Gary’s Hammer Symposium
Saturday, Gary Morgan hosted what he called a “Combat Hammer Build Symposium” at Baylands.
Wikipedia tells me that Symposium originally meant a drinking party but has since come to refer to any academic conference, whether or not drinking takes place.
This academic conference focused on the profile foam Hammer plane, which Gary, Mike Nadler, Rick Carmichael and others have been building and modifying for the past six months or so.
It’s cheap, acrobatic and easy to build: perfect for streamer combat.
I had hoped to see a lectern, a whiteboard, a pointer and mounds of research papers, but what I got was Gary, tons of foam and 16 or so enthusiastic participants. The drink of choice was coffee.
It kicked off at 9:30 a.m. Gary, George Kulcher, Mike Nadler and others had assembled a small factory’s worth of tools and raw materials: glue guns, a hot wire cutter, a bandsaw, clamps, weights, soldering irons, a propane torch, carbon fiber rods, tape, glue and lots of foam in pastel rainbow colors. Gary and others donated foam and other material. Lightflight Dave and Sara showed up to supply low-cost motors and speed controls.
The project quickly overflowed available picnic tables. It was Saturday, after all, and the Symposium shared the space with a big crowd of flyers drawn by a sunny and warm February day.
But builders found space. At one point, Gopal set up a soldering iron on a concrete trash container. And everyone shared tables, of course.
The first plane took forever. Well, about an hour. But Gary and others were cutting extra parts as they built, and every plane after that took less time. I think someone claimed a 15-minute build later in the morning.
I left at 1 p.m. to sort out the hundreds of photos I’d taken. The crowd was still building, still enthusiastic.
Check out more photos of this most excellent day at Baylands.
Thanks, Gary!
Tags: Airplanes, Baylands, Combat, Flying, Gallery, Life, People, Tools.
Hi Pete,
Thanks for the coverage!
Was I supposed to collect your camera from Sara? If so I screwed up – sorry.
Thanks for being there and the most excellent article.
Cheers!
Gary
No, Mike was supposed to get the camera. I’ll get it from him Monday…
Lightflight Sara did a great job taking pictures with Pete’s camera, and her presence made us all watch our language and manners.
Excellent Pete!
This really tells a story of the whole days events with the article and photos.
Thank you so much Pete!
Hey you have a spell checker working – this is the bees knees
Gary
I vote to turn this into a proper Symposium. We can start the drinking around 1pm after the coffee runs out (it will be 5 o’clock somewhere). I’m sure that after about 3pm building and combat will become more challenging. And who doesn’t like a challenge? Plus it will make my photos way more interesting!
Saturday was lots of fun, I’m looking forward to the next one. Gary did an amazing job and the turnout was phenomenal. Pete, your pictures really captured the spirit and camraderie! And Mike, thank you for the compliments!
Congrats to everyone who got stars! =0)
Your writeup renders me remorseful that I didn’t make it Saturday. I’m highly motivated to make the next one. To all… my admiration for the energy-effort done on this… please do make a next one!
Thanks. Al.
Pete,
Great photos….you get so much more contrast than my Sony Point-and-Shoot.
So what was the lesson we learned from the build? That we have more fun interacting with all the other flyers and laughing at our shortcomings than flying. So we fly to meet, and we meet to fly. It is the ying and yang of Baylands. We need the friendship more than the flight time. And Gary’s Building Session proves this one more time.
Crazy Ted