MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING

Minutes of the 01-08-2008 Tri-Area RC Flyers

Vice-president Kampmann opened the meeting at 7:01pm.

Attending were Marken, Anliker, Bangle, Creedon, Hanke, Bruce, Pendleton, Berson, Fitch, Smith, Berger, Greene, Kampmann, Calkins, Mrs. Patnode.

Guests included John Barras, John Nesset, Pat Patnode and for their second visit, father and son, Jeff and Thomas Beres.

Amendment to Minutes of the 11-13-07 Meeting:

ADD to: "Election of officers for 2008"

VP Kampmann presented Nancy Patnode a "Certificate of Appreciation" on behalf of the club for her friendship and support as an Associate Member of the club.

Treasurer Report: Bank balance $2301.17, CD balance$4209.23 for a total of $6510.40.

Bill Anliker submitted for review his Recap of Finances for the last five years. The report shows $199.00 in the black. The reasons for the small amount of growth were some major maintenance items and funding of summer events. These items are investments in the future. Volunteer labor and raffles on donated items helped and will continue to support the growth of the club.

Upon Bill Anliker’s final report as Treasurer, Pete Hanke took this opportunity to recognize Bill for all his work and effort he has put into the club from the inception as one of our founding fathers. A round of applause followed.

Bill offered to be our Public Relations Agent with respect to Mr. and Mrs. Short, and the neighbors adjacent to the flying field. His offer was accepted.

Old Business: None

Safety Report: None

Crash of the Month: No Award (due to bad weather, no fly days)

New Business: Tim Bangle suggests replacing the plastic safety fence with a vinyl coated wire fence. This after he had to reinstall most of the plastic fence was found wadded up in the field after a windstorm. Tim has researched and priced an alternate material and the club is willing to continue to look into the matter. Final decision pending.

Bob Kampmann suggested we promote after-meeting programs. Unanimous approval from the group in attendance. The first topic suggested was model covering and John Fitch agreed he would like to learn more about that subject, so he volunteered (by appointment) to bring in all the stuff required for the demo hoping someone would step up to share their covering techniques with the group at the February meeting.

Randy Calkins was asked if he would be willing to show some of his cars and boats. He said he would.

Pete Hanke said Pete Granger shared some old equipment from Wylie’s collection, and discussed the leaps in technology. We were reminded that Pete Granger has held quite a few model-building demos in the past and that he is a great teacher.

Bill Anliker nominated Bill Berson to put together a program on full-scale aircraft that may have elements similar to modeling. Bill Berson is slated for the March meeting.

Bill Anliker was asked to give an out door (flying) demo of his full size Flying Parachute at the Tri-Area RC flying field later this year (weather permitting). He Agreed.

Stan Davis’s name came up as a pylon racer and that his ships would be interesting program material. Stan had a friend put on a very interesting jet model program last year and perhaps he would join us again this year.

Lawrence Pendleton announced his elite membership in a video club sent to him by the AMA. Lawrence dubbed it "The Ed McMahon DVD Series". He expressed the videos aren’t free and they don’t come cheap. Beware.

A reminder to the club that Randy Calkins is the Club Librarian and has a box of videos for our use. Contact Randy to check out items of interest.

Roy Greene reminds the group that the NW Model Expo will be held February 8-9-2008 at the fair grounds in Monroe.

Pete Hanke asked for reiteration of the criteria for a new membership. Randy Calkins responded with, a new member must have attended at least three meetings, be sponsored by a member in good standing, be a current AMA member, fill out a club enrollment form, be voted in and pay appropriate dues.

Bill Berson brought up a safety issue he encountered with a model at the field. During a pre-flight radio check with the engine running and the transmitter in close proximity to the model, the throttle would go wide open. When Bill removed the receiver on/off switch from the circuit the problem went away and all radio function was normal. When the engine was not running the switch seemed to work fine. The consensus is that the switch is bad and that installing a heavy-duty switch should resolve the issue.

Greg Marken will print and post copies of checklists at the field for club member’s use such as Qualification Flight Maneuvers for Solo Test or Flight Review and the Pre-flight Aircraft Safety Inspection.

Meeting adjourned at 7:47pm

Program: None

Respectfully Submitted by Greg Marken

THE PREZ SEZ

I saw this site and thought you might like it. If you click on any airplane photo shown it will display a photo of the cockpit. Pretty cool.

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/test/archives/2007/articles/jan_07/cockpits/cockpits.html

Also, here is a photo of some workers that just installed a series of barriers. See any problem?

http://www.valuelessforum.com/forums/viewatt.mpl?att=1200070707smartfellers.jpg

We are in Las Cruces, NM. Kinda cold in the mornings.

Jim Cook

AROUND THE CLUB

This is a P-39 that was recently recovered from a lake in Russia. The aircraft went down in WWII and the pilot’s remains were still in the cockpit. Also in the cockpit was a can of lend lease cooked pork lard, onions, salt and spices - the lend lease version of SPAM?

Here is a link to the recovery and history of the P-39:

Click here: Bell P39Q-15BE 44-2911 Airacobra

>From John Richards, a flying friend from Indiana:

This is a site I think you will enjoy, especially if you are into airplanes. Click on the web site below that will take you to a page showing many different aircraft. Then click a plane of interest to you and you will get a close up of the cockpit. When you look at the cockpit, remember how crowded you felt the last time you flew and the coach seat seemed small. Nothing like the seats the driver has in these war birds. Just think how it would feel to be wedged into these cockpits for several hours! Not a nice thought. We think about how wonderful it would be the driver of some of these fancy birds. Then think how long they are up there and how long they have to sit on these tiny seats. Maybe flying up front would not be so great if you think about it that way. Our young men flying these birds are giving up a lot.
 
