Hobbico E-Fest - 2012/06

Each year there are signi cant events we look forward
to, dream about, and plan for. We make room in our
schedules for special happenings such as holidays,
birthdays, and vacations.
There is an RC event that has taken on that same kind of
annual, special-occasion status for several hundred avid pilots.
It is called E-Fest and it is held indoors in the middle of the
harsh, Midwest winter.
There is nothing better than packing your park  yer-size
electric airplanes and helicopters for a weekend of indoor
 ying in a huge arena with a 100-foot-high ceiling. The
University of Illinois Track and Field Armory in Champaign,
Illinois, provides that indoor airspace and better yet, it is
conveniently located a couple of hours south of Chicago. This
year, 2012, makes the seventh consecutive year E-Fest has
been held at the Armory.
Hobbico’s Frank Noll runs the show in the same
enthusiastic way he  ies his own RC models. Frank founded
the event to give pilots a fun weekend of  ying indoors when
they could not  y outside. E-Fest took off from the beginning,
and it has been well attended throughout the years. Roughly
300 pilots come with a passion to get in some stick time, and
enjoy reuniting with other  iers whom they may only see a
few times a year at various RC events.
Seven years ago, the timing was right to start this gathering
because electric-powered RC was coming into its own.
Since then, we have seen an explosion in electric-powered
RC aircraft manufacturing. The most recent airplanes and
helicopters are more advanced than anything we could have
dreamed of a decade ago.
In the midst of all the fun and excitement created when
everyone was  ying high-performance, park-size, electricby
Kyle Stacy won the Heli Smackdown event
with a sophisticated, computer-controlled
lighting system designed by engineer
Bobby Watts. The lights pulsed to
the music and sometimes went
completely dark to add a
sense of drama to the
flight.
powered aircraft, a wonderful thing happened that would
profoundly impact the future of our hobby: the kids came
back!
Yes, the youngsters became interested in RC again because it
was no longer about Uncle Bob’s large, noisy airplane that no
one else was allowed to fl y. Now there was fi nally an affordable
entry point into RC with practically harmless, micro models
that nearly any kid could handle with ease.
Because of this, every E-Fest has attracted a large crowd of
youngsters, from toddlers to teens. They love fl ying the models
because it is fun. Most of the kids even said they preferred
fl ying real RC to playing virtual games on their video consoles.
The large E-Fest fl oor space is separated into four separate
zones: 3-D airplanes, helicopters, micros, and normal racetrack,
pattern-fl ying craft. Many younger people could be found
hanging out in the micro-fl ying area.
Master builders, brothers Peter and Steven Sripol, surprised
everyone there this year by unveiling a fully functional fl ying
aircraft carrier. The fl ying boat was amazingly powered by four
propeller motors that provided lift on all sides of the model.
The Sripol-designed craft could take off and fl y with great
precision, even while carrying several micro-size models. Once
airborne, the airplanes and helicopters would take off from the
deck of the carrier in midair. Calling this a crowd pleaser is a
gross understatement.
The two largest US hobby distributors, Hobbico and
Horizon Hobby, had display booths set up and have
responded to the market demand by developing several types
of new aircraft. A walk down vendor row at E-Fest confi rms
that new products are appearing at an unprecedented pace.
There are too many cool new items to cover here, so I would
suggest a trip to the various websites to check out what is
new.
There are so many great RC products for sale that a person
would not have to think about bringing his or her own
aircraft to fl y. You could buy everything you needed on the
fl ightline at E-Fest. It would make a great place to expose
someone to the hobby by helping him or her fi nd the right
airplane or helicopter for a beginner.
E-Fest is certainly a great time for all the pilots, but the
event is also promoted to the general public in Champaign,
by extending an invitation for them to come watch the RC
fun. Saturday evening begins a series of contests and fl ying
displays that are unique within aeromodeling.
First—and my favorite—is the Scale airplane competition
where tiny, hand-built Scale models with unfathomable
detail are fl own around the Armory in an attempt to
precisely mimic their full-scale inspirations. Master
microscale modeler, Sean Cassidy, won the event for the
second year in a row.
Jason Pierson bought this lighting system at E-Fest in
order to use his ElectriFly model in the night-fly. This
was Jason’s … rst time flying in the dark and he was
concerned about the lighting setup, but he said the
airplane was easy to fly in the dark.
