MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING

The meeting was called to order by President Benjamin at 7:00PM in the SKP clubhouse. Attending were: Benjamin, Anliker, Henley, Greene, McIntyre, Fitch, Davis, Gillanders, Austin, Dantzler and Tolpin. Guests were Jim and Cindy Cook, Craig Wester and Harry Takata.

The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.. The Treasurer’s report showed total assets of $5000.67, of which $4630.67 was in the bank account and $378 was represented by the fuel supply.

The Treasurer gave a recap of the 2004 finances and compared them with the previous year’s expenditures.

At the time of the meeting 32 members had paid their 2005 dues. After the meeting those who have not yet paid will be reminded by e-mail (and snail-mail for those who do not have e-mail). Those who haven’t paid by 2/15/05 will be dropped from the membership.

Jim and Cindy Cook were welcomed into the club as new members and Harry Takata was welcomed back after a leave of absence. Harry gave an interesting account of his activities during his absence.

The need to have a clean-up of the area was discussed. There is an accumulation of unnecessary equipment/junk in the storage shed. It was agreed that Pete could have the grass catcher attachments for the yellow mower if he wants them. A clean-up day is planned for when the weather improves.

There was no new information on the potential sale of the property.

Lemons volunteered to work on Bylaws changes with Anliker. The new dues schedule needs to get into the Bylaws. Another proposed change is to have the final date for dues payment changed from February 15^th to February 7^th. This will enable us to bring new members into the club at the February meeting instead of waiting until the March meeting.

Fitch and Greene agreed to assist Henley in the position of Safety Chairman during his absence. Members were reminded that all of us need be vigilant about maintaining the safety rules.

Hanke was the worthy recipient of the Crash Trophy. Anliker and Calkins had honorable mention.

Submitted by Bill Anliker Sec./Treas.

AROUND THE CLUB

>Today, January 7, I was finally able to go flying. The field has been locked up (they call it the rain lock) because the access road was wet/flooded. I got a couple of flights on Hawg Wild II before having engine problems—acts like debris in the needle valve. I had to dress the same as at home (sweatshirt and windbreaker) and at times that was marginal.

>I had an e-mail from Randy Calkins. He is working on a Corsair foamy and has been flying an electric powered Tiger Moth that "has good vertical."

>Something you will never see at our field—a road runner on the runway! Yes, we had one on the far edge at Superstition Field. It would fly into the bordering bushes when a plane came too close, and then run (of course) back onto the runway when the threat went away.

>…and speaking of Superstition field, here are a couple of pictures of it:

This is the (from left to right) holding area, engine start area using stands just like ours plus arrangements to restrain large aircraft, the flying stations (there are chairs in most of them for the old duffers), and finally the runway which is dried mud and hell on engines when they suck up the fine dust. That is Hawg Wild II in the holding area foreground.

This is the ramada and airplane assembly/cleanup area. The transmitter impound and frequency control stations are just to the right of center in the background. The electric flying area is further out in the direction we are looking and the helicopter area is at my back about 150 feet. It is a BIG flying field and very well set up to handle a lot of flyers. However, bullshit is the largest product by far, just like our field. In the past I have tried to describe the places I am flying at, but this is the first effort with pictures—I hope you like it and enjoy learning about other places to fly. This field is maintained by the East Valley Aviators of Mesa, AZ and it is where Russ and I do most of our flying, mainly because it is sensibly managed and safe.

HINTS, KINKS, AND STUFF

>The plastic lids that come on various food containers make perfect mixing platforms for epoxy. I especially favor the ones off of individual serving size yogurt containers—they are about 3 inches in diameter. The rim on these lids is just right to keep the glue from getting off the mixing surface. I use cotton swabs (like Q-tips) to mix and spread with. They work very well after about half the cotton is pulled off.

>In the December Tale Spinner I mentioned an episode at the field where all the servos on my plane went crazy. The same thing happened again yesterday. I did some experimenting and discovered that my transmitter was swamping the receiver and that this was brought on by especially high voltage in the transmitter battery (I had just taken it off the field charger). Something to think about if you get some glitches on the ground.

>Bill Anliker sent me a sad tale about a crash trophy contender—many thanks, Bill. "I was out at the field one day when Randy flew the Telemaster he got from Wylie (blue & white).  It flew beautifully until the second flight when it headed toward PT with Randy yelling "I've Lost It"!!  It made a big sweeping turn, came back inside our fence, the engine quit and landing was a complete and unrepairable disaster. Seemed to be a transmitter battery failure."

Any comments, Randy????

