Valley RC Flyers
AMA club for R/C flyers in the Fargo-Moorhead Area

The VRCF clubs Kopters over Kragness Heli Funfly was a great success! Over the weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday at our VRCF flying field we held our first annual heli funfly. We had 11 registered pilots who came and had a great time. The field was shut down to just helis for the weekend. Hamburgers and brats were provided on both Saturday and Sunday by the VRCF club. Shane Tommerdahl, Paul Kegal, Doc, and Ryan Johnson all did a great job with the food. Their contributions and help were greatly appreciated by all who attended. Don Clay from the North Country Model Controllers Club (NCMC, Bemidji) came down and provide his world famous fry shack for the night on Saturday and the food was excellent. Nothing like some heart stopping, artery clogging squishy to tide you over after a great day of flying. Thanks Don! Along with the Fry shack Jordan Runsvold brought a flat screen TV, his computer and Realflight G5 so that anyone who was curious could try their hand at helis or airplanes. He also erected a giant inflatable screen after dark on which the G5 was projected as well as some interesting movie selections. Jordan said that it is a definite possibility to have the same set up for our other funflys as well. Thanks Jordan it was a very cool addition to a great night.

The weather cooperated wonderfully with the slight exception of a little rain on Friday night, and a gale force wind thru parts of Sunday (according to Dave ‘Pop-n-Lock’ Mullen) that forced some pilots (Dave) to alter their flight paths ever soo slightly.

The aircraft was predominately Align with notable exceptions of a Velocity-50 flown by Bob “Crack-man” Christianson, and a Blade 400 piloted by the up and coming Jordan Runsvold. Jordan is currently taking donations from any and all so that he can get a ‘proper’ heli and really start tearing up the sky! The flying was exciting and down on the deck with all who registered getting in countless flights all weekend. Some ‘junk’ was made, most notable being the failed bailed-auto by Don Clay. “If you don’t go home with parts your not trying” was his happy reply to the meeting with Terra-firma. Most incidences were very minor and all were repaired and back in the air the same day.

We had a number of spectators thru out the weekend asking questions and enjoying the flying. They all seemed to be amazed in general what we could do with helis and the fact that they seemed to defy the laws of physics. We had two very unexpected special guests that attended the funfly as well. Ray Hostetler, who is very well known in the heli world for his “Rays Heli Tech Authoritative Manual”, happened to be in the Fargo area and spent the whole day out watching and talking to all those in attendance. Rays manual was ‘the heli bible’ for a lot of us who were just starting out in helis. Ray turned out to be a great guy full of interesting information and just an all around great guy.

We also had a visit from a couple of guys who were on a road trip from Oregon to Oshkosh, WI for the EAA AirVenture. They decided that they would make video blog about all the RC clubs they found on the way there. I am sorry to say that I do not remember their names but here is the link to their site and some video that they took of our Funfly. http://www.rchowto.com/2010/07/kopters-over-kragness-heli-funfly-fargo.html They were planning on taking two weeks to make the trip and they seemed to be having a ball doing it.

Thanks to Tom Murphy for prepping the field and making it look great!

So with one week to go the Heli guys are going to show everyone how to put on a funfly! We have a confirmation from the Bemidji crew that they will be down and will be bringing their world famous Fry Shack.  Don can raise your choleric levels to untold levels in just one evening. But if it is your time to go it will be with a smile on your face.

We have heard some good response from every one around the area so we should have a good turn out.

One note King Kong hobbies had an unfortunate scheduling conflict so it looks as though we may not have parts support. Eric is going to do his best to make up for the funfly. Eric is a monster on the sticks and is an all around great guy to hang around with so we are hoping he makes it.

I wanted to just say thanks in advance to all the non-heli guys who are working hard to make this a successful funfly. I really appreciate the time and effort you are putting forth. I for one will returning the favor at our next funfly.  Thanks guys it will be nice to be able to have a good time flying instead of just running the event.

This is the flier for the event. Click on it for a larger version. The field location is listed at the top of the site as well as a link to Google maps.

Here is a quick taste of one of our local pilots flying a TRex 500 electric.

This is an example how NOT to bail out of a bad auto situation.  Luckily with my advanced heli flying abilities there was no damage to the heli, just the pilots ego.