Newsletter Editor The Johnstown R/C Club Roger A. Luther raluther@atlanticbb.net March 2014 Newsletter AMA Charter # 718 2014 Johnstown RC Clubs 52nd Year Upcoming Activities... Join us online at: www.johnstownrc.org My Favorite Model... March Club Meeting: Tuesday, th March 4, 7:30 pm at the Richland Twp. Municipal Building. Annual Club Banquet: Saturday night, March 22 nd. 6:00 pm at the Belmont Unitied Methodist Church Fellowship Hall. 107 Coldren St. Make your reservations now. $16 per person. Send in the form at the end of this newsletter. The reservation deadline is Friday, March 14 th. April Club Meeting: Tuesday, April 1 st. (No foolin!) 7:30 pm Annual Club Mall Show: May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th during mall hours. Galleria Mall, lower level across from the Bon-Ton. Set-up night is Thursday, May 1 st, 7 pm. May Club Meeting: Tuesday, th May 6, 8:30 pm. Note the time change! May thru October we meet at 8:30 to allow for evening flying. Get your planes on charge and come on out to the field, flying season is upon us! See you at the field! Fred Rohde and his E-Virus Fred's favorite plane is the E-Virus shown above. The plans were in the 1977 Model Airplane News as a 30-size gas plane called the Virus. He first build it with a Fox 40 up front and it was a great flier. Then about three years later it hit it's expiration date!!! During the winter of 2010 he built a new plane. He redesigned it to make it lighter, stronger, and made the body to fit the LiPo battery, electric components and mini servos. He re-named it the E-Virus. The plane is a four-channel tail dragger with ailerons and powered by a 10 sized 1200kv electric motor, 40 amp speed controller, and a three cell 2800MA LiPo battery. The wing span is 46 inches and it is guided with
Futaba servos and radio. Fred says "point the plane into the wind, hit the throttle and it's in the air in about 10 feet. Point the nose up and it will go straight up and continue until you cut back on the power." AMA & FAA Agreement Not sure where Fred found blue grass! The plane will glide and roll dead stick very nicely and can be made to do a dead stick loop with a dive. Bring it down to the deck and add some power and it will do almost any maneuver you can think of. Cut back on the power and it flies very nicely with no bad habits. Landings are good, and with some power added at the touchdown you can as Frank Grecek says, "grease it right in" Fred's been flying the E-Virus for two years now and has had loads of fun with it, and it goes right where you put it. The original Virus plans are still available from AMA plans. Thanks Fred for sharing! James Williams of the FAA and our AMA President, Bob Brown at the 2014 Expo In January, our District AMA V.P. Mark Radcliff attended the 2014 AMA Expo out in Ontario, California. In addition to a huge RC show, there were a number of important announcements. The big news was that the FAA and our own AMA have entered into an important agreement concerning our RC hobby and how it relates to the expected growth in the use of drones, or quad-copters. The two organizations have a lot in common, and we can do better things by working together. The AMA's position on small unmanned air systems (suas), pertains to the hugely popular new multi-rotor RC units that can take pictures from the air. The AMA feels that this is a significant element and future growth area for our hobby. It's going to bring in many new folks that may not have previously been interested in model airplanes, similar to when helicopters became so popular. Most of the folks involved with these systems are very tech orientated. It is believed that these systems
are going to be recognized as an important business in the future. The AMA was recognized by the FAA at this event as the organization that the FAA is going to look to for guidance between what is a hobbyist activity, and what is professional in nature. The AMA will do it's best to be the advocate for the hobbyist flying their quad copter's with a camera just for fun. As long as we are flying within AMA guidelines, the FAA will not have any reason to be involved. If, however the person wants to use the device professionally for hire, then that activity will fall under the new FAA rules and regulations which are as yet to be determined. Keep one thing in mind, and that is the AMA will always be an advocate for you the model aviation hobbyistenthusiast. No doubt the most important event at Expo was the signing of this memorandum of understanding between the AMA and the FAA. Tim Thomas Married... Tim and Sheena Thomas Co-pilot Jeff Skiles One of the great speakers at the event was Jeff Skiles, the co-pilot on the jet that lost both engines during take-off at New York's LaGauarda Airport which then had to land in the Hudson River a few years ago. Mark reported that Jeff's remarks were a highlight of the weekend. Talk about being "calm under pressure" these guys lived it! A few weeks ago I got an email from our club member Tim Thomas who sent along a YouTube video of his wedding last November. Tim, as you might recall, was a regular flyer at our field for a number of years and then moved south into Virginia. He was a very accomplished Helie flyer and flew a pretty awesome fixed wing too! Tim works for a defense contractor and goes over to the middle east on deployment every so often. Tim said he tried to come up to our field last summer but didn't make it due to a heavy work schedule plus the demands of wedding planning. He says he has a lot of traveling in his work, and will deploy again overseas this spring. We hope he keeps us posted on his exploits with the drones he is working on. The link to his wedding video can be found by going to You Tube, and typing in "sheena and timothy thomas
