Acrobatic aerial amusement
<p>Bruce Cochran prepares to fly his Ultra Stik Lite model airplane at the (CAMS) airfield. Members of the Coeur d’Alene Aero-Modeling Society flew their model airplanes for three groups of special needs kids on Friday morning.</p>
<p>Pam Mitchell, right, Skylar Andersen, 7, and Maddie Reed, 7, from Special Needs Recreation watch the model plane airplane show presented by the Coeur d'Alene Aero-Modeling Society (CAMS).</p>
POST FALLS - Snoopy and the Red Baron took to the skies once again Friday morning, dodging and diving around one another above the Coeur d'Alene Aero-Modeling Society's airfield in Post Falls.
The song, "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron," blasted from speakers, a fitting addition to the acrobatic spectacle of radio-controlled airplanes that replicate the famous World War I aircrafts.
The two-plane show was one aerial act of many during an event hosted by the Coeur d'Alene Aero-Modeling Society (CAMS). The organization invited guests from Special Needs Recreation, Imagine Behavioral and Developmental Services and Tesh, Inc. to come enjoy the model planes as they took flight.
"They're actually pretty cool," said Tesh camper Tiana Freeman, 16, of Coeur d'Alene. It was her first time seeing a live air show with model airplanes.
"I'm enjoying how they do the tricks," she said. "It's just cool how they can put it, like, really high and they can just come all the way down. Every single time, I get anxious that they're going to crash when they come down, so it's thrilling at the same time. It gives you kind of like, butterflies in your stomach."
The campers who attended ranged in age from about 8 to 20. A few danced when songs like "Danger Zone" and "Old Time Rock and Roll" came on the loud speakers, and many clapped or let out cries of amazement as the planes defied gravity.
"They look like they're all having a great time," Tiana said of her Tesh colleagues. "Some of them are having trouble with the loud music, but other than that they're having a fun time."
Nearly 100 people watched as CAMS members prepared their propellers and sent their crafts flying for several minutes of aeronautic entertainment. The planes soared overhead, smoothed into somersaults and sometimes almost went out of sight, buzzing the whole time.
"It's just a fun day for the kids to come out," said CAMS president Bob Scott of Post Falls. "We get to play with our airplanes and they get to watch. We put on a little show for them and everybody has a good time."
CAMS has hosted the mostly annual event for about 15 years.
"We just know they enjoy doing it, and we enjoy doing it for them," he said. "It gives them a chance to get out and get a little sunshine. I know they have camps all summer long, but this is just one more activity for all of us to do."
The planes, controlled by transmitters, ranged in style from a Piper Cub to a Great Planes Stearman to a Spacewalker, and many were smaller scales of pre-World War II-era aircraft.
Bob McMullin of Post Falls has been a CAMS member for four years. His red and yellow Spacewalker was modeled after a full-size, 1930s kit plane. As a Vietnam veteran living with post-traumatic stress disorder, McMullin has found the hobby helps him in many ways.
"When you're flying an airplane, you've got six things that you're focused on," he said. "You're concentrating on that, so all the problems that you have in the world are away from you when you're flying."
This was McMullin's first time flying his plane for the kids, which he was more than happy to do.
"I've always had a deep spot in my heart for them," he said. "This is really a good thing for me too, it does a lot for me."
Paula Witkowski of Bayview runs the kids program at Tesh. She has been with Tesh 12 years and said they come out to see the planes just about every year.
"A lot of them are into sensory things, so they like the music, they like to see things spinning around and moving, and it's just a different activity that most kids don't usually get to see," she said.
CAMS member Chris Nicastro of Coeur d'Alene flew a Great Planes Stearman classic biplane. He said model airplanes are a gateway hobby for kids to get into aerospace, engineering, design, electronics and more.
"They need to be inspired, they need to be entertained," he said. "I understand they have special needs, but at the same time they still have imaginations and dreams, so they want to see stuff do things, and they want to try to understand it and maybe be inspired to try and do it.
"There are plenty of disabled and handicapped people that fly these things. If that means that that gets them a little closer to asking to try and do it and getting that chance, that'd be awesome. If it helps them, even if it's just entertainment, we're happy to do it."