================== ACMA Irvington Field Activities, March 6
-15 ==================
…………..….... All photos and videos by
Frits Jetten unless otherwise indicated. …….…..….…
Jim Jordan still has this Top Flite Contender
for sale. Built by Gary Johnson from a kit, it's not an ARF. Comes
with MDS .40 engine, all servos and Futaba receiver. Jim wants $250
without the Futaba transmitter, $300 with the Futaba transmitter.
Call Jim at 251-604-4060.
Saturday, March 6 — Not many people today.
Wayne Miller flew a new
Yak-54. He first flew his Neville’s Devil, a small fun fly
plane, to shake the jitters off. But all went very well… Frits
Jetten made his first flight on his new World Models pylon racer,
the LA.Racer-40.
The plane was easy to build, a dream to fly, and there were no surprises.
Racing was scheduled for Saturday, the 13th of March, only one week
away… There was another Yak at the field. Roger Geil flew
his… And the newest club members had three planes with them.
They had brought a couple of Eagle 2 trainers and a Cub.
Sunday, March 7 — Max Needels showed up with
his profile LamYak.
I think Jon Koppisch flew it too, but I’m not sure. His friend
from up north, Jeremy (on far left), flew
it also… Kenny Morris brought his trainer, but I did not
get to see him fly.
He has a sense of
humor…
It looked as if Frits felt right at home in his old spot with his
new plane. He
had not flown his own stuff in almost three years. But he’s
back now! He could be seen practicing for the upcoming
races…
I found one of these signs at the north end, on the parking lot side
of the fence, near one of the openings in the fence.
About six feet away from somebody’s airplane trailer. There
were several people going back and forth from their vehicle or trailers
to the pits, stepping over and around the sign. It lay there for more
than two hours, until I picked it up… I tie-wrapped it to the
fence where it belonged. These days not many people care about how
the field looks any more...
Dewey Brown showed up with his Extra. It is his latest
creation. One of the landings was a
bit off… Russ Green showed up with his second pylon racer.
This is another LA.Racer-40, except this one came all dressed up in
colors and decals.
He put a GMS .40 on this one….
Andrew Smith had a couple of his planes with him. One was the Synapse,
a fast little electric
jet. The hand-launches can be exciting.
The other was an electric
F-15. It flew
great! Here's Randy's launch.
Andrew also flew his little LMH Corona electric
helicopter... Larry Rogers flew his big orange Mongoose
helicopter. He’s getting some mileage out of this
one.
Al Ayler finally broke out the P-38 Lightning, a nice twin-engine
warbird. He, and others, tried to get it in the air. But this time
the plane had the jitters, not Al. There was electrical interference
and the servos were twitching, so Al decided to put
it off. He started to assemble his Douglas SBD Dauntless…
Jimmy Kennamer and Ramsey Clevenger flew Jimmy’s sailplane.
The landing was not too smooth and the fuselage broke right there
where Ramsey has his left
hand. Jimmy also flew his Escapade. And Ramsey picked up an Escapade
that Kenny Morris had for sale. Now Jimmy and Ramsey can fly in formation!
Russ and Michael McLaughlin put up one of the pylons for next
weekend’s race. The course is pretty close to the dimensions
that are laid out by the AMA for Club
40 type races. Russ, Mike and Frits had a good time chasing each
other around the real pole and an imaginary one…
The wind blew this carpet loose at least two
weeks ago. It’s at the south end and it’s still that
way. As I said before, not many people care much about how the field
looks any more. Anyone can pick up trash that’s lying around,
and any member can fix something that needs fixing… I’m
just saying…
Tony Farmer showed up with his green
Cub. He and Jon were the only two with Cubs, if I remember correctly.
They flew around in formation, of which I have no picture this
time around. It was about as exciting as Cub flying can
get!...
Henry Waltman flew his Spacewalker…
Al did fly his Dauntless, a very nice looking dive
bomber. The flight was again pretty short. I believe Al scares
himself while he flies that Dauntless and he can’t wait to get
it on the ground so he can do his little dance
of relief...
Friday, March 12 — Russell Ward, David Conway,
Benny Hughes and Frits were out at the field around noon. After Benny
went to the store to buy a TORX screw bit, they took the tarpaulins
down that had the whole pavilion covered to ward off the
cold. The tarps are now neatly stacked in the
shed…
Then David decided to start sweeping the pavilion
floor. So the morning turned out to be a little work party. Thanks,
guys!... David flew his electric Extra, but after a slight mishap,
the landing gear got knocked
off… By the way, Benny is now a club member too. He had
brought his Sky
Dancer… Dewey Brown was back with his Extra-300 and his
wife. I think he flew the Extra twice.
Saturday, March 13 — Today was to be the official
ACMA Club 40 pylon racing practice day. Four racers were present.
Rob Baker, Russ and Frits had their World Models LA.Racer-40s ready.
And Robert Sanderson had his World Models Sky Raider Mach II with
him, but it was not ready, unfortunately.
Frits made a test flight on the plane but there was a problem with
his transmitter...
Steve Toland, David Conway, Russell Ward and another gentlemen whose
name I have forgotten, assisted with the timing and the lap counting.
Russ filled his fuel tank with this really big and scary syringe…
Rob was ready.
And Frits had his LA.Racer were also ready
to go. We all wore hardhats, according to the rules
(except Rob…)
The “flying start” was something we all had to get used
to, but after a couple of times we all got the hang of it. You have
two minutes to get your plane in the air. Then the timer guy will
count down to zero, calling out the time to go periodically.
By the time he calls off Ten!, Nine, Eight!, you should have positioned
yourself to be ready to cross the start line when he calls ZERO! GO!
