My Favorite Model... The Johnstown R/C Club

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1 Newsletter Editor The Johnstown R/C Club Roger A. Luther August 2014 Newsletter AMA Charter # Johnstown RC Clubs 52nd Year Sunday, July 27 th : July Family Picnic, Bring your planes, your wife, your family, and a dish to pass. We have invited the Valley Brook RC Club to join us for this special day and enjoy the fellowship of RC by both clubs. Tuesday, August 5 th : August Club Meeting, 8:30 pm, flying first weather permitting. Saturday, August 17 th : AMA National Model Aviation Day at our field. Come out and help a youngster learn to fly and enjoy our hobby. Sunday, August 24 th : August Family Picnic. Don't miss this one! We usually have a corn roast for this picnic! Join us online at: My Favorite Model... Bill Rosage and his Sig Kadet Senior Bill has had many planes over the years, but has settled on this rather large Sig Senior Kadet as his go-to plane. It's big, and very stable, plus it is easy to fly. He bought it several years ago directly from Sig, as an ARF for $299. After putting in a Saito 56 engine at about $250, and with all the other items needed, it cost him almost $700 to get it ready to go. The plane has an 80 inch wing span and has plenty of power. Another nice feature is its stable and slow landing speed. Bill has had it up many times with not many mishaps. Monday, Sept. 4 Th : Labor Day! Should be good flying! Tuesday, Sept. 5 Th : Regular Club Meeting, 8:30 pm. Flying first if the weather is good. NOTE: Sunday, July 20 th is the Saddle Clubs Annual Horse Show, We to be respectful to our neighbors, no gas planes until after 6pm, and no flying behind our fence all day. As you can see in the pictures above, it's a darn good looking plane and flys like a champ. The size makes it easy to see even when flown high or away from the field. We thank Bill for sharing his favorite plane.

2 New Club Instructor... New Flight Instructor Bruce Thomas has gotten so good with his flying skills that he has developed a new and somewhat unorthdox training method. The problem is, not many guys have taken him up on this interesting style of training after watching him help Paula (his wife) learn to fly. She has to learn which sticks to grab, but the guys are a little apprehensive of this particular training method! No training cords needed! Nuff Said! I suppose you could call it "the feel your way" method! So far he has only had this one student, but they both seemed to really enjoy the lesson! On another important note, Bruce has again helped out the club by building two new additional plane stands, to make a total of six at our field. They really look beautiful and he added some side panels which again can be switched to either side of the stand for either right or left handers. They also have wheels to make them easier to roll back and forth for mowing. Thanks Bruce for again helping out the club, we do appreciate your efforts, even if your unorthodox RC training style isn't catching on with the guys! LOL Here is one of the two new plane stands ready for use. On Sunday, June 21 s t all six were in use at the same time, with Frank Grecek bringing along his own stand to make it seven! Remember just a few years ago we had none, and felt that they were not needed. Well that has sure changed! I guess we are all getting older, or else it is just so much easier to work on your plane while standing up. Probably a good bit safer too! Many thanks Bruce! Above is a group picture from Father's Day

3 District III VP Visit... flew for about an hour. One of the topics we covered was of course the new rules and regs that the FAA are working on about drones and how it might affect our RC flying hobby. We also talked about the new 5 mile radius rule from active airports, which we fall under. The way the crow flies, we are about 3-1/2 miles from the end of Runway 33. The new regs, if they go into effect will require us to contact the control tower, who may, or may not grant us flying permission. This could really be a big pain in the neck. As I told Mark, we've been here at this field for almost 40 years, and have never had an issue with the airport. Oddly, one of Silver Airways commuter planes made an approach toward the Johnstown Airport coming in from the East from Altoona. So he got to see the general flight plan of the Runway 33 approach. We will have to wait and see if they start to enforce this particular role. Mark Radcliff with his Super Cub On Friday, June 27 t h I received a call on my cell phone from our own District III Vice President who was on his way to Philadelphia for a flying event. He realized that he was going past Bedford on the PA Turnpike, and would be pretty close to Johnstown. I said "heck yes, do come on over" and so he did. I quickly went home and got my plane stuff, then stopped at the new Em's Sub Shop to get us some lunch and darn if we didn't arrive at the field within a minute of each other. Mark had a van loaded with three planes, a generator, chairs, tent, plane stand, you name it... he was "ready". We had just missed a few of our guys who left the field around 11:30 am or so and enjoyed a quiet lunch together, then Mark Radcliff with his T-28 We each flew two different planes for almost two hours in perfect weather, before he left to go on to Philly and I went back to work. Mark also had his giant scale P-51 along, but didn't unpack the van enough to get it out and ready for flying. I certainly enjoyed visiting with him and Mark brought me up to date on the latest news from the AMA. Part of Mark's job is to visit as many clubs as possible throughout the the year, so he may hit a couple more clubs on this particular trip. Mark was headed to Benjamin Rush State Park for a big show

