Ribcrackers Model Airplane Club We re on the web! http:/www.ribcrackers.org Club 2067 May 2010 Thunderbolt President s Message Gus Dabringhaus The Toledo show once again met all expectations and provided the inspiration for some of us to finish projects. I find it quite surprising that even in my age bracket, that the urge to fly that new model takes over and clouded what little common sense I had at the time. I attempted a maiden flight on my Texan in 20 to 25 mph straight out of the south. If the time in the air is less than 30 seconds, is it a flight? Two days later the temperatures were in the mid 60 s and the wind was blowing 3 mph gusting to 5 right down the centerline. Boy did I feel like a ham bone. This above mentioned life lesson was brought to you by Top Flight. Other maiden flights took place in the last couple of weeks with much better success. Congratulations to all members and may you continue to fly free of glitches and smooth landings. Speaking of smooth, Dennis had the field rolled and what an improvement not to mention the cost savings for the club. Thank You once again Dennis. Remember that feeling back in school when you were struggling with a topic and try as hard as you could, it just didn t sink in? Than like a wack with a dip stick, you got it. My radio came with its 300 plus pages instructions on a CD and with that being said, I got the basics. I never spent the time to learn a fraction of what this thing could really do. Kind of like doing simple math on a scientific calculator and discovering the square root key. Revelations. With the help of a club member that also has a JR hat, we discovered some impressive functions that should lead to some amazing stuff. When I first joined the Ribcrackers, most members were talking Programming the transmitter was for dual rates only and programming a maneuver was not for real pilots. That is like using a Coleman lantern in your living room. Why buy a computer radio and not use any part of it. My flying partner showed me that with a flip of a switch and a touch of a button, yahoo, a perfect snap roll and better yet, both inside and out. Now when I read all the columns of model magazines and try to understand why the author goes into such great detail on pitch coupling, roll coupling and so forth, I am just starting on being able to use some of the knowledge that is being passed on. Welcome to the 21 st century and no programming is not just for sissies. It is said that to properly trim and set up the plane takes more than fifty flights or so. I just hope that I can keep my plane long enough to use some of this technology. This is part of what makes us enjoy our club so much and lends to something worth talking about at the field. Better than politics. Rudder now figured out that Helicopters really don t fly. They are so ugly that the Earth just naturally repels them. Gus May Club Meeting Monday, May 3, 7:30 pm Livonia Senior Center 5 Mile & Farmington Livonia
Model of the Month Greg Gordan with his MOM winner a B & H T-28 Trojan Gus Dabringhaus and his Top Flite AT-6 Ribcrackers 2010 Board of Directors President Gus Dabringhaus 810-986-0375 810-222-6300 fax gdabringhaus@comcast.net Vice President Hank Wojcik 313-659-1677 oaklandbolt@aol.com Secretary Matt Jerue 248-348-5948 mdjerue@mi.rr.com Treasurer Dennis Robbins 248-661-3562 drobbins421@yahoo.com Librarian Ken Hilton 248-374-8259 CLUB POSITIONS Thunderbolt Editor Don Unsworth 248-348-0961 dunswrth@sbcglobal.net Field Marshall/Safety Officer Alex Alexopoulos 248-909-6869 Chief Instructor Warren Wells 248-437-2694 Minute Recorder Gerald Klose 248-582-1803 Raffle Coordinator Warren Wells
Ribcrackers April Meeting Minutes - April 5, 2010 Meeting started promptly at 7:32 Previous minutes were approved as submitted Officer s Reports: Vice President: Hank said that he hasn t had a chance to go flying but confirmed that the Windsock is back up. Also, the field is in need of rolling. Secretary: Renewals are now subject to late fee. We had 2 new members at the meeting. Matt informed us that about ½ of the members had not yet renewed. Matt will make a list of all the members that had paid up and post it at the field. Treasurer: No treasurer s report as Dennis was out of town. He says he was off on business but was more than likely already standing in line to get in to the Toledo Show. Editor: Don has extra copies of the newsletter for anyone that didn t get it. Don would like someone to take some pictures during the field cleanup as he will be out of town. There was a discussion regarding the merits of banding together to buy fuel in bulk. It was determined that the best place for the best price is still at the Toledo show. Someone asked when would be the best time to go to the Toledo show. Go on Friday for the best selection and on Sunday for the best prices. Saturday is probably the busiest. The new schedule was discussed. A fun fly or two was added and there was a suggestion to have an intra-club swap at the fun fly. It was decided that we wouldn t distribute flyers for student night until a little bit later in the year. Warren provided a cautionary tale regarding wind shear which caused the demise of one of his treasured planes. Everybody keep an eye out for a large, blustery pair of scissors when landing. Raffle: 50cc Gas engine Juan Lopez Announcements: Transmitter Battery Bob Waite Gus suggested that we continue to work with the same person who mowed our field last year. No one opposed. Alex got a quote to roll the field for $500 from Michigan Cat. Someone else mentioned a possibility to have it done for $300. It was moved that we try for the lower quote but that we go ahead with rolling the field either way. Marshall put in a plug for Carrolton Hobbies as being a decent hobby store. Good to know especially now that Nankin is currently trying to rebuild. Speaking of Nankin: They will indeed rebuild. There are plans in the works to have a Fire sale to sell all the items that were damaged in the fire. Tentatively scheduled for May. Someone else suggested that Dirt Burners also appears to be well stocked. They are located on the corner of Haggerty and Commerce. Spitfire ARF Derek Handy Model of the Month: Ralph brought in an In the Bones Sudden Impact which he had started to build from plans but was unable to complete. He is giving it up to anyone willing to accept the challenge. Should be a nice looking plane when finished. Gregg Gordon brought in a B&H models T28 Trojan which he had won previously at a club raffle. Gregg added retracts and shoehorned in a Supertigre 90 where a 60 should go. Gus Dabringhaus showed off his Top Flite AT-6 Texan with split flaps, retracts and a Saito 100. And the winner was Gregg Gordon. Congratulations!! Obediently submitted by Gerald Klose Obediently submitted by Gerald Klose
GOING HOME Ribcracker Nobuya Nishizaki is going home after his assignment here in Michigan. Below you will find his letter to the club. Nobuya is a prolific picture taker and has sent me several. I ve included a few, this could be quiz # 2 for the Can You Name That Plane and Owner. I ve asked Nobuya to send us pictures and a few words on RC life in Japan. Hello Ribcrackers, This is Nobu Nishizaki. Today is my final day in US. I will return to Japan after 6yrs 2mos living in Michigan. I really appreciate to you guys that I could enjoy RC life in Michigan with you. Now I feel excited to go back to my country but at the same time I feel a bit sad to leave Michigan, because I loved to live here and I love Michigan's beautiful nature and good guys. I will be back someday in the future. Thank you for you all, and see you again! Don Nobuya Nishizaki P.S. If you don't mind, I would like you to keep my e-mail address when you send e-mails to the members so that I would like to keep in touch with you. P.S. Attached file has pictures I took last Sunday. I hope there are your babies' pics!
Roger s Ramblings USING WING CUBIC LOADING Roger Wilfong #12 in an ongoing series Last time I talked about Wing Cubic Loading (WCL) as a way to compare the relative flight characteristics of two planes of different sizes. I didn t mean to imply that WCL is the only factor, but in scaling a plane, it s the first thing to consider. This time, I m going to compare the 4-Star-40 I started with and figure out how much my scaled down 4-Star- 380 needs to weight to have the same feel in the air. First let s look at the 4-Star-40. My 40 weighed 80 oz and had a wing area of 604 sqin. That gives a wing loading of 19.1 oz/sqft. But we want to know the WCL, in oz/cuft. The formula is: WCL = Weight oz / Sqrt(WingArea sqft ) 3 First we ll convert the wing area to square feet by dividing the area by 144 (that s 12 squared - remember the area is a square measure and there are 12 inches in a foot) take the square root of that cube it divide it into the weight 604 sqin / 144 = 4.2 sqft sqrt(4.2 sqft) = 2.02 ft (4.2 ft)3 = 8.6 cuft 80 oz / 8.6 cuft = 8.95 oz/cuft The WCL of the 4-Star-40 is 8.95 oz/cuft. If you refer to Ken Meyer s chart from the last column, this WCL is in the middle of Level 4 - Sport/Trainer. If we want the 4-Star-380 to feel like the 4-Star-40 in the air, it will need a WCL of about 8.95. How can we get a WCL of 8.95 in a smaller plane? Well, we know the wing area 380 square inches. So we should be able to work the formula backwards to figure out a target weight. Convert the area to sqft 380 sqin /144 = 2.64 sqft. square root the cube sqrt(2.64) = 1.62 ft, (1.62) 3 = 4.29 cuft. Since the target WCL is 8.95 oz/cuft, we multiply by 4.29 cuft to get the target weight - 38 oz. From experience, 38 oz should be a do-able target weight for a plane of this size. One thing to note about the 4-Star-380 is that the wing loading is only 14.8 oz/sqft 22% lower than the 604 sqin 4-Star- 40. What would happen if we kept the wing loading constant? Well, the 4-Star-380 would weight 50 ounces and would have a WCL of 11.66, which would move it to Level 5, Advanced Sport. It would be more difficult to fly than the 4- Star-40 we were trying to emulate. However, the lower absolute wing loading does have an effect on the smaller plane. The heavier 4-Start-40 will have a stall speed of about 17 mph, while the 4-Star-380 should stall about 2 miles an hour slower. Now that we have a target weight, we ll need to figure out how much power we need to get the same performance out of the smaller 4-Start-380 that we get from the 4-Star-40. From the power, we can pick a power system. We ll do that next time. NANKIN HOBBY Reconstruction has started on the Farmington store. An August open for business is targeted. No word on the summer fire sale as of this writing.