Mike Fuller flew his RC Surfer Dude among the
ra ers at E-Fest 2012. He won the Pilots’ Choice
award for his sur oard airplane at the JR Indoor
Electric Festival a couple of years ago. This year
Mike added the silver Surfer Dude.
Jim Fassino built this beautiful 1903 Wright
Flyer that will reside in a museum so that many
can admire his craftsmanship. Jim flew the
model in the Scale competition and scored
high against a formidable group of world-class
modelers.
Kyle Stacy is the winningest helicopter pilot
in indoor RC and his control and skills are
incredible as evidenced by this shot showing
Kyle’s heli just millimeters off the deck
inverted.
Shaun’s airplanes are
awesome up close. His
beautifully detailed
replicas are more
impressive and accurate
than many larger Scale
models.
This year, his winning
1918 Vickers Vimy blew everyone’s mind when they saw the
operating  ight-control wires, active bomb-release mechanism,
and accurate fabrication of all the machine gunnery, and other
scale appointments. Many of the micro models will leave you
scratching your head as you try to imagine just how all those
miniscule pieces are formed and glued into place.
A 3-D airplane  ying competition follows the Scale contest.
The world’s top micro 3-D  iers are present to show their
stuff. This year, R.J. Gritter won the contest with a foamie
equipped with thrust reversing. Gritter is a multiple-time
Extreme Flight Championships (XFC) competitor and an
excellent aircraft designer. The thrust-reversing setup on his
foamie allowed him to perform within a new  ight envelope
that includes backward maneuvers.
The infamous Heli Smackdown was won again this year by
the teenage, electric-powered heli guru, Kyle Stacy. That kid
can  y! The pylon race was back again by popular demand.
Most of the airplanes in the pylon race are the same type used
in the foamie 3-D contests.
Frank Noll added an interesting event this year called “The
Gauntlet.” Lighted plastic shapes, similar to hula hoops, were
set up around a course and the pilots had to  y through them.
Contestants had to run alongside their airplanes as they  ew
through these obstacles. Devon McGrath made an exciting
pass at the  nish to beat out Joe Smith and R.J. Gritter.
There is also a combat event where the last one  ying wins,
and then the evening  nishes off with a blacked-out night- y
in total darkness. The E-Fest staff puts a great deal of time and
effort into making sure the entire weekend is fun for all who
attend.
Everyone who helps out at E-Fest should be congratulated
for putting on a great event and creating a fun and exciting
Dozens of youngsters participate in the Make It, Take It event.
Each is given a balsa airplane to assemble and then they
compete for the longest flight distance during a mass launch.
Sean Cassidy won  rst place in the Scale contest with this
amazing 196-gram, 1/19-scale Vickers Vimy. The bombs
are released as on the full-scale airplane. It used brushless
ElectriFly motors running on two-cell LiPo batteries.
The new E-Flite Gee Bee R2 comes
standard with the advanced AS3X
system for smooth handling and control.
With the new electronics, a previously
unstable aircraŽ can become a funto-
fly pussycat, while maintaining the
aggressive flight characteristics of its
original design.
Eleven-yearold
Stephanie
Winkless had
fun flying her
ParkZone Ember
in the micro
area. She flies
helicopters
and airplanes
and wonders
why more girls
her age aren’t
involved in RC
Dozens of youngsters participate in the Make It, Take It event.
Each is given a balsa airplane to assemble and then they
compete for the longest flight distance during a mass launch.
Sean Cassidy won
Sean Cassidy won  rst place in the Scale contest with this
amazing 196-gram, 1/19-scale Vickers Vimy. The bombs
are released as on the full-scale airplane. It used brushless
ElectriFly motors running on two-cell LiPo batteries.
The new E-Flite Gee Bee R2 comes
standard with the advanced AS3X
system for smooth handling and control.
With the new electronics, a previously
unstable aircraŽ can become a funto-
fly pussycat, while maintaining the
aggressive flight characteristics of its
original design.
Jeremy
Jeremy Rumsey shows o’ his Hobby Zone
Aeronica Champ RC micro airplane. Jeremy has
flown micro helicopters, but this is his  rst
airplane. He says it is challenging
Inset: Peter and Stephen Sripol’s latest
creation is a flying aircra carrier. They
designed the cra with four gyro-controlled
electric motors for stability. It can carry
several micro airplanes and choppers alo
and the aircraft take to in midair!
