Merritt resident Dean Obayashi has a passion for flying, but when he flies, he stays on the ground.
Obayashi is interested in planes of the radio-controlled variety.
He said his passion for flying began about 20 years ago when his wife bought him an R/C plane.
“When I took it out, I never put it back down again, so I was hooked ever since,” Obayashi said.
Obayashi said it was exciting to fly the gas-powered plane with a six-foot wingspan.
However, there was a learning curve for the now-proficient model plane flyer. He said controlling the aircraft at first was like standing on a ball with only one foot, as the planes back then were not as sophisticated electronically as they are today.
He said the stability with R/C planes today is much better as they run electronically as opposed to mechanically and are much more powerful.
These days, Obayashi flies mostly helicopters, which he says are a bit trickier to handle — but he makes it look easy. Obayashi can flip a helicopter upside down in flight, fly it backwards and even make it spin in mid-air.
He said R/C planes can do plenty of manoeuvres too, including hovering just like a helicopter, flying upside down or touching their tails to the ground.
“You can do anything you want, pretty much,” Obayashi said.
Obayashi said he used to be long to the Merritt Fun Flyers, an R/C flyers group that became defunct about six years ago due to lack of interest. However, he said flying R/C planes isn’t as expensive a hobby as it used to be, and he thinks a flyers club in Merritt could take off once more.
The man leading a new group of hobby R/C flyers is Jerry Fassbender — also known as the group’s “number 1 pusher.”
Fassbender moved to Merritt six years ago and said he’s had people tell him they remember flying R/C planes. The group had a table set up at Rotary Park on Canada Day and Fassbender said they had 15 people give them their names and ask to be contacted when Fassbender and company get an official group off the ground.
Fassbender said the group of R/C flyers here are not yet a registered, non-profit organization.
They need to find their own field before they can set up an official group, though they do have about 10 active members at the moment.
“The field will cement our group together, so that we have a place to go, have our meeting[s] and so forth and so on,” Fassbender said.
For the time being, these R/C flyers have not been cleared for takeoff.
The group flies mostly at Voght Park but Obayashi said a public park won’t do if they are to get an official club going as there is a risk of having a collision with a person or someone’s property if the flyer were to lose control of his or her R/C plane.
“You can get out of control and land on a house or land on somebody or hit somebody, so it’s just not safe to fly here,” Obayashi said.
They may be fun to fly, but Fassbender said these planes are not toys.
“They’re perceived to be toys but they’re really not,” he said, adding that R/C planes are real aircraft that could cause damage to people or property.
Fassbender said each flyer is insured by the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada (MAAC).
Once they have a private field that is sanctioned by MAAC, each group member and the field will be fully insured by MAAC, Fassbender said, but the insurance does not cover members who fly at public parks. He said the field has to be inspected and approved by an MAAC reprentative.
He said the insurance covers public liability and property damage.
“It’s like a car, same as your car. The owners who own the property are covered. There’s no lawsuit against them if anything should happen on their property while we’re flying. Every thing’s covered under MAAC,” Fassbender said.
As the hobby group’s “number 1 pusher,” Fassbender said he’s been looking for a land owner to donate or lease some private land to the group so they can fly.
He said he’s talked to some of the local ranchers and First Nations bands but at the moment, the group remains grounded.
Fassbender said the ideal size field for them is 400 feet long by 40 feet wide.
They do have an airstrip out at the Quilchena Ranch they are allowed to use but it can be too windy to fly at times and is further outside of town than they’d like, Fassbender said.
