======== Last chance to pay your club dues without penalty!
========
The February 10 club meeting is the final date to pay your ACMA club
dues ($96.00 adult/$24.00 junior). After that date a $5.00 late fee
will be added. Then after the March 10 meeting, if you still have
not paid your 2009 club dues, you will be dropped from the ACMA membership
roster. Restoring your membership after March 10 means that you will
have to pay that $50 initiation fee a second time, in addition to
any dues and late fees owed. Unless you go on INACTIVE STATUS…
If you don’t have a valid 2009 AMA insurance license,
you may not fly at our field! If you intend to remain an ACMA
member in good standing, please renew your AMA license and renew your
dues…
======== “From the Pits” Field Activities, Jan.
31 & Feb. 1, 2009 =======
All photos by Frits Jetten unless otherwise indicated
Tony Farmer’s dad Melvin is about to get into the hobby. Melvin
used to fly RC many years ago. He recently acquired a Piper Cub from
club member Frank
Poole. Tony and Melvin have checked it out and got it running,
working on it during lunch hours at their business.
The business is Tillman’s Corner Auto
$ave Tire Store. Melvin, Tony, his brother Glenn, Mr. Dawson and
Thomas, the tire man, not only sell and mount tires, but they do wheel
alignments and auto repair as
well...
Frits provided some equipment to get the Cub’s engine cranked.
After repairing a cracked exhaust and replacing the flight battery
the Cub appears to be ready for a test flight soon…
Alvin even did some work on the Cub. He was seen at the store having
his skimpy lunch, consisting of a dozen pork skins and a green apple.
Claims he’s on a diet again…
You may see some differences in the videos I’m using in this
Pits Report. I am comparing three video hosting services: YouTube,
Photobucket and RCUvideos.
I judge them by ease of use (for me!) and video quality. I’d
like to know which you prefer. (That is if you can view videos at
all. I hear some of you aren’t able to because of your computer’s
limitations…)
David Conway was back with his electric NexSTAR-E trainer.
He had a nice flight with it… Frank Rowell showed up with his
Spitfire. Looks
as if Frank is getting comfortable with this plane.
He hasn’t had too many flights yet with this little war
bird. He asked Frits to fly it. That flight went fine until Frits
had to land because of an engine failure. The Spitfire went long and
ended up downrange. A bent tail wheel was the result….
Paul Verger tried to take off Frank’s new Great Planes Escapade,
but when the main gear got caught in one of the cracks in the runway,
the gear was ripped from the plane. It was a clean break, though,
and should be easily repaired... Paul flew his Piper Cherokee, making
that plane go through several nice and crisp aerobatic maneuvers.
That’s Lee Carroll on the left…
Paul also flew Roger Hagler’s Taylorcraft…
Lee flew his Seagull Models electric Edge-540. He had also brought
his tiny electric little Rascal, but I believe it remained grounded…
David Etheredge and grandson Hunter Walker showed up with an Edge
540, a U-Can-Do 3D plane, and a trainer. Hunter flew the trainer and
both David and Hunter flew the big U-Can-Do.
David also flew the Edge…
Before I forget. This weekend, February 7 (Saturday), the Northwest
Florida Modelers, Inc. club of Pensacola, Florida, will have their
Rich Herrmann Annual RC Swap & Shop Meet. For
details describing this event, go to the main menu shown to the left
of this report and select Events Calendar.
Henry Waltman flew his Spacewalker.
Henry surprised everyone when he suddenly did a roll!
It’s just not like him! He insisted Russell Ward fly the Spacewalker
too. Russell was a little reluctant, but he flew it just
fine… Jon Koppisch flew the Spacewalker too, and perhaps
some other planes.
He also did some nice knife-edge stuff with his small Edge-540T.
Oh, Al Ayler fell out of his deer stand on the last day of deer hunting
season. In pitch darkness. His stand collapsed and he fell about six
feet. He thought he had broken one of his legs, and he said he laid
there on the ground for a long time. He said he didn’t care
what wild animal was going to get him, he was hurting so much. Turns
out the X-rays showed he had no fractures. He’s just bruised
up.
I asked him how all that happened. Well, it appears that Al didn’t,
uhmmm, assemble the stand correctly. (He probably never even read
the instructions…) Speaking of Al and trees. That reminds me
of that time in 1997 when he climbed a dead tree in the woods across
Range Line Road to retrieve his big Lazy
Bee…
Sunday was Robert Sanderson’s birthday. He brought cake, balloons,
goodies and punch.
There was also an Estate Auction/Sale on Sunday.
Club member Robert Allen had passed away in 2007, and now all his
RC stuff was up for sale.
One hour after the silent auction started everything was gone, and
several people went home with some great
deals.
Russ Green made out like a bandit on a brand-new Futaba 9CAP Super
radio system; a Matt Chapman CAP-480 46-size plane and an Eagle 2
Trainer ARF went home with David and Hunter; Andrew Smith snapped
up an electric E-Flite Mini Edge-540; Mike McLaughlin got a Gentle
Lady sail plane; and Ken Tow will add an electric E-flite Blade CP
heli to his already extensive helicopter fleet.
Speaking about Ken — he flew his electric scale Airwolf helicopter,
but I missed the flight…
Remember Tony’s T-34 Mentor that hit the power lines on Range
Line Road several weeks ago? Well, Gary Johnson has rebuilt it and
is almost finished with the covering.
Nice job, Gary!
