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A very special and surprising aspect of
my electric heli hobby has been how I've integrated camping
trips with my flying time. What's more, both my wife and I
have really enjoyed it. For her, it is a LOT more special
than an afternoon spent hanging out at the heli field. Last
year we discovered a very nice campsite and then an exciting
discovery happened the day I asked a local, "Do you know of
a quiet field that I might fly my heli in?" The result was a
happy post at the Ezone, "My
new secret flying field:)". The contract
operator of the campground we grew to love told us how they
leave a small part of it open year-round for hunters and
such. We took advantage of this well into the fall, after it
was officially closed. This year we finally "went for it"
this past Easter weekend, after months of missing our
"second home". Sunday evening at 8 p.m., we pulled into the
favorite campsite and found the gate locked! We were tired,
hungry, and had driven for over 3 hours to get there. We
went to ask our favorite local, who is the proprietor of a
small "gas stop", for advice about local sites that might be
open. He mentioned two privately owned ones nearby as well
as a more remote site operated by the BC Forest Service. The
latter place sounded nice, but he scared us off with tales
about it being prime tic season and people having found lots
of them. So, we drove by the local sites. Twice in fact, but
I could not bring myself to be placed in the 10 foot wide
space between rows of picnic tables and get to listen to the
neighbors so close. If I had to do this, I would not bother
camping and I didn't feel that desperate yet. We decided to
drive for 20 minutes to check out the remote site and came
across a fellow parked at the beginning of the road checking
out his trailer after the bumpy ride. I asked him about the site, the tics, and
the road and it all sounded good. We got there in about 20
minutes and found a mostly empty campground with a site
available some distance from the 3 families that were there.
Although I intended to drive out to go to my secret flying
field, I got up Monday morning to a predictable, but nice
gift - everyone else was packing to leave:) Here's a few
photos from the 2 days we were there. The weather report had
predicted clouds and rain, but we found nothing but sunshine
after the morning clouds burned off. A week earlier I'd
flown with a winter jacket and my trusty radio glove. Now I
was in a T-shirt and getting a sunburn. I got about 20
flights in between the times other visitors stopped in for a
short time here and there. On Monday I flew 2 flights on the
LOGO 20 for the first time this season. The turbine sound
reverberated down the little valley and the slap of the
blades echoed loudly off the mountain! I decided to stick to
the very quiet LOGO 10 after that. I can certainly
appreciate how this awesome little heli has let me practice
a lot more in the past year and hit this new season already
well practiced. All the wildlife carried on without much
notice of this additional activity - red headed woodpeckers,
loons, ducks geese, robins. A bald eagle cruised down the
shore low and slow and close. At one point a fly fisherman
drove up, hopped into his hip-wader raft and kicked his way
out towards the middle of the lake. I waited an extra
measure until he was a good distance away before I resumed
flying. He mustn't have minded the flights because he gave
me a friendly wave on his way out - the two of has having
spent a magical spring afternoon doing what we
love.....
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It's warm, it's quiet, a lot of flights already done, and the birds are singing - good time to start some inverted practice. |
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This is a good shot of this nice flying area. The water level is a little low. I basically flew left to right, but the area to the right was a narrow gap with trees on the other side. No problems for loops stall turns in there though. Turnaround pattern was flown. |
Going down! I seem to be holding some tension in my shoulders, hehe. This whole scene is serenely quiet and only an electric heli like this is appropriate. |
It looks like I just set the heli on the sand for this shot:) Since I was standing on a spot a foot or two higher than where the heli is, I guess I can claim my first "below the toes" inverted hover:) |