PRESIDENT S CORNER Nic Burhans

Transcription

1 MARCH 2005 PRESIDENT S CORNER Nic Burhans I want to thank everyone at the last meeting for their patience with the representatives from the Fauquier School Board and their new high school presentation. We now have CD s for all our Fun Flys and Bill White has volunteered to do the coordination for our Christmas party. Ron Coen worked with Kwang Ko at Hobby Hangar to get the final gift certificates to the 2004 Fun Fly winners. This month Bill McMullen will start a series of presentations on how to align your aircraft while you are building your model or after you open the ARF box. Bring questions and take notes for your next project. As I pointed out last month, we all have little items or methods in our shops that we found in other than hobby shops or modified from their original configuration/use that have made our model making and flying very much easier. Please continue to bring these items or ideas to the meetings and share them with the rest of us. We can all learn from your expertise. Our own personal ground hog has made sure that the field has continued its windy winter/spring wet condition. If you find a dry spot to operate from let me know. I have gone exclusively to hand launched electrics and have to hope I can get them to land in the wind close to me. The things we do to keep our flying skills at their peak. Fly safe and keep dry. Nic Bill McMullen and Mike Dale finalized a frequency sharing (two low, two high, and one ham) agreement with the Flying Circus that will go into effect on the first of April, pending the outcome of the new AMA frequency interference testing procedures. Ron Coen made an outstanding presentation on covering with Litespan (Coverlite). Ron s discussion prompted technique inputs from several members on the use of Balsaloc and methods to get the wrinkles out as low shrink material is applied. All learned a lot. Hours: Mon Sat, 10:00 AM 8:00 PM

2 SECRETARY S REPORT The February Club Meeting was held at the Warrenton Community Center on Feb. 22. Recent new member Bob Blakeney was introduced. Jake Wood who was a guest several months ago was also present. Welcome guys! Ron Coen gave a brief Treasurer s report. We have about $5400 in the bank now. We got a 20% discount from Hobby Hangar on the Fun Fly certificates distributed to last year s winners. The Secretary reported that Hobby Hangar renewed its advertisement in the newsletter, and paid us the usual annual fee of $110. Mike Dale (Safety Officer) promised a safety article for the next newsletter. Field Marshall Bill McMullen noted that the field will be fertilized in a month. Old Business Bill McMullen gave an update on the frequency agreement with the Flying Circus. Bill met with Mr. King, and the frequency sharing agreement was signed. It goes into effect on April 1. At that time FARM will no longer use channels 14, 29, 37, 47, and ham channel 2, as these are the frequencies that the Flying Circus will use. There are two exception periods, as follows: 8/19-21 Flying Circus will have all channels to use 5/22, 9/16-18, and 10/2 FARM will have all channels to use Because the Flying Circus is closer than 3 miles to our field (an AMA approved flying site), they have no insurance. Bill also discussed further testing that could be done. This would have to be done on 3 channels. Thanks, Bill, for all the work on this thorny issue. Fun Fly CDs were discussed. Vince Tabacco took the CD responsibilities for July and Doug Cash took the October CD nod. CDs need to give their address to Mike Dale. Bill White agreed to be the Christmas party coordinator this year. New Business Representatives from Fauquier County attended the Feb. meeting to explain the bond referendum for a new high school. The NVRC Auction is on March 29, with registration from 8-10 AM, and the auction begins at 10 AM. Vince Tabacco is going to work on getting a float fly / glider fly event at a large 200 acre lake near the Flying Circus. Vince also wanted to thank Bruce Green and Dave Rothbart for providing trainer planes. Ron Coen gave an excellent demonstration of covering light weight models with lite-span. Thanks, Ron. Show and Tell Bob Blakeney 1/5 scale J-3 Cub (picture). DR1Triplane with one wing ready. Charlie Koustenis 1 pc. 83 foam wing for OV-10 Bronco. John Hunton - $25 electric model from WalMart, with rudder and elevator controls John Hunton Vampire Jet ducted fan model, with sonic tachometer for determining speed of the fan. John Hunton Gladiator kits Vince Tabacco Fokker E cc motor, 9 lbs. Charles Buffington Cap with Magnum 91 motor Laser 60 OS FX 46, 6 lbs. 50/50 Charlie Koustenis won the drawing. EDITOR S NOTES Upcoming Events: 1.Club Meeting, March. 22, at Warrenton Community Center, 7:00 PM. 2.Swap Meet, April 2, at Severn United Methodist Church (see flyer this newsletter) Items for Sale: Contact David Meinke (703) for the following items: 1. Jamara Pilatus Porter (built), 6 fuselage length, w OS 120 4c engine & Futaba Servos - $ Great Planes 1/3 scale Pitts (ARF), new in box - $ Sig Mahem (ARF), new in box - $ Thunder Tiger Piper Cub (ARF), new in box - $ OS 1.60 FX Glow Engine w/bisson Pitts Muffler - $250

