Spitting smoke and whining like a bee the size of a vulture, Ted Reichert's helicopter held steady in the wind.

With clearance from the tower, Reichert set the chopper down and cut the motor. The blade sputtered to a stall and the former crew chief nicked another notch in his belt of flights, even though his feet never left the ground.

Reichert and his comrades are members of the Helena Flying Tigers — a club of pilots simply crazy about radio-controlled flight.

Chartered in 1959 with roughly 12 guys, the club has grown to more than 80 members. For them, home is a dusty field near the Helena Regulating Reservoir where a strip of black cloth 400 feet long serves as a suitable runway.

This weekend, the hobbyists will take to that airfield to host their annual fly-in, where pilots from around the state will showcase their talents and their prized flying machines.

With some model aircraft able to achieve speeds of 150 mph, and pull stunts that seem to defy physics, the show generally proves to be something of a crowd pleaser.

Looking to impress their guests, members of the local club were out this week honing their skills.

But Reichert, who has flown model aircraft for more than 30 years, admits that learning to fly isn't what it used to be.

While trial and error — along with expensive crashes — once served as the road to success, pilots these days can hone their skills on home computers. Thanks to the help of a flight simulator, it took Reichert just three weeks to master his new helicopter.

"They've got these flight simulators you can load on your home computer," Reichert said. "I'll do $20,000 to $30,000 worth of crashes on the simulator. I'll perfect the stunt and then bring it out here."

When the time comes to try the real thing, Reichert said, the key is simple — fly high and allow room for error. If something goes wrong at 120 feet, and it sometimes does, it's easier to recover than if it happens at 20 feet.

After all, some of the aircraft are works of art, such as Morris Burner's World War II vintage fighter. With a wingspan of nearly 7 feet and landing gear that retract once airborne, the true-to life machine is a marvel of modeling achievement.

"It's a hangar queen," Burner smiled. "But I just might fly it this weekend."

As for Reichert's helicopter, it cost upwards of $2,500. The carbon fiber rotor measures 63 inches and rotates at 1,700 rpm. At full throttle, the tip of the blade moves at 275 mph, propelling the helicopter to speeds up to 90 mph.

"The electronics are pretty sophisticated," Reichert said, explaining how three servos control the two rotors. A gyro is imbedded in the aircraft's nose and a 30-ounce fuel tank with a methanol mix gives the vehicle its fix.

Frank Flynn, a club member since 1969, knows the joy of flying and the agony of crashing. He's been lucky enough to avoid any costly mishaps of his own, but he's watched as others called out mayday.

"There have been some spectacular crashes," Flynn said. "If a radio fails on them they can go down."

And radios have failed. Flynn recalled how one crippled helicopter wafted over the water before splashing down. A search was conducted but the vehicle was never found. The nearby lake has become something of a legend — a local Bermuda Triangle, if you will.

Legends and crashes aside, Flynn said that technology has been good to the hobby. Radios are more powerful and the aircraft are more advanced. Back in 1969, club members were using "citizen bands" to fly their vehicles. The Federal Communications Commission has since allocated more than 40 channels to the hobby of remote controlled flying.

"It's tricky to learn to fly one of these things," Flynn said. "But it's a hobby for life. It's kind of like golf for aviation people."