Click on each plane to see cockpit

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/test/archives/2007/articles/jan_07/cockpits/cockpits.html

NEW MEMBERS

I hope to obtain a brief bio and a picture of our new members to enhance their introduction to the membership. This is voluntary on the part of the newbys, but it should be beneficial for all.

HINTS, KINKS, AND STUFF

>From FLIGHTLINE edited by Don Bunyard—the newsletter of the BARCF club of Coos Bay, OR:

It looks like the Spektrum concept

is being well-received here in River

City. Our Prez informed us that he

now has most of his planes on Spektrum,

and he is enjoying the freedom

of never having to worry about frequency

conflicts again.

But, there is one thing he warned

about. He reported that his radio

would not lock onto the receiver in his

plane after hanging the transmitter on

two nails on his field bench. The

problem only occurred when he had

hung the transmitter on the nails and

then tried to use it again. When he

didn’t use the nails, he had no problem.

So, beware, there might be a time

when your Sprektrum transmitter

might not lock onto the receiver, and it

might be because of some electrical

coupling with nearby wiring or metals.

Phil is the only one to report this

anomaly, so it might be a one time

thing. But stay vigilant for problems.

SOARING

Glider guiders, where are you?

SPARKS—The "W" is coming!

The most popular electric airplane here in Mesa is the "W", a flat foamy with inverted gull wings that span less than 18 inches. At least half of the electrics I have seen are "Ws". It is a weird looking flying wing with floats at the lowest point on the wings. Those purists that demand wheels just masking tape a music wire axle to the float bottoms. The fuselage looks like an afterthought, and the battery is rubber banded to the top of the body. They tell me it is easy enough to fly to be used as a trainer, but I have also seen them doing pretty good 3D maneuvers. I have seen 2 different sizes, but almost all have been the larger 18 inch variety. The folks here were not able to take off from water, so the float configuration may need some work.

Russ tells me that the thing was designed by a Washington guy who also puts out short kits—mostly just the cut out foam parts, and maybe a motor mount.

FAR FLUNG FLYING

I have not even gone to a flying field since before Thanksgiving. Is this going to be another season of little flying? It’s too soon to tell. As I write this little bit it is a rainy day in the Mesa, AZ desert, which means the local field will not be accessible for several days due to a muddy road. My batteries are all charged and I am ready!

When the field finally reopened Russ Petersen and I flew 2 days in a row. I flew my venerable HAWG WILD II both days, and had a blast. On the second day I watched a fellow with MS solo! It was not a pretty landing (about 6 bounces), but the rest was just fine.

EDITORIAL

One of the clubs I belong to is the East Valley Aviators (EVA for short) in Mesa, a club that has about 250 members and a lot of active flyers. Over the last year the club has made a number of changes at their flying field. The parking lot and entry road were improved, and the helicopter and electric flying areas were enlarged with improved facilities. The electric flying area did not look very good to me, but I decided to try it before making up my mind. I fired up my little YAK park flyer and put in 2 very short flights. I will not use the facility again until significant changes are made.

What could be so bad about a larger flying area and improved equipment? For starters, the flight line and pilot stations are located on the downwind end of the runway. Takeoffs are OK, but a normal landing pattern would require coming in over the flight line. Most folks fly low over the adjacent pucker brush (more about that later), make a low, slow sharp left turn, and plop down in rather ugly landings. The other option would be to come in over the access road and do a low, slow right turn to plop down—an option that avoids the brush, but might (has) startle a driver. Landings would be alright if an East wind was blowing (rare), but takeoffs would be directly at the flight line!

The pucker brush I referred to earlier is a line of spiny (creosote I think) bushes that are over 6 feet high, parallel to the runway, and just a few feet to the left of the flight line. Flying into that stuff would ruin your whole day! Retrieving a plane might ruin more than your day. And yet low, slow flight over this stuff is the only safe/sensible landing pattern with a normal wind.

The shame of this whole thing is that the facility could have been made much more user friendly at no more cost in labor or money. If the flight line had been established parallel to the runway adjacent to the entry road, the pilots would no longer have to endanger their planes or their persons. The parking lot that the existing flight line backs up to could be subject to some over-flight activity, but it looks to me like that would be the lesser evil.

The EVA group boasts a lot of modeling experience and know how. Perhaps they just did not think about it as the original electric flight line had the same orientation—and that was more for convenience. The brush was not a factor in the former location either. Club officers carry a lot of responsibility and do more than their share of the work. I contribute very little to the club, so I do not like to criticize, but I sure would like to see a better arrangement.

The bottom line here is that the hardest working, most dedicated and experienced officers with the very best intentions can still goof. We lowly members would be well advised to join with our officers in as many endeavors as possible. Remember, the more minds that are focused on a problem, the more likely the results will be favorable.

FOR SALE OR TRADE

If you want to list an item, just send me the details including your name, phone number, and asking price or trade-for item. Low pixel count digital (JPEG) pictures are also acceptable.

MONTHLY MEETING—February 12 at 7:00 in the SKP Clubhouse

Officers will meet at 6:30. The program will be on Covering Techniques, hosted by John Fitch, and all are invited to contribute. I think we can all learn something from this one!

Pete Granger

granger@olypen.com