3 SAFETY Mike Dale For reasons best known to the other board members I find I am the Safety Officer this year. Of course, the reason may just be that they ve seen me make so many mistakes that they think I have a rich fund of experiences to draw on. They may well be right. I decided as Spring was on its way that I would start my safety duties by checking the aircraft I had put away at the end of the summer. Both of them were in fine shape when I last flew so everything should be just fine and it would only take a few minutes. Boy, was I wrong. The first model I checked was Bill Winter s Mainstream. Starting at the front, I wiggled the engine. Would you believe it was loose? I tightened the engine bolts and then got to thinking. What had caused this to happen? I took the propeller off and rebalanced it but it was fine. It also had no cracks that I could see under a lens with a light. The only thing left was the spinner. Placing it vertically on a piece of piano wire, it was all lopsided so I did some dremel work to get it to hang level. Putting it back on the prop I found the damage had gone a little further because under the pressure of the screws a crack appeared which hadn t been visible before. Oh well, back to the drawing board or, in this case, to Vince to get a new one. This time I ll balance it first! I flexed the U/C and found the bottom of the fuselage split slightly. A couple of hinges loose on the control surfaces and the muffler had rubbed the fuselage quite badly while the engine was doing its vibration bit. The Avistar that had served me so well had its own bunch of problems. Under a magnifying lens and light I found a crack in the prop and the fuel hose was all gooey and looked like it was melting. Bill McMullen had warned me this would happen and told me to fit Blue Line so I replaced it all. I once pulled sideways on the tail of my full size Cardinal and was astonished to find the whole tail plane loose. Several hidden rivets had come out followed by some vibration and the loss of a crucial bolt. I pulled sideways on the Avistar tail and it moved! More epoxy to the rescue. I kept pulling and a tip came off too. An aileron hinge was loose but the real excitement was that a tiny pin had come away from an aileron connector and, while the sides of the connector were still moving the aileron somewhat, there was no solid connection to the control system so it probably wasn t doing too much in the air. No wonder it wouldn t turn left well! I had put it down to my lousy flying. Under a normal range check the control surface still moved when the aircraft was still on the ground. By now you may be wondering whether I should really be allowed to keep my Farm membership! Me too, but last year I saw an outstanding model builder and flyer take a well built model off and lose control a few feet off the ground because a control was not connected properly. It probably worked during the range check but might have been shown to be loose if it had been checked manually. The aircraft flew past the group of modelers standing back from the flight line and hit another outstanding model on the ground. Happily it missed us all but it made it clear to me that these simple mistakes can happen to the best of us. I hope this article will persuade you all to do a decent flight check on your last year s models before flying them again this Spring. TREASURER S REPORT Ron Coen February 2005 RECEIPTS: Dues New Members $65.00 Advertising Revenue $ Club 50/50 Raffle $ $ EXPENSES: Prepaid Christmas Party Facility Rent $ AMA Club Charter Fee $ Newsletter Postage $44.40 AMA Magazine Subscription (Fauquier library) $16.00 Pilot Introductory Program $10.00 Miscellaneous (Correction Chk 1043) $ Total Expenses $ Overall Total -$ Cash in Checking 1/31/05 $ Cash in Checking 2/28/05 $ WINGS OF BALSA John Hunton When we were going to test fly the canard Bernie Stuecker called Bob Burnett and told him "Hey, we are going to the field to test a new Winter design." Bob replied "What kind of a high wing monoplane did Winter design now?". Bob could not believe it when Bernie told him that the test model was a canard.

