We are the Long Island Silent Flyers, a group of model airplane flying enthusiasts specializing in radio controlled sailplanes and free-flight planes.
Fly With Long Island Silent Flyers
Why Fly With Us
Flying is fun! Come out early to the field at Stillwell Park on a nice low-wind day and see what we are up to. You will meet some friendly and interesting people from all walks of life who love to fly and talk about flying model aircraft.
Flying is a relaxing hobby, providing an outlet for the stresses of modern life. It also transforms our leisure time into fun and exercise.
Flying is a challenging sport. The challenge of sailplane flying is finding thermals, which are rising masses of warmer air, and riding them to greater heights. By flying from thermal to thermal we can often keep our sailplanes up for ten minutes or longer.
With rubber-powered free-flight models the challenges are building, reading the air and then setting up a plane for the desired flight.
Types of Flying at LISF
Sport flying is simply flying for fun and is mostly the type of flying we do all year long: set up a plane, fly, relax with friends and enjoy the day.
Contests! For those of a competitive nature, who want more of a challenge than sport flying, we have club thermal duration, ALES and free-flight contests. LISF also hosts some thermal duration and ALES Eastern Soaring League (ESL) contests. If this isn’t enough our club members compete in ESL contests and free-flight contests hosted at other club’s flying fields. In short, there has been no lack of contests for the more popular types of planes we fly. Check the LISF calendars for hosted contest dates.
What We Fly
Our sailplanes are hand thrown, hi-start, electric motor or winch launched. Our free-flight aircraft are hand launched and rubber powered. As a training aid for new pilots we also fly slow-flight electric-powered model aircraft.
Thermal duration sailplanes are slow flying and graceful in the air, but that doesn’t stop us from feeling the excitement of finding a thermal and watching them gain altitude without using a propeller.
Free-Flight is one of the earliest forms of flying model aircraft that dates back as far as the 1800s. There are no expensive radios or batteries to charge or maintain and it requires little to no field equipment, making free-flight one of the lowest cost ways to enter the hobby. The most popular type of free-flight is rubber powered.
DLG / Hand launch / F3K sailplanes give pilots the same challenges as thermal duration sailplanes. The same can be said of electric powered sailplanes; they are just launched differently.
Where We Fly
LISF has access to a beautiful field in Stillwell Woods Park, Syosset, Nassau County, New York, where we have been flying since January of 1975.
The planes we fly in Stillwell Woods Park are environmentally friendly. They are powered by renewable energy using rechargeable batteries, rubber bands and our own muscles, all of which provide the benefit of keeping them quiet. Also, since our planes do not use liquid fuel they do not emit pollutants and their CO2 footprint isn’t just small, it’s tiny.
Directions to the flying field in Stillwell Woods Park
Everyone is welcome, from beginner to expert.
Join Us
To get you started, a how to join webpage is provided to help make the process straight forward and easy. Also, a list of recommended trainer and intermediate models can be found in planes to consider.
If you have radio control flying experience, you might want to go directly to types of planes we fly.
We are looking forward to meeting you and, if you are interested, having you join us.
