==== If You Have Not Renewed Your AMA License For 2009 …
========
… you MAY NOT fly at Irvington Field! The
2008 AMA license expired on December 31, 2008. Just putting the green
2008 club card up on the board doesn’t get it, if you have not
renewed your AMA membership! AMA dues are due January 1st. ACMA club
dues are due by the February 10 meeting. But if you don’t
have a valid AMA card between Dec. 31 and Feb. 10, you may not fly
at our field during that time. So — to whom it may
concern — please renew your AMA license… As of January
7, 14 ACMA members had not renewed their AMA membership. Which is
perfectly okay, as long as they don’t fly at the field!…
==== Reminder: Upcoming Events ===============================
Feb. 7 (Sat) — NFMI - Rich Herrmann Annual RC Swap
& Shop Meet, Pensacola. For details and a flier describing
this event, go to the main menu shown on the left of this report and
select Events Calendar.
==== “From the Pits” Field Activities, January
3 & 4, 2009 ============
Having several RC friends scattered around the world, I usually receive
some international Holiday greetings from them. I don’t know
if some of you remember the couple from Canada that visited us a couple
of years ago. Gabriel Alain flew with us several times before he and
wife Josseline returned to Canada. They now live in the town of Trois
Rivières. Gabriel and his son Marc both fly RC planes and enjoy
reading these reports!
And from the town of Dordrecht, The Netherlands, I got an e-card
from Jan Leeuwestein’s RC club. I haven’t seen him since
he and I had a nice extended dinner at Ruth’$ Cri$ $teak Hou$e
several years ago. (I still remember the bill! Ouch!...) Here’s
Jan’s nice card.
“Een Voorspoedig 2009” translates into “A Prosperous
2009”. (We wish!) And “Radio Vliegclub Red Eagles”
literally stands for Red Eagles Radio Flying Club. As you can see,
they like to use English words also…
Oh, and if you think club rules in the US are restrictive, try flying
in Holland! Jan wrote this in his e-mail message to me: “Nowadays
we are flying most of the time with electric planes and choppers.
We have to comply with the sound rules of our environmental license.
On Saturday we have a maximum flying time of 165 minutes with only
4-cycle engines. For electric planes there is no limit. And 2-cycle
engines are not allowed. Only three 4-cycle planes are allowed to
fly at one time.” They probably don’t fly any giant scale
3D planes there!
What was probably the last crash of the year happened during the
last week of 2008. Paul Kelly was flying his Ugly
Stick. Suddenly “he had no control and it just went crazy”
and went in. I couldn’t
tell from the pictures he sent me if the wing survived.
The fuse looks repairable.
Fortunately he still had the CyClone… Just barely one week later
that incident was followed by the very first crash of 2009! We’ll
cover that a little later in this report…
John LaFleur flew his large, 40% Edge-540.
That big engine really roars!... At the other end of the size spectrum
was Doug Shorey, who flew a minuscule electric Yellow Bee. It has
two tiny pusher motors!
It easily got out
of sight. Doug also flew his HobbyTown USA trainer.
In case you didn’t know, Doug is the owner of Mister Tuxedo,
“Mobile Premier Formal Wear Center”.
He’ll soon be very busy with all those upcoming Mardi Gras balls!
Johnny Turner flew his Align T-Rex 600 Nitro helicopter and his P-40
Warhawk. That little nitro war bird really moves!...
Andy Anderson had two turbine jets out. One was the Baby Boomerang
that he’s been flying.
Here it is minus wings and twin-tail assembly.
He and Rob Baker flew it a couple of flights.
Jon may have flown it too. The other jet was Andy’s latest project,
an unfinished F-86 Sabre. He only ran the engine today…
Rob Baker had brought his F-4 Flash turbine jet, but there was a problem
and it never flew.
Al Ayler flew his scale Piper Cub. He wasn’t the only
one. Henry Waltman, Wayne Boudreaux, Roger Geil and Tony Farmer
all brought one. Wayne brought his white
one. This prevents him from mistaking his Cub for the others when
there’s more than one in the air… Roger had his red clipped
wing version.
And they all were up in the air at one time! Not too close, of
course. That would be too nerve-wracking for some of those guys…
There were some close formation passes.
