said the hobby is growing in popularity.

"It's big and it's getting bigger and bigger," Link said. "There's competitions all over the world."

Jim Slaughter, another Bay City Flyers member who emceed Sunday, said the planes cost between $3,000 and $10,000 and are very durable - "as long as you don't crash them." The wind made landing especially tricky on Sunday. For that, Slaughter asked the crowd of about 250 spectators to give the pilots some "extra sugar" in their applause.

[Last modified April 25, 2005, 01:04:14]