You don’t want to cross that line too far behind the leader.
When the real races start we will also use two cut judges who will
observe each pylon and how you go around
it. If you cut a pylon short, you’ll have to make an extra
lap!… Well, it was great, we had three heats and there were
no incidents. These pilots look forward to the next race. The date
has not been determined yet.
By the way, if you are thinking of joining the group of racers. The
Thunder Tiger .40 is definitely faster than the MPS .40. We tached
both engines and there’s about 500 or so rpm difference in favor
of the Thunder Tiger. And both were running 9X6 propellers. Yep that’s
Frits’ more than twenty-year-old 9-channel computer transmitter
that happens to have a built-in
tachometer.
Russell flew his trusty old Ugly Stick. He’s doing well and
still threatening to join the pylon
racing bunch…Russell has a new trailer to haul his many,
many dust-collecting planes. He will clean it up and then he’ll
be like one of the big
boys! There have been suggestions made as to what to put on the
outside of the trailer…
Sunday, March 14 — Another beautiful day.
There was some wind, but it wasn’t too bad… James Donald
showed up with his monstrous Extra 300, a 55% scale
plane. I think it’s the second time this plane has shown
up at our field. The first time there was a rudder problem and it
didn’t fly. This time there were servo problems and the giant
scale plane stayed on the ground again.
Newcomer Mike Beauchamp (pronounced “beechum”) brought
a couple of his small planes out. One was a little AT-6 Texan powered
by a nitro engine,
the other an electric P-51 Mustang. The Texan had engine problems
and remained grounded.
But after a couple of bad hand-launches, the Mustang flew and it flew
well…
Sam Guirges showed up with his Solo
Star trainer. He had a couple of excellent flights with it, as
Frits stood by.
He has soloed before, but hasn’t flown in several months. Frits
left him during one
flight. Perhaps he shouldn’t have, because the vultures
were circling…
But Sam did fine — until he ran out of fuel! Just before he
was supposed to land, the plane tipped up, stalled and whacked into
the ground!
The nose section was damaged, and the firewall knocked
loose. Sam will have it going again, I’m sure… TJ
Rohyans had brought his flying camera platform, the “Super
Solution”. The fuel tank on the front is a placeholder for
the Canon camera that’s supposed to go there. He’s already
had a couple of good flights with it, but TJ decided to come back
early Monday morning when the winds were calm or non-existent.
Henry Waltman and Julia only came to
visit… John and Joyce Walker were back with their dog Abby
and the Reno Zero, a racing plane. It’s powered by a Fuji engine,
I believe. Jon
Koppish was the selected test pilot again for this flight, the plane’s
second one. The flight was uneventful.
All went well until the landing as you can see here.
The nose-over damaged the nose and the tail…
Jonathan Festa showed up with two of his planes, both electric jets,
the Habu and the F/18
Hornet. Sam Chest launched the Habu.
It dipped low, onto the grass, but Jonathan kept the throttle at maximum,
and when the jet hit a bump at the taxiway, it bounced into the air
and off it
went!... Rob also had his Habu jet. His is camouflaged.
And it has wheels…
Roger Geil and his ultra-light dropped in for a visit. He didn’t
stay too long.
Jonathan had removed the landing gear from the Hornet so it could
be hand-launched. He and Jon went across the runway to find a good
launch
spot. Unfortunately the wind was mostly from the west, in the
pilot’s back. So they decided to launch toward the north pits,
a definite no-no. Jon did the launch. It was a good one and the jet
took off. But then, things started to go wrong as you can see in this
video. The wings came off, and the fuselage crashed onto Dewey’s
truck. Luckily there was no damage to the vehicle.
Monday, March 15 — Frits met TJ early. Really
early! The sun was barely
up! And there was no wind. TJ mounted the camera for the first
in-flight test of the
system. He replaced the dummy camera with the
real one. He took one test
shot. Everything went
well. TJ took several pictures of the area.
Here’s one
of them.
Tuesday, March 16 — I decided to swing by
the field. Not much going on there. It was getting cold, and only
Russell and Jim were there. So as I was about to leave Paul Kelly
drove up with his newest acquisition, a CAP-232 that he got in Perry,
Georgia, at a Swap Meet.
I decided to stay for the first flight. The engine, a .52 4-stroke,
started easily, and everything looked in
order. Paul was ready. Here is the takeoff and subsequent brief
flight. Damage appeared minimal.
Well, that’s is about it for this week. Come chat with some
of us on Alvin’s Mobile Area RC Model Aviation Forum
(MARCMAF). There’s always something or somebody being talked
about there…
I’ll see you at the field. Fly safe!
=============== Advertising Your For Sale Stuff in the Swap
Shop/Flea Market ===========
You know that you can advertise your For Sale items in the Mobile
Area RC Model Aviation Forum’s Swap Shop/Flea Market. You can
even include photos, which is always helpful when you try to sell
RC stuff.
To use this feature, go to the main menu
shown on the left of this report and select Swap Shop.
First-timers must register with a username and password, but that’s
free and it is very easy.
Inactive topics will be pruned when 160 days old. Listings will be
displayed for about five months before being pruned. Please edit your
topic to reflect any changes, if the item(s) sold, or if they are
no longer for sale.
In addition, you can send the detailed information to me by e-mail,
preferably with pictures, and I’ll forward it to the 112 members
of our club. I have all the members’ e-mail addresses, and I
don’t mind doing it. 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.
Azalea City Model Aeronautics Website > http://www.acma-rc.com/index.html
Frits Goes Hollywood - Click For Details