David Schuck hovers his Blade mCP X over the flight deck of the Sripols’
flying aircrat carrier
and designing. Together they have produced some of the most impressive and
unique aircraft, such as this one, to be seen at any indoor event.
Top: R.J. Gritter won the Freestyle airplane contest with this
specially designed foamie. R.J. equipped the state-of-the-art
aerobat with a thrust-reversing motor/propeller setup. The
design allowed him to fly straight toward the ground and
then put the airplane in reverse and fly backward.
Bottom: The Fitzgerald family, (L-R) Robert II, Jackson, and
Robert III, all fly RC. They plan to return next winter for the
2013 E-Fest.
environment for all ages to enjoy. We do not know what
future significance a young person’s E-Fest experience
may have.
The University of Illinois Track and Field Armory has
become an incubator for great, young aviation minds
such as the teenage Sripol brothers. The Sripols have
been designing and building some of the most creatively
advanced electric-powered indoor aircraft ever seen.
E-Fest is the annual stage where they can show off
their newest projects among like-minded people who
appreciate engineering genius. There are even 11-yearold
girls such as, Stephanie Winkless, who gets ready
for E-Fest by inviting friends over to her house to fly
helicopters in the garage.
Youngsters are the future of our hobby. From what
I saw at E-Fest this year, it is safe to say that the most
innovative and exciting times in RC lie ahead.
Make plans for the 2013 E-Fest fly-in so you can enjoy
all of the fun to be had there, and maybe even help a
young person get a start in this great hobby.
—Mark Fadely
[email protected]

Each year there are signi cant events we look forward
to, dream about, and plan for. We make room in our
schedules for special happenings such as holidays,
birthdays, and vacations.
There is an RC event that has taken on that same kind of
annual, special-occasion status for several hundred avid pilots.
It is called E-Fest and it is held indoors in the middle of the
harsh, Midwest winter.
There is nothing better than packing your park  yer-size
electric airplanes and helicopters for a weekend of indoor
 ying in a huge arena with a 100-foot-high ceiling. The
University of Illinois Track and Field Armory in Champaign,
Illinois, provides that indoor airspace and better yet, it is
conveniently located a couple of hours south of Chicago. This
year, 2012, makes the seventh consecutive year E-Fest has
been held at the Armory.
Hobbico’s Frank Noll runs the show in the same
enthusiastic way he  ies his own RC models. Frank founded
the event to give pilots a fun weekend of  ying indoors when
they could not  y outside. E-Fest took off from the beginning,
and it has been well attended throughout the years. Roughly
300 pilots come with a passion to get in some stick time, and
enjoy reuniting with other  iers whom they may only see a
few times a year at various RC events.
Seven years ago, the timing was right to start this gathering
because electric-powered RC was coming into its own.
Since then, we have seen an explosion in electric-powered
RC aircraft manufacturing. The most recent airplanes and
helicopters are more advanced than anything we could have
dreamed of a decade ago.
In the midst of all the fun and excitement created when
everyone was  ying high-performance, park-size, electricby
Kyle Stacy won the Heli Smackdown event
with a sophisticated, computer-controlled
lighting system designed by engineer
Bobby Watts. The lights pulsed to
the music and sometimes went
completely dark to add a
sense of drama to the
flight.
powered aircraft, a wonderful thing happened that would
profoundly impact the future of our hobby: the kids came
back!
Yes, the youngsters became interested in RC again because it
was no longer about Uncle Bob’s large, noisy airplane that no
one else was allowed to fl y. Now there was fi nally an affordable
entry point into RC with practically harmless, micro models
that nearly any kid could handle with ease.
Because of this, every E-Fest has attracted a large crowd of
youngsters, from toddlers to teens. They love fl ying the models
because it is fun. Most of the kids even said they preferred
fl ying real RC to playing virtual games on their video consoles.
The large E-Fest fl oor space is separated into four separate
zones: 3-D airplanes, helicopters, micros, and normal racetrack,
pattern-fl ying craft. Many younger people could be found
hanging out in the micro-fl ying area.
Master builders, brothers Peter and Steven Sripol, surprised
everyone there this year by unveiling a fully functional fl ying
aircraft carrier. The fl ying boat was amazingly powered by four
propeller motors that provided lift on all sides of the model.
The Sripol-designed craft could take off and fl y with great
precision, even while carrying several micro-size models. Once
airborne, the airplanes and helicopters would take off from the
deck of the carrier in midair. Calling this a crowd pleaser is a
gross understatement.
