== Grand Opening! - Alvin Reed's New Website is Online! ============
By now you know that Andrew Smith has taken over the club's Webmaster
duties from Alvin Reed.
Since that day Alvin's own website — Alvin's RC Online —
has undergone a major change. He has stripped it of all club-specific
stuff, although there is a link that connects Alvin's website to the
club's. His site looks great! It is much more compact and streamlined
now, but retains some of its old cool look and his always-present
foolishness... Check it out for yourself. Sign his Guest Book
and tell him what you think of him and his site!
== Grand Opening! - New ACMA Website Is Online! =================
Andrew, our new Webmaster, has been working hard on getting the new
ACMA club website online. He's been making great progress! Andrew
has been working very hard to get this site ready to go
live! You may still encounter some minor hiccups until he gets
all the kinks worked out, so bear with us.
The new website combines all the features of the old ACMA club website
(which Alvin also built and maintained), and all the club-related
stuff that was available on Alvin's old site.
The result is an informative club site that not only gives you Club
Information, such as how to join our club and get directions
to our flying field, but also lets you access the Pits Report,
a new Combat Report, a new Photo & Video
Album, the Mobile Area RC Model Aviation Forum,
a For Sale/Swap Shop section, Events Calendar,
Field Weather, and links to other RC clubs
and RC resources. And it's now all easily done from
one menu!
It's ready for you to look at and play with. It is very easy to navigate.
If you have any questions or comments about the new website, or things
don't work just right for you, please pass that info on to Andrew
(andrew@acma-rc.com). If Andrew doesn't hear about it, he can't fix
it. Go ahead — check out that new website!
== Pits Report Has A New Look ================================
I'm sure you noticed that the Pits Report looks a little different.
I'm trying to eliminate redundancy between information in these reports
and what's available on the new ACMA website. You'll see that everything
is geared toward eliminating duplicate information and ease of use.
The tiny clickable icons that let you link to photos and other images,
videos and websites, are gone and have been replaced by text that
is in color, bold and underlined. This conforms better to how information
that's embedded in articles on the Internet is accessed. (Icons have
their place too, but are often used for menu items.) I welcome any
feedback — good or bad — that you may have about these
Pits Reports. Email me at fjetten@aol.com.
== Upcoming Flying Events ====================================
Dec. 13 (Sat) - ACMA - Christmas Party and Night Fly-in.
Dec. 13 (Sat) - Toys for Tots Fly-in - Pensacola,
Fritz Field.
Feb. 7 (Sat) - Rich Herrmann Swap & Shop Meet,
Pensacola.
At the last club meeting, the ACMA Spring Scale Fly-in
was discussed. It has been scheduled for Saturday, Apr. 25, 2009.
(Details and a flier are coming.)
In the future I'll put a brief reminder here, but for details and
fliers describing the events you'll have to go to our club website.
Just select Events Calendar from the main menu on
the ACMA Website.
For directions and maps to flying fields you can go to ... well,
uhmmm, there is no Field Maps option available YET
from the new site, but it should be soon! In the meantime, if you
need a field map, go to Alvin's
Website.
== From the Pits - ACMA Field Activities, November 28, 29
& 30 =======
Because of the bad weather, attendance has been very slim during
the recent long Thanksgiving weekend. So this report will be rather
brief. (Thank God!, I hear some of you sigh, while you are rolling
your eyes...)
On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Russell was the only one I
saw at the field. And he was actually flying!
There he stood, flying his Ugly Stick, with that silly little mechanical
timer on the grass in front of him.
When will you ever learn to use the timer on your computer radio,
Russell?... Newcomer
Paul Kelly showed up on Saturday and flew an Ugly Stick identical
to Russell's. He was accompanied by Larry Bramblett and another gentleman,
the name of whom I didn't get.
Paul's engine had some problems, but after some engine tweaking by
Roger Hagler and Frits Jetten, he had a couple of great flights...
Roger flew his Lazy Bee in his usual wild and unpredictable manner,
and he seemed to have fun doing that... Oh, Roger sent me some more
pictures from the Pensacola Jets Fly-in a couple of weeks ago. One
was of a turbine-powered glider.
It was capable of some crisp maneuvers, according to Roger! There
were some beautiful jet aircraft, like this F9F
Panther. And this F-16
Falcon. Check out the speed brake on the side of this F-86
Sabre. And how about this F-100 Super
Sabre? Here is a Bob Violet jet that is powered by an electric
ducted fan. Thank
you, Roger for identifying all these jets for me!
Lee Hughes, son LT and LT's girlfriend Megan showed up on Saturday.
The weather looked bad.
I think they were the only ones who flew that day. Lee flew his Revolver
sport plane. LT
had several flights with his U-Can-Do 3D
plane... Alvin was cornered by close talker William Moore, who
actually outtalked Alvin for about one minute before Alvin regained
control.
Mike McLaughlin and girlfriend Dawn were at the field on Sunday.
Mike took up his Four
Star Foh. The plane got noticeably beat around by the stiff wind.
But then, perhaps it wasn't the wind at all. Maybe that was Mike shivering...
Andrew and Amber Smith showed up with Andrew's electric foam Swift
II flying wing and the Ugly
Stick. He flew the Swift, but I wasn't there to watch it. There
were some nice wind gusts on occasion, having their way with the planes.
The wind blew the Swift off one of the tables, but it was quickly
retrieved by Amber...
TJ Rohyans flew his Four
Star 40. He only flew a couple of times. TJ has a nice and compact
field box.
And it's on wheels, too!... Henry Waltman was at the field too, but
he didn't come to fly. He was trying to help John Walker and his newly
finished scale
Cub. Well, Henry apparently also likes to huddle with Ioanna.
It's not often you see Henry smiling like that!...
Ben McGee couldn't stand the fungus and algae that was growing on
the Coke machine. He got a brush and some soapy water and scrubbed
it clean. Thanks,
Ben!
No videos this report! There was just not that much going on at the
field this past weekend.
To make up for that, here's one video you may enjoy watching. It shows
the flight of what's claimed to be the largest RC model in the world.
This baby is huge!
Fly safe, always!
== Advertising Your For Sale Stuff ==============================
This section will soon be replaced by easy-to-follow instructions
(...so easy even a caveman can do it...), on how YOU can post your
items in the Mobile Area RC Model Aviation Forum's Flea Market
& Swap Shop.
== Your Pits Reports Questions Answered =======================
Not everyone is knowledgeable about computers. And because of all
the different types of computers in use, not everyone has an easy
time dealing with computer stuff. Techie computer geeks (and you know
who you are...), can just skip over this section.
In the future I hope to address some questions that several club
members have asked me. Such as: how can I get those pictures from
the Pits Report to my computer? Or that video link? Or: why can't
I see those videos? If you have any specific questions about this
sort of thing, email me at fjetten@aol.com.
== MARCMAF Forum =========================================
If you feel chatty, come join us on the Mobile Area RC Model Aviation
Forum. It's easily accessible from the home page
on our new ACMA Website.
==========================================================
Frits Goes Hollywood - Click For Details
