Fights of Flight

On a windy Saturday afternoon, you can often see them flying high above Grant Park in Ventura or near the Conejo Grade in Thousand Oaks.

They are remote-control gliders. Flying wings.

For William Highfield, building the battery-powered aircraft is as much fun as flying them. In the last year, he has built about 100 of the wings, which resemble a miniature version of the Stealth bomber, in his shop on 12th Street in Santa Paula.

“They’re kind of a labor of love,” said Highfield, 55, who sells the gliders for about $100 apiece. “I usually make 10 or 20 in a batch. All you do is install your radio gear and you’re ready to fly.”

Where they fly depends on wind direction. The Santa Anas make the top of the Conejo Grade best, while westerly winds make Grant Park ideal. That’s where Highfield is known to other glider pilots as King of the Hill.

Recently, Highfield and four friends gathered near the Father Serra Cross at Grant Park. When the gusts kicked up, the men, remote controls in hand, looked like a group of fishermen spiritually connected to the catch at the end of their line.

Competing for airspace can sometimes be a problem. One day, a bird of prey swooped down, grabbed a glider’s stabilizer with its talons and broke it.

“If they get mad, they can hit you,” Highfield said.

Although birds can occasionally be a nuisance, Highfield and his buddies are usually conducting their own air wars. The glider enthusiasts try their best to knock each other’s planes out of the sky by staging their own dogfights.

“The goal is to hit someone else’s wing so that it falls onto the side of the hill and they have to walk down and get it,” said 51-year-old Mike Satterfield, also known as Rainbow Warrior after the colors of his plane. “You get a certain kind of enjoyment seeing someone walk down the hill.”

Luck is key to winning, but strategy can pay off, said Jeff Cramer, 41, of Oxnard. Cramer is known on the battlefield as Poacher for his technique.

“I stay on the outside [of the skirmish] and take swoops at them,” he said. “If they’re not looking for me, I’m going to take them out.”

In his wildest dreams, Cramer would have been a great fighter pilot. “This is probably the closest I’ll get to it.”

Highfield describes his hobby this way: “You have a lot of fun for cheap, and you don’t wind up in the hospital. The forgiving thing about this is: You crash it, you pick it up, and you throw it and it’s flying again.”

For some spectators, the sight of gliders swooping, rolling and hovering is even more intriguing than the sweeping ocean view from Grant Park. Jeannette and Alan Armstrong, avid racers of remote-control sailboats, said they had never seen their airborne counterparts.

“This looks harder to me than the sailboats,” Jeannette said. “I probably would [like to try it], but not here. It would probably have to be somewhere flat.”

Said Alan: “I like doing stuff like this. . . . It’s a good way to unwind.”

Those who pick up remote-control flying with ease are often those who have used a joystick-controlled computer game.

“Once you get it, you don’t have to think about it again,” Highfield said.

Few women have taken to flying the gliders, but Highfield wishes more would.

“Women don’t seem to like guys and their hobbies,” he said. “They see us playing and get upset, because we’re not paying any attention to them. Maybe that’s why I’m single.”