4 called the "Gathering of Mustangs Fun Fly" which is located just outside of Philly. One of the new regulations that their club will be facing, is the new rule that prohibits flying Radio Controlled planes in National Parks. This whole drone thing is going to meet us AMA hobby pilots straght on, and probably cause the AMA great expense to fight the new rules. These guys that are taking those dramatic video's in towns and around houses and going down streets are most often not AMA members, nor will they follow the AMA safety rules. Above is a pic I had on file of Mark's P51 which he will fly at the "Gathering of Mustangs" I tried hard to call a couple of our members to see if we could get a few more guys out, but I only had about 40 minutes notice myself, and it was lunch time. I think we passed Ken Reesey coming back from the field, on our way out. We had a great time and I was appreciative Mark made the effort to make the extra trip over from Bedford to pay us a visit. took along his wife Bonnie, Son Dan, and Grandson, Kevin. The Vally Brook group provided a wonderful lunch with hot dogs, baked beans, salad, drinks, even desert. The field was in tip top shape too! As you can see in the photo above, their field is really getting into fine shape. They have a wonderful picnic shelter, similar to ours, and the field was rolled with a very heavy roller by the Conemaugh Plant this spring making it very smooth and long! Everything was mowed and trimmed to perfection. Valley Brook Fun Fly... Saturday, June 28 t h our club was invited to go down to the New Valley Brook Club to check out their new field, and we had about 8 folks take them up on the offer. After we flew on Saturday morning at our field, we made the trek down through Seward to the new Valley Brook field. Bruce Thomas, Ken Shilling, Roger Luther, Zane Kough, and Frank Grecek were present, plus Roger Zane and Roger stop for some lunch after flying at Valley Brook. Shorty's wife Connie is the background working the kitchen duty. Their club has about 18 members at this time, and they are looking for more of course, like out club. They benefit a lot though with no rent, since the Conemaugh Power Plant has given them a great site, with

5 zero rent. The plant even provided them a port-a-john and pay for regular pumping, plus provided them a large trailer like container to store their mowers and other equipment in the off months. Bruce Thomas at the controls On top of all those benefits, they have provided the club with a nice access road and a very large parking area. Under the tent is Shorty Carney, with Frank Grecek and Roger's son Dan Luther. All of us flew our planes, some of us two different planes. Bruce flew his P-51, Roger his Extra 300 and his Escapade, and Frank a low wing trainer. The weather was really nice, warm with not much of a breeze, with some cloud cover. The Johnstown guys were very impressed with the whole setup. I think it would be nice if we invite their club up to fly at our field sometime in the coming two months, perhaps on one of our Sunday Family Picnics. Frank Grecek poses with Marlene Rumbaugh, who is the current president of the Valley Brook RC Club.

6 Everyone from both clubs had a great time and we appreciate the Valley Brook Club's kind invitation. On a sad note, we learned that Marlene's mother had passed away the next day. We all offer our sympathy to the Rumbaugh family. Valley Brook Club Invited We had such a great time down in New Florence with the Valley Brook Club that we decided to invite them to our upcoming Family Picnic on Sunday, July 27 t h. Lets hope we get a great turnout from both clubs! actions. Membership hovers around 41 folks, with 29 paid AMA Members. Above is a neat picture that Mark Radcliff placed on his Face Book page of his 9 ft. Wingspan P-51 in flight! It's a really sharp airplane and he had a great time at the "Gathering of the Mustangs" event he attended near Philadelphia. A Close Call... A good friend, and fellow member of the Valley Brook RC Club sent me this "lesson learned" about a good safety tip. Thanks to Bill Horoszko! At the July club meeting we agreed to do a service project for a Cub Scout Day Camp on Thursday, July 10 t h at New Germany. 5 of our club members agreed to go and take a plane or two to demonstrate our modeling hobby to the Scouts. We will do two sessions, at abouty 30 minutes each around the noontime hour. Not much else happened at this routine meeting except the two above Well, today I was working on running my new BME115 in a blue and white Balsa USA Sopwith Pup...originally powered by a BME110. I had intended in install a 3W106 and remove some of the added lead on the firewall, but came to the conclusion that the BME115 would be simpler install. As I indicated, the motor was brand new, so startup and break-in were a challenge...a 4.5 hour marathon to be correct...but that's a whole different subject! Anyway, prior to starting up the motor, I secured the airframe with my usual "one end of a rope around the aircraft tailwheel and the other around a tent stake pushed into the ground at a 45 degree angle", away from the plane. I've successfully utilized this method with planes as large as my 46% Ultimate with a DA150 for power and have never had an issue with the holding power of the setup for startup...

7 left the throttle at a little past the halfway point when I went to flip the prop. After that, I went to the garage and brought out my "ultra" plane holder...a piece of steel plate that is secured to the ground by four (4) tent stakes and has a solid-u-pipe that prevents the airframe from moving forward. I have incluced the pictures of both my "tried and true" rope to the tailwheel hold back, along with the full tail hold back for your to reference. My usual tent stake tail hold down setup Note that I never depend upon the rope hold down for anything but starting the motor...once the motor is idling I position myself behind the wings and physically hold the plane while running up the throttle before flying. I choked the motor and flipped the prop until I got a "pop" and then unchoked the motor getting ready to prop the motor again before flying. Now when I flipped the prop I have my prop setup at the 1:00 position so that as I flip the prop through, my hand gets out of the way of the prop prior to it coming around and biting me. I also, never, ever flip the prop while kneeling down...i am always standing so that the motion of flipping the prop takes me out of the line of fire of the prop/plane. In this case, both of those actions Saved my Bacon Today...as I flipped the prop and moved out of the way, the motor came to life and immediately went up to about 2/3's throttle!!! The airframe lunged forward and pulled the tent stake holding it back right out of the ground, allowing the plane to shoot across the driveway right where I had just been standing!!! Fortuately for me, the motor died just as quickly as it started, so no damage was done to it or the airframe on it's short journey. I stood there stunned, trying to figure out what had gone wrong...looking at my transmitter, I noted that I had inadvertently My Ultimate, 4 stake w/plate method I'm passing this lesson learned on to all my fellow club members because sometimes we tend to take things for granted until presented with the stark realization of such a "close call". Our Thanks to Bill for a great RC Safety Lesson!

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