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FLYING HIGH IN THE BAY AREA: MODEL AIRPLANES, CLOTHESPINS AND DUST-RED AIR

Exploring the world of remote-controlled airplanes

By El Estoque Online

November 25^th, 2015

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The air stains red.

The air stains red. As the dust settles, one white wing peeks through, vibrating as if alive. There’s a whining buzz, a high-pitched note that thins to silence. The dull thud of belly against ground seems to have come two seconds too late, but then again, light always travels faster than sound.

The plane has crashed, but no passengers were harmed.

After all, it’s only about two feet long, with a body crafted from smudged white styrofoam and stiff wings painted with red accents.

It’s the only wreckage in the red-brown expanse of dirt called the pilot area, a flat take-off zone that ends in a cliffside bordered with trees.

Rob Catterton set off towards the crash sight, shaking his head.

“That was [a] bad flight,” Catterton said, as the red dust dispersed, leaving only the slightest crater. “…I can do better than that.”

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Model airplane flyers are welcomed in Rancho San Antonio’s open space, marking a place in the Bay Area where flyers cluster during weekends.

“HE’S BEEN FLYING FOR FOREVER.”

Catterton has always loved remote-controlled toys — as a teen, he’d build toy airplanes, only to watch them end as they did now: in the dust, crash-landed, but never abandoned. He lugs the plane back to his car, where the metal guts beneath the hood are exposed. He’s propped open the hood to charge the plane’s batteries with the car’s lithium battery, and the pipes and gears are as dusty as he is.

In the backseat, styrofoam clings to the cracks between the seats and an assortment of cardboard shapes crowd the floor. Though he’s only been flying at Rancho San Antonio’s airfield for three months, Catterton’s already collected all the traits of a seasoned flyer: sneakers red with dust, plenty of spare parts and most of all, boyish excitement. Though at first, this excitement was misdirected.

“I got one of those little drones for $50 from Fry’s,” Catterton said. “It was fun, but a friend of mine was flying these, and that looked more fun.”

And so he bought one. It cost more than a drone, but it certainly had more flair: much to his delight, it could perform things like 360 degree turns, loop-de-loops and nose dives. It was worth the fear of crashing, something he still hasn’t grown out of. But that’s never really stopped him.

Catterton admits that he’s no expert, pointing to a man in the midst of launching his plane by hand, the brim of his hat darkening his face.

“He’s been flying for forever,” Catterton said.

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At Rancho San Antonio, Rob Catterton has been an avid flyer for three months, trying to develop the intricate skills to avoid crashing.

A SPORT, NOT A GAME

The man’s name is Clark Macelroy, and Catterton admits that Macelroy’s the much better flier. They both have a passion for toys, Catterton says sheepishly, knowing that he shouldn’t call them toys.

After all, Macelroy comes from a much more rigorous tradition of flying. In the 1950s, there were competitions that measured how long someone could keep their plane in the sky. It was a sport, not a game. And back when airplanes didn’t have motors, a man could keep his plane suspended for hours. They flew gliders, riding thermal currents by weaving in figure eights, no car battery required.

Assembly, on the other hand, certainly was required.

“Back then, you had to build these, and you had to like building them,” Macelroy said, tapping the nose of his plane. Though he’s been flying for nearly 30 years, he’s only begun to fly electric planes in the past year. As the planes evolve, so does he. He can never be an expert for long.

There’s still a hint of pride in his voice as he reminisces about old-school gliders, back when planes flew on nothing but the air. He claims that gliders can go faster than the newer electric planes, nearly 200 miles per hour. Though his electric plane certainly doesn’t do so badly. He takes a step toward the pilot area, as if eager to prove it.

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The frequency channel board and airplane regulations sign guard the entrance of the pilot area, guiding fliers in safety precautions.

OLD RELICS, NEW GENERATION

When Macelroy flies, he has none of the boyish glee of Catterton. Instead, his eyebrows are furrowed as he gazes intently at the skyline. His feet are shoulder-width apart, perfectly parallel, planted deep. And his concentration is almost palpable, a silence that seems to muffle the buzz of his plane’s motor. When he first lets the plane go, his fingers lingering in the air for just a second, the reverence of his gaze makes the plane’s first glide seem like a religious ritual.

Still, as the new generation of flyers lock in their batteries and soup up their planes with extra-sleek propellers, the old rituals are gone. Before, fliers would have to clip clothespins to the antennae of their remotes. Each clothespin was labeled with a channel number so that other fliers wouldn’t tune into that channel and interfere with the communication between the remote and the plane.

Though the clothespins, new-looking and unfaded, still line the side of a metal post with an outdated frequency channel board, they’re little more than relics.

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A collage of clothespins behind the channel board pays homage to a time when radio channels were claimed by taking clothespins.

the sky's the limit

The act of flying, however, has aged well: the new generation still pursues the skies. Macelroy recalls a girl who’d built a bird with wings that could flap in the wind, and another boy, eight years old, whose model airplane was the width of a car.

“A lot of young kids come out here,” Macelroy said. “Most people are older, [but] the age range out here — the sky’s the limit.”

The sky’s the limit for Macelroy, who purposefully comes to the airfield when it’s nearly empty. He claims to be “not that great,” but he’s soon tracing the horizon with his plane. There’s a brief flash of light as a passenger plane skims overhead, miles above Macelroy’s styrofoam model, but from down below, the two appear to be exactly the same size.

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Catterton runs to pick up his crashed airplane in the dust.

LOCATIONS NEARBY TO FLY

They’re the same problems any flyer faces. Space and supplies. Around the Bay Area, avid model airplane flyers have quite a few areas near their homes to choose from, ranging from Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve in Cupertino to Bedwell Bayfront Park in Menlo Park to Baylands Park in Sunnyvale. But crashes and collisions are common with airplanes, and flyers often have to deal with replacement parts for their planes because the only way to keep flying is to patch it up. Hobby shops that sell airplanes parts fill up the Bay Area.

Check out the map to see nearby hobby shops, marked in blue, and areas to fly, marked in red.

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