Airshow for Model Aircraft

Today was a very pleasant day here in Colorado, a perfect day to be outdoors. After the episode at the hospital, it made me all the more glad to be outside rather than lying in a hospital bed with an open-backed gown!

Last weekend after my son crashed his model airplane, we decided to go to a model airshow this weekend, and learn more about these small-scale aircraft. At first, it couldn't have been more perfect flying weather. In fact, we were going to be able to try flying some of the trainer airplanes they had there to learn with. Unfortunately, a cold front kicked up the wind to where we couldn't do that. Still, there was some spectacular piloting going on via radio control.

These planes start as low as just under $200, and go up in price to thousands of dollars each! There was one guy there with a big trailer used to transport his airplanes to the show, so it is obvious this can be a very expensive hobby if you really get into it. Of course, most hobbies are like that, aren't they?

These little airplanes can really get moving, some of them up to 100 miles per hour in actual speed. To scale, it would be even faster than that! Here are a few of the photos I took today.

The top photo shows some aerobatic maneuvers by a gasoline-powered airplane flying nearly straight up. The pilots are so skilled that they can make the planes hover in a vertical orientation, not using the wings at all, but the propeller for not only propulsion, but also to keep it airborne.

This next picture shows the fantastic, beautiful blue Colorado skies we had today. This airplane was performing some tricks, and in this shot, you can see the flaps on the wings, oriented to make the plane twirl.


Model aircraft in flight - click to see large version

The next shot shows a model airplane on approach to the runway, with the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in the background. This model airstrip is near Golden, Colorado, famous as the home of Coors beer.


Model airplane approaching the runway

Seeing these airplanes in the sky, it is easy to mistake them for full-sized craft. The reason I don't say "real" airplanes for the larger ones is that these are every bit as "real" as their big brothers. They just are too small for people to ride in them. To get a sense of scale, take a look at the next picture, where an airplane was receiving some mechanical attention prior to takeoff.


Getting prepared for flight

There was one airborne visitor who it looked like was performing for the crowd, or maybe just enjoying the airshow. This hawk was circling overhead for the entirety of the three hours of the show. One thing I like about this picture is that you can see the feathers spread out on the ends of his wings. All-in-all, a fun afternoon, and certainly an improvement over the hospital!

Working too hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack!

The title of this post is from Billy Joel's song, Movin' Out, and comes to mind after the events since Thursday afternoon. The good news is that I did not have a heart attack!

It is approximately 1:30 am Saturday morning, and I am wide awake with my biological clock all out of whack. I have been up for about three hours. Why is my clock so turned asunder? It all has to do with what started out as a fairly normal Thursday afternoon. I was talking with a coworker when all of a sudden, I felt very hot. I even mentioned it to him at the time. Then I noticed that I had moderate chest pain, especially when breathing deeply. As the afternoon wore on, I felt very strange. I had a bit of a feeling that can be described as a mixture of mild nausea with a light-headed feeling. It got so bad that I took some work material to a conference room, as I didn't feel like sitting in the open cubicle area at my office.

I tried to stick it out for the entire day, but ended up feeling so bad that I left work at about 4:30 pm. When I got home, I began to be concerned about the possibility of a heart attack. I took two Alka-Seltzer tablets, hoping that the aspirin and antacid in the medicine would help. It didn't.

My wife tried to get me to consider going to the Emergency Room early in the evening, but knowing the inconvenience of a hospital visit, I said I wasn't going. As we were getting ready to go to bed at 10:00 pm, she went on WebMD. There she saw that my symptoms were indicative of needing to seek medical attention. So, off to the ER we go.

We arrive and begin checking in. As soon as I mentioned chest pain, the staff jumped into action. First alarming thing was my blood pressure. Typically, it is around 125/85. Not this time. The reading was 175/115! The nurse's look of alarm was disquieting to say the least. I was told to get into a wheelchair, and promptly rolled down to an ER treatment room.

During the course of time between 10:00 pm and 5 am, I was continually hooked up to a vital signs monitor, poked for an IV, given nitroglycerin tablets to dissolve under my tongue, given 2 electrocardiograms, had blood tests for indicators of heart attack and blood clots, injected with contrast dye, and had a CT scan of my chest. Oh yeah...and hours and hours of just lying in a cold treatment room, worrying about my wife being up all night as well.

At one point at about 3 am, I thought they were going to let me go home and come in for tests on an outpatient basis. The blood work was negative for heart attack indicators, and the ekg seemed pretty normal with what the doctor described as a minor irregularity. The nitroglycerin had gotten rid of my pain and the blood pressure was down. The doc decided to do one more blood test to check for blood clots and also another ekg. That's where it got sticky!

The blood test came back indicating blood clots, which he said is meaningless. The test is good if it comes back negative, but a positive indicator may mean nothing. Hence, the CT scan. Also the second ekg was different than the first. Hooboy! The CT came back fine, but my BP is creeping back up, and since the second ekg varied from the first, they decided to hold me over for more tests and observation.

Finally at 5:30 am on Friday, I am rolled to a regular hospital room for more taking of medical histories, and a few minutes of rest. At about 8:30, my doctor comes in and recaps what I had been told by the ER doc. He recommends a stress echocardiogram, which will give a clear picture if I have any heart blockage. So it isn't long before two ladies come and take me down to a room with a treadmill and a small bed. In comes a man with a big machine that will capture the ultrasonic images of my heart. So first, he takes images of my heart at rest. Then the cardiologist comes in and the team has me get going on the treadmill, all the while monitoring my vital signs. Once my heart is going at a fast pace, it is quickly back onto the bed for more ultrasound movies. The good news is: 1. I have a heart, and 2. There is no blockage in my heart. That is good to know, after 50+ years of eating transfats that none of us used to know were killers.

SO, back to my room, more monitoring, more blood tests, lunch and finally release from the hospital. So now, I have to get a blood pressure monitor, take daily aspirin and BP meds, and go back to the doctor in a week.

After release, I took my wife to her eye doctor appointment, and so by the time I got home at about 4 PM, I lay down on the couch and am out. Goodnight! I wake up at 6 and go to bed and instantly back asleep until just before 11:00 pm. So here I am awake, it is now 2:00 am, and I just finished eating some ramen noodles, since I only had a tuna sandwich in the last 38 hours. Somehow, I need to go back to bed and get 3-4 hours more shut eye to get back on a regular time schedule.

Now I am wondering...why did my BP shoot so high? I sure don't want to get a stroke, so I guess it is a good thing that I went in to the ER, but why did this happen? The BP didn't want to come down, so I have to take these meds daily and monitor my blood pressure like a hawk until I get to the bottom of this. At least it's good to know that the Heartbreak Hotel Hot Dog I wrote about last month didn't kill me! I also went through a similar episode of chest pain, overnight hospital stay, and tests about 4 years ago, but the BP wasn't through the roof that time. I am just glad I am here to tell the tale!