Stetson Flyers

October 1-2, 2022: The 15th Annual Worldwide Ringmaster Fly-A-Thon is over and what a blast! The final numbers are in and as of  15 Nations worldwide submitted a total of 10,481 flights logged by 605 pilots. A whopping 2,154 flights more than last year's record setting 8,327 flights logged by 553 pilots!

For the Stetson Flyers Club it was the 4th consecutive year participating in this event.
Mother Nature graced us with a good weather weekend. 
Stetson Flyers Club’s previous Fly-A-Thon records were surpassed: 15(14) pilots flying 12(5) variants of the "Ringmaster" logged a total of 241(66) flights over the course of the two days. Interest in control line (C/L) is definitely on the upswing. Piloting the model aircraft were new, very lapsed (i.e. decades), budding and veteran C/L pilots.

The final session of Flight School for this year enjoyed favorable weather, despite a fairly gloomy forecast. It was attended by five students flying a mix of Apprentice, Mini Apprentice and AeroScout trainers. No models were hurt during this event!

In the accompanying pictures you can see the instructors hard at work scrutinizing models before flight, showing a student which switch not to press, demonstrating how to make a turn, and just standing around after a successful flight. Len is guarding the Flight School’s collection of equipment. One picture shows 12-year-old Kailen, a very promising pilot.

Flight School will return in 2023 with ground school sessions followed by a resumption of flight training as soon as the field dries out after the spring runoff.

Thanks to all who contributed to making Flight School 2022 a success.

President Daniel Marcotte

Stetsons Giant Scale Fun Fly:  A Royal Event!

Saturday September 24, 2022 provided near perfect weather for our event with sunny blue skies and warming temperatures. Winds down the runway helped as thirty-one pilots signed up and flew a wide variety of aircraft with no major incidents.

The high point of the day was the arrival of Her Excellency, the Right Honorable Mary Simon, Governor-General of Canada who visited to watch her grandson Christopher Simon fly his dad's big Jaguar jet. Chris did a fantastic job of showing us all up as he flew the big bird through a very smooth routine filled with loops, rolls and multi-point elements in all directions. He nailed the landing in a bit of a crosswind at the time as well, just to put the rest of us to shame! 
The GG was very generous with her time, joining us for lunch and allowing lots of photo opportunities.

Flight Line help from Mike Lalonde and Safety Officer Peter Wakefield kept things moving well throughout the busy periods.

Compliments go out to the many pilots who flew safely today with lots of communication on the line.

August 13-14, 2022 saw the long-awaited return of IMAC competition to Ottawa with 21 pilots from Sept-Iles to Sault Ste Marie and Timmins to Toronto on a weather-perfect weekend.

Six Stetsons were in the mix in classes from Basic through Advanced. We were extremely pleased to see Wayne Karperien and Brian Pepin join in and have a go in their first IMAC contest. These two were out busting it for two weeks ahead of the event, practicing and soaking up info from everyone trying to help them, and really put forward a superlative effort. Brian even pulled an all-nighter putting a brand new F3A foamy together after a small incident on Saturday. He flew it extremely well the next day after only 2 ½ hours sleep and zero practice time!

These two guys are proof positive that you don’t need a huge expensive airplane to have fun with aerobatics. They placed first and second in BASIC class! Congrats to you both for the huge effort!

June 4-5, 2022 was the annual Stetson Ed Rae memorial Fun Fly Event!

After a fine but breezy day for Saturday, Sunday was significantly better!

This weekend (4-5 June) was the Ed Rae Memorial Fun Fly, our first major event since 2019! Nineteen pilots defied the brisk winds and cool temperatures on Saturday and eleven more signed up on Sunday, when the weather was a bit more suitable for relaxed flying. Most people agreed that it was a great opportunity to socialize and get back together after two years of cancelled event. Many thanks to our cooks and food handlers, Debbie, Pauline, Alain and Jim, and to our ever hard working President Daniel. Enjoy the pictures!

Pierre Coulombe