Rob Baker flew his F-4 Flash turbine
jet. Here he is assisted by Dewey Brown. The jet
had some problems with the retracts, but nothing that affected the
flight. I think I heard Rob say that after a takeoff he has to roll
the jet on its back for the gear to retract.
Andrew Smith phlew his phast and phancy Phence Post combat
plane. He really likes this
plane. It has a sleek profile.
And it handles well, according to Andrew…
Russ has a couple of Phence Posts. Here’s a video of Russ hand-launching
and flying his most recent one. The video ends with Rob’s Flash
jet coming in for a landing.
The cracks in the runway claimed a second victim in two days. Roger
Geil was taxiing his Yak-54 when one wheel got caught.
It ripped one half of the main gear off, damaging the mount.
Tony’s newest plane ended up going home with Roger. I just can’t
keep up with who has what any more! What is this plane’s name?
John Walker brought his scale
Cub. He showed off the video downlink he had installed on the
plane. He plans to fly the Cub while watching the TV monitor. The
tiny camera is in the back of the cockpit looking forward. There’s
a compass mounted near the dash, visible by the camera, which John
hopes will keep the ground-based pilot oriented.
From what I’ve seen and read, it’s very difficult to maintain
orientation once you lose sight of the horizon! That is, unless you
have an articulated camera installed that can look sideways and up
and down. But we’ll see. Good luck with this interesting project,
John!
Johnny Jones was back in town and flew his electric E-Flite CAP-232…
Henry flew his scale
Cub… So did Joe
Krebs. And Tony had his with him also. The three did some formation
flying, which somehow I missed. We’re still waiting for you
to finish that other, bigger Cub, Tony!…
Billy Ray Krebs had what looked like a small Stearman biplane. Looked
very bright up against the blue
sky. Jon stood by as Billy Ray flew the bipe…
Jade Taylor (remember him?)
has a new Extra-260. It’s a nice plane capable of some great
aerobatics. He
flew it a couple of times.
Here’s Jade’s
landing… Roger Hagler Focke Wulf FW-190.
It’s a small plane that is very fast and ultra-maneuverable…
Wayne Miller came out with his Gee
Bee Y. He put a couple of nice flights on this very visible
plane…
Mike McLaughlin has been working on his new Ultra Sport 40, and it
was ready for its first
flight. That went well, although the plane tended to roll left
after takeoff. I didn’t see the flight, but Mike mentioned that
he was happy with its speed. Mike also flew his P-51 Mustang. It flew
well, as usual, but it had a minor problem with its retractable gear…
Billy Toliver flew an electric twin-motor P-38 Lightning. How did William
Moore get into that conversation?...
Tommy Shields showed up with a couple of his airplanes. The Somethin’
Extra has been around.
The Breitling CAP-232 is newly acquired.
Tommy let Frits check it out, and it’s a keeper! Flies very nicely.
Robert Sanderson got Rob to fly his Fun(tana) wing.
It seemed to want to buck quite a bit. Or was that the pilot?...
Robert and Andrew flew Robert’s other plane, the little HOR
40, another unusual homebrew aircraft.
Robert had tethered some balloons near the runway. He wanted people
to try to bust them with their airplanes. There weren’t too
many takers.
Andrew broke balloons on a two occasions, but there’s no video,
unfortunately. Frits had just turned his camera off the first time
Andrew hit the balloons. And he got the second bust on video alright,
but — how embarrassing — he accidentally erased the video
while transferring it to his computer. No, the problem was not his
Mac computer! The camera battery died during the transfer, and Frits
erased all pictures and videos from the camera after that happened,
not realizing some videos had not transferred. Sorry, Andrew!
Frits Jetten took up Rick Hoss’ very nice-flying plane, a Tiger
2. Frits had a ball with it, even doing his patented loop-‘n’-go
maneuver several times. Frits’ loop-‘n’-go consists
of a high-speed, low-level loop, immediately followed by a touch-‘n’-go
at the bottom. Tends to rip out landing gear when done wrong!…
Watching Frits put his plane through some wild maneuvers doesn’t
make Rick nervous any more. And Frits wasn’t nervous either.
After all, it wasn’t his plane!…
Here are some random shots… Alvin ranting about something…
Russell being all tuckered
out… Found out that Ben McGee dreams about happy things
while he’s napping…
Someone left a box full of glues at the field Sunday. No, it wasn’t
Robert! William found it, and it looked as if he was trying to sell
the stuff…
The fire pit got used toward the end of the evening…
And here’s Jeff Foster — one of my contributing photographers
— cradling his big Nikon D300 camera.
I’ll end with a beautiful picture taken by Jeff.
I’ll see you at the field. Fly safe! Always!
======== Upcoming Flying Events ===============================
Feb. 7 (Sat) — Rich Herrmann Annual RC Swap & Shop
Meet, Pensacola. For details, go to the main menu shown on
the left of this report and select Events Calendar.
Feb. 14 (Sat) — Fun Fly
— Eglin Aero Modelers.
Mar. 6/7 (Fri/Sat) — Swap
Meet & Model Show. Perry, Georgia.
Mar. 14 (Sat) — ACMA Nite Fly. Irvington Field,
Irvington, Alabama.
Apr. 4/5 (Sat/Sun) — Air
Show. This is a FULL-SCALE event. Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Apr. 25 (Sat) — Spring Scale Fly-in. ACMA.
Irvington Field, Irvington, Alabama.
May 9 (Sat) — Fly-in. Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
(I have no details yet.)
You can check RC event dates on our Website by selecting Events
Calendar from the main menu shown on the left of this report.
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 on 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 have questions or
need help with this 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
