================== ACMA Irvington Field Activities, March 19-21
==================
…………..….... All photos and videos by
Frits Jetten unless otherwise indicated. …….…..….…
First a reminder: On Saturday, April 3rd, the Pine Belt R/C Association
of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, has their Spring
Fly-in. PBRC club President Jeff Williams has asked us to attend.
Here’s their website.
That’s where you can find a map. Look under “Locations”.
And another reminder: Our own Azalea City Model Aeronautics Annual
All Scale Spring Fly-in is Saturday, April 24. Here are the details.
For Sale: Club member Ken Tow has the following for sale: A 60-size
Extra-330 aerobatic plane with OS .91 nitro engine (has had only a
couple of tanks through it.) Comes with servos and flight battery
pack. Just add receiver and fly. The plane has a couple of spots where
the MonoKote was patched (different shade) but overall the plane is
in good shape. Ken is asking $150. Contact Ken > 251-802-0199.
For Sale: 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 > 251-604-4060.
Friday, March 19 — Russell Ward and David
Conway had been planning to clean up the filthy gas grill. And they
did, scraping and scrubbing the grease
away. After an application of degreasing solvent and a hose-down,
the grill looked good! Thanks, guys!
Kenny Morris dropped off three senior workbenches. He worked from
pictures he had taken and a sketch Frits had drawn up. Great job,
Kenny! There
are plenty of workbenches now, and we don’t need any more. There
are still some people who prefer to start their planes on the ground,
and the larger planes just don’t fit on that type of bench.
Roger Hagler flew his Hyperion, an electric that he had converted
to nitro. He
offered Frits the transmitter.
Frits took it and put almost a full flight on it. The plane is very
aerobatic and you could tell Frits was enjoying it. Roger did the
landing because of a cracked gear mount, and Frits didn’t want
to rip out the gear.
Elton Sullivan spends much time on a tugboat. But he was back in
town and showed up with a trailer full of planes. He got the Pulse
ready first, but there was a problem with the electronics.
The World Models Sky Raider was
next. This is the pylon racer that the “EltonJohnny”
team will race.
Johnny Jones is the other part of the team. Johnny works offshore
and pilots an underwater ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle). So they
only have this one plane, as their work schedules don’t jive
most of the time. It seemed to fly
well. Elton was happy and ready to start
racing. Next race date is still not set, however. Elton also flew
his Four Star.
Benny Hughes showed up with his Skydancer.
It flies well…
Ken Tow brought out his Radian sailplane.
He had a good flight.
He had a Lazy Bee sitting there, but he dismantled it and put
it up. A Lazy Bee always reminds me of the one Al Ayler used to
have back in 1997. One day he flew it in some stiff winds and —
Well, I did the club’s paper newsletter back then, and this
is what I wrote about that
incident…
Saturday, March 20 — Ray Murtha showed up
with his Sopwith Pup biplane.
He had good intentions to fly it, despite the moderate winds, but
he found some covering loose on one of the wings, and Ray decided
not to fly it… Sam Guirges had repaired his Solo Star trainer.
He and Frits tested the troublesome engine. Then Roger got involved
and the engine runs now. Fairly decently…
Paul Kelly has a nice new trailer now. Good, because he’s been
buying planes right and left! He still needs to outfit the inside
for airplane hauling. Paul had repaired the CAP-232 that he had smacked
into the ground on its first flight the other day. He fueled it up,
but Frits suggested that he de-fuel it and check
the CG. The plane appeared tail-heavy on that previous flight.
So Paul did, and found that it was VERY tail-heavy. Roger confirmed
it and Paul put a bunch of lead in the nose. Ray was about to leave
for home, but decided to stay. After all, when Paul flies things can
get exciting… So he and Jack Smith watched.
After fueling Paul took the CAP off. The flight started out well,
in spite of the strong and gusty wind. But then things started to
happen…
Splat!
The CAP hit the ground hard.
And it scattered pretty
good. The CAP is in a bag now, waiting for someone to revive
it… So Paul got out the fuselages of his Extra and Katana.
“But only to run the engines,” Paul promised.
The Extra started
okay. And so did the Katana.
There would be no flight on those, he said… Alvin Reed showed
up and took pictures of stuff for his Forum…
Sunday, March 21 — The weather was first predicted
to be rainy, mostly cloudy and very
windy. But the sun did come out around noon.
Surprisingly the usual hardy crowd showed up: Frank Madison, Henry
Waltman and Julia, Al Ayler, Robert Sanderson, Thomas Brownlee, Jon
and Linda Koppisch, Alvin Reed, Ed Callen William Moore, Joe Krebs,
John Walker and even Jim Quint. Possibly others.
No one flew while I was there.
It was windy and cold. Frits enjoyed the hot
chocolate. Linda had on shorts and Jon had the hood pulled down
over his face!
She must be a whole lot tougher than her son… Frank Madison
showed off his newest model, a C-130 Coast Guard cargo
carrier. Nice little multi-motor
electric. First flight has not been scheduled yet.
There was an engine workshop in progress because John Walker had
problems with a large gasoline
engine. William hunted down people to talk to, even if they were
in their vehicle to warm
up… Robert cooked and Alvin
ate…
Here are Henry and Jim — both are World War II veterans.
Henry was in the Army Air Corps in North Africa and Europe and Jim
Quint was a Marine pilot in the Pacific.
Bonus Feature with “awesome” videos
— No doubt the new Lockheed Martin F-35 jet is an awesome fighter
jet. Have you seen the video of the F-35 doing a back flip on
takeoff on that aircraft carrier?
Incredible! And it’s making the rounds on the Internet…
Well — don’t you believe it! It’s not what it seems,
like many “incredible” things on the Internet. I checked
it out, as I always do with “awesome” and “incredible”
claims…
And here’s what I found on www.hoax-slayer.com: “The
video does not show a real aircraft and does not depict an actual
incident. In fact, the video is a screen capture from the popular
video game "Battlefield 2.” — I thought so…
Here it is the real scoop: “Lockheed Martin's F-35 Achieves
First Vertical Landing. After cost overruns, a series of delays, and
almost a decade of hype, the F-35B BF-1 finally performed a vertical
landing for the first
time. On March 18, at 1 PM, after descending from a 150-foot-high
hover, the test plane touched down on the tarmac at the Patuxent River
Naval Air Station.”
“This is a significant step forward for the F-35 Lightning,
as its vertical takeoff and landing capability are crucial to the
fighter's role as a replacement for the aging Harrier jet. The test
began with a short runway takeoff at 93 miles per hour, after which
the pilot swung around, positioned the plane over the runway, and
lowered it down.”
“The test pilot, a former Royal Air Force aviator with experience
piloting VSTOL planes, said he found landing the F-35 vertically far
easier than landing the Harrier the same way.”
Well, that’s is about it for this week. Don’t forget
our Azalea City Model Aeronautics Annual All Scale Spring Fly-in is
Saturday, April 24. We had a great turnout last year. Get those scale
aircraft ready! Here are the event’s details.
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
