Aerophile Racing Team

Assembly of our T-34 #3
Practice at the Dwarfs Field
Morgan Hill Air Race April 2000
Madera Air Race June 2000
Lodi Air Race July 2000
Dwarfs Field BBQ
T-34 Number 5
Morgan Hill Air Race October 2000

Flying Practice at the Dwarfs Field in the Almaden Area
When we were practicing Curt flew around some very strong rotor, and lost control. This was Number 2. Then, we built Number 3. We were practicing racing in close formation, and as Ray turned inbound for Pylon 2, Curt said "Where are you going?". He didn't realize he was looking at the wrong plane. By the time we heard the crash of Number 3 in the trees, we figured out that we were both trying to fly the same plane. OOPS! There goes Number 3. After that, we made sure our planes were uniquely colored.

T-34 #1

Curt looking for parts of #2

Big parts of #2

Resident Cow

The herd coming to welcome us

In The Tree

The Tree from the air strip.

Crash of #3 Movie Part I
(1.35Mb)

Crash of #3 Movie Part II
(1.35Mb)

Morgan Hill Air Race
April 2000
This was our first air race. We both did pretty well considering we were sharing one aircraft and it made it through all the rounds with no crashes! For the raffle, Curt won a P-39 Aircobra kit, and Ray won an Airtronics 6 channel radio!

Curt w/ Number 1

Flightline 1

Flightline 2

Matco Team

Competitor's

Reggie's

Competitor's

Ray w/ Number 1

Staging Area

Madera Air Race
June 2000

Blue #4	Blue #4	From the top
Taking mental notes of the competition	Staging areas with the Tiger(Princess)	Chris and Mike Luvara "The competition" (1.35Mb) Starting their engine for a race. These guys are almost always in first.
Mike launching Chris (1.35Mb)	Chris already in the lead of the race (1.35Mb)	Chris pulling away from the pack and looking for the win (1.35Mb)
Chris again at the top of his form (1.35Mb)	Another Luvara teammate going for a win (1.35Mb)

Lodi Air Race
July 2000
Curt took 2nd place in the Novice Class!!
Ray was in fly off for a spot in the Silver Expert race and just lost by a couple of feet.

Dwarfs Field BBQ
We were at the annual Dwarfs Club Barbeque, practicing for the race the next weekend. Curt was flying really fast and turned really hard. He overbanked, decided to roll through, and then realized he didn't have enough altitude to recover. Ray was out on the runway recovering Number 1, and Curt hit the ground with Number 5 at about a 30 degree angle about 20 yards away from and going towards Ray. The plane disintegrated, and parts rolled past as Ray continued back to the pits to get the camera and garbage bags. Molly seemed really impressed that a plane could be so utterly destroyed. There was very little of the airframe that was salvageable. We were just lucky that the radio survived it's ejection.

T-34 Number 5
This is "Number 5". It was built from parts of other wrecked T-34s we found at the races (and from our crashes). We thought it would be nice to have a unique covering design, so we came up with the "Iceberg" motif. It looks really nice outside (see the next race pics).

Morgan Hill Air Race
October 2000
We flew with Number 1 (Ray) and Number 4 (Curt), and kept Number 5 as a backup. In fact, it's first flight was during the lunch break of the day. It flies beautifully, and is very visible. We don't really know if it is fast enough, though, as no one else was flying with it. Maybe next time. For the raffle, Ray won another T-34 kit!