The two largest US hobby distributors, Hobbico and
Horizon Hobby, had display booths set up and have
responded to the market demand by developing several types
of new aircraft. A walk down vendor row at E-Fest confi rms
that new products are appearing at an unprecedented pace.
There are too many cool new items to cover here, so I would
suggest a trip to the various websites to check out what is
new.
There are so many great RC products for sale that a person
would not have to think about bringing his or her own
aircraft to fl y. You could buy everything you needed on the
fl ightline at E-Fest. It would make a great place to expose
someone to the hobby by helping him or her fi nd the right
airplane or helicopter for a beginner.
E-Fest is certainly a great time for all the pilots, but the
event is also promoted to the general public in Champaign,
by extending an invitation for them to come watch the RC
fun. Saturday evening begins a series of contests and fl ying
displays that are unique within aeromodeling.
First—and my favorite—is the Scale airplane competition
where tiny, hand-built Scale models with unfathomable
detail are fl own around the Armory in an attempt to
precisely mimic their full-scale inspirations. Master
microscale modeler, Sean Cassidy, won the event for the
second year in a row.
Jason Pierson bought this lighting system at E-Fest in
order to use his ElectriFly model in the night-fly. This
was Jason’s … rst time flying in the dark and he was
concerned about the lighting setup, but he said the
airplane was easy to fly in the dark.
Mike Fuller flew his RC Surfer Dude among the
ra ers at E-Fest 2012. He won the Pilots’ Choice
award for his sur oard airplane at the JR Indoor
Electric Festival a couple of years ago. This year
Mike added the silver Surfer Dude.
Jim Fassino built this beautiful 1903 Wright
Flyer that will reside in a museum so that many
can admire his craftsmanship. Jim flew the
model in the Scale competition and scored
high against a formidable group of world-class
modelers.
Kyle Stacy is the winningest helicopter pilot
in indoor RC and his control and skills are
incredible as evidenced by this shot showing
Kyle’s heli just millimeters off the deck
inverted.
Shaun’s airplanes are
awesome up close. His
beautifully detailed
replicas are more
impressive and accurate
than many larger Scale
models.
This year, his winning
1918 Vickers Vimy blew everyone’s mind when they saw the
operating  ight-control wires, active bomb-release mechanism,
and accurate fabrication of all the machine gunnery, and other
scale appointments. Many of the micro models will leave you
scratching your head as you try to imagine just how all those
miniscule pieces are formed and glued into place.
A 3-D airplane  ying competition follows the Scale contest.
The world’s top micro 3-D  iers are present to show their
stuff. This year, R.J. Gritter won the contest with a foamie
equipped with thrust reversing. Gritter is a multiple-time
Extreme Flight Championships (XFC) competitor and an
excellent aircraft designer. The thrust-reversing setup on his
foamie allowed him to perform within a new  ight envelope
that includes backward maneuvers.
The infamous Heli Smackdown was won again this year by
the teenage, electric-powered heli guru, Kyle Stacy. That kid
can  y! The pylon race was back again by popular demand.
Most of the airplanes in the pylon race are the same type used
in the foamie 3-D contests.
Frank Noll added an interesting event this year called “The
Gauntlet.” Lighted plastic shapes, similar to hula hoops, were
set up around a course and the pilots had to  y through them.
Contestants had to run alongside their airplanes as they  ew
through these obstacles. Devon McGrath made an exciting
pass at the  nish to beat out Joe Smith and R.J. Gritter.
There is also a combat event where the last one  ying wins,
and then the evening  nishes off with a blacked-out night- y
in total darkness. The E-Fest staff puts a great deal of time and
effort into making sure the entire weekend is fun for all who
attend.
Everyone who helps out at E-Fest should be congratulated
for putting on a great event and creating a fun and exciting
Dozens of youngsters participate in the Make It, Take It event.
Each is given a balsa airplane to assemble and then they
compete for the longest flight distance during a mass launch.
Sean Cassidy won  rst place in the Scale contest with this
amazing 196-gram, 1/19-scale Vickers Vimy. The bombs
are released as on the full-scale airplane. It used brushless
ElectriFly motors running on two-cell LiPo batteries.
The new E-Flite Gee Bee R2 comes
standard with the advanced AS3X
system for smooth handling and control.
