1998 Skymasters Spring Float Flys

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On May 16 and 17th, Skymasters hosted a pair of float flys. The Saturday even was held at Seven Lakes State Park in Fenton, MI and was CD'd by Chet Brady. The wind was pretty strong at our backs Saturday and we didn't see a lot of successful flying. We were treated however to the sight of Steve Fredericks' Maule Rocket tumbling end over end across the lake. Very cool!

The Sunday float fly was held at Bald Mt. Recreation Area in Lake Orion, MI. First time CD Ross Jones did a great job with both the event and the kitchen. The weather was perfect and the 20 or so pilots had many many successful flights.

What's a Skymasters float fly without Steve Fredericks' Champ?

Bill Leppard's Pica Rapide on a slow flyby.

Don Bennett's Schneider Cup racer taxis out.

Mark Smith's Sig LT40 takes off for another great float flight.

What's a float fly without an occasional dunked plane? Here, Carolynn Foss holds Mike Cislers's Stick 40 on floats after a minor mishap on Saturday. Mike lost a float strut in the air and turned his right float into a giant airbrake! He did a great job of limping back and then dumping it into the lake close to shore to make sure he didn't hit anyone.

Greg Cardillo's Champ doing it's imitation of a Unlimited Hydroplane racing boat. Look's like he had a float incidence problem and couldn't get off the lake.

After zooming around the lake for a while, Greg managed to dunk his Champ. Carolynn Foss (Skymasters Chief Plane Retriever) swims Greg's Champ over to Wade Wiley in the retrieval boat. (Seriously, always have a boat available when you are float flying. They don't always end up dead in less than 6 feet of water like this one).

Several different flying boats of various sizes were flown with great success at the Sunday float fly. They ranged from Joe Hass' little Puddlemaster to Terry Overton's Supermarine Stranraer.

Joe Hass' cute little ACE Puddlemaster during a touch and go.

Joe Hass' Balsa USA Laker just after takeoff.

Greg Cardillo's ACE Seamaster taxis back after yet another successful flight.

Bill Leppard's 1997 Midwest Regional Float Fly Scale Contest winning PBY Catalina doing what it does best. Fly low slow and beautiful.

Bill's PBY Catalina about to touch down for it's best landing ever!

Terry Overton's 1995 Midwest Regional Float Fly Scale Contest winning Supermarine Stranraer about to touch down.

Terry's Stranraer taxis back to shore.

Pete and Sam Foss enjoy a turn around the lake with a Dumas Swamp Buggy. I guess that's officially a "non-flying boat". It was the only thing we dared put on the lake Saturday afternoon when the wind picked up!

(This batch of pictures was taken by P.H. Foss using a Ricoh 35 mm film camera with a 200 mm zoom lens.)

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