Volume 50, Issue 11
The R/C Flyer
by Fitz Walker
OCTOBER MINUTES
by Rex Beck
Meeting Location Gilruth Center, Moon Room
11 (V.P. Mike Laible was absent)
Prez Fitz Walker called the meeting to order and made a motion to approve the September Minutes, which were approved unanimously
Membership
Fitz reported that we’ve added 3 new members, making our membership now an estimated 72 members and 164 guests. Need to verify total with Mike’s latest gate list.
Treasurer Report
Bill Courtright reported our Welby Balance is $6,662.56 and our last monthly invoice from Texas Outhouse was $115.2 1.
Safety Report
Joe Schmidt reported no new safety issues, but reported again, one of our two fires extinguishers has “0” pressure. Mike Laible needs to ask JSC if they will recharge them.
Old Business
Fitz Walker completed Challenger 7 park Questionnaire. Twenty five (25) members responded, with 84% saying they support our
Cheers
-Fitz, Prez.
proposal for a new flying site at Challenger 7 Park.
Motion was made to keep existing officers for 2026. Mike, Rex, and Bill agreed to continue; however, Fitz was not present. Membership Chairman has remained vacant since Walt left.
Mike was to prepare a detailed AMA field layout and submit it to Saverio.
New Business
On Oct. 2nd Warren Benson of Rocket Club informed Rex that Lisa Gurgos (JSC Event Coordinator) had sent message to him, indicating we’re not allowed on the field during the JSC furlough, resulting from the gov’t shutdown. Also, we’ll be turned around at the gate if we show up. Since then, we’ve been in a “stand down” mode at the field and cannot fly until further notice.
Saverio Gaudiano mentioned that to help promote our new field proposal for Challenger 7 Park we should determine the zip codes of our 72 members, and present it to Adrian Garcia.
Rex volunteered to sort the zip codes from our excel membership list and provide results to Fitz and Mike.
Evgeny Petrov provided some updated field layouts that his daughter had designed. Thanks, we appreciate your help.
Regarding nominations for new officer positions, none were offered, and all existing officers agreed to continue their reign next year. Motion made to accept existing officers for 2026 as follows: Fitz Walker - President & Membership, Mike Laible - VP, Bill Courtright - Treasurer, Rex Beck - Secretary.
Fitz mentioned that the Starport-Gilruth office had scheduled another group event for our December 11th X-Mas party, and we had to reschedule to either December 4th or 18th.
We chose Dec. 4th.
We’ve heard nothing more from JSC regarding our longevity at the field, so it’s flying as usual, after JSC’s Furlough is lifted.
Show & Tell
Brian showed Sullivan's new battery box attached to one of their Dynatron starters, see add in current issue of Model Aviation.
Also had several bottles of Golden West Super Solvent for sale, It’s nitro based, not acetone, cost $11.00/bottle.
Orlando Calderon gave a screen demonstration of flying Real-Flight Evolution Simulator with our JSC field uploaded to the software. If you have the Real Flight Simulator package at home, you’ll now be able to fly at the JSC field on your computer screen. Cost for the Flight Sim is $199.00, and details of his project, including upload link is attached.
Future Business
While our Challenger 7 Field proposal has been submitted to Harris County, the final juggling to see which 2026 proposals are approved (and move forward) may take to end of year to finalize. We’re in holding pattern folks.
During November’s meeting, need to discuss logistics for upcoming Christmas Party. Mike would like to celebrate this year’s event in conjunction with our 60th year anniversary at JSC. Note: The party will be held on Thursday, December 4th (first Thursday in December).
Upcoming Events
See last page
Please continue to bring your models, techniques, & flying stories to the meetings, as members are always interested in hearing about them – adds aeronautical flavor to the meetings, which is what we’re all about.
The November 13th meeting will be held at 6:30 PM at the Gilruth Center, Mars Room.