With the new electronics, a previously
unstable aircraŽ can become a funto-
fly pussycat, while maintaining the
aggressive flight characteristics of its
original design.
Eleven-yearold
Stephanie
Winkless had
fun flying her
ParkZone Ember
in the micro
area. She flies
helicopters
and airplanes
and wonders
why more girls
her age aren’t
involved in RC
Dozens of youngsters participate in the Make It, Take It event.
Each is given a balsa airplane to assemble and then they
compete for the longest flight distance during a mass launch.
Sean Cassidy won
Sean Cassidy won  rst place in the Scale contest with this
amazing 196-gram, 1/19-scale Vickers Vimy. The bombs
are released as on the full-scale airplane. It used brushless
ElectriFly motors running on two-cell LiPo batteries.
The new E-Flite Gee Bee R2 comes
standard with the advanced AS3X
system for smooth handling and control.
With the new electronics, a previously
unstable aircraŽ can become a funto-
fly pussycat, while maintaining the
aggressive flight characteristics of its
original design.
Jeremy
Jeremy Rumsey shows o’ his Hobby Zone
Aeronica Champ RC micro airplane. Jeremy has
flown micro helicopters, but this is his  rst
airplane. He says it is challenging
Inset: Peter and Stephen Sripol’s latest
creation is a flying aircra carrier. They
designed the cra with four gyro-controlled
electric motors for stability. It can carry
several micro airplanes and choppers alo
and the aircraft take to in midair!
David Schuck hovers his Blade mCP X over the flight deck of the Sripols’
flying aircrat carrier
and designing. Together they have produced some of the most impressive and
unique aircraft, such as this one, to be seen at any indoor event.
Top: R.J. Gritter won the Freestyle airplane contest with this
specially designed foamie. R.J. equipped the state-of-the-art
aerobat with a thrust-reversing motor/propeller setup. The
design allowed him to fly straight toward the ground and
then put the airplane in reverse and fly backward.
Bottom: The Fitzgerald family, (L-R) Robert II, Jackson, and
Robert III, all fly RC. They plan to return next winter for the
2013 E-Fest.
environment for all ages to enjoy. We do not know what
future significance a young person’s E-Fest experience
may have.
The University of Illinois Track and Field Armory has
become an incubator for great, young aviation minds
such as the teenage Sripol brothers. The Sripols have
been designing and building some of the most creatively
advanced electric-powered indoor aircraft ever seen.
E-Fest is the annual stage where they can show off
their newest projects among like-minded people who
appreciate engineering genius. There are even 11-yearold
girls such as, Stephanie Winkless, who gets ready
for E-Fest by inviting friends over to her house to fly
helicopters in the garage.
Youngsters are the future of our hobby. From what
I saw at E-Fest this year, it is safe to say that the most
innovative and exciting times in RC lie ahead.
Make plans for the 2013 E-Fest fly-in so you can enjoy
all of the fun to be had there, and maybe even help a
young person get a start in this great hobby.
—Mark Fadely
[email protected]

Each year there are signi cant events we look forward
to, dream about, and plan for. We make room in our
schedules for special happenings such as holidays,
birthdays, and vacations.
There is an RC event that has taken on that same kind of
annual, special-occasion status for several hundred avid pilots.
It is called E-Fest and it is held indoors in the middle of the
harsh, Midwest winter.
There is nothing better than packing your park  yer-size
electric airplanes and helicopters for a weekend of indoor
 ying in a huge arena with a 100-foot-high ceiling. The
University of Illinois Track and Field Armory in Champaign,
Illinois, provides that indoor airspace and better yet, it is
conveniently located a couple of hours south of Chicago. This
year, 2012, makes the seventh consecutive year E-Fest has
been held at the Armory.
Hobbico’s Frank Noll runs the show in the same
enthusiastic way he  ies his own RC models. Frank founded
the event to give pilots a fun weekend of  ying indoors when
they could not  y outside. E-Fest took off from the beginning,
and it has been well attended throughout the years. Roughly
300 pilots come with a passion to get in some stick time, and
enjoy reuniting with other  iers whom they may only see a
few times a year at various RC events.
Seven years ago, the timing was right to start this gathering
because electric-powered RC was coming into its own.
Since then, we have seen an explosion in electric-powered
RC aircraft manufacturing. The most recent airplanes and
helicopters are more advanced than anything we could have
dreamed of a decade ago.
