MORGAN HILL
– For the 15th straight year, the Santa Clara County Model
Aircraft Skypark is giving both young and old a chance to let their
imaginations take to the skies for one summer weekend.
MORGAN HILL – For the 15th straight year, the Santa Clara County Model Aircraft Skypark is giving both young and old a chance to let their imaginations take to the skies for one summer weekend.
The 15th annual Radio Control Model Airshow runs from 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Morgan Hill skypark, and, as usual, it is expecting huge crowds of model plane enthusiasts for the free event.
“We usually get 800 to 900 people a day,” said Chris Luvara, public relations coordinator for the skypark.
Besides taking in some food and refreshments or even building their own model planes, visitors can watch radio-controlled World War II fighter jets, amazing helicopter demonstrations and racing and turbine jets.
Kids will be sure to smile as they watch Snoopy and his flying doghouse take to the skies to go head-to-head with his nemesis, the Red Baron.
“People love to see the jets,” Luvara said.
People interested in radio-controlled planes also can have an opportunity to get behind the controls themselves.
“We give people a chance to fly,” Luvara said. “We’ll take them out and teach them.”
Radio-controlled planes and helicopters are no cheap hobby. A plane can range in cost from $400 to $3,000. But the for the pilots, it’s money well spent.
“People mostly fly on weekends, but there are a few retired people who fly during the week,” said Luvara, who also works for the Tomcats, the local flying club that runs through the skypark at 10250 Monterey Road in Morgan Hill.
The weekend event brings in almost all the money the nonprofit group needs to operate for the year.
“It’s pretty much our main fund raiser for the whole year,” he said. “We’re nonprofit; everything goes to improvements of the land.”
There will be an opening ceremony at 10 a.m. during both days of the event, and luvara said there are sure to be a few surprises – including a few flying objects that one usually wouldn’t see racing through the skies, but Luvara wants to keep a tight lid on the secret.
“We want it to be a surprise,” he said.
The 15th annual Radio Control Model Airshow runs from 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 10250 Monterey Road in Morgan Hill. For more information call 292-1212 or visit www.sccmas.org.
