Cajon Summit

Model Airplane News, Oct 2001 by Garwood, Dave

Scale slope soaring at its best!

Power scale soaring (PSS) combines the majesty of silent flight and the speed of aerobatics of slope soaring with the realism and great looks of scale modeling. PSS sailplanes are modeled after full-scale, powered aircraft and, depending on the skill of the designer and the craftsmanship of the builder, the planes range from pleasing approximations of jets, warbirds and civil aircraft to beautifully detailed renditions that rival museum-quality models.

At PSS events, flying is plentiful and being judged is optional. Those who enter the contest portions of the events have their models judged by a committee on how well they resemble a specific real jet or a propeller-powered plane in outline, markings and finish. To earn a trophy, a model must attempt at least one flight.

To experience the high end of PSS, the place to be is the Southern California PSS Festival, where the top builders and designers of slope jets, warbirds and interesting civilian aircraft models come to strut their stuff. There is a year-to-year, friendly, but fierce, competition between the East Coast and the West Coast pilots to show off their finely detailed models and fly them in the "big air" of the California mountains.

This was the fourth running of the PSS festival at Cajon Summit, and the Inland Slope Rebels (ISR) again did a first-rate job of staging the meet; their Cajon Summit flying site anchors the event. A mile-long ridge 1,400 feet above the valley floor has 15 to 20mph winds on most days, as the high desert to the east heats up and then pulls the cooler air from the Pacific coast, which is 40 miles to the west. The ISR club provided food and shelter for fliers and observers and ran another great meet.

THE PLANES

The PSS Festival stimulates the production of new and innovative designs; there are always many models made of traditional fiberglass and foam construction and also some exceedingly impressive work in EPP foam. I failed the quiz on Ralph Roberts' Republic P-47 Thunderbolt construction material; yep, it's made of EPP, but it is hard to tell that it isn't fiberglass. Pat Bowman and Doug Turner's big EPP Rockwell Aero Commander is a great example of how far you can go with this innovative building material, and Durable Aircraft Models 1/7 scale EPP P-51 Mustangs are a common sight in the air over Cajon, sometimes flying in groups of three.

Longtime EPP advocate Dave Sanders showed a molded-- fiberglass Kawasaki Ki-61 he plans to kit soon, and we saw Jeff Fukushima's new, molded Grumman F-9 Panther for the first time. Watching Brian Laird and Jeff Fukushima fly a pair of Panthers at the same time was a treat. Brian also flew his new, molded Messerschmitt Me-262, and, man, that presented a distinctive shape in the air.

Other memorable planes include Dave Sanders' F-105 Thunderchief in Vietnam paint, Carl Maas Sr.'s bright yellow Schoenfeld Firecracker racer, Mike Truhe's and Josh Numan's Vortech Zeros and Brian Koester's Sukhoi Su-35 fighter. Few builders detail a warbird paint scheme as Jack George does; he brought several of his slope scale planes, including an impressive pair of Grumman F6F Hellcats in squadron colors.

Dave Wenzlick got his small white-foam F-16 Fighting Falcon sorted out after some months of effort when he installed a new wing on an E-Jets kit. That little plane now moves like a rocket.

Warmup for the Festival starts on a Friday, and this year, we were fortunate to have had outstanding lift on a warm, sunny day. Pilots tended to fly their backup planes and saved their primo stuff for the Saturday judging. Plenty of pilots were available for full-contact combat furballs with foamie warbirds on the main hill, and the fast hill hosted a slope scale party of eight or more fast, fiberglass planes flying synchronized, stall-turn "half-pipe" maneuvers. I didn't see any spectacular midair collisions this year, but a few planes finished their flights in manzanita bushes. It's easy to lose track of where the ground is during this kind of action!

Pat Bowman and others flew the back side of the hill in the notch between the two other flying sites, thus demonstrating that fearsome speeds can be achieved with dynamic soaring.

THE COMPETITION

Saturday dawned clear, and by noon, 50 pilots and more than 100 sailplanes were at the hill. The wind was lighter than it had been on Friday, but it gradually increased as the day wore on; new designs were launched in the late afternoon. The scale judging took place in mid-- afternoon and was followed by the trophy presentations and a mega-raffle. Dozens of pilots flew for three hours more before calling it a day.

Sunday was scheduled to be a relaxed day-no formal activities. The wind blew at 30mph, but unfortunately, Cajon Summit was shrouded in fog all day. This didn't stop the foamie pilots-at least those with good thumbs and trimmed airplanes-from turning and burning in close, but the fog grounded the more exotic ships. We would like to have flown for a third day, but most agreed that two days of excellent lift, "extreme" piloting and a chance to see the cutting edge of power scale soaring design made the trip worthwhile.