4 The Soft Touch was designed for the new K&B 100. This was an excursion into larger airplanes, Bill having previously designed the Aristocrat "General" which used to hang in the Reston AMA museum. The Soft Touch flew with the full scale feel. It gave tremendous feedback to the pilot. With the large flaps it could be landed softly and gently. We attached a video camera to the Soft Touch and got some good video of the flying field and neighborhood. July 1996 Model Bill saw Tom Chipley's Mud Duck series, FomeCore was the basic structural element. The Coot was designed around an.010 that HA Thomas had given Bill. It used a Sig foam wing and everything else was built of FomeCore. This nice basic model was submitted to Model Airplane News and was never published. Perceiving the growing popularity of the Speed 400 type electric motor Bill designed a model for it using a swept forward wing and a vee tail. This model, the Goblin, had a phenomenally high L/D ratio. It would find lift on its own and glide seemingly forever. July 1997 Model Bill always came back to the roots, the high wing monoplane. The Mainstream was designed to provide a conventional, yet efficient (ala Howard's DGA) platform for sport flying. July 1997 flying Models. The Javelin was a continuation of Bill's excursion into exciting non-traditional design. After having come up with Winter's unified theory of relativity (all airplanes are basically the same) he wanted to combine the excellent stall characteristics of the canard with the also good stalling delta wing planform. The Javelin resulted. Bill Evans (designer of the Simitar series) had been testing K&B's new 4050 engine and recommended it to Bill for the new Javelin. The result was a very fast but very stable model, which could not be stalled. It is sometimes difficult to get the Javelin off with the 4050 up on the tuned exhaust. We were flying it at one of the Winter Fests, it came off the ground out of resonance and running weakly (no problem with the good stall stability). I was nursing the model to a higher altitude. Norm Rosenstock commented that the airplane flew OK, but it needed a bigger motor. Norm turned away. I was high enough then to dive the model. The K&B came into resonance and the Javelin came screaming across the field. Norm was convinced. With the success of the Goblin Bill designed a.25 sized model of the same proportions, a swept forward wing and a vee tail. The Osprey mirrored the great L/D of the Goblin. I knew that the Osprey was something special because every time I tried to land it I overshot the field. It is just difficult to land the model. April 1998 Model The Ascender resolved a the problem of the Javelin being so fast (which I liked) because Bill wanted the canard-delta concept to be expressed in a sport model. The Ascender provided the desired result and looked just great. July 1998 Model Jackpot was back to basics, a sport looking traditional high wing monoplane model with a symmetric airfoil, actually just an enlarged Tern. The Jackpot reflected the great flight qualities of the Tern. October 1998 Model In wanting to "keep me interested" Bill would go to advanced designs. The Hummer was for the popular Speed 400. During test flights we found that the Hummer could be locked into a stable stall configuration. Bill resolved this by keeping the CG forward. In reading some material later apparently the Barakat (a full scale Rutan canard derivative) had the same problem. The Hummer combined the swept forward wing with the canard concept. A great looking model. January 1999 RC Modeler. Discussions of the typical model design problem of the model motor having a better power to weight ratio than a typical full scale design (the Soft Touch had a pound of ballast in the nose to keep the nose proportional) resulted in investigation of long-nose crop duster purpose designed airplanes. Why not use that concept in a model and let the nose be long? The Duster was Bill's answer. Full length ailerons were combined with a split flap giving the Duster the widest performance envelope of any model I have ever flown. With the typical Winter built-in stability very slow flight can be made safely. March 1999 Model Bill was very ill. He was getting weaker by the day. I came by for our usual Thursday discussions, Mark told me that Bill had been taken to the hospital the day before. Mark let me into Bill's workshop. I saw a pile of unopened mail, which included the latest RC Modeler magazine. I opened it up and saw the Hummer article. I asked Mark if I could take it to the hospital to show Bill. Bill was laying in the bed in obvious discomfort. He did not want to talk much. I opened up the magazine and leafed through the article for him. It was page after page. A big wide smile came on his face and he said "That's a good one." That night he was gone.

5 FARM OFFICERS for 2005 President Nic Burhans Vice President Gene Flynn Secretary Treasurer Ron Coen Safety Officer Mike Dale Field Marshall Bill McMullen Member at Large Charley Koustenis FARM Newsletter Staff Editor Printer: Classic Printing Center Chantilly, VA, (courtesy David Malkin) The FARM Newsletter is published monthly by the Fauquier Aero Recreation Modelers, AMA charter #1654. It is mailed to FARM members and to other clubs on an exchange basis. Articles related to all types of aviation are welcome. Opinions expressed in the newsletter are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect those of FARM Inc. Publishing deadline is the 2 nd Tuesday of the month. Please mail all input to: Woodmont Ct. jkillen@erols.com OR jkillen@starpower.net Manassas, VA Our web site is: FAUQUIER AERO RECREATION MODELERS Woodmont Ct. Manassas, VA