THE WINDSOCK VOLUME 7 ISSUE 5 MAY 2000 MAY MEETING MAY 9, 7:30 PM Rocky Top Field (In case of bad weather meet at the Branson Community Center) Program Metal tempering and making springs by John Woods. Fly before and after short meeting. TRI-LAKES R/C FLYING CLUB PRESIDENT JOHN WOODS 338-8419 VICE-PRESIDENT DON LIVERMORE 823-8899 SECRETARY & EDITOR DON JOHNSON 779-5340 TREASURER ROSCOE FUDGE 336-5841 SAFETY OFFICER ERV ROHDE 538-2439 FIELD MARSHALL HOWARD SHIRE 779-5069 INSTRUCTORS MIKE ANDERSON 272-3939 RAY DIXSON 870 426-4310 ROSCOE FUDGE 336-5841 MIKE KING 443-0124 DON LIVERMORE 823-8899 ERV ROHDE 538-2439 CHRIS RUST 546-6681 JIM STUART 546-6255 JOHN WOODS 338-8419 MAY 14TH ARMED FORCES DAY MAY 20th MEMORIAL DAY MAY 29TH 1 THE PRESIDENT S CORNER We had a great time during our Fun Fly and had a real nice turn out of Pilots, family and friends. Thanks to Erv for organizing and running all the events. Also the safety fence was simple but quite effective. Let us know at the next meeting if you think of any changes or improvements the Club may consider. The W-I-N-D cooperated with a moderate breeze all day. Everyone participated, both beginner and seasoned pilots and had a fun time except possibly those who may have had a mishap with a tree, limbo pole, ground etc. Ray flew his B25 this past week and had an uneventful take off, but what do you expect with 12 hp? Real nice flight as he put the retracts up. She really sounds impressive. He had a landing gear collapse on touch down and later said the retract mechanism had broken. Mike Anderson liked the retract idea so much he, somehow extracted his retracts. Just flying along, with out any fan fair launched his landing gear into the bottomless pit out yonder. I don t know how he does it style I guess? We had a few crashes lately, but the most spectacular was when Karen s Wal-Mart chase lounge folded up all I could see were about six pair of legs sticking straight up in the air. Don Livermore was a (President s... Continued on page 4)
TRI - LAKES R/C FLYING CLUB MEETING MINUTES APRIL 11, 2000 President John Woods opened the meeting at 7:02 p.m. at the Branson Community Center. All officers were present and there were 20 members present. Mark Ray and Brian Jones were guests, both of whom joined the Club after the meeting. The minutes from the March meeting were approved as written in the April Newsletter. Treasurer Roscoe Fudge reported a balance of $794.02 in the treasury. The 50/50 raffle was won by Ed Kriner and he received 1/2 of $20.00 Committee Reports: Erv Rhode of the Events Committee reported that the Club Fun Fly events for Saturday would be a Three Minute Timed Flight, a Bomb (egg) Drop using any device and allowing two tries and a Limbo if the wind is not too bad. Pilots must show their AMA card and the frequency they will be using - pilots meeting at 10 AM. Announcements and Old Business: President John Woods announced that the Club had received its 2000 Club Charter from AMA as well as Certificates of Insurance for Rocky Top Field and Jim Stuart's field. A copy of these Certificates will be forwarded to Brenda Oswald and Jim Stuart. Due to windy weather the Girl Scout flying demonstration was postponed from April 8 th and will be held on Saturday April 29 th. It was noted that only Intro Pilots can help non AMA members fly, with the use of a Buddy Box, at an AMA insured field. John Woods and Don Livermore are our Club s Intro Pilots. All members are encouraged to come out and provide a good flying show for the girls. Ray Dixson and Mike Anderson were named as Club Instructors. Anyone else wishing to be an instructor should see John Woods. Note: Any AMA member can help another AMA member learn to fly without being an instructor however use common sense and don t overestimate your flying abilities. John Woods talked about the RCHTA awards for publicity or public events that promote our hobby. The awards could be up to $500 for a club. New Business: John Woods passed out AMA officer badges to the Club officers. The field windsock has deteriorated and needs to be replaced. Del D Alesandro said he would make another sock as he has quite a bit of WW II parachute silk with no other use for it. Bill Rose gave a report on the Swap Meet in Springfield on April 1 st. John also said the May meeting will be at the Club field and will start at 7:30 PM. Howard Shire said that he had treated the field with Diazinon to keep the grubs down and hopefully keep the armadillos from digging holes in the runway. Program: Ray Dixson gave a presentation on Flaps. In brief summary, with flaps activated it increases the wing s lift and drag. On takeoff approximately 10 degree flaps will give added lift without too much added drag. On landing 20 degree to 30 degree flaps will give some added lift but a lot of added drag. This will allow a steep decent without picking up excess speed and slower level flight requiring more power. Activating flaps usually requires down elevator to prevent the plane from ballooning up but not always, it depends on the model. So try the flaps out at a fairly high altitude till you see how the plane reacts. JOHN Woods advised the Club that Valentine Welding can do heliarc welding on your motors or mufflers. He had them do some welding on his Raven before its demise. Hmmm! **** Don Livermore showed the landing gear for his giant Stinger that John had added a large music wire brace to keep if from sagging. **** Brad Bryant showed his Midwest Starduster 40 in yellow with red trim. It is powered with a Super Tiger.46 and tuned pipe. **** Mike Hogan had a P 51D in purple with white, red and yellow trim. Power is a Thunder Tiger.25. **** Ray Dixson brought the bare bones fuselage of his Ta 152 He. When finished it will have an eight food wingspan with about six feet of flaps. It will be covered with silkspan (over mostly balsa) and powered with a 1.08 two cycle engine. The meeting was adjourned at 8:22 PM 2
