Mix of planes will be featured at Flying Circus

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FAIRFIELD TWP. — Here’s the World War I flying ace zooming through the air in his Sopwith Camel, searching for the Red Baron.

And there’s SpongeBob SquarePants. And there’s Harry Potter.

These characters usually don’t share the same worlds, much less the same airspace, but they will this weekend, when the Greater Cincinnati Radio Control Club flies its 50th Flying Circus.

The air show with relatively small airplanes will run from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Aug. 7 and 8 at the Butler County Airport.

The show will feature from 150 to 175 planes flown by 70 pilots, according to Mark Feist, a spokesman and pilot for the club.

In addition to a space shuttle, this year will feature the Doolittle Raiders of World War II, 200 mph turbine-powered jets, giant scale B-29 and B-17 Bombers, and a rocket-powered Bell X-1, which will reenact the breaking of the sound barrier.

And that Sopwith Camel that Snoopy flies is not actually a Sopwith Camel, but a full-scale doghouse flown by Michael Bluestein of Evendale.

Snoopy is a challenge to fly because the doghouse sits on the wings, making him top-heavy, and Snoopy himself can sometimes make the craft difficult to handle, Bluestein said.

Even so, “When it flies, one of the other members goes up as the Red Baron, and of course, I shoot him down every time. Been doing it for five years,” he said.

And that’s not even the only Red Baron in the show. The Red Baron Stearman Squadron, made famous by Red Baron pizza, also makes an appearance. It’s a group of four one-third scale planes that fly in sync.

Asked what the trick is to staying in sync, pilot Dave Mastropaolo of Liberty Twp. said, “Practice, practice and more practice. We’ve got a lot of good pilots.”

When it comes to remote-controlled planes, flying them is not as easy as it looks. David Polley of Fairfield Twp. has been flying since 1979, but he said, “The hard part is standing in one spot, because your altitude is changing all the time.” That lack of orientation means it can be hard to know which way to turn the aircraft.

What is not required, however, is flying experience — at least not of large aircraft. Polley is an unusual case. Not only has he never flown a full-scale airplane — he’s never even been a passenger in one.

“It’s a phobia, I guess,” he said. “It’s not fear of heights, it’s fear of not being in control.”

And he said he doesn’t plan to fly in an airplane anytime soon.

“I don’t want to take that chance and find out, no, it was heights,” he said with a laugh.

For more information about the show and the club, call (513) 608-8521 or visit www.gcrcc.net.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.