From left, Wachusett RC members Jon Benoit, Al Dean and Harry Nikitas with some of their model airplanes.
Christine Smith photo It was a fall afternoon — pleasant and sunny — and mini-sized planes were humming vertically until their engines were cut and they floated silently overhead catching thermal lifts, twirling and twisting and catapulting in mid-air.
Invisible to spot, but discovered easily by the trained eye looking for sudden shifting in a plane’s movements, thermal air masses are one of the challenges in piloting these radio controlled small aircraft and keeping them in the sky longer.
A few members of the Wachusett RC Flyers recently gathered together on one of the few good weather opportunities the late fall had left to offer, eagerly ready to demonstrate their fascinating and fairly unique hobby. With controls in hand, they relaxed in their hammock-like chairs and gazed upward as they skillfully guided the flight patterns of their small planes above the little runway carved into the grassy hillside at the site of the old town landfill in Sterling.
According to group member Harry Nikitas, remotely controlling these mini planes is “exactly the same” as flying a real plane
Article source: http://www.leominsterchamp.com/news/2014-12-19/Neighborhoods/Dreams_of_model_airplanes_take_flight.html
