The Johnstown R/C Club Newsletter Editor Roger A. Luther raluther@atlanticbb.net August 2012 Newsletter AMA Charter # 718 2012 Johnstown RC Clubs 50th Year Upcoming Activities... Join us online at: www.johnstownrc.org Member of the Month... July Family Picnic: Sunday, July 29 t h, 5pm at the field. Bring a dish to pass, plus a plane or two! This will be "Warbird" day at the Johnstown RC Club. If you have any type of military plane, bring it out for our first "Warbird" Club Fly-In. (Other planes are welcome of course) P-51 Mustang August Club Meeting: Tuesday, August 7 t h, 8:30 pm at the Richland Twp. Municipal Building. Flying at the field prior to the meeting, weather permitting. August Family Picnic: Sunday, August 26, 5pm at the field. Hope to see you there! th September Club Meeting: Tuesday Sept. 4 Th, 8:30 pm, Richland Twp. Municipal Building. Flying first, weather permitting. Member of the Month Bob Anderson Bob Anderson has been a member of the Johnstown RC Club for many years, but hasn't been able to fly very often. For a good number of years he worked at CTC over in the Johnstown Industrial Park, but due to his responsibilities didn't have the time to get out to fly much. For the last few years he actually worked in the Washington DC area, and commuted back to Johnstown on the weekends, and as you can imagine, his wife had a long list things for him to take care of while he was home, and flying RC planes was not on her list! Recently Bob has "retired" and now we hope he can find the time to visit the field more often and get back into "flying mode"! Bob usually attends the club's annual banquets, and always is at the "In-Door Fly-In's".
In the above picture, Bob and his wife Linda, enjoy visiting with the Woffinden's, Rosage's, and Rhode's, prior to one of our recent club banquets. Above, Bob and Linda Anderson at the 2008 Club Banquet. Bob and Linda are always part of the planning effort for the annual In-Door Fly-In's along with the Woffinden's. All of our members appreciate the wonderful meal they come up with each year prior to us getting our planes out to fly on a cold January night at their church. The Anderson's and Woffinden's are our amazing hosts for this ever popular In-Door Fly-In event that seems to get better each year! Thanks so much Bob and Linda for your efforts and generous hospitality. These events are held the first week of January each year and are usually the best attended club event of the year. Since Bob has not flown very often, your editor has had trouble getting pictures of Bob with one of his planes, but here is one from a few years ago. Bob likes the large Kadet type planes and this one was a beaut! Notice I said it "was" a beaut, the picture below was taken later that same day! Bob with his Kadet after a tough landing! Was it "equipment failure" or "pilot error"?
Bob at the 2012 Indoor Fly-In flying his newly aquired "Shark"! Later that evening while Bob was still flying the "Shark", Linda needed a shoulder to lean on after completing all the hectic preparations for the wonderful meal at the Fly-In. Bob and his Grandson Eric I was pleasantly surprised when I went out to the field on Saturday morning June 23 r d and found Bob and his grandson preparing the Senior Kadet for flight. Eric was visiting his Grandfather from his home state of Washington for a couple weeks, and yearned for some actual flying experience instead of more time on Bob's simulator. Ken Reesey took Eric under his wing and Eric had a number of successful flights. We salute Bob Anderson as our August 2012 Member of the Month! Thanks Bob for all you do to help make the Johnstown RC Club a real success! In the picture above, Ken Reesey gives instructions to Eric while flying the Kadet. He did a great job on this his first time of actual flying RC. By the end of his visit Eric had flown several different planes and landed and took off with ease! Congratulations Eric, and we know how good it made Bob feel to share our radio control hobby with his grandson.