In the midst of all the fun and excitement created when
everyone was  ying high-performance, park-size, electricby
Kyle Stacy won the Heli Smackdown event
with a sophisticated, computer-controlled
lighting system designed by engineer
Bobby Watts. The lights pulsed to
the music and sometimes went
completely dark to add a
sense of drama to the
flight.
powered aircraft, a wonderful thing happened that would
profoundly impact the future of our hobby: the kids came
back!
Yes, the youngsters became interested in RC again because it
was no longer about Uncle Bob’s large, noisy airplane that no
one else was allowed to fl y. Now there was fi nally an affordable
entry point into RC with practically harmless, micro models
that nearly any kid could handle with ease.
Because of this, every E-Fest has attracted a large crowd of
youngsters, from toddlers to teens. They love fl ying the models
because it is fun. Most of the kids even said they preferred
fl ying real RC to playing virtual games on their video consoles.
The large E-Fest fl oor space is separated into four separate
zones: 3-D airplanes, helicopters, micros, and normal racetrack,
pattern-fl ying craft. Many younger people could be found
hanging out in the micro-fl ying area.
Master builders, brothers Peter and Steven Sripol, surprised
everyone there this year by unveiling a fully functional fl ying
aircraft carrier. The fl ying boat was amazingly powered by four
propeller motors that provided lift on all sides of the model.
The Sripol-designed craft could take off and fl y with great
precision, even while carrying several micro-size models. Once
airborne, the airplanes and helicopters would take off from the
deck of the carrier in midair. Calling this a crowd pleaser is a
gross understatement.
The two largest US hobby distributors, Hobbico and
Horizon Hobby, had display booths set up and have
responded to the market demand by developing several types
of new aircraft. A walk down vendor row at E-Fest confi rms
that new products are appearing at an unprecedented pace.
There are too many cool new items to cover here, so I would
suggest a trip to the various websites to check out what is
new.
There are so many great RC products for sale that a person
would not have to think about bringing his or her own
aircraft to fl y. You could buy everything you needed on the
fl ightline at E-Fest. It would make a great place to expose
someone to the hobby by helping him or her fi nd the right
airplane or helicopter for a beginner.
E-Fest is certainly a great time for all the pilots, but the
event is also promoted to the general public in Champaign,
by extending an invitation for them to come watch the RC
fun. Saturday evening begins a series of contests and fl ying
displays that are unique within aeromodeling.
First—and my favorite—is the Scale airplane competition
where tiny, hand-built Scale models with unfathomable
detail are fl own around the Armory in an attempt to
precisely mimic their full-scale inspirations. Master
microscale modeler, Sean Cassidy, won the event for the
second year in a row.
Jason Pierson bought this lighting system at E-Fest in
order to use his ElectriFly model in the night-fly. This
was Jason’s … rst time flying in the dark and he was
concerned about the lighting setup, but he said the
airplane was easy to fly in the dark.
Mike Fuller flew his RC Surfer Dude among the
ra ers at E-Fest 2012. He won the Pilots’ Choice
award for his sur oard airplane at the JR Indoor
Electric Festival a couple of years ago. This year
Mike added the silver Surfer Dude.
Jim Fassino built this beautiful 1903 Wright
Flyer that will reside in a museum so that many
can admire his craftsmanship. Jim flew the
model in the Scale competition and scored
high against a formidable group of world-class
modelers.
Kyle Stacy is the winningest helicopter pilot
in indoor RC and his control and skills are
incredible as evidenced by this shot showing
Kyle’s heli just millimeters off the deck
inverted.
Shaun’s airplanes are
awesome up close. His
beautifully detailed
replicas are more
impressive and accurate
than many larger Scale
models.
This year, his winning
1918 Vickers Vimy blew everyone’s mind when they saw the
operating  ight-control wires, active bomb-release mechanism,
and accurate fabrication of all the machine gunnery, and other
scale appointments. Many of the micro models will leave you
scratching your head as you try to imagine just how all those
miniscule pieces are formed and glued into place.
A 3-D airplane  ying competition follows the Scale contest.
The world’s top micro 3-D  iers are present to show their
stuff. This year, R.J. Gritter won the contest with a foamie
equipped with thrust reversing. Gritter is a multiple-time
Extreme Flight Championships (XFC) competitor and an
excellent aircraft designer. The thrust-reversing setup on his
foamie allowed him to perform within a new  ight envelope
that includes backward maneuvers.
