============== Azalea City Model Aeronautics, Mobile, Alabama,
USA ================
================== “From the Pits” Field Activities
— April 24/25, ’09 ==================
….....….. All photos and videos by Frits Jetten unless
otherwise indicated …………....
I received an e-mail from Henry Waltman, and he insisted I put it
in this report. Here it is in his own words:
“Frits, I want to personally thank the ACMA fliers and their
families for the tribute paid to myself, TJ Rohyans, Al Ayler and
JC Day. We wish to thank all who contributed their time and for all
the preparation of food, and those who brought food and desserts.
It certainly was a grand turnout for us and we appreciate all who
came and shared such good times and fellowship. Again I want to personally
thank all who came. PS - To set the record straight, I haven't reached
100 yet, but I'm working on that!”
I want to thank Russell for mounting the sink in our kitchen Friday
before the fly-in. He got some help from Drew Moss and Jeff
Lee. Good job, Russell! By the way, Drew recently became a member
of our club… Jeff had brought his P-51 that day, but I’m
not sure if he flew that Mustang…
The other Jeff, Jeff Foster, spent most of the day mowing the grass,
getting the field all spruced up for our Spring Scale Fly-in the next
day. Very nice, Jeff!
Here then is the Scale Fly-in report. (It’s about time, I hear
you groan…) Well, better late than never… Tony Farmer
was the coordinator of this fly-in and he started the event off with
a pilots briefing.
Wayne Boudreaux manned the registration desk while JC Day raffled
off HobbyTown gift cards and other prizes.
Rob Baker, owner of HobbyTown USA, had donated an electric ARF kit
to be raffled off to registered pilots only. It was a Hyperion
YAK-54.
Alvin Reed did most of the cooking. His assistant and part time sous
chef, Russell Ward, took care of the food concessions. The whole operation
moved along very smoothly, almost as if we had done this a time or
two before!... Special thanks to Ken Tow for providing a much-needed
First Aid Station sign for the registration desk.
A sizable crowd showed up, including several people from out of town,
and out of state. Some had never been to Irvington Field before. There
were several familiar faces from Mississippi: Thomas LeMaster (Hurley);
Garry Busby and niece Miranda (Moss Point); Jim Farned of the Mississippi
Coast R/C Club in Gulfport; and Jeff Williams of the Pinebelt R/C
club of Hattiesburg, MS.
We had Tim Harry from Orange Beach, AL, and Brian Cabrera—
no stranger to our scale events — who drove down from Birmingham,
his small vehicle packed with planes. Steve Rojecki is from Navarre,
FL, and Louie Scribner from Southern Pines, NC. Hanging out with them
was Chuck Mills
(far right).
Did you know that Steve is a world-class aerobatics competitor? He
placed 1st, 5th and 2nd in the world championships at the International
Tournament of Champions (TOC) in 1984, 1988 and 1990, respectively.
He is a member of Team JR and now flies mostly large electrics. Like
this nice P-51 Mustang.
And this beautiful YAK-54.
Awesome power!
Here’s a nice shot by Dean
Ritola. And the YAK in knife-edge.
Louie, Chuck and Steve have been flying since the early 1970s and
have mostly gone all electric with few exceptions. Chuck flies turbine
jets, and he actually flew his jet at our event to get his turbine
waiver…
And we had Stacey Mills from Charlottesville, VA, and Pete Lawton,
who is from Morgan
City, LA. Both fly turbine jets… Brothers Tim and Mike Kenney
showed up with the largest plane of the event, an awesome 50%
Extra! I’m not sure where they are from. I hope I didn’t
forget anyone. We want to thank those out-of-towners who came to visit
and participate in our event. You all helped make it a great success!
As this report rambles on you’ll see more pictures and videos
of these out-of-towners.
Dewey Brown flew his P-51 Mustang, a Hangar 9 model. There was a
small problem during the landing…
Brian Cabrera attempted to take off his Zero.
But he had a gear problem as
well. He flew his P-51 Mustang a couple
of times. It always flies
well… Roger Hagler showed up with his small (…of course…),
twin-engine P-38
Lightning. Rob Baker flew it a couple of times. Not sure if Roger
flew it too…
Rob showed up with a couple of his jets.
He flew one of them, the F-4 Flash.
I didn’t see the other in the air. He had a couple of nice flights.
Landings were uneventful.
This jet is always a crowd
pleaser. Rob also flew his Sopwith
Camel…
Louie Scribner flew a Park Zone T-28, a popular small
electric. Interestingly, Louie is the president of a company that
is involved with fuel cells and fuel cell R&D application software.
His company is located in Southern Pines, NC. Here’s an interesting
article about a space project he and his company are involved with.