THE EDITOR S NOTEPAD Just received the Springfield BlackSheep s May newsletter and they are having an InterClub Fun Fly on May 13th. Starts at 11 am with 5 events. We will have the schedule of events at our meeting Tuesday. You may want to join in the fun or just go watch the events. Speaking of fun flys it was tempting to put a headline of ELECTRIC ALMOST WINS over the write-up of our last Fun Fly. Had the OLE editor come in second it probably would have happened. In reality the old tired electric PussyCat was fully capable of winning each event had the piloting skill been a little better. Need some work on that! Have some photos of the Fun Fly on page 5. Tried to get a picture of a plane dropping a bomb (egg) but got nothing but sky. Next time maybe I will try standing on the target for a better shot perspective - should be fairly safe there. Thought the last couple of rolls of film had come out a little dark so I checked the film speed dial - yep, those small little numbers were set wrong. That s why the more mature R/C pilots fly larger planes. Anyway the pictures from the computer printer look fairly sharp, it s when the newsletter is run through the copy machine that the photo quality drops. Getting some complaints of getting hits (radio interference) at the field. The two channels I heard of were 48 and 57 so beware and if your servos are jumpy before you take off maybe you shouldn t. Probably need to get a frequency scanner to check out the field. NEW CLUB MEMBERS The Club picked up four new members at and since the April meeting. (William) Brian Jones has joined the Club as a new member. Brian has done some RC flying in the past and is now getting back into it. He and his wife Cindy live at 173 Cedar Hills Estates, Hollister, MO, 65672. 417 334-8833 and e-mail Flying-High- Now@Webtv.net Mark Ray, a student from Ozark High School is also a new member. He lives at 1504 E. Sycamore, Ozark. MO, 65721. 417 581-5761. On his application under Spouse he listed Madona - going to have to check the accuracy on this! Erin Anderson, student at Reeds Spring Middle school, and daughter of Mike and Denise, has joint the Club. Mike has been giving Erin some lessons and she may be ready for a fun fly in June or August. Guys better get ready to defend your turff! Roy Pepper has rejoined the Club after a short one month absence. Welcome to the Club guys and gal. It s a pleasure to have you join us. Here is a snapshot of the current project - a pre WW II British light twin with geared Speed 400 s. FROM SAFETY OFFICER ERV Time to land for this month. One's excellence as a pilot is more than an ability to fly the airplane. It is also an ability to know when your flying would 3
APRIL FUN FLY April 15th - Rocky Top Field. The weather forecast had predicted winds of 15 to 25 MPH but the wind was calm. Would we finally get a break and be able to hold a Fun Fly as scheduled? President John Woods warmed up by totaling out his overpowered Raven but by ShowTime (10 AM) his depression had lifted and he was ready to go. Ray Wommack took a practice flight and broke the tail of his profile Extra - not bad but out for the day. Don Livermore also put in a practice flight with his what s it with a bomb bay, came in short of the runway and tore his landing gear off in the high grass. But with a little CA he was back in the hunt. At 10 AM, Event Director Erv Rohde held the pilot s meeting and started the Fun Fly with a timed Three Minute Flight. The pilot must take off and then land in exactly three minutes and is penalized for each second over or under 180 seconds. The pilot cannot use a watch or get timing input from anyone. The wind had picked up and was a little gusty but wasn t too bad to discourage ten eager pilots. The spectacular flight of the day was by Curt Krause as he lifted up into the wind - he went left, then right, then up, then down, then inverted, then right side up and this was before he came to the end of the runway and under 25 feet high. This must have effected his adrenaline as he counted (in his head) to 180 and landed in only two minutes. Competition was tough as first place went to Erv Rohde with 5 seconds off, second to Mike Anderson at 10 seconds off and third to Don Livermore at 16 seconds off. The second event was the Bomb Drop. The rules were to take off, fly over the target and drop the Club supplied egg on the paper plate target. Each pilot received two eggs. It became obvious that dropping an egg from a foam cup attached to the plane with a rubber band was not the way to go. The cup distorts the plane s aerodynamics quite a bit and the egg seems to leave the cup at unpredictable times. Using this method, pilots had trouble even hitting the field. The way to go is to rig up a servo activated bomb release. Don Livermore, Curt Krause and Don Johnson each had servo release devices of different designs and finished one, two and three in the above order. Don Livermore only missed the target by two feet. Curt Krause was second under 24 feet and Don Johnson third under 25 feet. The