Forrest
Waller has been flying model airplanes since he was a kid.
But at 34 he took his first step into the cockpit of a real
aircraft -- this time as a pilot.
He bought a World War I S.E. 5
British fighter, a single-seat biplane known for being easy
to fly and highly maneuverable. But he didn't have it for
long. Soon after taking off one day, his engine stalled.
''I was falling to the ground
like a lawn dart,'' Waller recalled.
His
plane crashed. Miraculously, he walked away unscathed, but
shaken. He now prefers to fly with his feet on the ground.
''That's when I started
flying giant-scale aerobatic models,'' said Waller, who
participated over the weekend in a model airplane
competition sponsored by the Aero Modelers of Perrine. ``And
I get the same thrill out of it.''
Most of Sunday's participants
on the final day of the group's Annual Aerobatic Challenge
said that flying the giant models differs from the real deal
only by virtue of where the controls are. And it's just as
exciting.
''I
feel like I'm flying a real plane,'' said Nicolas Mesa, 16,
who was on a roll before his aircraft stalled and crashed in
a zucchini field.
More than three dozen model
aircraft enthusiasts from Florida and the southeastern
United States gathered at a grassy airstrip just west of
Krome Avenue and Southwest 168th Street to strut their
aeronautical know-how in the sky above Homestead.
COMPLEX MOVES
The large-scale, gas-fueled
models, some as large as a quarter of their full-size
counterparts and costing upward of $5,000, took to the air
and were judged on their execution of complex aerobatic
maneuvers.
''We
emulate the competitions that are held for the World
Aerobatic Championships,'' said Tony Fandino, a contest
coordinator.
A roughly six-foot plane
bumped down the runway and lifted into the bright blue sky
''trimming'' its wings -- aero-speak for adjusting its nose
-- before entering the aerobatic box.
The
box is the area of sky where loops and other maneuvers are
performed for the competition, said Mike Laughlin, president
of Aero Modelers of Perrine.
''Different maneuvers are
flown in different areas of the box,'' he said.
PERFORM ROUTINES
The
flyers are judged in much the same way as ice skaters,
evaluated on their execution of a practiced routine.
Pilots compete in five
different categories according to skill level.
The International Aerobatics
Club, which hosts aerobatic competitions for full-size
planes, sanctions the ''mini'' competition and requires
pilots to perform the same tasks and tricks as its piloted
stunt planes -- from a preflight check list to snap rolls
and tail slides.
''We are totally patterned
after the full-scale organization, from the name of the
organization to the planes we fly to the judging criteria,''
said Julie Johnson, a certified judge.
After all, they are real
airplanes, only on a smaller scale, Waller said.