Probably by accident…
Roger had a good
time. And so did Henry.
Then Robert released some balloons and they tried to hit them with
the Cubs. No
such luck! It’s way harder than it looks!
Roger also flew his Carl Goldberg Yak-54.
Unfortunately he had a bad landing, and one section of the main landing
gear came off…
Lee Hughes brought his Revolver sport plane and he and Tony flew it.
But it started to act up in the air, and Tony had to land. Lee was
sure it was a bad servo…
The younger Lee Hughes had both his large and small U-Can-Do 3D planes
with him.
Russ Green flew his old Kaos…
Paul Verger flew his Edge-540T… John Walker showed up with wife
Joyce and his P-51 Mustang.
Jon’s wife Joy, his mother, and Joyce watched.
Mike McLaughlin had his P-51
Mustang. He had a couple of nice flights with it, at one time
actually mimicking the maneuvers Andy was making with his Baby Boomerang
jet! Of course the Saito .80 4-stroke was no match for that kerosene
burner. Michael lands that Mustang very smoothly.
I believe he also flew both his Lancair ES civilian plane and the
foam Phencepost combat plane.
At about that time Tony was flying his T-34
Mentor. He LOVED that plane, usually chasing Andrew, Justin and
Mike around the field with it as he did here.
He had just made a turn and was coming in from the south. And he didn’t
see the power cables running alongside Half Mile Road. Whack! Right
into one of them!
The wing remained on the outside of the field.
The fuse and assorted parts continued on and ended up inside the fence.
Russell Ward, and Gary and Thomas Johnson helped retrieve the scattered
parts. Not sure
if Tony will rebuild this one.
Billy Toliver flew his Hangar 9 F-22 Raptor.
And he had brought a new one, ready for its first flight, an E-Flite
electric Deuces Wild.
It’s a twin-motor plane. Looks nice! And it flew very well.
During the landing however the nose gear collapsed…
Russell actually flew his Ugly Stick, but only once… Robert
Sanderson showed up with three planes. One was the Coroplast "Triple
Beast", still minus two engines. It was still not
ready.
The other was the DOOMED! flying Funtana
wing. Jon took the DOOMED! up but the first attempt failed because
of incorrect elevator settings that caused it to go straight into
the ground.
Have I ever mentioned how touchy this plane is? The second flight
was better. The
engine quit, I believe, and the plane landed in a patch of water,
grounding it for the rest of the day.
And the third plane was the Pterodactyl night/combat
plane. Frits and Robert flew it several times.
They flew it well into the night, all covered with light
sticks (not Frits and Robert — the Pterodactyl…) The
20 LED lights inside the clear wing didn’t work because the
wires must have come apart. Yes, Robert, there’s a reason why
we SOLDER copper wire connections, not CA them!
In spite of Robert’s graceful hand-launches, the plane had
trouble getting airborne with a 9X5 prop, what with the extra weight
of all those light sticks. After three failed attempts, Robert changed
to a 9X4 prop and that did the trick. He insisted that Alvin, Henry
and Russell fire some fireworks rockets at the plane. And they did,
coming pretty close a couple of times. Henry appeared to have lots
of fun doing that!
And the Pterodactyl survived it all!
Until next time. Fly safe, always!
==== Flying Events Farther Down The Road =======================
Apr. 25 (Sat) — ACMA – Spring Scale Fly-in,
Irvington Field.
May 9 (Sat) — Hattiesburg, MS, Fly-in
Andrew is still working on making the maps available on our ACMA
Website. In the meantime, if you need a flying field map, go to Alvin’s
Website > main menu > Field Maps.
==== Advertising Your For Sale Stuff in the Swap Shop ==============
You know you can advertise your For Sale items with photos in the
Forum’s Swap Shop. Go to the main menu
shown here to the left of this report and select Swap Shop.
You must register with a username and password first, but that’s
free and it is very easy. If you need help with that just e-mail me
> fjetten@aol.com.
==== If You Have Any Comments About These Pits Reports…
========
I welcome any comments regarding these Pits Reports — good
or bad.
E-mail me > fjetten@aol.com.
Frits Goes Hollywood - Click For Details
