dialarotor
Key Veteran
Location: Traverse City, Michigan
My Posts This: Topic Forum | Dear Heli Diary...........Dear Diary, haven't written much in the past. Let's see, looking at the pictures above,oh, now I remember a week and a half ago there was a pre-heli deer camp outing at Chris Zolen's in Kalkaskatucky. The campers and pilots arrived Friday afternoon and enjoyed an evening of flying, tuning, and some tasty barbeque provided by Mark/Raptorchief. The evening was clear and there was some very late night tippling and night flying. I guess the last flight was at 0320 and a few heli-crazies considered staying up all night.
As for myself, I was a good little heli nut and arrived early on Saturday morning. Flying was dominated by a flock of TREX 600's being flown by Steve Balyo, Chris Zolen, Tony Lawhead, Jeff Newman, Lars Schwab, Brandon Whitten. I was sporting my Raptor 70. A few TREX 450's, a Freya 90, Raptor 50, some scalers, and Steve SR flying his Hawk Pro.
There was an afternoon lull and rainshower on Saturday that led to the building of a Jeff Newman's TREX600N as you can see in the pictures in the previous post.
The munching continued all day long with venison chili from Becky Newman, some more of Mark's barbeque, and grilling and meatballs in the crockpot.
Once the rain cleared it was back to flying and the fireplace and firepit were restoked, the music cranked up and the flying resumed.
There was some more fun night flying and some whacky nightplank flying as the tail was badly tweaked on Chris's "Extra Stiffy".
Most of the tired attendees hit the cots, cars, campers, pop-ups by about 0100 and awoke to a cloudy cool overcast day. Once the Sun burned off some of the Sunday morning crud some more flying was completed. By noon, the food was gone, beer was gone, and most of the campers were gone, bringing the pre-heli camp to a close with everyone going home and getting ready for the big official, leaves-turned-color 2nd annual FALL HELI DEER CAMP the weekend of OCTOBER 16-17-18. So there it is, you have about a month to get the camper stocked, helis fixed, add more glow wire, buy some new longjohns, get out the blaze orange coat, dust off the Elmer Fudd plaid hunting hat and come up with your best whacky recipe for a fun weekend of heli flying,food,fireworks, and foolishness. Lars has brought in the big machines, frontloader, chipper, stump grinder and enlarged the field even more. Chris is starting to stockpile more lumber for the clubhouse expansion next spring. Speaking of expansion Chris took all of us on a mini-road trip to vote on his new commercial venture. Land Baron Z, has purchased a nice little commercial property near downtown Kalkaska and will soon be the owner/operator of a Scrapbooking/Toy/Heli/Car/whatever shop that will be the new
711-convenience store for heli guys needing parts and fuel for their addiction. We need a name, ZMART, HELIPARTS'R'US. If he sold adult videos and magazines, he could call it TREX'N'SEX. Hope he doesn't call it Wings'n'Things", the locals will be stopping to buy barbeque chicken pieces.
Since then, the Northwest Michigan Heli Pilots have been flying frequently with all the nice weather the past 10 days. Some are flying Wednesday nights at Chris Z's, some at TRAMPS, and some of us are flying at a new field, the Kingsley MotoCross track a few miles East of the US-31/M-113 intersection, turn north on Schneider Road and continue about 1/4 past the pavement ends and you will see the entrance rd. No planker stankers at this site. Just helibuds, or is that Heli n' Buds. I apologize for my play on words but not for anything else. F U,,, fly upsidedown.
We flew at the MOTO-CROSS field last night and had a nice night of flying, pizza & suds, and night flying into a beautiful clear sky full of stars. Poor Tony, sporting his new Futaba 10C bought some
night flying experience. More boxes heading to Tony's door.
Did learn that if you wish to step up to a new FUTABA 10C + RX you can get a good deal in TC at "Trains & Things", $490.00. I just spotted at SERVOCITY, if you want only the 10C transmitter, they are selling them for $399.00.
As for new helis, Jeff Newman is flying his TREX600N now after the group build, and last night he was on the nipple and did his first roll. Kayla Balyo will soon be flying the old club Caliber 30 with the help of dad and some of his extra equipment, Jr 8103 TX. So now she is driving new wheels (car) and will soon be giving helis a try. Go Girl.
We are all keeping track of our buddy Steve Stedronsky Sr. He went to Munson last Friday with a little bit of heart trouble. He was looking good when I visited him Saturday. He's got a good doc and they did a little stop/start stuff to him Monday and should be right as rain soon. Must of been doing tick-tocks on his own and scared himself.
Another new heli is taking shape as Gary Meese down in Chase made the big HELIPROZ call and stepped up with the big new package with a new Raptor 50/50 Hyper/Futaba 7C 2.4 package, with a 401 and all the good servos and Froemco battery. Congrats Gary, you will be styl'in soon and your flying will really improve. Chris and I are standing-by to help you get the bird dialed-in.
Dave Johnson is busy swapping parts around his fleet to keep one of the Hirobo's flying. He did suffer a little bit of setback when he tried to clearcoat/fuel proof his electric Cobra gunship. What was he thinkin'? Anyway, Dave will attempt to blow-up his workshop as he tries to strip of the mistake with acetone.
Took a drive over the weekend up to Mackinac City/Cheboygan to see the bridge and buy some fudge. Took a back road southeast out of Cheboygan and came across a nice little building that is a Vietnam War Museum and you won't believe what they have on a post in the front yard. Take a look.
 
So keep flying and keep an eye on the calendar for the HELI-DEER-CAMP weekend coming up in October.
Dialarotor |
