9th Annual Cole and Rita Palen Memorial Free Flight Meet - Steve Sweeney

The Cole and Rita Palen Memorial FreeFlight Meet was first held in 2005 toremember and celebrate the lives of ColePalen, founder of the Old RhinebeckAerodrome, and his wife, Rita. Cole was alifelong builder of rubber powered balsawood free flight planes, as well as a builderand restorer of full scale aircraft from thedawn of flight up through the golden age offlight. What started as a casual get-togetherby ex-volunteers and pilots of the Aerodrome,has morphed into a full day of flying, food,and fun.

The meet is open to anyone with an interestin rubber powered planes built in the timehonored tradition of balsa and tissueconstruction. The emphasis is on having funflying model airplanes with friends both oldand new rather than all out competition. Therules are lax enough to ensure flyers of allages and different levels of building skills geta chance to compete in a relaxed andfriendly atmosphere. You might be surprisedto learn that a newcomer with a simple stickmodel might beat a veteran builder with aplane he spent months building to win anevent. Anything can happen at any time suchas a broken rubber motor or airframe failure,so one can never predict the outcome of anyevent.

There are two basic types of flying at themeet. The first is “Open Flying Events” whereyour plane is judged on flight duration. It’s alaid back competition as you fly at your ownpace. You are timed by stopwatch, enter yourbest flight times on a time slip, handing it inat the end of the day. There is no rush, youcan fly as many times during the day as youdesire as you tweak your plane to get themost out of it. There are a number of differentclasses to compete in so whatever onebrings, it will fit in somewhere.

The second type of flying is the “MassLaunch Events”. The last one down wins. It’sas simple as that. Depending on how manyplanes are entered, two or three heats mightbe run eliminating some of the planes withlower flight times. The overall winner is thelast one down in the last heat. They can bewild and wooly as all the planes are launchedsimultaneously. Each year at the Cole and Rita PalenMemorial Free Flight Model Meet, there is aspecial theme build and mass launch pickedfor the meet. This year’s theme was “FlyingFlivvers” which loosely translates to anyhomebuilt aircraft powered by convertedautomobile engines.

My family and I have been attending themeet for a number of years now andespecially enjoy building for the themedevents along with other builds.

Early on, for the Flying Flivver event, Idecided to build a Corben Super Ace, a smallhomebuilt design from the mid-thirties thatwas powered by an engine from a FordModel T. Using a Megow plan from the1940’s, it was a very enjoyable build and asthey say it “flew off the board”. I know someof you have seen it fly at the club field. It’s areal floater! So many were building smallpeanut sized Pietenpol’s, there was alsosome talk of a “Pietenpol only” event so Ithrew one together about a month before themeet. With a wingspan of only 12”, I lost ittwice in the grass at Stillwell during trimmingsessions and pretty much gave up on findingit, but ultimately did. The Pietenpol masslaunch never materialized, but I let mydaughter, Kerry, fly it in the Flivver masslaunch.

In the past we have held the meet at the RedHook High School which has two really large

athletic fields and borders on a farm giving usan area over twice the size of our club flyingfield. Due to a personnel change at the OldRhinebeck Aerodrome, it was decided late inthe year that the meet would be held at theAerodrome as some of the contestants hadto be there to work or fly in the air show laterthat day. Unfortunately, this meant that allmodel flying would have to start by 7 AM andbe over by 11 AM when the Aerodrome startsgiving biplane rides before the air showwhich starts at 2 PM. Awards and prizeswould be handed out after the show wasover. This did make for a day that moved byquickly, but also meant that we would betreated to the full size air show later thatafternoon. Being a much narrower flying fieldthen we were used to, the trees mightbecome a bit of a problem, so we werewarned to keep the winds down or retrim tolimit height. Mass launches would be held onthe hour with individual timed flights beingheld whenever you could fit them in. It wasalso a “Women in Aviation Weekend” at theAerodrome, with seminars by women pilotsand building sessions for youngsters whowanted to build and fly their own rubberpowered model in events created just forthem. The models gathered quite a lot ofinterest from spectators, and more than onewere brought out to the field to try their handat flying a model.

Arriving at the Aerodrome just before 7 AM,we were greeted by a heavy fog that coveredpart of the runway and heavy humidity in theair. After chatting with friends and helping outmy kids with their planes, I wanted tosqueeze in my timed flights in the Pioneerclass first before the mass launch eventsbegan at 9 AM. Before I even got my gearsetup on the runway, the tissue paper on the1911 Cessna’s wings was already absorbingmoisture from the humid air, getting baggyand getting wobbly. Try as I might, the bestflight I could muster with the Cessna was ameasly 29 seconds! Very disappointing, but Iwasn’t alone in my struggle with the denseair. I’ve never placed first in the Pioneer

Class (usually losing out to my own kids, noless) and it looked like this year was to be nodifferent. I put my time sheet in the box, andhoped for the best.

