Minutes of the West Jersey R/C Club August 10, 2010

Transcription

1 President Steve Althouse Vice President Paul Gross Secretary Neil Stokes Treasurer Bob Lanard Web site - Editor Tom Voorhis tomvoorhis@comcast.net Date September 7th, 2010 AMA Charter # Tavistock Bvd. Haddonfield NJ WJRC Page 1 Minutes of the West Jersey R/C Club August 10, 2010 The meeting was called to order by the president at 8:08pm. There were 33 members and prospective members in attendance. Minutes of the July meeting were read and accepted by all present. Club treasurer Bob Lanard gave the checking account activity and the ending balance. This was accepted by all members present. Bob Lanard also reported the balance in the raffle fund. Paul Gross took a roll of prospective members with Reggie Showers attending his third meeting, he was accepted into the club. Jason Faulcon and Derek Earnhart both attended their first meeting. Bill Froeder reported that the club is now at 98 active members. Don Romano reported that the field is in good shape with some weeds in the runway. Don said that when it gets a little cooler the runway would be sprayed again for weed control. Dave Morgan said that Kim Morgan and her mother Ramona Morton took in a total of $ on the Rick McIlvaine Warbird Sunday. The club thanked Kim and Ramona for all of their hard work and efforts to help make it a great success. Old Business Bob Demola said that the shirt order should be complete and ordered this week. The president said that the club would give the $ deposit to get the order placed and would be repaid when members picked up their items. Chris Green was not present to give information found on up dating the buddy boxes this should be available at the next meeting. The president reminded everyone that Fun Fly Sunday is August 15 th and Gas Engine Sunday is August 22 nd. The president also let everyone know that the club picnic is September 19 th weather permitting. The president asked if you have the ability to bring something to the club picnic it would be appreciated. New Business The First Flight Certificate was presented to Donny Chase, congratulations. One of the club members was told not to use the first road coming in from Pine Mill Road that we need to use the 2 nd entrance. Neil will check with John Landolfi about which road to use and also check to see if any of the holes can be filled and graded. The club president reminded everyone that the Bull Meeting is August 24 th. With no further business Bob Lanard ran the 50/50 with Frank Winkler winning $ The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 pm Respectfully Submitted, Neil Stokes WJRC Secretary At the field About a week or so ago Jerry Jones brought a sharp looking electric F-16 to the field. His first attempt at its maiden takeoff had to be aborted because the plane got squirrely and tore off its nose gear. After working on the nose gear for about an hour, Jerry smoothly got the jet airborne for its maiden. Right after the takeoff Jerry had it make a 180 turn, which was very fortunate because it dead sticked immediately after. The jet was still pretty low but at least was pointed in a good direction for landing. There was no time to lower the gear but Jerry did a nice job getting it down without real damage. The jet seemed to