Summer Flying Season... made the right choice! We think you did too Rick! A few days after he went back home to Jacksonville, Rick sent me an email to the club: It reads... Thanks Roger, I want to thank you for keeping in touch with me while I was up in Johnstown and I had a great time visiting with the club and all the members. You and everyone always made me feel welcome, here is a thank you for the club. Sunday, June 10 t h was a great day for flying, very warm, and the breezes were modest, making for good flying. We had a good turnout for the hotdog cookout at 5pm and a number of visitors stopped by to watch the action. Above is Jim Patterson's Phoenix just prior to it's last flight! That day we also had a visit from our friend from the Jacksonville RC Club, Rick "The Wrench" Tyler. Rick visited us last summer during the Thunder In The Valley event, and brought along his motorcycle and his RC helicoptors, both his 600 and 700! He enjoys visiting our club since he has family in the Johnstown area. This year he returned for his Mother-In-Law's 90 t h birthday celebration, instead of the Thunder In The Valley event. He says after talking the situation over with his wife, he thinks he Once again I would like to thank the Johnstown RC club for making my short stay in PA great! It was super to visit and talk with the members that I had met last year again and fly my helio's. Congrats on your 50 t h anniversary of being an AMA club, it shows lots of dedication and work to the hobby. I hope to be able to see you all again soon! Thanks, Rick. Paint job... One day a few weeks ago Sam and Roger broke out the paint brushes and painted the lower third section of the chain link fence, which had become very rusty over the years. On Monday, June 11 t h Roger finished the job with the help of our visitor from the south, Rick Tyler! Rick made the mistake of coming back to the field to pick up the folding chair he left there the day before, and by golly, he asked Roger if he had an extra brush to help paint! Since there was one, Rick joined the painting crew and they got the remainder of the fence done in record
time. Thanks so much Rick for visiting our club, and also for your help in painting the fence! That's the kind of visitor's we like! We also want to thank Bruce Thomas for cutting down a lot of the saplings that have grown up in the high weed areas that surround our field. Since Jim Weyman left the club a few years ago, that task has not been done so those pesky things have turned into actual trees! They can really tear a wing off when a plane is forced down due to a dead engine. Bruce spent quite a few hours at the field eliminating those up and coming trees. Not many guys have a weed-eater equipped with a saw blade to tackle that job. Thanks so much Bruce! Also, a tip of the hat to Ken Reesey, who repainted the middle white picnic table which was peeling and looking kind of bad. We appreciate all those members who help keep our field tiptop! Crop Circles... You know how inventive our president Sam Kaplitz is, well he outdid himself by mowing our RC logo into a section of the field grass area above the parking area. Not many noticed it until it was pointed out, but Sam made a very neat "718" and R / C into the grass area with the clubs hand mower. I'm sure it looked very neat from the air, but from the ground you had to look closely to see the very large RC design. Anybody have a good "Plane Cam" to take a picture from 500 feet? New Sign at the Field... Our handy club member, Bruce Thomas, has made another fine contribution to our field. Bruce's son Travis brought home some plexiglass which had fallen off a sign and thought something good could come from it. Well, Bruce saw the potential and made this wonderful sign from the scrap piece and attached it to our chainlink fence. Now, when you pull into the field you see this great Johnstown RC Club Logo! Thanks so much Bruce for your efforts!
June Family Picnic... with his two boys as guests to watch the action and their aunt, Bonnie Luther, posed with his boys after the meal. Cory and his boys enjoyed watching Bruce, and uncle Roger fly, along with the other club members including Sam, Grant, Scott, Ken, Terry, Paul, and Mark. Another guest was Sam Crawford, a former club member who moved away and now is a member of the Altoona RC Club. Sam put on an impressive display with his helie. He has continued to improve and can really entertain the gallery. The June Family Picnic was held on Sunday, June 23 r d and was very well attended. The weather was beautiful, and with modest breezes, the flying was great! We had a good turnout of ladies and guests with a surperb selection of good food to go with Ken's Ball Park Hot Dogs! We had baked beans, quich, casserole's, salads, cakes, pie, chips, pumpkin rolls... everyone compared it to one of their family reunions! The flying was good too, and later in the day Ken Reesey, Bruce Thomas, and Roger Luther all took their Great Planes Escapade's up for a racetrack type run. With three planes all alike, you really had to keep you eye on your plane! Scott Holsopple joined the fun and all 4 returned to the field with no mishaps. Bruce Thomas's brother Cory came Sam Crawford with his 600 sized Helie Above is a picture of my plate at the June Family Picnic...Awesome was the only way to describe it! If you don't attend the monthly family picnics, you are missing out on a great meal and a fun day at the field! Hope you can make the next one!
...June evening flying with Roger, July Club Meeting... Our July meeting was held on Tuesday, July 3 r d. Due to the 4 t h of July Holiday the attendance was down some, with only 14 members present. Prior to the meeting, Sam, Neil, Rick, and Roger were at the field to fly, even though we had a very hard rainstorm a few hours earlier. President Sam opened the meeting at 8:30, but Secretary Paul Yuhas was absent, so no minutes were available from the June meeting. Treasurer Ken Shilling gave us a financial report. Twenty nine members have now paid their 2012 Summer Assessment. Sam reviewed the improvements to the field including the many trees and bushes cut down by Bruce Thomas, the new sign on the fence, again by made by Bruce. He also thanked Ken Reesey for painting the white middle picnic Neil, Eric, Bob, Ken, Jim, and Lou... table, and Roger and Sam for painting the chain-link fence. The field is looking sharp. The Saddle Club is holding their big Horse Show on Sunday, July 15 t h. The Hospice Horse Show is on Sunday, August 21 s t. Please, no flying on their side of the road during these events, and electric only on the 15 t h until 5pm. Ken reported that the regular crew including Ken, Ed, Jim, Paul, Scott, and Mark, will be heading out to Toledo for the "Old Timers" fly-in on July 31 s t thru August 3 r d. Our family picnic for July, held on July 29 t h will be our version of a "War Bird Fly-In".. Anybody who has warbird like military planes are urged to bring them to the field for this special day. Also, a reminder to all members. If you have not paid your "special assessment" for 2012, please mail your check for $25 to our treasurer Ken Shilling right away.