Flights of fancy

Jennifer Kho

They work on the models for months, designing them for historical

accuracy, speed or grace.

The launching, and the ensuing flight, is the tail end of the process.

But to the model makers, it is an important part.

For more than 20 years, members of the Harbor Soaring Society have

used Fairview Park to fly radio-controlled gliders.

The flights test the gliders’ designs as well as their pilots’ skills,

said Roger MacGregor, a board member and the society’s representative to

the city.

“It’s relaxing and, aesthetically, the planes are beautiful. Watching

them fly around is magnificent,” he said. “It’s sort of an art to

engineer them, too, and most of the planes are built by the guys who fly

them. It’s a technical challenge and if you can pull it off and get one

to work, it’s a lot of fun. You get a lot of the benefits of flight

without risking your anatomy.”

The society’s launching and landing location, at the end of Canyon

Drive near the Fairview Park parking lot, is about to be moved.

The present location conflicts with the city’s planned California

Native Grassland habitat and a multipurpose trail that will run from the

end of Pacific Avenue to the park entrance at Canyon Drive.

The new location, approved by the City Council last month, will be

north of the trail.

The change was made after a series of negotiations between the society

and city staff, beginning in November 1999 when society members opposed a

location described in the Fairview Park Master Plan.

The takeoff and landing zones proposed in the plan were in two

separate locations that members pointed out would have caused aircraft to

fly over the picnic area and restrooms.

The new location will prevent the gliders from damaging the native

habitat planned for the park and from injuring pedestrians, said David

Alkema, parks project manager for the city.

The society will also have more storage space as a result of the move,

he said.

MacGregor said society members are pleased.

“It’s right in the middle of the park, it gets us away from all the

trails, and it minimizes the risk of our clobbering somebody with one of

the planes,” he said, adding that the gliders have not yet hurt anyone.

The society, originally called the Harbor Slope Soaring Society, began

more than 30 years ago in Corona del Mar, said Larry Jolly, a member

since 1968.

In 1974, the group moved to Estancia High School and about five years

later moved to Fairview Park, he said. The name changed because the

society no longer flew their gliders on a slope.

Building the gliders is the part of the hobby that Jolly, an engineer,

said he likes best.

“I enjoy very much the techno end of the process,” he said. “I’m

always working on new designs and ways to improve and optimize the

performance of the design and model.”

Many of the society’s members are engineers and most build their own

gliders, Jolly said. The gliders have 6- to 10-foot wingspans and use

solar energy -- not a motor -- to climb into the air after being

launched.

Pilots must locate and catch columns of warm, rising air, called

thermals, to keep the gliders aloft for long periods of time. Otherwise,

the gliders descend in four or five minutes.

“It’s not just steering the vehicle where we want it to go,” Jolly

said. “ It’s like sailing on the ocean or any other act where it’s just

you against nature. It’s relaxing and a good excuse to get out, enjoy the

fresh air and the surrounding of a park.”