FROM RUNWAY TO REALITY: HOW THE JSC RC FIELD WAS REBUILT IN REALFLIGHT EVOLUTION
by Orlando Calderon
There’s something special about flying at the Johnson Space Center RC field the wideopen sky, the hum of electric motors, and the camaraderie among pilots. Sadly, fields like ours don’t last forever. But thanks to modern technology and a lot of patience, our flying site will live on digitally inside the RealFlight Evolution simulator.
Creating a virtual replica of the JSC RC Club airfield was a labor of love that took over 10 hours of precise photographic work and digital modeling. The goal was simple: to preserve our home field in a way that every club member could continue to enjoy it, even if the real runway is not available one day.
Stage 1 – Capturing the Field
Every great virtual field begins with real-world images. To capture the Johnson Space Center RC site accurately, I used a Nodal Ninja 5 panoramic head with an R-D8 rotator, mounted on a sturdy spherical panoramic tripod. This setup ensures that the camera rotates precisely around the lens’s nodal point, eliminating parallax errors a critical detail for seamless stitching later on.
A Nikon D3200 DSLR with an 18–55mm lens was used to capture all the shots. Although it’s a decade old, this camera still provides excellent resolution for panoramic work. Each photo overlapped its neighbor by about 20–30%, and the rotator was locked at 20-degree increments for exact angular consistency. Completing a full 360° required 18 photos per horizontal layer.
To build a complete spherical image, I captured multiple layers one level with the horizon, several tilted upward for sky coverage, and others downward for the runway and ground detail. By the time I completed full rotation, the clouds and lighting had shifted, which could create headaches during stitching. Photoshop later became my best friend for correcting sky inconsistencies and balancing exposures across the panorama.
Stage 2 – Stitching It All Together
Back home, the real magic happened. Out of roughly 300 photos, I carefully selected 126 that offered the best overlap and consistency. I then used PTGui, a professional-grade panoramic stitching software designed for 360×180° spherical panoramas.
PTGui analyzes each image for unique patterns — think of them like fingerprints — and automatically matches overlapping details between photos. It also corrects lens distortion, vignetting, and exposure mismatches. The software’s optimizer then aligns everything into a seamless panoramic sphere.
Once stitched, I exported the panorama in a 2:1 equirectangular format (JPEG), suitable for virtual environments like RealFlight. Photoshop came back into play for final touch-ups, including removing the tripod from the nadir (bottom of the image) and smoothing the sky. The result: a flawless panoramic image ready to be mapped onto a virtual 3D environment.
Stage 3 – Building the Virtual Airfield
With the panoramic base complete, the next challenge was to recreate the 3D world. Inside RealFlight Evolution’s airport editor, I imported the panoramic sphere and began aligning the virtual elements runways, safety fences, pilot stations, trees, and nearby structures to their real-world positions.
For extra realism, I modeled custom obstacles and scenery objects using SketchUp, which allowed me to design specific items like nearby buildings, benches, and cones. Each object was then exported and imported into RealFlight to match the JSC field’s exact look and layout.
This stage took the longest about 10 hours of mapping, scaling, and testing until everything lined up just right. Once complete, I packaged the scenery as a custom RealFlight airport file, making it easy for any club member to install and explore.
The Result – Johnson Space Center 2025
The finished virtual airfield, titled “Johnson Space Center 2025,” is now available for all members to download and fly in RealFlight Evolution. You can taxi down the same runway, stand at the same pilot stations, and even see the new construction happening near the field (Texas A&M) all rendered from real photographs.
Creating this scenery wasn’t just about technology it was about preserving a piece of our club’s history. Fields may come and
go, but thanks to digital preservation, our airfield will continue to exist for future pilots to experience. Whether you’re training on a rainy day, reminiscing about weekend flights, or introducing new members to our heritage, the JSC field will always be there waiting for takeoff.
Final Thoughts
This project blended my passions for RC aviation, photography, and 3D modeling. The process was challenging but seeing our airfield come alive inside the simulator made every moment worth it. I invite every club member to download the Johnson Space Center 2025 scenery, take a flight, and relive the experience now in the digital skies.
