Saturday, Gary and I drove north into Wine Country, seeking not wine but water.

Gary packed two Slow Sticks into his truck, one with a pair of standard GWS styrofoam and plastic floats, the other with a honkin’ big central float carved out of glued-together pieces of Blue Core foam and two smaller wing floats.

He’s flown both on the grass at Baylands, where floats work better than wheels for most planes.

I don’t have any planes with floats. Instead, I brought my two current favorite flyers, both of which weigh less than 7 ounces: a Mini Speed Wing and a blue foam space cruiser. They’re so small they can fly just about anywhere.

A Taste for Blood. We drove and drove and drove, playfully psychoanalyzing many of our fellow flyers, debating whether the Planet Earth series has an unseemly taste for blood, bitching about the government.

We sometimes discuss politics. We’re so far apart on so many issues that we often back into each other in agreement. And we enjoy the discussions.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove by an airport with vintage biplanes. We smelled too-fresh fertilizer and saw lots of grapevines.

Good Eats. Sandwich time! We bought a pesto and chicken sandwich and another laminated from mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes and olive oil, annealed in a toaster oven. And some chips and pretzels. And a piece of carrot cake. (Diana, if you’re reading this, I’m not to blame!)

Then we returned to the road, arriving at the lake—far north of Napa—after nearly three hours on the road.

What lake? Lake Hennessey, where members of the PCC and other flyers go to fly seaplanes, flying boats and other aquatic contraptions.

A Very Good Day. We enjoyed a perfect day, hot with just a bit of breeze.

When we arrived, we found Jake Chichilitti, Ken Martinez, Frank Phelps, Ray Squires, Ellsworth Crowell — all PCC members — and some other friendly flyers.

They’d assembled an airforce of float-equipped planes, mostly gas-powered in contrast to our electrics.

Jake brought his elegant Ford Tri-Motor, outfitted with a new set of silvery floats. Ray had a very large Piper Cub on floats. Ken had a proper flying boat, with a large waterproof hull.

Soon after we arrived, Ray flew the Ford Tri-Motor, a beautiful sight. With three mid-size gas engines, it has enough power to fly respectable patterns and outside loops. And it takes off from the water with no effort.

Liquid Temptation. There’s something very seductive about water. It’s romantic, dangerous, different.

Gary and I are looking at all these interesting planes with their big shoes. We’re thinking how nice it would be to have a cabin near a lake. We’re swirling into pontoon fantasies.

Not long after that, Gary decided to fly his big-float Slow Stick.

Jake set it in the water or him. Jake had boots, we did not. Good news: the Slow Stick floats.

Gary aimed it into the wind, advanced the throttle and… took off! It lifted quickly, and Gary flew it well, looking like he’d done this a thousand times.

He flew around our section of the lake, over the somewhat rocky beach we were using, around and around.

Land & Water. Then he landed. I suppose there’s a better word than “landed” when you drop out of the sky onto water, but I don’t know it.

A very good flight.

Jake coerced me into flying a gentle seaplane he’d brought. Ken took off and handed me the controls. But I was nervous, keyed up by the trip and shaky at the thought of flying someone else’s plane.

After a minute or two of very ragged flying, I handed the transmitter back to Ken.

Later I flew my little planes. I flew the little space cruiser pretty well, but I dumped the wing in the lake after a few minutes of flying. Jake rescued it in an inflatable boat, we set the electronics in the sun to dry and after half an hour it was working again.

God bless fresh water. The brackish water at Baylands erodes a speed control or receiver within a few minutes of exposure.

During the day, practically every flyer except Jake botched a takeoff, resulting in a dunking in the lake.

Up Is Down. On takeoff, says Jake, “To go up, give the plane up elevator. To go down, give it more up elevator.”

Excess up elevator on take-off causes the plane to stall, and when it stalls it usually noses in. This sort of stall happens with takeoffs from solid ground, too, but I think the interaction of water friction on the floats and the length of the floats causes strange things to happen as the plane rises from the water, making the transition even more dicey.

Regardless, Jake has it right. His takeoffs were smooth accelerations into the air, on a very low trajectory. And when he came in, he glided just over the water, descending oh so slowly until he was skimming the water, then dropping in gently.

After a long and fascinating afternoon, Gary and I drove back, stopping at a filling station where we saw a limo full of pretty women who’d had a very very good time in Wine Country. They were laughing and staggering just a bit as they headed to the Ladies’ Room.

But Gary and I were a bit drunk on headier stuff: water. We were thinking about floats and seaplanes and graceful flying things that skim along the surfaces of lakes.

I’ve added a few photos from the day here, but you can see lots more here.

Tags: Airplanes, Flying, Half Moon Bay, PCC, People, Radio Control, Slow Stick, Water.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 8:27 pm and is filed under PCC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.