From the Journal President Dave Mathewson wrote in his May perspective that the International Space Station won this year s Collier award. Since 1911, this award has gone to some very famous people, eg. Curtis, Wright, Rutan, Yeager, and the Apollo 11 crew to name a few. The attached photo shows Discovery docked to the ISS on the latest trip to the station to install the last remaining components. With the pay load doors open you can see Leonardo onboard for it s return trip home after several years of service. The darkness of space provides a stark back ground to earth showing the massive cloud cover. There are only three shuttles flights left in the program. Too bad the U. S. has to pay the Russians to service the ISS for the duration of the ISS program. Club Project The last club plane building project was in the 90 s as illustrated in the March 2010 Thunderbolt. The covering clinic conducted at the February and March club meetings has prompted the idea of another plane build project. A few planes have been suggested to date. If you have a favorite, please pass it on to me. A decision will be made late this summer for a fall/winter build. I offer my workshop as a possible site. For members who have little or no kit building experience, this would be a great opportunity. Give it some thought and let the officers or me know your ideas. Don WORLD WIDE WEB Listed below are some web sites sent to me by Joe Alessandrini and Michael Benjamin. They have to do with aircraft set up and smoke systems. I ve looked at them and they are well worth looking into. The Set up Basics article found on the DuRant Direct Drive web site is one of several articles that are well illustrated with pictures. Also, several pages on how to eliminate control linkages and use a direct drive system. The Smoke article written by Mike Buzzeo describes each component in a smoke system and has animated illustrations of how the whole system works. If you are planning to add smoke to your plane, this is a good starting place. www.durantdirectdrive.com/id90.html Thanks to Joe and Mike for sending us these sites. www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/articledisplay.cfm?articleid=45
April Flying Photos by Greg Kostyniuk Life is good. Roger s ELECTRIC SHOP What...no wind shear today? Spring Clean Up On Saturday May 8, Ray Field gets its annual clean up. So gather up your grass whips, shovels, rakes, hand tools, trash bags, etc. and plan on coming out to the field for this important event. The field has been rolled and now we get it ready for another season of flying. This is a good way to getting some of your work hours in. Check with Hank on any specific tools or tasks needed. Hank Wojcik 313-659-1677
RIBCRACKERS STUDENT NIGHT Starts May 5, 6:00 pm Every Wednesday night Warren Wells 248.437.2694 Ribcrackers Summer Events May 16 Fun Fly / Swap Meet June 6 Fun Fly / Warbirds July 18 Fun Fly / Picnic August 15 Fun Fly September 12 Fun Fly LOCAL COMING EVENTS May 23 Strathmoor Model Club of Detroit Spring Contest Rouge Winter Park Marcus Warwashana, CD 734.449.7355 whelliemanagmail.com June 5 & 6 Keith Shaw B-Day Electric Fly-In Balsa Butchers Coldwater, Michigan Dave Grife,CD 517.279.8445 grifesd@yahoo.com June 12 UFO Field Highland Township Swap, Buy & Fly Dan Wamboldt, CD 734.433.5451 danrcpilot100@aol.com Many events are planned for the summer. For a complete list see pages 157 165 of the May issue of Model Aviation. Starting with the July issue the calendar of events will no longer be in the magazine; only on the web page. See the May issue for specifics. 895 Grace, Northville, Michigan 48167 Fun Fly The club has scheduled five FUN FLYS for this season; Sundays, May 16, June 6, July 18, August 15 and Sept 12. Consider coordinating one of them. The club s website lists several events and all are explained in detail. All you have to do is pick 3 or 4, set up the rules and the scoring, then leave it up to the pilots and spectators to make it a fun time. Help Needed The Sky Bolt that was used in the club s covering clinics need to be finished. Please consider taking one or more of the pieces (ailerons, elevator, wing, etc.) and covering it. The MonoKote is provided; all you need are your tools. This plane was started by Louie years ago and donated to the club. Plans are that when finished it will be auctioned off as a fund raiser. I think Hank will agree to this as work hours. So contact me. Don PILOT TRAINERS NEEDED FOR STUDENT NIGHT Pit assistants are needed to get student s planes and paperwork ready for flight. A great way to get your work hours in. Call Warren Wells 248.437.2694