THE

HEADWIND

Newsletter of the CHIPOLA R/C AVIATORS

Issue #1 January 2007

From the President:

The following was sent to me a while back by CR/CA President Francis Kellison. He has been out of town due to family illness. Best wishes to him and his family.

 January 4th. I went flying today with Gary Crowther, the new guy who was at the meeting, I had him up 4 times on the buddy box and he did good. The attendant program is in place and looks good for January and February, we will reevaluate it at the end of February and see if everyone thinks it is worth while. For those of you who could not or did not come to the meeting we discussed ways of attracting new member, if you have any ideas pass them on. Dale Cavin has agreed to act as editor for a news letter, if you want one submit articles if not it will die of neglect.
We are packing to leave Saturday, hope to see all of you the first part
of January, keep the wheels on the bottom during landing.
 
Francis
 
 
 
 

From the Editor:

Hello all,

In a fit of insanity, I volunteered to put together a monthly newsletter for the Chipola R/C Aviators. My plan is to try to get it out to members around the last week of the month. It’s not going to be fancy and, I do not intend it to be a summary of my personal information or opinions, so I need your input for things to include in the newsletter. If it related to modeling, aircraft, the club or other areas that you think would be of interest to the members, send it to me in an e-mail and I’ll get it in. However, please remember there are copyright laws, so be careful about copying something you read somewhere else.

Well, for my end of news for this month, hopefully all of you know we are sponsoring a giant scale warbird event March 23-24, 2007. This event, WARBIRDS OVER the PANHANDLE is being held in association with the Giant Scale Warbirds Association. This organization has been around for quite a while and has a good following. Those of you who have been the club awhile remember we hosted an event with them (then known as Southern Scale Warbirds Assoc.) several years ago over on the east-west runway. That was a great event with a good turnout. We’re hoping to have a good turnout again this year. Since I am CD of this event, I will be getting up with each of you for duty “assignments” shortly.

Also, as was discussed at the last meeting, we have been asked to hold the IMAA District V Minifest at our field. This was approved at the meeting and I have notified IMAA we would host it. This event is always held on the last weekend of October. For 2007, that would be Oct. 26-28. Again, the “senior” members will remember that several years ago, we hosted this event as well. The reason these organizations are returning is that the participants had a great time here.

One other area that I think would be good to go over in this issue is the general field rules and policies. We have several new members so I think a summary might be in order. As I am sure you are aware, the AMA rules of conduct and operations are applicable to our field. All of you have these in your AMA magazine. Next time you pick it up, give them a once over. In addition, there are a few additional rules that are either specific to our flying site, or expand the AMA ruled. One of the most important relates to the fact that we fly on an active airport. As such, there is a possibility that full scale aircraft may fly over our flying area at a low altitude. This is the reason we require that NO ONE fly alone. That is to say, there must be a second person at the field that can look and listen for full scale aircraft while you are concentrating on flying. This “spotter” does not have to a pilot, an AMA member or be standing with you. Obviously they do have to be in a position to look and listen. If you are concerned that no other flyers will be at the field, bring someone with you. Along this line, if a full scale does appear that it will fly over, bring your model down to the lowest safe altitude immediately and keep it down until the full scale is well clear. No matter what you may think of the full scale pilots flying capabilities, they ALWAYS have complete right of way. PERIOD. A second rule, that is related to the AMA rules and airport issue, is that there is absolutely no flying allowed west of the line extending along the pilots side of the flying filed. This line extends to infinity north and south. Again, in addition to spectator safety, the full scale flight path is just west of our field and we cannot intrude on that flight space any more than we are. Related to gate control. If you are first there, please open the gate and hang the little chains over the metal pegs to keep it from blowing around. If you are the last to leave, close and lock it. One final area that I want to mention is who is allowed to fly at our field. First, every one that flys must have a current AMA membership and be able to produce their membership card. If a guest comes to fly. Someone there should introduce yourself and ask to see their card. I also recommend that a member stand with the guest on the first flight to be sure of their capabilities. As for training, our club’s policy is that a current, qualified pilot may train a non AMA member on a buddy box. The member holding the master transmitter is the pilot in command and is responsible for the flight. Under no circumstances is a trainee allowed to fly “solo” unless they are a current AMA member. Don’t be tempted to skirt this rule. If something happens, the AMA insurance is VOID.

Dale C.

Other Upcoming Events:

Southeast Model Show (Perry Swap Meet)

For those who have never been to the Perry model swap meet, you’ve just live a sheltered life. Picture two buildings as large and larger than Marianna’s armory building full of tables loaded down with model goodies. Mostly it’s fellow modelers wanting to move the goods from their garage to yours. However, there are several commercial vendors also. For example Mac Hodges brings a LARGE trailer load of the goodies from his hobby shop. What you will find is everything from the finest ready to fly models you can imagine to pure junk and everything in between. There are several going again this year. The dates are March 2&3 with the doors opening to the general public at noon Friday. If you can fit it in, this is a must do.

Members Projects

Hanger 9 Hellcat

By Jerry Ambrose 

I’ve been asked by a club member to review my 60 size Hanger 9 Hellcat arf.  

Let’s start with the airframe, as I have found in the past, from doing previous Hanger 9 arf’s, the airframe is built very well. The kit itself goes together nicely with no surprises.  The finished product looks good.  The hardware supplied with the kit is adequate and really nothing else to buy. 

The kit comes with preinstalled factory 90 degree rotating retracts and are easy to hook up, they have a little play and wobble but do the job.   

The power plant I used was a Zenoah GT20EI gasoline, 1.2 cubic inch engine.  This engine has more than enough power to fly this arf and larger 90 size planes and looks good in the big cowl.   

The flight characteristics of the plane are good, actually better than expected.  The only surprise that I had during flight was that if you don’t slow the air speed down drastically, the retracts don’t want to come down because the air is pushing against the tires and making them want to stay up since they are 90 degree rotating.  Once I learned that, the retracts dropped fine.  When landing, the plane settles in good and the landings are not difficult.   

I would recommend this kit if you’re looking for a 60 size Warbird and would give the whole aircraft a 4++ on a scale of 5.

Jerry Ambrose

rcman18@bellsouth.net

Next Meeting

The next scheduled meeting of the Chipola R/C Aviators is Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at 6:30 p.m. The location is the Chipola College Administration Building Conference Room.

That’s all for this month. If you have comments, suggestions or items for future newsletters, e-mail me at dcavin@earthlink.net.

Dale