Tomcats Open House

The Santa Clara County Tomcats have put on another one of their successful open houses. They hold these annually as a way of giving back to the community.



This is the second time I have come to their event and I am very impressed with the polish that this show has.



The morning started off with the national anthem while radio control parachutists descended around an rc helicopter towing the stars and stripes.



The first group of fliers were the South Bay Soaring Society who demonstrated winch, and discus launch gliders. Next were electrics of all sorts, followed by a control line demonstration, and several categories of racing.



They did a great bit with a lawn mower getting away from someone "mowing" the field only to become airborne. Along with things that shouldn't fly like a stop sign and school bus.



They took an hour long break at lunch and invited their guests to try flying an RC plane or helicopter themselves. They had one line for the helicopter and a second one feeding the 5 or 6 stations set up for airplanes. During this hour a lot of people maybe 200 got time at the controls. This was a textbook example of getting the public involved in flying and I'm sure won them several new members.



After lunch snoopy took to the skies flying his dog house.



This didn't last too long, just as it was getting started Snoopy made a "kill" on the Red Baron and a beautiful large scale bi-plane met an inadvertent end.



One of the keys to success that they used was having an announcer describing the action in non-modeling terms so that lay people could appreciate the activities. The Tomcats President Mike Luvara shown above did most of the announcing assisted by other club members.



One of their members scratch built this B-17 which was a featured plane in the giant scale warbirds segment.



The airplane was modeled after one that his father had flew in during World War II.



They had a whole host of fighters providing cover including this beautiful Corsair. The warbirds were followed by jets and finally some IMAC and 3-D flying.



It was a full day of flying and the crowd turn out was phenomenal. This picture shows only about a third of Saturdays spectators. The Tomcats did a great job and any club looking to put on a show of their own would benefit by following their lead.