wedding" The video runs about 10 minutes and has lots of pictures from the wedding and reception. I was surprised to see someone else I recognized in the pictures, our own Colin Reesey! I didn't realize Colin has stayed in touch with Tim and was in the wedding party! Below is a picture of all the guys in the wedding party, that's Colin on the left! Lebanon RC Flea Market We congratulate Tim Thomas and wish he and Sheena the best of luck in the future! Don't forget, the big Lebanon RC Show is coming on Saturday, March 8 t h. We always have a few of our guys go down to pick up stuff and look over the wares at this important annual RC Flea Market. Major Air Show this year! Tim Thomas as we remember him! Quite often over the years the Latrobe Airport hosts a major air show. They have missed a few years for various reasons, but they have scheduled one for this June 7 t h and
8 t h. The Navy's Blue Angel's demonstration team will perform as will the Army's Golden Knights parachute team, along with many other participants. Acrobatic pilot Matt Champman will be there with his signature Ember-Riddle Eagle 580. That's a common RC plane we see alot in the magazines. Jacquie Warda will also be there and fly her beautiful red Extra 300. Also, Andrew McKenna will show off his North American P-51 Mustang. It should be a great show! Make sure you place it on your calendar! Club might make a nice feature article for the next edition, which was coming out in a couple weeks. Johnstown Club News... Needless to say, your editor was very surprised at being on the cover of the edition but the article inside was amazing. The cover shot was a complete surprise. The actual article covered parts of five pages and included 5 different pictures of our clubs activities. Beth did a lot of research and picked a number of the pictures right from our website. In a short time she learned alot about our hobby, and even invited me up to the Galleria where the "Our Town" main office is located. I took along my laptop, showed her the simulator, and even flew my "Night Vapor" for her out in the mall. I guess she was duly "impressed"! The Cover of "Zest" Magazine As a result of Roger requesting a picture and article in the free "Our Town" weekly newspaper to get publicity for the January In-Door Fly-In, Beth Miller, one of their editors, attended the event. She became very interested in our hobby and said she was also preparing an article for a new magazine they were working on called "Zest". It features activities that our area senior citizens might enjoy. Well, one thing led to another, and she said an article about the Johnstown RC Some of the other pictures she "picked" from the website was the group shot above, plus Bruce Thomas and his Partenavia P68 twin. She really covered all aspects of our RC hobby and it provided very good publicity for our club.
Annual Club Banquet... Hey, don't forget, Saturday, March 22 n d is our annual banquet. We have had 45-50 folks attend this wonderful event for the past number of years and we need you to attend this year! Send in your reservation and payment using the form at the end of this newsletter. The cut-off date is Friday, March 14 t h. Please take care of this right away so you don't forget. Bring your spouse, girlfriend, the kids, and of course a plane to put on display. We should have a great night, some awards, an interesting speaker, and who knows what else! Hope to see you there! Mall Show Ticket Sales... It's that time of year again, get ready for the Mall Show, AND sell some raffle tickets to help our our club. This is our only club fundraiser for the year and is very important for our finances! The $700 or so that we clear on this project goes a long way toward paying the mowing bill for our flying field. With a few less members this year, we all need to pony up and take 30 or so tickets to sell (or buy). They are not that hard to sell, just say "hey, how about taking a chance for a dollar to win $200 OR a free RC airplane" Most folks will take one, or a few since it's only a dollar per ticket. Pick up a packet or two today from Ken Reesey. Let's get them all sold this year prior to the Mall Show. We had to really hustle last year to get them all sold. Thanks for your help! February Meeting Recap.. The February Club meeting took place on Tuesday, Feb. 4 t h. We had 16 members present, plus Heidi Niebauer, a guest from Goodwill Industries. Heidi spoke to us about a fairly new program Goodwill is sponsoring called GoodGuides Youth Mentoring. She talked to the group about the program and how we as individuals, or as a club could take part. She handed out some literature explaining the various aspects of their program which helps young folks age 12-17. After she left, we thought it might be a good tie in for the club's August RC event which has yet to be planned. Club members might also be interested in helping out as mentors. The program sounds similiar to the Big Brother program. Teens who need some mentoring are coupled with men like us to help them make good choices in life. The program requires a one year committment and about 4 hours per month to meet with a youth who needs some mentoring. It sounds like a very good program. Secretary Paul Yuhas read the minutes from the January Fly-In, Ken gave a treasurer's report followed by an assessment of our In-Door Fly-In which was a big success yet again. Sam talked about the upcoming Banquet, the Mall Show, and then Ken Reesey handed out ticket packets to presell prior to the Mall Show. The big item this night was the intra club Swap Shop. Above is a picture of just a few of the many items that were available for purchase. David Kissinger brought along 7 different planes he obtained from a widow whose husband had been an RC hobbyist. Several of them were sold that night. We also had our two newest members present who joined the club at the Fly-In. Richard Webb and his son Isaac were there looking for some bargains. The next few months will be busy getting ready for the Banquet plus the Mall Show, then we can start to fly! Get Ready!
Dues now due if you haven't paid yet! Make your Banquet Reservations Now!