Even if the real field someday fades away, our virtual airfield will fly forever.
Download here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BR1yxM8tRg TktWj0U23TDXv6h62vzFFI/view?usp=drive_l ink
WHAT’S UP AROUND THE CLUB
by Mike Laible
As I write this the U. S. Government is on its way to opening back up. So hopefully the field is opened soon We will have to make sure and check if we have the correct entry list. We do need to fill the membership position for 2026, if we need one this coming year.
Also, for some reason we got bumped again in for our December Holiday party. The annual Christmas/Year end party will be on December 4th. All details have not been worked out yet but more to come.
The pic above is Tom’s Cub and my L4 Grasshopper. We had a great day flying at Texas City a couple of weeks ago
Speaking of Texas City, the above pic shows my fleet at the Texas City Free for all event. It was a great day and I got a lot of flights in. Came home with the exact pieces as I left with. Had lunch and great conversations with long time members Charlie Teixeira and Don White
The next five pics are from Warbirds over Texas (WOTX) All of them taken by Jesse Edwards. The first pic is a classic photo of me in the zone getting the B-24 ready for flight. It was a long day to get to this point. Had an air leak I could not find (I found it after the event).
B-25 with a fly by.
The
Jimmy Cowman had a rough landing with his B-24. Jesse wanted to get a pic to look like the real thing – rough landing in the field. Needed some plastic army men standing around!!!!!!
I worked hard to get the B-24 ready for WOTX. This was the very first event Herman and I flew the B-24 at. We won best bomber, collecting a plaque and a B-29 desk model. Anyway, she was ready to fly and had a great run down the runway. First pic shows the wobble of the right wheel.
Not looking good in this pic. The wheel eventually turned 90 degrees and the plane ran off the runway doing some damage. Oleo strut swivelled, one little set screw!!!!!! Ahhhhh.
The 24 is back together with new air retracts. Retracts are hard to find for this bird but a friend saw a pair at a swap meet and thought I could use them. Thanks Billy!!!
B-24 is ready for 2026. I’m shooting for 200 flights.
I’ll end this months with a few updates on the B-17. As I mentioned last month I won the 125”, 1/10 scale B-17. Been gathering the parts and some build designs in my head.
First task was to acquire the engines. Four Saito 82 four strokes. A fellow flyer gave me a lead on someone trying to sell them. New in box engines. Got all the mounts and tanks.
They are going to fit perfectly.
The pic below is the landing gear installed in the nacelle. Everything seems to fit perfectly and I am starting to fiberglass the tail feathers.
Even the throttle servos are going to be easy to get to. One thing I learned from B-24 is make it easy to get to!!!
On the side working on the cockpit. Gotta find some figures, 1/10 scale. If anyone has some or know where I can buy some please let me know.
So till next time, safe landings and hope to see you flying.
Till next time, Godspeed, Mike
Upcoming Events
12/5-6 Pearl Habor, Katy, Space City
Club Officers
President:
Fitz Walker
817-797-9192 (Cell) flying_fitz@yahoo.com
Vice-President: Mike Laible 713-542-0987 (Cell) mrlaible@sbcglobal.net
Treasurer:
Bill Courtright 713-253-0895 (Cell) b2crtrt@comcast.net
Secretary: Rex Beck
Committees
Membership:
832-628-9473 (Cell) kingsrex@aol.com
Walt Lueke 281-788-6461(Cell)
Safety Officer: Joe Schmidt 281-300-1211(Cell)
Instructors
Fixed:
Tom Altmyer: 713 591 2859
Mike Laible: 713-542-0987
James Lemon: 832-385-4779
Fitz Walker 817-797-9192
Larry Ammons 832-385-3374
Gary Wilkerson
Heli & Fixed:
Brian Campopiano: 832-524-9590 (Cell) Russell Bear: 281-757-3251
The R/C Flyer
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