I had a newly finished Sopwith Snipe to fly inthe WW1 class that just wouldn’t give adecent flight at all. I gave up on her beforeshe got destroyed, and ultimately donated itto the Museum at the end of the day whereshe can now be seen in a glass case in oneof the museum buildings.

The first mass launch of the day was theFokker D.VII event. My entry flew really nicein the first heat coming in third winning me aspot in the final. Unfortunately, she alsoended up about ten feet up in a tree. Aftersome vigorous branch shaking, we got herdown with only a couple small punctures inthe top wing’s tissue paper. As fate wouldhave it, she just flat refused to climb in thefinal heat just cruising around about 8 feet offthe ground in circles causing everyone on thefield to duck every time she flew past, muchto the delight of everyone. But she stillmanaged a third place overall finish.

In the Boxy Bipe event, I over wound myplane’s motor that made it stall instantly uponrelease, then dive like a lawn dart to theground. The event was won by theAerodrome’s office manager with her firstever build! I think someone had timed herflight at 54 seconds, unreal for this type ofdesign. She took home the “Best Flight by aFemale Powder Puff” award breaking mydaughter’s three year winning streak ofwinning this award.

I flew my Super Ace in the “Flying Flivver”mass launch handing my Pietenpol off to mydaughter, Kerry, to fly. A breeze was pickingup, and upon launch the Super Ace climbednicely into it and turned and started circlingas the breeze carried her down the runway.Knowing that she was high up and the rubbermotor was winding down, I took my eyes offher to see how many of my competitors were

still in the air while she started her glideportion of the flight. To my surprise, everyonewas looking at my Super Ace as it was theonly plane left in the sky! Unbelievably, firstplace was mine!

I had planned to fly my large Fokker Triplanein the Mixed Mass Launch which would takeplace at the beginning of the air show in frontof the crowd. It’s the last mass launch of themeet and anything that hasn’t up to thispoint, crashed, been stepped on, implodedwhile winding, or now resides in a tree, iseligible to enter. Seeing that the now dryer airtightened the Cessna’s tissue, I put down myFokker and picked her up to give her one lastchance. I gave the Cessna’s rubber motor950 winds and walked out to the starting linewhich is always a real mixed bag of planes.

After an introduction and countdown from theannouncer, we launched. I got a good launchand watched my plane climb away from theswirling mass of planes that seemed to beeverywhere. If you’ve never seen a masslaunch, it’s pretty exciting. Planes go left,right, straight up, and sometimes straightdown or crashing into each other. TheCessna started its turn to the right, and flewin between two others as it flew back past usstill climbing as it settled into the cruise partof its flight. As it made lazy circles overheadand drifted with the breeze down the runway,I could see another plane just behind it as if itwas being chased. Not before long, it wasjust down to just the two of us. All the otherswere down and out. I thought for sure therewas no way my wobbly Cessna was going tobeat this plane designed specifically forendurance. But it looked to be holding itsown. Both planes started drifting back downto earth toward the crowd. The Cessna

landed way up the field less than a secondafter but within a couple feet of its competitor.I was truly stunned.

By the time the award presentation was over,that oversized Cessna had taken threeawards, first in the Pioneer timed class, firstplace in the General Mass Launch and theAward for Best Craftmanship. The CorbenSuper Ace took the “Flying Flivver” themeevent going home with a nice laser engravedplaque, and my non-climbing, tree huggingFokker D.VII, third in the Fokker D.VII MassLaunch. Even if I had come home withnothing but a garbage bag of broken planes,I still would be smiling at what a great day itwas. Interested in flying or just attending nextyear’s event? Drop me an email atStevie58@aol.com or grab me at one of theclub meetings. I’ll be more than happy to helpyou get started. There are some very easybut also competitive plans and kits availableto get you started. So build some planes,bring the family and or grandkids to nextyear’s Meet. I guarantee it will be one of thebest days you have in this hobby!

Here are a couple photos from the Meet.Additional photos from the Meet can be seenon the LISF web site in the picture gallery.

Note: Steve's original pictures are posted inour website's galleries, so you can view themin all their splendor. They include thepictures you see in this newsletter plus a lotmore and are there waiting for you to checkthem out. They are in sport flying, contestsand building. If these links don't work foryou, go to the LISF photo galleries page, findand open the galleries.

Steve Sweeney, Corben Super Ace free flight model and Best Flivver award at the 9th Annual Cole and Rita Palen Memorial Free Flight Meet