last event was the Limbo, starting out with the bar (ribbon) at seven feet. Curt Krause, having calmed down from the first event took aim at the bar and cut the ribbon in two on his first pass and was disqualified. Six pilots did manage to get under the bar at the seven foot level but Mike Anderson, after clearing the bar, lost control of his new 4-Star-60, slammed into the trees and severally shredded the wing. No second round for him. The second was at six feet. Ray Dixson managed to snag the top of the far upright, putting his Something Extra into the ground and tearing off his landing gear. John Woods also was disqualified for running his Battle Floyd wing into the far upright. Erv Rohde and Don Johnson both got under the bar but were disqualified for touching the ground several feet in front of the bar. Don Livermore was the only pilot able to get under the bar on the second round without being disqualified and thus earned first place. Four pilots tied for second place Overall Fun Fly winners were Don Livermore first with 280 points, Erv Rohde second with 225 and Don Johnson third with 195. Many thanks to Erv Rohde and crew for setting up and running a great event. For a change the weather, though a little breezy, was very good and didn t hamper flying at all. Although these are competitive events they are designed for fun, comradery and good humor. Even Buddy Box help is allowed for newer pilots. The next Fun Fly is scheduled for June 17th so plan on joining (President s...continued from page 1) gentleman and helped her from the entanglement! Just being close to Don. well things just happen! Thanks to Ray for his excellent presentation at the last meeting on FLAPS and their proper use. Also thanks to Chris for his extensive review of the Futaba T6XA in the Newsletter. Next month we will be meeting at the Flying Field and I ll be doing a program on annealing and heat tempering spring steel, aluminum and brass tubing. I ll also show you how to make some simple springs. We may have to go into the flight shack where the light is low so we can see the color changes of the metals. These processes are really easy and extremely useful around the shop. Come early and fly, then we will have the meeting around 7:30. At the next meeting I wanted to enlist some ideas to help with the field mowing. We have a great field and it takes care and maintenance to keep it in flying shape. We have two mowers and when both are mowing it doesn t take as much time as you would think. Your suggestions and ideas will be welcome. 4
Here comes the winner of the LIMBO - Don Livermore s Pro Twister as it ducks under the bar (ribbon). The twister was the only plane able to successfully fly under the bar twice without touching the ground or exhibiting some other unacceptable behavior. The knot in the ribbon is from This is serious competition but with a helpful touch. Here new student member Mark Ray concentrates on his plane during the THREE MINUTE TIMED FLIGHT. President John Woods is on the Buddy Box helping him take off and land and keep him out of trouble. To the left is Mike Anderson s 4- Star-60 on an ill fated mission to find the LIMBO bar. Although Mike made a successful run under the LIMBO bar the 4-Star then went out of control, made a left turn and shredded the wings trying to fly through a tree. But no problem, Mike will just have his plane builder make a new wing! 5
COMING EVENTS May 13 - INTER CLUB FUN FLY, Sponsors Springfield BlackSheep and Hawks at BlackSheep field. 11 am, $2 one event or $7 for all five events. May 20 - MODEL AIRCRAFT FLY IN & AIR SHOW Sponsor SE MO Modelers Assoc. Cape Girardeau, MO See Don Johnson for flyer info. Jun 2, 3 & 4 - S.M.A.L.L. - Maumelle, AR. No engines over.26. Includes R/C, control line, free flight, indoor flying in the evening and a swap meet. Jun 17 - Fun Fly - TRI-LAKES R/C FLYING CLUB, Rocky Top Field, Branson, MO. Jun 24-25 - IMAC Challenge 2000. BlackSheep Field, Springfield, MO. Aug 6 - Float Fly Practice, Springfield Lake Sponsor BlackSheep, Springfield, MO. Aug 12 - Fun Fly - TRI-LAKES R/C FLYING CLUB, Rocky Top Field, Branson, MO. Aug 19 & 20-11th Annual FLOAT FLY, Springfield Lake Sponsor BlackSheep, Springfield, MO. Oct 14 - Fun Fly - TRI-LAKES R/C FLYING CLUB, Rocky Top Field, Branson, MO. BUILDING TIP The following building tip was received from President John Woods on how to heat, bend and then re-temper music wire. Annealing Steel: Using a propane torch heat area to bend to red hot (bright red). Use low light to see the color more easily. While still red hot bend to desired shape and quench in water. You can make minor adjustments because the steel is still soft. Hardening: Sand, file or steel wool area that is discolored from heating and heat to first color change -- a grayish blue, and let air cool. You will see the blue appear as you "play" the flame over the part. The color will remain after it is cool. If the area is heated to red and cooled it will be very brittle. Another way to harden is after the shape is finalized, place in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for one hour. Turn off oven and let cool. Practice this on a few scrap pieces and I think you will like the results. I'll plan on doing a demo on steel and also aluminum at the next meeting for those who may be interested. Probably have to go inside the Flight Shack to see the colors more easily. John TRI-LAKES R/C FLYING CLUB Don Johnson - Editor HCR 4, Box 875-1 Kimberling City, MO 65686 6