The 10th annual NEAT Fair took place September 18th-20th, 2009 in the Catskill Mountains of New York. More than 300 registered pilots attended this all-electric show from all over.
Updated 9/27/09: Al Ramsdell from Maine Aerial Photography Service was kind enough to let me post these three shots of the Peaceful Valley Campgrounds. The last two are taken from his Swift 16 aerial photography rig, which he had way up there. Nice flying and shooting Al!
The fog burns off on Sunday morning.
An overview of the show.
From left to right: vendor row, pilots' canopies, and the flight line.
As always, the show is run by the Silent Electric Flyers of Long Island, who come up a week in advance to set up. Many thanks for their hard work, and especially to Tom Hunt for putting on the show.
Nice quad sea plane.
An unusual high wing model with working doors.
An assortment of planes including two Ellipsticks.
A dual-body Radian FPV machine.
A close-up of the camera and video transmitter.
Two beautiful Gee Bees.
Towing the NEAT Fair banner.
Not all landings are perfect.
An assortment of smaller models.
Although NEAT is primarily a fixed-wing show, there was a smaller helicopter presence who enjoyed the 2.4 GHz-only heli stations. Most pilots were 3D flyers, but we had a couple of scale models, and even one fixed-pitch Corona. At one point I watched Kyle Stacy do a warm-up flight with his Furion, which was so fast I couldn't photograph it. His reaction time is just amazing.
A scale Eurocopter with T-Rex 600E mechanics.
Another shot in the air.
Several full-scale planes came and went during the weekend.
My friend Gary from Bulgaria with his Logo 400.
Which he knows how to toss around.
Unusual heli angle.
Me and the Swift 16.
A test flight with the stock 520 mm woodies.
Much better with the 550 mm fiberglass blades.
The noon demos pack a lot into an hour and a half, showing off many styles of flying and a wide range of models. Unlike other shows, most pilots do not fly to music at NEAT, which allows the crowd to hear the planes in action.
Dan Landis and his Extreme Flight Yak.
Sitting pretty in a hover.
Showing off for the crowd.
A nice pattern plane from the noon demos.
An ME-163 Komet with fall-away landing gear.
The Komet in the air.
Are you man enough to fly a pink airplane?
Part of the crowd at the noon demos.
One of a pair of night fighters.
Gary Graf had an impressive first-person-video rig of his own design. He used a 72 MHz transmitter with a 900 MHz video downlink. His on-screen display provided heading, altitude, pack voltage, and more. I ran his video recorder as his flying buddy helped with navigation and held a second transmitter connected by a buddy box cord, as required by the AMA. Gary won best technical achievement at the show for his efforts.
Gary's home-made FPV setup.
Launching the FPV Maxi Swift.
Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!
Updated: Check out a video from Gary's Maxi Swift:
The NEAT Fair is also a great place to see some upcoming products up close, and in the air. There were more than 30 vendors present at the show, and many pilots had items to sell in their tents as well. There's nothing like getting face-to-face time with the designer of your plane, and NEAT brings out a number of smaller kit and ARF manufacturers.
The Hobby Lobby 12 foot Telemaster ARF (yes, it's an ARF).
Kids running out for the candy drop.
The Xero Gear booth (it was packed at night).
Shawn and the surprisingly fast Merlin.
The new folding Xeno wing.
The Funcopter, which didn't get to fly this time.
A new LiPo charger from Dualsky.
The Hobby Lobby F-35 jet.
The new Hobby Lobby A-10 with oversized fans.
Wow.
Even more wow.
The upcoming high voltage versions of the Castle Creations ICE ESCs.
A great collection of auto-gyros.
What a streamlined pusher jet.
A Gee Bee and a Carden Yak.
The NEAT Fair is a Northeast U.S. tradition, and I'm glad to see it still going strong in its tenth year.
For even more coverage of the event, check out Paul's photos for RCGroups, and the rest of the NEAT Fair 2009 forum.
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