by Tom Speelman
(click on photo's to see a larger image)
Okay, for some of you uninitiated, you might ask... What's a Hamkey? A Hamkey is a club event held in the months of November and December where fun & flying are strongly encouraged. It gets its name from the fact that you can win a ham or a turkey at the event. It works like a 50/50 drawing, but you can't buy tickets. You get your first ticket just by showing up. You can get additional tickets, up to 3 more, by completing flights. All tickets are placed in the clubs official 50/50 tumbler (AKA coffee can) and someone draws out the winners of the hams & turkeys.
This year's Hamkey was held in somewhat challenging conditions. It was postponed from the previous week due to rain and with the holidays fast approaching it was decided to hold the event rain or shine (or snow!). As you can see from the photo above, we had snow. Turnout was somewhat light with Ed B., John Kukon, Dave Schoen and myself present fro the whole event and Wayne Berens, Bill & Willie Rittling stopping by later to check things out. A Ranger even stopped by as he couldn't believe someone would be flying in that weather.
Here's another shot of Ed showing the proper form for flying in these conditions. We faced downwind to keep the snow out of our eye's and off our radio's. It was cold as well. What this photo doesn't show is the fact that Ed's zagi crashed 20 minutes ago and he was frozen in that position!
Here's some shot's of the flying... On the left is Ed launching Dave's foamy creation. I like to refer to this one as the "postage stamp". Its a little smaller than a zagi and a spirited flyer. The center photo shows Ed launching his Zagi and the right shows John tossing his up for a flight (and ticket). Notice John had two good arms at this time. He is fast recovering from his broken writs and will be in similar form very soon.
Nice & cozy in the impound shed... Until you realize we have a shower curtain for a front door! It kept getting blown open so, yes, it was a little drafty. I'm not complaining, it was a heck of a lot better inside the shed than outside, so the roof and 3 walls were greatly appreciated! You can't see it here but Dave had his feet up on the kerosene heater to try and restore feeling to them. That's John in the back preparing his specialty of hot dogs and sauerkraut to keep the pilots spirits up.
Later in the afternoon we had Wayne Berens, Bill & Willie Rittling venture out to see what was happening. It was good that Wayne, Bill & Willie Rittling showed up as we then had exactly 6 people to share the ham's and turkey's. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the late comers as I didn't realize I would be writing a report on the event. Willie did the honors of drawing the tickets. Ed was the only one who had a full house of 4 tickets and wouldn't you know he was the last to have one drawn? So much for probability. It was a great time in spite of the weather but personally, I'm looking forward to some nice warm weather flying!
See you at the field!