This weekend the skies above the Goshen Airport will again be filled with radio controlled aircraft. This time for Air Supremacy over Goshen.
There will be as many as a dozen planes in the air at once over Goshen. More than 300 RC aircraft are at the airport this weekend.
Air Supremacy is a show of military or otherwise historic aircraft. They have wingspans between 3 and 12 feet.
Chuck Hamilton is one of the organizers of the show. He says one of the big draws is being able to talk to the pilots and ask about the story behind the plane.
“The airplane that they built, it was built for a reason.”
Carl Bochhuber built two of the planes, a Lockheed Neptune and a Lockheed Constellation, both from the 40s and 50s.
“These are called scratch built, in other words; I draw the plans, and then buy the wood and go to my workshop--as my wife would tell you--and get out of my hair, and build a plane.”
His planes--and most of the others in the show--are remarkably detailed. The Constellation is built to look like a military personnel transport plane from World War II.
The Neptune, which was used for spying on the Soviet Union, has working replicas of early drone technology, built by his friend Ted McClellan.
“I enjoy hanging out with these guys too and learning about different things like drones that I never knew about.”
With new drones being more available, Hamilton said they’ve seen a resurgence of interest in the hobby.
But building and maintaining the planes is expensive. It takes knowledge, skills and tools that young people often don’t have.
Bochhuber worried kids won’t stick with it. But they could go to the air show and see the planes in action.
“Cause there’s so many things for kids to do and I don’t know that it’ll catch on forever, but I would hope so.”
Air Supremacy over Goshen starts Thursday morning at 10 and runs through Saturday evening.