Robert Sanderson and Jeff Williams both flew a Fokker DR-1 triplane.
They both made it in the
air. I think Rob, Robert and Mike McLaughlin all flew this quirky
plane. But Jeff had some problems with his RCV
engine. When he finally got it going, it appeared to be tail-heavy.
It eventually went in hard.
The British RCV engine is unique. Its rotating cylinder is in line
with the axis of rotation of the propeller, producing an extremely
streamlined shape and small footprint.
Andrew Smith brought his Corsair, a yellow biplane, and wife Amber.
The Corsair looked nice!
The landing was smooth.
I missed most of the flight of the yellow
biplane. And Amber looked
great! (Daggers shoot out from here eyes at me when she spots
me with my camera)… There were Piper Cubs, of course! Tony Farmer
brought his Hangar 9 Cub 40. Joe Krebs had his, and Tommy Shields
even showed up with
one. There could have been more, but I can’t remember. There
was some nice formation flying going on. Pretty close this
time!
Raymond Murtha flew his P-19 Navy
trainer. Here is Ray’s takeoff.
It appears to fly very
well. And here’s the nice
landing… Frank and Julie Rowell made it to the fly-in and
mostly just hung
out. Frank — shown here with Garry and Miranda — did
fly his P-40 Warhawk.
Here is his
landing… Mike McLaughlin showed up with his Great Planes
Lancair ES. Nice
flight. Mike also flew his P-51
Mustang.
Brian brought several planes from Birmingham. He even flies some
electrics. This
is the T-45 Goshawk, en electric ducted fan
jet. It flew fast and responded nicely.
Brian likes this one a lot. The landing was a bit bouncy.
He also has a small Hornet, but I missed its flight.
And Brian flew his Agusta 109 Coast Guard helicopter. Unfortunately
the engine flamed out and the 14 lb. heli came down hard. But Brian
e-mailed me later and said there wasn‘t much damage…
Larry Rogers brought three helicopters. One was the civilian Hughes
MD-400. Looked great in
the air. He also brought the electric Airwolf, and the other was
the Airstar Mongoose, a gasoline powered heli with a Zenoah G26 engine.
(It’s not scale yet, is it, Larry?) The Mongoose’s engine
quit, and it quickly came
on down. Damage didn’t appear too
severe. The Airwolf also crashed, but I never found out the cause…
John Kelly showed off some really nice light systems that he designed
and built for use in scale RC aircraft. John fabricates and programs
his own boards. The LEDs are very bright. And take it from me, someone
who has made his own circuit boards years ago, this looks like quality
stuff. Here’s a video of one light system in
operation. If you are interested in these lights controllers,
contact John >
johnkelly@usaheli.com…
Roger Geil swooped in with his full-scale experimental ultralight
aircraft, the Quicksilver.
He stayed and visited for a
while. Then off he went…
Carl Broughton flew his Pitts Special, a biplane powered by an OS
300 engine. Except for buzzing the south pits shelter once (what
was up with that?) he had no major problems…
Stacey Mills flew his turbine powered Boomerang Elan.
Not exactly scale, but very nice. Here’s Stacey’s
landing… Mike Kenney flew the 50% Extra and put on a fine
show, while his brother spotted for
him. But at the end of the flight, which I missed, there was a
problem and during the landing the main gear was ripped off. I believe
damage was minor…
Al Ayler was ready to fly his twin-engine P-38 Lightning.
He had good intentions, anyway.
But one of the engines cut out during the taxi run — fortunately.
He did fly his SNJ-6 Texan. It flew just
great. There were no problems during the Texan’s
flight…
Wayne Miller’s Gee Bee caused a bit of a scare.
The plane veered off its intended landing approach, appeared to stall
and landed on top of Pete Lawton’s tent. Fortunately the Gee
Bee did not come through the fabric, although it cut it up some.
Under that canopy were Pete’s wife and the big jet…
Garry flew a biplane, but I never found out what exactly what it
was. His niece Miranda seemed to enjoy carrying the plane for Garry.
She’s got some really wild
hair! But I found out that it lays down when the engine stops…
Devin Wieniewitz and John LeMaster took up their biplanes.
One after the other… Henry flew his Mustang and his trusty old
(and I mean OLD…) biplane, the Fleet…
Paul Verger and Lee Carroll were there, but for the life of me I can’t
remember what they flew!...
Wes Batson showed up with his 42% Aeroworks Ultimate
Bipe! It’s powered by a 3W-170CS engine. Awesome biplane!
Scott Cameron made sure Wes was flying it right.
Those big boys sure looked
great! A few days after our scale fly-in Tim Harry sent me a video
of Wes flying the Ultimate. Wes’ wife Marie and Tim shot and
edited the video, I believe. It is about seven minutes long. It shows
Wes going through his routine.