The infamous Heli Smackdown was won again this year by
the teenage, electric-powered heli guru, Kyle Stacy. That kid
can  y! The pylon race was back again by popular demand.
Most of the airplanes in the pylon race are the same type used
in the foamie 3-D contests.
Frank Noll added an interesting event this year called “The
Gauntlet.” Lighted plastic shapes, similar to hula hoops, were
set up around a course and the pilots had to  y through them.
Contestants had to run alongside their airplanes as they  ew
through these obstacles. Devon McGrath made an exciting
pass at the  nish to beat out Joe Smith and R.J. Gritter.
There is also a combat event where the last one  ying wins,
and then the evening  nishes off with a blacked-out night- y
in total darkness. The E-Fest staff puts a great deal of time and
effort into making sure the entire weekend is fun for all who
attend.
Everyone who helps out at E-Fest should be congratulated
for putting on a great event and creating a fun and exciting
Dozens of youngsters participate in the Make It, Take It event.
Each is given a balsa airplane to assemble and then they
compete for the longest flight distance during a mass launch.
Sean Cassidy won  rst place in the Scale contest with this
amazing 196-gram, 1/19-scale Vickers Vimy. The bombs
are released as on the full-scale airplane. It used brushless
ElectriFly motors running on two-cell LiPo batteries.
The new E-Flite Gee Bee R2 comes
standard with the advanced AS3X
system for smooth handling and control.
With the new electronics, a previously
unstable aircraŽ can become a funto-
fly pussycat, while maintaining the
aggressive flight characteristics of its
original design.
Eleven-yearold
Stephanie
Winkless had
fun flying her
ParkZone Ember
in the micro
area. She flies
helicopters
and airplanes
and wonders
why more girls
her age aren’t
involved in RC
Dozens of youngsters participate in the Make It, Take It event.
Each is given a balsa airplane to assemble and then they
compete for the longest flight distance during a mass launch.
Sean Cassidy won
Sean Cassidy won  rst place in the Scale contest with this
amazing 196-gram, 1/19-scale Vickers Vimy. The bombs
are released as on the full-scale airplane. It used brushless
ElectriFly motors running on two-cell LiPo batteries.
The new E-Flite Gee Bee R2 comes
standard with the advanced AS3X
system for smooth handling and control.
With the new electronics, a previously
unstable aircraŽ can become a funto-
fly pussycat, while maintaining the
aggressive flight characteristics of its
original design.
Jeremy
Jeremy Rumsey shows o’ his Hobby Zone
Aeronica Champ RC micro airplane. Jeremy has
flown micro helicopters, but this is his  rst
airplane. He says it is challenging
Inset: Peter and Stephen Sripol’s latest
creation is a flying aircra carrier. They
designed the cra with four gyro-controlled
electric motors for stability. It can carry
several micro airplanes and choppers alo
and the aircraft take to in midair!
David Schuck hovers his Blade mCP X over the flight deck of the Sripols’
flying aircrat carrier
and designing. Together they have produced some of the most impressive and
unique aircraft, such as this one, to be seen at any indoor event.
Top: R.J. Gritter won the Freestyle airplane contest with this
specially designed foamie. R.J. equipped the state-of-the-art
aerobat with a thrust-reversing motor/propeller setup. The
design allowed him to fly straight toward the ground and
then put the airplane in reverse and fly backward.
Bottom: The Fitzgerald family, (L-R) Robert II, Jackson, and
Robert III, all fly RC. They plan to return next winter for the
2013 E-Fest.
environment for all ages to enjoy. We do not know what
future significance a young person’s E-Fest experience
may have.
The University of Illinois Track and Field Armory has
become an incubator for great, young aviation minds
such as the teenage Sripol brothers. The Sripols have
been designing and building some of the most creatively
advanced electric-powered indoor aircraft ever seen.
E-Fest is the annual stage where they can show off
their newest projects among like-minded people who
appreciate engineering genius. There are even 11-yearold
girls such as, Stephanie Winkless, who gets ready
for E-Fest by inviting friends over to her house to fly
helicopters in the garage.
Youngsters are the future of our hobby. From what
I saw at E-Fest this year, it is safe to say that the most
innovative and exciting times in RC lie ahead.
Make plans for the 2013 E-Fest fly-in so you can enjoy
all of the fun to be had there, and maybe even help a
young person get a start in this great hobby.
—Mark Fadely
[email protected]