The sky’s the limit for local remote control acrobatics

By Gwyneth J. Saunders CONTRIBUTOR

On a field outside of Ridgeland, flights take off twice a week – weather permitting. The windsock on the other side of the runway indicates wind conditions. The flightline has space for plenty of parking for pilots and visitors.

The runway itself is not long enough to accommodate much in the way of full-sized aircraft but it will certainly serve for takeoffs and landings by members of the Jasper County Remote Control Flyers.

According to its website, club members fly balsa models and foamies, electric, nitro and gas multirotors, helicopters and FPVs – an RC vehicle that is controlled from the pilot’s point of view, such as drone.

The members come from Beaufort and Jasper counties, and most have been flying remote control airplanes for decades, even as long as 80 years, like Ed Van Bernum, aka Ed One, who is 92.

“I like the flying part of it. I used to enjoy the building. Now we have a thing called ‘ARFs – Almost Ready to Fly.’ They’re made in Vietnam and made in China,” said Van Bernum. “We buy a huge box, then you just take a finished airplane out, install your engine or your radio and go fly it – whereas I used to spend the whole winter in Connecticut building a new model.”

Van Bernum said he has owned about 25 planes and has crashed 24.

“That’s how they end,” he said. “Every model has an expiration date, and sooner or later when that date comes up it becomes a pile of balsa.”

Van Bernum took flying lessons, while some of his cohorts actually owned and flew planes for work or pleasure.

Ed Seigler, aka Ed Two, began flying radio control in 1968 when he was in college. Between 1981 and 2004, he dropped the remote control for the real thing, flying a Piper Arrow, a Cessna Skyhawk and a 72 Mooney, followed by building a Van’s RV 6 kit plane.

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“In 2004 I sold my airplane and got back into radio. I’ve been there ever since,” he said. “I probably enjoy building as much or more than I do the flying part.”

Van Bernum said remote control aircraft can stay in the air about 15 minutes but most of them are flown for around eight minutes.

“The battery powered airplanes are limited by the battery size. Because these engines are burning gasoline, they’re actually pretty efficient, surprisingly efficient,” said Seigler. “And the electric airplanes will only fly for about five minutes, six minutes. Typically, some of them, if you throttle them back, you don’t push them too hard, they’ll go for 10, maybe 12 minutes.”

Marty Dardani was also a pilot and has been a member of the club for about six years. He started in the mid-1950s flying control line planes.

“It’s a different aspect. It’s the building of the model. And the models were quite a bit different in style,” Dardani said.

With control line flying, the plane is attached to two lines that are connected to a handle held by the operator. Once the engine is started, the operator controls the plane’s movements by turning the handle.

Since his control line days, Dardani has had more than 100 models.

“I love the building,” he said. “There are a number of us that get involved with kits or scratch-building. You design the parts, take a bunch of flat pieces of balsa, and plywood and things of that nature, create airfoils, beautiful pieces of art. We try not to crash them after putting in hundreds of hours into building time.”

Bill Siegel was flying drones before he joined the club. He’s trying to get his colleagues to fly them, too, but in the meantime they have taught him how to fly the RC planes. He’s added the drone’s capability of carrying a camera to his aircraft, providing the club with aerial views of the runway field while giving himself some valuable information about his aircraft’s flying qualities.

“I can take it home, put (the video) on my computer and see what it did right or wrong,” he said.

Siegel has built 30 or 40 drones and currently has eight. He said he started flying planes three years ago when he joined because of the huge variety of options to explore.

“These guys all like to fly weed eaters –you know, weed-eater engines with all this noise up there. I fly all electric, so I’m trying to convince them to do more electric,” Dardani said. “We have this nice battle going on.”

Along the flightline is the largest aircraft on the field: a Frozen Pizza Red Baron biplane with 114-inch wingspan, weighing 55 pounds and gas-fueled.

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