Pete Lawton flew his large turbine jet, the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen.
I don’t know who that is with
him… Jon Koppisch flew Wayne’s P-51.
I hope I didn’t get these Mustangs mixed
up… Here’s Frank Madison’s F8F Bearcat, the
“Rare Bear”, flown by Wes…
And Frank’s P-47 Thunderbolt, flown by Jon Koppisch…
Jon also took up Paul Kelly’s new Pawnee on its first flight.
Jon landed it with one wheel missing.
Paul thinks Jon is something
else!…
Brian Cabrera flew into the late afternoon. He always does. Landing
the Mustang plane is no problem for
Brian. It was interesting watching Brian load all his planes into
his small car.
He knows how to stack ‘em. No room for the wife and children
this time, eh, Brian?... Bill Bryan brought out his new P-47 Thunderbolt,
but it didn’t make it into the air. Oh, Al’s twin-engine
Cessna 310 changed hands. Yep, Bill now owns the Cessna…
Dewey Brown won the final prize, the electric YAK-54.
Congratulations, Dewey! (Dewey has that plane up for sale now…
For half of what it originally cost. Contact him > dewey_brown3@bellsouth.net.)
Looks as if another camera buff is about to join the club. Here’s
John Talmage, accompanied by Dee
Morgan… Later in the day, when things were winding down,
some non-scale aircraft started flying. Johnny Turner flew his Align
T-Rex 600 Nitro helicopter…
At the end of the afternoon, Billy Frost could be seen riding off
in his URAL Russian motorcycle with sidecar…
Another fly-in has come to an end! It was a long
day! This one was probably the most-attended scale fly-in we’ve
ever had. Great crowd, great weather, great flying, great food and
no accidents! Thanks to everyone who participated!
I hope to see all of you show up for the Azalea City Model Aeronautics
Fall Scale Fly-in later this year (date not set yet.). Unless we decide
to have a Warbird Fly-in sooner. (Hint, hint…) Let me know if
we should consider one…
Whew! This was a pretty long report. I hope I didn’t forget
anyone… If I did — too bad…! The Sunday, April 26
report will be lumped in with the next report…
Don’t forget Armageddon Fun Fly, May 30… Details farther
down.
I’ll see you at the field. Fly safe!
=========== Keeping those videos for sharing with others
===========================
Several people have asked me about this… The videos that I
take are stored on my computer. The files are large, and that’s
why I always make short videos, usually less than a minute, but always
less than two minutes long. It’s normally too impractical to
share them by e-mail.
But once a video has been posted on YouTube, it’s there “forever”.
You can always go back to it. Just copy that string of characters
in the browser window right above the video, and save it in a text
file on your computer. That string looks like this example > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5QpxUdZFYU
.
By clicking on it later, or, if that doesn’t work, by placing
it back into your Internet browser and hitting the enter key, you
can see it over and over again.
If you want your own copy of videos that features you and your plane,
let me know. I can put them on a DVD for you. They’ll be in
.MOV format. The quality will be much better. The image will be much
sharper, that is. The way I video taped it will remain the same!…
E-mail me > fjetten@aol.com..
======= Upcoming Flying Events - Azalea City Model Aeronautics
======.
May 30 (Sat) — ACMA’s Armageddon Fun Fly.
Rob Baker — owner of HobbyTown USA in Mobile and Daphne —
will again be the organizer of this fun fly. This will be our 12th
annual Fun Fly! Get a plane ready now. Nothing fancy! It needs to
be a plane you’re not too fond of, but one that can perform
in a variety of competition events, fast and slow. The same plane
must be used for all events, unless you crash it beyond repair. In
that case you can substitute another plane.
You’ll perform in simple events like: Aircraft Carrier
Landing - a precision landing event; 3 Loops, 3 Rolls,
1 Touch-‘n’-go, 3 times - a timed event; Egg
Drop - a precision “bomb” drop; and Limbo
- flying under a stretched ribbon, with extra points if you can do
it inverted or knife-edge!
On Armageddon day Combat is an optional and separate event around
noon, but you can use a different plane for that. Armageddon is an
all-day fun event with a lot of action! Plan to come to this one!
Better yet, participate in it! Here’s the Armageddon
flier.
If you need a map to a flying field — either to Irvington Field
or to another club’s field — go to our ACMA Website and
select Field Maps. Or select from main menu
on the left side of this report.
========= Advertising Your For Sale Stuff in the Swap Shop
===========
You know you can advertise your For Sale items with photos in the
Mobile Area RC Aviation Forum’s Swap Shop.
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.
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.
Azalea City Model Aeronautics Website > http://www.acma-rc.com/index.html
Frits Goes Hollywood - Click For Details
