'Spirit of St. Louis' model to fly at Aero Club show

Ninety years ago this May, a 25-year-old adventurer named Charles Lindbergh turned himself into the most famous celebrity of the modern era by becoming the first man to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean alone.

He did that in a plane he had designed himself to make it almost impossible for him to see where he was going.

A one-fourth-scale model of his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, will be one star attraction as the Fox Valley Aero Club holds its fourth annual Windy City Warbirds & Classics radio-controlled airplane show Thursday through Saturday, June 22-24, at the club's 11-acre flying field west of St. Charles.

John Fischer, chairman of the event, said about 100 visiting pilots from seven states are expected to join the club's own 180 members from the Chicago area to provide a total of 300 "giant-scale" aircraft. Last year's three-day show drew more than 900 paying visitors, plus about 500 children.

What's flying

Club spokesman Tom Flint said the club normally deals with all sizes of planes, but at the annual show each monoplane (one-winged aircraft) will be at least 80 inches in wingspan, each biplane (two-winged) at least 60 inches. Each is a reproduction of a plane from at least 50 years ago, most of them from World War I or II.

Most are powered by gasoline engines while their pilot/builders control their movements via radio from the ground. But several will be jet-powered, moving up to 200 mph and costing $10,000 or more.

Fischer said the visitors this year will include Chuck Hamilton, a nationally known radio control pilot who will bring his re-creation of an SBD Dauntless dive bomber like the ones that played the decisive role in World War II's Battle of Midway 75 years ago this month.

Lindbergh flies again

It took Lindbergh just 60 days to build the real Spirit of St. Louis. But 74-year-old retired United Airlines mechanic Orvil Fluharty of Algonquin said it took him six years of work and $2,000 of parts to build the radio-controlled version he will fly during this year's air show.

Fluharty said Lindbergh wanted a plane that would hold a maximum amount of gasoline for the record flight yet would not change the plane's weight balance as all that gas got used up. The best way to do that was to put a huge gas tank at the plane's center of gravity. So that's what Lindbergh did, even though that spot happened to be right where most planes had something that most pilots would consider slightly essential - the windshield.

Unable to see directly forward, Fluharty said, Lindbergh installed a periscope to look ahead, "but I understand he mostly just stuck his head out the window to see when he needed to land or take off."

"He didn't need to see ahead much. How many other planes were there to run into?" Fluharty said.

Lindbergh also is believed to have purposely designed his plane to be unstable and tough to fly. He was afraid of becoming bored and falling asleep during the 33-hour flight. But that makes it equally hard for Fluharty to control his model 90 years later.

Crashing and burning

As Fluharty pointed out the intricate details of his reproduction, including a wicker seat like Lindbergh's and fake dashboard gauges, smoke rose from down the runway. Retired engineer Robert Boen of Oak Brook had just landed his replica of a 1932 Monocoupe racing plane - or more accurately, what Boen soon would describe as "what used to be a 1932 Monocoupe racing plane." After a routine 10-minute flight and landing, flames had mysteriously broken out before its engine had shut off. They quickly reduced the back two-thirds of the craft to no more than a skeleton.

"I probably spent two or three months work and spent $3,000 building this 10 or 11 years ago," Boen said. "I have no idea what started the fire." But he said he loves RC flying and will go on building and piloting such craft.

"I fly on any day that ends in Y," Boen joked, trying to smile.

The club traces its roots to a group formed in 1929 - just two years after that flight by Lindbergh made aviation the hobby of the hour. They moved to their present airfield along Route 38, rented from the city of St. Charles, in 2003. It has an 800-foot asphalt runway and a 600-foot grass runway.

Planes occasionally crash into a cornfield next door, so club members erect marked poles among the cornstalks, making it easier to figure out where in that maze of maize their cherished aircraft has disappeared. Fischer said most crashes cause only minor damage, such as broken landing gear. But he notes that if the searchers in the corn phone for a garbage bag to be brought, that's a bad sign.

Hooked on aviation

As Boen carried off his wreckage, a mixture of eras could be seen along the flight line. A jet-powered F-15 Eagle sat alongside a German Stuka dive bomber from 1939, a Sopwith Camel from World War I, a Piper Cub from the 1950s and Fischer's own detailed reproduction of a B-25 bomber named the Yellow Rose.

Rob Sampson, 65, of Wheaton, said he became "hooked on aviation" as a boy when his uncle gave him a model of a PT-19 trainer that he could fly at the end of a control line. He would go on to a 34-year career as a professional pilot. Sampson said it's actually harder to fly an RC plane than a real one because it's easier to see and feel just where the plane is going if you're inside its cockpit instead of watching from hundreds of feet away on the ground.

"I love the man-machine interface," Sampson said. "And the egos disappear here. A guy with a $25,000 jet will talk about flying to a guy with a $100 foamie."

"We have two seasons around here," Sampson said. "Flying season (summer) and building season (winter)."

If you go

What: Windy City Warbirds and Classics radio-controlled model air show, sponsored by Fox Valley Aero Club

When: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, June 22-24

Where: 3821 Karl Madsen Drive (south side of Route 38 just west of Kane County Justice Center), St. Charles

Admission: $5 adults; free for veterans and children younger than 12

Need to know: Special air shows at noon each day. Food vendors on site. Some grandstand seating but visitors are urged to bring lawn chairs.

Details: <a href="http://www.foxvalleyaero.com">www.foxvalleyaero.com</a>