RC BEES of Santa Cruz County, Inc. Newsletter August 2017 Editor: Alan Brown, 388 Aptos Ridge Circle, Watsonville, CA 95076-8518 Phone: (831) 685-9446. E-mail: alangwenbrown@charter.net. Web site: www.rcbees.org Next meeting Thursday, August 17th, at the EAA building, Aviation Way, Watsonville Airport, 7:30 PM. July Meeting The meeting was opened at 7:30 p.m. on July 20th by President Steve Boracca with twenty-one members present. The previous meeting minutes were approved by all members. Richard Ludt presented the approved treasurer s report, which can be seen in the members section of our website. Dan Morris confirmed that a club contest would be held on the following Sunday, July 23 rd, with two events, pylon racing and combat with ribbons. Steve Boracca would once again be our host for hot dogs and cookies with help from Laurie Trescott. Members were asked to be there for pre-contest briefings at 9 a.m. with competitions to start at 9:30. President Steve was pictured with the two trophies which Dan had hand made for the competitions, as shown below. President Steve was pictured by Laurie with the two trophies which Dan had made for the competitions, the one on the left representing a racer rounding a pylon, and that on the right showing a tailless combat aircraft trailing a pair of ribbons. Allen Ginzburg reported that while the field camera was up and running successfully, the weather station was still not 100%, and he would look into it. Benno s large donation of modeling equipment as reported last month was finally auctioned off, and realized $850. Thank you, Benno and family, who are moving to Portland this month, and have been given honorary membership in the club. There was no other show and tell, and with that the meeting was closed at 8:45 p.m. Magnificent originals!
Down by the River The club contest kicked off in fine style as advertised, with the contestants and a few hangerson, including your editor, in the picture. And Joe s entry in the pylon races. The program was set up so that heats for the two types of events ran alternatively, first combat and then pylon racing. The contestants readied their combat airplanes by tying ribbons, generally to the wingtips. Here s Alejandro Montoreano, obviously delighted with his and his Dad s entry. One of the pre-race favorites was Richard Tacklind s little tailless airplane, which has been seen several times at the field. Unfortunately, the races were of five laps, and the airplane only survived three before burying itself rounding a pylon. Don Andrews apparently has a boxful of red and yellow spray cans, and here s one of his examples. This is Joe Platin with his entry, top of the next column..
Stefan Warnke regularly enters his biplane in the pylon races, and here it is again taxiing back into the pits after a successful flight.. As for inflight pictures, your editor s attempts were pretty pathetic. This shows three blurry combat airplanes, followed by a few dots on the horizon flying in the pylon race! After the competitions, Joe Platin flew his new F-22 from general Hobbies, which he bought on sale for $179, a great buy. The model is still available, but at last count it was $199, still not expensive. A guest and past member surprised us by showing up - Ricky Wright, who gave up the sport for more exotic pursuits a year or two ago. And of course Steve Boracca did his usually fine job as chief cook and bottle-washer! However, Dan Morris conducted the events with skill and decorum, and is here seen tallying the scores in the pylon races. Who won, you might ask? The secret will be revealed at our next meeting on August 17 th, when awards will be made. This is an effort to get more meeting attendees, so we ll see how that works out!
The following week saw the usual gang back at the field for regular flying, or so we thought. The editor checked and found, sure enough, that July 30 th in the old Norse calendar is the day that the river gods demand to be fed. Your editor was the first to succumb to this requirement with a completely reliable airplane, an electric Kaos, which had been flown many times before without any difficulty. However, a momentary lapse of attention resulted in what you see below. Steve was good enough to take the boat out to rescue the airplane, and returned it with only the motor and propeller having been taken by the deities. Another ex-member of the club showed up. Johnny Skoch, just recently rejoined after a lapse of a year or two, while he has been working worldwide, most recently for six months in England. His latest entrepreneurial activity is in the professional drone business, where he is manufacturing high quality vehicles in Aromas primarily for law enforcement agencies. One of his models was in the back of his vehicle, and can be seen here. Clearly, the gods were not satisfied, and Jim Williams was the next victim. Fellow club members Mike Evans and Dan Morris decided that they would offer Jim up to the river as a human sacrifice, and tied him up appropriately. Fortunately, reason prevailed and Jim was allowed to take to the oars and rescue his glider. And that seemed to end the excitement for the day! Hard to tell much about it from this picture, but we look forward to seeing what he will be bringing to the club for regular flying. Steve Jones latest has large control surfaces with
large throws, but was handled very competently, as usual. It s a Horizon Viking, park flyer size. Steve is building up his collection of legal park flyers in the expectation that the strawberry pickers will preclude larger airplane flying in the near future. August 6 th saw another old member who recently rejoined the club. John Wheeler bought one of Benno s airplanes, and flew it with Steve Jones help. John brought along another modeler friend, Bob Frogner, who regularly flies in the Cupertino area. Here are a couple of his planes which he flew at our field. Richard Tacklind keeps on building (or assembling!). Here s his Great Planes Curtiss P-6E, Jim Williams had an unusual event occur to his Apprentice the elevator parted company with the rest of the airplane in flight. Jim managed to land it with judicious throttle control, and here it is back on terra firma at the top of the next column. And Don Edwards has graduated from his T-28 to this Sukhoi 26M, now flown very nicely. He was so pleased with this success that he promptly flew his Corsair very well. Also seen ready for take-off. And that s it for this month!