AERONAUTICAL JOKE

As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives; the rescuer sees the bloodied pilot and asks, "What happened?"  The pilot's reply is:  "I don't know, I just got here myself!"  (Attributed to Ray Crandell Lockheed Test Pilot)

MEET THE MEMBERS—David Henley

David is originally from California. He was raised in a series of foster homes where he finely honed his survival skills. He entered the army at 17 and served in the 3rd armored as a tank commander. He returned to CA and lived in the Yosemite area for a few years before moving to Morrow Bay where

he discovered his lifelong love of sailing. He twice sailed his 28 foot sail boat to Hawaii in a small group of other sail boats. He moved to Washington State in the early 70’s with his wife and 3 sons. A logging accident almost ended his life and he spent over a year in the hospital recovering. During his recovery time he discovered RC planes and built and flew several. A second marriage and a 4th son found him working for the town of LaCenter as everything from the animal control officer to the water control inspector. He was able to attend Clark College during this time and received degrees in Metallurgy and Structural Engineering with Marine Application and Welding in All Applications which led him eventually to Port Townsend and Admiral Marine. He lived on his sail boat at Boat Haven for 11 years and spent many good times sailing around the San Juan Islands. He retired in 1999 due to work related injuries to his hands and knees. In 2000 he remarried (eternal optimist) and rediscovered RC planes. He loves traveling and he and Phyllis recently returned from a 2 ½ month, 7000 mile trip around the western states. They are planning a trip to England in April and another road trip to the East Coast next fall. His flying fleet consists of an LT40, J3 Cub, DeHaviland Tiger Moth, F4U Corsair, and he is currently building a Mosquito. The Tiger Moth accompanied him on his recent trip (living on the dash of the motor home at night and the bed during the day).

His family now consists of: 1 wife, 4 sons, 3 daughters-in-law, 4 grandchildren, 1 married step-son, 1 married step-daughter, and 2 step-grandchildren.

EDITORIAL

I had an experience at Superstition flying field where 2 pilots left all their stuff scattered around a starting station. There was so much gear that the position was not usable without moving it out of the way. Of course that was the station I assigned myself to! In the end I moved one person’s stuff out of my way and the other guy finally showed up and took his field box back where it belonged. I got my flight in and moved all of my equipment back to the pits. My good humor was seriously affected when I came back for another flight and found the station had been returned to junkyard status. Since I am a newbie here I moved to another starting station. I brought it up at the next club meeting, won a door prize, and generally had a good time.

We have a similar problem that I have observed. We do not have many tables for assembly, cleanup, and tinkering—just 4, I think. Lately our people have been leaving their stuff scattered about on these tables instead of properly vacating them so others could use them. The glider guiders are particularly bad, but I understand their reluctance to use our greasy airplane stands. Perhaps we should assign a table to them. That will leave 3 for the rest of us and that will be enough if we just use them sensibly and courteously.

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.

My venerable Hawg Wild (Tower Something Extra) with only 340 flights needs a good home—mainly because I need the space for the new version of the same airplane. The covering needs to be tacked down in a few places, but it is flyable as is—just add 40 size engine, 5 servos, assorted radio stuff, and wheels and axels. This plane has been my favorite for a long time. Just send me an e-mail and I will pass it on to you when I get back in April.

granger@olypen.com

MANEUVER OF THE MONTH (MOM)—KNIFE EDGE

I was going to do rolls this month, but Russ persuaded me that knife edge flight is essential to proper rolls, so we will look at that this month and get into rolls next month. All will become clear as we delve into the mysteries of proper rolls next time.

Knife edge flight is an unnatural act for an airplane. The rudder is trying to be an elevator and the fuselage does its best to provide lift in place of the wing that deserted its station. The ailerons still work the way they are supposed to, but the elevator has become the rudder. I know this sounds confusing, but think about the many steeply banked turns you make every flight—those are almost knife edges except you probably are not using the rudder to help keep the nose up.

In a perfect world all you would need to do is roll the airplane on its side, neutralize the ailerons and put in some top rudder (we’ll get to that in a bit). I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but we live in a very imperfect world, especially when we talk about knife edges. Each model design has different aerodynamic characteristics and thus does knife edge (and most other things) differently than any other design. Frequently, applying rudder will input a roll component that must be compensated for with the ailerons. In addition, almost all planes will also pitch nose down (sideways in this case) or up (sideways again). Serious IMAC competitors have programmable switches on their zillion dollar transmitters and use these to eliminate the undesirable results and produce perfect knife edges. We will have to get by as best we can using our thumbs and ordinary equipment.

Before we get into the actual maneuver, there is one other small problem we need to discuss. Some models have very powerful rudders and bodies that do provide a fair amount of lift, to the point that knife edge loops are possible if not pretty. Likewise, most models have much less capability and will always be marginal for a good knife edge. Hawg Wild I was pretty easy to knife edge, but Hawg Wild II has so much pitch and roll induced by the rudder that I may never be able to do a good one with it.

If you do not have a fair amount of rudder travel, perhaps 30 degrees or more, you may achieve better results by increasing to that amount. We will talk in terms of a right hand knife edge, but either way is fine, just reverse the controls. Enter from full throttle level flight at least 2 mistakes high parallel to the flight line. Roll 90 degrees right, neutralize the ailerons, and feed in LEFT (top) rudder slowly and watch what gyrations this produces on the airplane. This will give you a clue for correctional control inputs for the ailerons and elevators. It will probably take quite a number of attempts before you are able to produce a decent knife edge—and do remember, not all models will do this. Generally speaking a generous side area at the front of the plane is helpful. After you have mastered the right hand knife edge, work on the left hand version. BOTH will be needed for a really good roll next month.

MEMBER BUSINESS ADVERTISEMENTS

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Petersen & Granger, LLC

Pete Granger

granger@olypen.com