2 West Jersey Wind 2 have plenty of power, so next time it should give an eye popper of a show. ( It turned out that one of the wires that connected to the electric motor had a cold solder joint and came loose causing the motor to stop. ED.) Labor Day at the Field : There were several maiden flights; but, wind gusts caused some airplane nastiness. Don Romano flew a Seagull Decathlon with a 79 inch wingspan for its maiden flight. It gave me quite a surprise since I was expecting Cub-like performance; however, the plane had amazing power and maneuverability including tight loops, crisp knifes and climbing knifes. It got some minor damage on its first landing however. But, a few drops of CA put it right; and Don had it in the air again. Bob Werner flew a well powered, great looking Ultimate Bipe (one of my favorites) through some very skillful maneuvers. Gregg flew his new Lancair on its maiden flight. Its beautiful lines looked great against the Labor Day sky; but, trouble was brewing. While landing, the plane upset near the end of its run and sustained significant fuse damage. Fortunately, the nylon wing bolts broke and prevented all but very minor wing damage. Gregg initially thought it'd be a two day repair; but, he ed me in the later evening that he had completed almost all the repairs. Derik Gadson and Dock Johnson spent a good bit of time working on Derik's Corsair at the field. With the work completed, Derik taxied the plane out and made a smooth takeoff. Flying was uneventful. But when it came time to land, an untoward wind gust came along about a second or two before touchdown and the Warbird received some big time damage. Derik was wondering about possibly ordering a new fuse. Because of the crosswind gusts, Dock, who's still in the early stages of learning the hobby, wasn't able to get any flying in. Joe and Tony took up Tony's new 80+ inch P-47 Razorback on its maiden flight. The engine quit very shortly after takeoff, but Joe landed it without damage. It turned out that the engine, like everyone I know, wanted to be richer. Much as I love Jugs, allergies forced me to leave before its next flight. Tony ed me the next day that he's going after a new muffler for it. Paul flew a fast, rugged 46-sized P-51. He complained that the little warbird had been consistently difficult to land. It was fast because Paul had a 90 four stroke in the compact plane. Upon landing, it came out of a horrible cartwheel with only the loss of its tail wheel. That's why I called it rugged. (My kind of plane.) (The plane looked like it had cart wheeled off of a trampoline it went so high in the air. ED.) Joe M had his electric T-Rex 700 heli giving the air absolute hell... again. It was quite a show, but I couldn't get a good photo because I couldn't tell which way the chopper would go next. Happy Flying, JJ It's bad luck to be superstitious. (JJ forgot to mention that Tony Severino had a very nice gas powered P-47 which flew quite well. ED.) Saturday 8/7/10 Well the weather prediction was low humidity which it was certainly. But it still didn't keep everyone present from having as good a flying day as possible. With the intricacies and complications of this difficult hobby, we learn early-on that a healthy attitude is needed to make sure the hobby doesn't become something 'where fun comes to die'. When flying plans (and planes) gets trashed, "disappointed but not discouraged" is what devoted RC hobbyists probably feel. Below are some recent occurrences along this line that happened to club members. Mark had a few real tough breaks recently in his hobby efforts. Several weeks back he suffered the loss of his first Hangar-9 RV-8 which crashed due to a poorly manufactured wing component. Mark forthrightly presented this design/ workmanship failure to the manufacturer and was

3 West Jersey Wind 3 subsequently reimbursed with a brand new RV-8 by them. Here, here! It was just a few weeks after the above that Mark lost this second RV-8, and within a few days of that, his equally sharp looking Mustang was totaled. Mark pinned down the cause of these crashes to a transmitter problem. So Mark sent the transmitter to Spectrum for diagnostics and is awaiting their response. Meantime Mark picked himself up another RV-8 (yes, this is number 3 - which explains the fingers he's giving the camera in the photo of he and Rich). Mark had a fine day of today with his RV-8 number 3 - using a Futaba 2.4 system. Dock is still in the very early stages of his flying training and like everyone else has been learning how one problem after another comes along - even with a fine trainer like the Nexstar. Some tweaking and a couple of parts were needed at the field today to get his plane airworthy. Help came from some of WJRC's finest: Mike, Gregg and Paul. After the plane's problems were addressed the engine was briefly run. But an early end was brought to any thoughts of flying today due to loose engine mounting bolts. Because they were difficult to get at, it was a fix that had to be accomplished at home. Cruel and unusual punishment: Paul had purchased a budget priced 2.4 GHz conversion kit. Being an experienced RCer, and therefore very wary of EVERYTHING, he knew he had to thoroughly checkout this kit. He obtained a well used 40-sized Stick specifically for use as a radio test platform, then he installed the new 2.4 receiver in it. Paul flew the plane, really putting it through its aerobatic paces including a few of his signature super low passes. Performance with the new 2.4 system was absolutely flawless. With the system now fully checked out, Paul moved the 2.4 receiver into his very nice Mustang. The plane took off fine, flew for about 8-10 seconds then headed for the ground with no control at all. The P-51 was left too badly damaged to be repaired. Saturday 8/14/10 I broke my plane, a little RV-3 that I had gotten from Rich Onorato. I did it while trying to ride air currents near its stall speed and at what I thought was a reasonable height. The plane stalled and began spiraling down. Then the compounding started, I improperly used the control surfaces (full up elevator and full throttle) and consequently failed to pull it out of the spiral in time. Oh yeah, I also forgot to pull the throttle back from full power before it hit. The good news was much more than I deserved for this debacle. Even though it was in very thick, tall grass, I was able to find the plane relatively quickly because of its "Air Alert" beeper. (They go for about $15.) Also, because the thick grass provided some cushioning and because Rich Onorato builds his kits extremely well, the plane was readily repairable. Additionally, in talking with Mike McMichen just after the incident, I understood what to do next time to get a plane back under control from one of these spirals. But of course knowing what to do and doing it are very different things. Thursday 8/19/10: Another RV-8 wing problem. Dennis had his Hanger-9 RV-8 in the air flying in a relatively mellow manner when it let out a loud crunch. Its wing flew off in several pieces and the fuse went elsewhere. The good news is that Dennis with some help was able to find all the pieces; but there was no putting it back together again. The airframe was a loss but all the innards were still usable. Dennis planned on calling Hangar-9 about the failure. This was our club's second RV-8 wingrelated failure. Paul pointed out that the cause of this one looked to be due to an insufficient amount of glue on the piece that's supposed to anchor the wing. If what I read on RCUniverse is correct, this method of wing anchoring is also used on the Hangar-9 Piper Pawnee (Neil) and the Fokker D-VII (Joe). Saturday 8/21/10: Andre brought his big, beautifully done, electric ducted fan delta wing jet to the field for what I think was its maiden flight. But at takeoff the plane made a slow go of it down the runway and barely got airborne. Andre then had his hands full trying to keep it airborne. The craft's

