Stetson Flyers

Stetson’s First Flight

We welcomed 2025 with the First Flight Fun Fly on January 1 with an attendance of 25 members and spectators. Seven pilots competed for the first flight bragging rights while others watched on in excitement.  

The typical Ottawa winter weather greeted us with a 15 km/hr. north-east wind, a grey sky and wet snow flurries!  Warm temperatures and rain had washed away the snow just prior to the start of the new year. This made for a very interesting situation and decision for pilots, especially the ones competing. “Should I opt for wheels over skis for low rolling resistance or put silicone on the bottom of my skis, etc.  to get that competitive advantage”?  Pilots had many different thoughts. They arrived with an assortment of aircraft configurations: wheels (conventional and tricycle), skis, pontoons, push or pull arrangement of motors and amphibious aircraft. In addition, we had a large array of types of aircraft and sizes. 

Christmas weather greeted us with blowing snow and very December-like conditions as 40 plus members and families met at Mandarin Orleans for a fantastic night of seriously good food and somewhat less than serious presentations. President Pierre greeted all and got things rolling with a call to the buffet! Some waistlines may have been damaged in the ensuing culinary onslaught!

We started out the proceedings with our elf presenting Chris Simon with a pre-Christmas gift, followed by a special award to Brian Pepin for his continuing excellent work in promoting the control line activities at Stetsons. Brian showed the gathering a real live Ringmaster and gave us the low down on the World Ringmaster event we participate in each autumn.

Stetson Flyers Fall Cleanup 

Its hard to believe that we are approaching the end of another summer of fabulous flying.  The Fall clean up signals the change in weather and on Monday October 7, a small but mighty crew came to help. The objective was to clean up after the summer, prepare the facility for the winter and to support the (brave) winter flyers!  

This is the work that was accomplished:

On Saturday August 24th, Stetson RC Flyers held our Scale event. Traditionally, this event was strictly for giant scale aircraft but this year we opened it up to scale aircraft any size. It had a bit of a confusing name but it seems to have worked, this year. 

 We really couldn’t have asked for a better day weatherwise. Winds were light, the sky was mostly clear and it wasn’t too hot. As CD of the event, I had all my volunteers lined up, On flight line we had Kevin, Greg, Tony, Charlie, Mark and Alain. Hal did an amazing job as usual of photos and this year we had a little something special. All cooked up in my devious little mind. 
 

 The club had a very nice Top Flite Cessna 182 donated to it. This plane was completely built, with LED lights, fibreglass cowl, an Evolution 15 gas engine and all the scale bits and bobs to make this plane a real looker. My idea was, that for every full flight put in, the pilot would get a raffle ticket for said airplane. Therefore, the more flights the pilot flew, the more chances they had to win the 182. Thanks to Robert for taking the task of ticket dispenser.