COYOTE
– The jet airplane quickly gained speed as it raced down the
asphalt runway and shot into the blue South Valley sky Sunday
afternoon. The roar of its turbine engine shattered the quiet
afternoon.
COYOTE – The jet airplane quickly gained speed as it raced down the asphalt runway and shot into the blue South Valley sky Sunday afternoon. The roar of its turbine engine shattered the quiet afternoon.
Bikers peddling along the Coyote Creek Trail north of Morgan Hill stopped and gazed at the aircraft as it looped and shot toward a grove of oak trees, then made a quick turn to the left.
“Awesome,” said one woman on a bike, shielding her eyes with her hand as she watched the jet dash through its aerobatics.
This was no ordinary jet airplane, and it was no ordinary airport runway. The jet is a model airplane controlled by remote control. And the runway is the Santa Clara County Model Aircraft Skypark, considered one of the top model-airplane facilities in the world.
The 411-member club is known as the Tomcats and is the largest model airplane club in the United States. The youngest member is 8 years old, and the average age is 38. The organization was founded in 1978 and flew model airplanes for several years in Santa Teresa Park in southern San Jose, said Mike Luvara, club vice president.
Working with the Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department, the club built a new runway site along the Coyote Creek Trail and has been running it since 1986.
The main runway is 516 feet long by 60 feet wide. The skypark has paved taxi and pit areas and offers almost any type of remote-control model airplane flying, including helicopters, Luvara said. Some members have built flying contraptions resembling lawnmowers, stop signs and even a dog house.
“The dog house didn’t fly too well,” he said with a grin.
Flying model airplanes is a family affair for Luvara. His brother Chris also is a club officer and his mom helps out in the snack shack on the facilities.
He got into the hobby when he was 8 years when his father introduced him to model airplanes. Over the years, he has traveled the United States, racing his airplanes against other clubs. And the South Valley facilities are the best he’s seen.
“I kind of grew up out here,” he said. “I spent so much time here on weekends. We love it, we’re out here to have fun.”
Model airplanes also are the focus of Luvara’s senior project for his electrical engineering degree he’s earning at San Jose State University. Sunday afternoon, he was test-flying a plane he had built a telemetry device into which uses radio signals to send flight data to a ground-based laptop computer in real time.
Gilroy resident Paul Groen, an 8-year-old third grader at Luigi Aprea School, stood next to his dad Richard Groen, flying a model airplane. Richard started the hobby about 10 months ago, and introduced his son two weeks ago.
“It was interesting because it was my first time, and I never flew before,” Paul said. He said he felt a little nervous the first time he flew but now feels a lot more comfortable maneuvering the plane through the air.
“I needed a hobby,” Richard said, describing how he got into model airplanes because he needed to find something to do on weekends that was cheaper than playing golf. “I’ve spent half as much on this hobby as I did every weekend on golf.”
He said flying the model airplanes also is a lot more fun than hitting a little white ball into a hole. The hobby is popular with families, and many dads have just as much fun as their kids flying the aircraft, he said. And Paul is learning about science by understanding the basic principles of aerodynamics, he said.
Reg Dellaquila, a Palo Alto resident who serves as a model-airplane flight instructor for the club, agreed that the hobby helps teach about science and engineering.
“This is a hobby that includes everything that you can imagine,” he said. “(Building an airplane), you learn about adhesives, materials, electronics, radio technology and aerodynamics.”
The club also creates a fun activity that helps build friendships among its members, he said.
“There’s all kinds of events out here,” he said. “We have racing and aerobatics flying.”
The learning curve of flying model airplanes depends on how good a person is with their hand-eye coordination, he said. One club member used to fly Boeing 747s for a living and has a hard time landing the model airplanes using a remote control device. But kids who grew up with Nintendo tend to be whizzes at flying the airplanes, he said.
“The kids learn it really rapidly because they’re video-game oriented,” Dellaquila said.
Women tend to be not as much into the hobby as their husbands and sons, he said. The vast majority of club members are males.
“Some women come out and help their husbands with the hardware and stuff,” he said.
San Jose resident John Adams was at the skypark with his girlfriend Theresa Rafidi Sunday afternoon. Adams has been involved with the club for years, but this was Rafidi’s first time seeing the model airplanes at the skypark.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “It really enjoyed watching them fly.”
She might try flying one herself once she gets the nerve, she said. Adams’ plane is an Extra 230 with a 62 cubic centimeter engine, an 8-foot wing span and 22-inch propeller. It was designed by a German airplane inventor named Walter Extra.
“I’ve always been a wing nut,” he said, describing how he got his interest started when his dad took him to an air show at Moffet Field when he was a kid.
Look at paying at least $600 to get into remote-control airplanes, he said. A training plane costs about $300, and there are added costs such as membership and liability insurance that can add another $300 to this.
Enthusiasts who get addicted to the sport can spend a lot more, he said. The jet airplane flying Sunday had a $4,000 turbine engine. The airplane itself cost $8,000.
Then there’s the time building the airplanes, which can take many hours – but that’s just part of the fun. For those people who are impatient to get flying, there are ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) kits sold in hobby stores for about $300.
“It’s a great hobby,” Adams said. “You can see all the families out here.”