4 West Jersey Wind 4 design didn't have a rudder, only ailerons, and this, coupled with its very low air speed made things treacherous. When it was about a half mile out or so and a very small speck, Andre had to risk a turn back towards the general direction of our field. He got the jet to make the 180; but, right afterwards it went down very quickly somewhere generally north of our field. Searchers weren't able to find it until Sunday; unfortunately the jet was totaled. Bob Aleardi received his 1st day of flight training today on a buddy box with Gregg. Bob was really wound-up at the end of this first big step. He had about 4 flights and had a thoroughly enjoyable day of it. Mike McMichen gave flight instruction to the youngest member of the Cohen clan today. But they also took their licks from the hobby. Their trainer plane went in just Southwest of the field. Fortunately, the plane was found and is repairable. Happy Flying, JJ To a tree, balsa wood and monokote taste like chicken. In other news, I understand that Ken Cohan crashed his airplane into the woods, but that s all I know about it. I hope it was not damaged. able to land without further damage. I think both planes will be back in the air soon. Gregg Clement was flying his new Lanceair a couple of times without mishap, but after a slightly hard landing, the next time up he reard a loud snap and noticed that the wings were at a funny dihedral angle that wasn t there before. Don quickly throttled back and was able to land the airplane without incident. Upon inspection, Don noticed that the wing had broken in half and was almost off of the airplane. He is now trying to figure out how to make a repair so that this will not happen again. I was not there to see this, but I understand that Andre Clark had a new T-34 Mentor at the field and while flying something went wrong and totaled the plane upon impact. Tough luck Andre. That s all I have this month, but it looks like we may have a new editor waiting in the wings. I hope so, stay tuned. Don t forget the Club Picnic this coming Sunday. Bring the family and have some good food and good times. Hope the weather is good and hope to see you there. Tom Voorhis Sunday the 11 th, JJ lost his ONE-RV 3 into the woods at the far right of the field. After looking for it for around an hour, JJ gave up the search. I guess his $15.00 beeper didn t work so well. I am sorry about that; I just had to throw that in. LOL We will help JJ find it when the weather is a little better. Bill Foust and Don Romano had a mid air collision while they were the only two guys flying, and flying out over the farmer s field. I guess that means it was no body s fault, although Don tried to take credit for it. The landing gear on Bill s plane hit the tip of Don t wing and the following happened. Don s wing came off and the plane crashed, Bill s landing gear came off but Bill was

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