|============== Azalea City Model Aeronautics, Mobile, Alabama,
USA ===============|
================== “From the Pits” Field Activities
— May 17, ’09 ===================
………….....….. All photos and videos
by Frits Jetten unless otherwise indicated …………………..
Several weeks ago the County gave us a 5-gal. bucket of yellow paint
to stripe the center of the runway. Al Ayler, Dewey Brown, Justin
Peacock, Russell Ward, Ben McGee and Alvin Reed all had a hand in
painting the stripe.
Maybe there were others.
And it turned out fairly straight!
(I suspect that picture was Photoshopped a bit…) But because
no one was assigned the job to see how far the paint would reach,
the job ended prematurely…
While inspecting the new stripe, Frits discovered a new hole in the
asphalt! Oh, no! Could it be? — Well, apparently it WAS! Remember
back in February before the runway was fixed?
He’s baaaaack! Frits managed to snap a photo of what appears
to be part of that infamous crack monster’s sharp talon.
Watch out, landing gear!...
James Sansing, his son Cameron and daughter Elizabeth paid us a visit
the other day.
The kids are growing
up. They watched Alvin Reed fly his Titan helicopter…
Max Needels had a scary thing happen to his YAK-54. The engine came
off in flight!
Max was making some engine adjustments and the cowl was not on the
plane. Fortunately the engine hung on, and Max landed the plane safely.
He was back a few days later, along with wife Nikki and son Dale,
the engine firmly back in place.
David Etheredge flew his U-Can-Do and his Great Planes “Matt
Chapman” CAP-580.
Good flying plane, capable of some nice aerobatics…
Roger Hagler flew his EXTRA Little Extra, a
.15-size plane… Frank Rowell had several nice flights with
his Hangar 9 P-51 Mustang…
Jim Quint showed up and visited briefly.
He stayed long enough to tell us several jokes. And all with a straight
face. Jim is full of it, in case you didn’t know…
Russell Ward had a slight problem with his Avistar
trainer. The wing snapped in two while he was flying “normally”!
The flight ended in disaster.
Later Russell did a low-budget re-enactment of the crash.
Then he did it one
more time. This time he used the real plane as a prop.
The broken Avistar was turned back over to Gary Johnson who said he
would repair it…
Ken Tow flew his fast electric Swift flying wing, slinging it nonchalantly
in the air.
He also flew his electric Star Destroyer spacecraft.
Ken had made it out of blue
foam. It flew very well for something that looked so strange.
It even did loops and rolls and it was also capable of inverted
flight... Doug Shorey also flew a small electric
wing. That thing is super
fast! His small electric trainer was briefly shadowed by Ken’s
Star Destroyer…
Robert Sanderson worked on his Coroplast combat plane some, but I
didn’t see him fly it at
all… Wayne Miller appeared to be practicing for the upcoming
Armageddon Fun Fly, scheduled for May 30th. He’s been flying
his fun fly plane, “Neville’s Devil”, although I
didn’t see him do any of the events that Armageddon pilots are
expected to perform.
(The fun fly’s competition events are listed farther down.)
Sunday May 17 was not supposed to be a good flying day, but I decided
to go anyway. Well, when I drove out of my neighborhood and turned
south I saw that things didn’t look so good in Irvington.
By the time I crossed Interstate 10 it was coming down hard.
But — surprise! — there was a big crowd at the field,
all huddled under the pavilion roof. And they were cooking, of course!...
The field flooded in several places, as
usual. That attracted a couple of terns who must have gotten blown
off course...
Joe Krebs was conducting some sort of engine clinic, attended by David
Doss, John Walker and Joe
Ward. That may have been John’s gasoline engine Joe was
discussing… As newcomer John Talmage (far left) looked on, Joe
Krebs, Joe Ward and Henry Waltman tried to run the engine on a Cub
that I thought belonged to John
Walker. I heard it run briefly…
In the meantime, Jon was busy reading about John Walker’s new
digital camera. I could hear him mumbling bad words under his breath…
Frits has been having to deal with Henry, who’s had his share
of questions about the mysteries of HIS new digital camera. Frits
asked Henry to send him a picture by e-mail. Finally, weeks later,
Henry and his other technical advisor, Joe Ward, managed to send Frits
a photo by e-mail. Nice shot! Looks as if Frits can stop dieting now,
he looks so thin and
lean… Wow!
On that rainy Sunday Justin Peacock was the only one who flew, I
believe. He flew his Coroplast combat plane in the rain.
Then he made Russell retrieve it. Well, of course Russell complied…
And then it was ice
cream time! Alvin, Russell and Justin can put away some ice
cream. This time Alvin didn’t mix any vegetables or meats
with the sundae.
Russell shared one spoonful — just one— with the Johnson
girls, Mariah and
Christy.
Bill Slagle, accompanied by daughter Tiffany, had better luck flying
his Avistar than Russell.
He put on several successful flights.
Those are some nice, contrasting cloud formations…
A new gadget has appeared in the shed. It could be a “circle
drawer”. Or it could be a “thing sizer”. Looks to
me you could size all sorts of things with that template.
Later, after all the ice cream was gone Alvin started to talk about
movies he had
seen. Russell is always a very attentive listener…
================== “From the Pits” Field Activities
— May 24, ’09 ===================
I decided to add this Memorial Day’s weekend report because
it is not very lengthy. (“Good!”, I hear some of you mumble
as you stifle a yawn…) There are a couple of reasons for that.
I didn’t go to the field on Saturday, plus my camera is stuck
on video mode after I fell with it in the south pit shelter last weekend.
So, any still pictures you see here will be the ones I have stolen
from Alvin’s Forum…
Frits took up David Conway’s newest plane, an electric Yak-54.
It flew very nicely. The Yak was capable of some fine aerobatic maneuvers
even with the controls on low rates. By the way, David was the one
who donated the four new chairs a couple of weeks ago. Thanks, David!...
Jon Koppisch made his annual chopper
flight. He took up his Raptor helicopter for a couple of spins.
He kept it low
and slow. Now we’ll have to wait until 2010 to see Jon fly
it again… Jon also flew Frank Madison’s Pitts Special
biplane…
Andrew Smith flew his electric Swift.
He was talking about flying it in our club’s upcoming Armageddon
Fun Fly, scheduled for May 30th. But is it strong enough to carry
an egg in the Egg Drop event, Andrew?...
Newcomer Tim Humbert showed up with a new combat wing, a Battle Axe.
It’s powered by an OS .25 engine and moves out pretty
fast… Mike McLaughlin and Russ Green discussed their combat
wings. They both are very active combat competitors. Next combat
event will be held during the Armageddon Fun Fly.
Justin made a test flight on Robert’s newest combat
plane. The first one ended in a crash. Something about losing
the battery pack in flight, I think I heard them say. The second flight
went fine. Mike also flew that plane… Paul Kelly had brought
his Cub and Twist.
The Cub’s flight ended in a deadstick, I believe. The Cub landed
in the east part of the field and nosed over.
Jonathan Festa was flying his Extra-260, doing some IMAC maneuvers.
Nice flying. But he needs to do something about that awful squaking.
Frits had suggested oiling those wheels a couple of months ago….
Justin and Mike chased each other around the field. Well, of course
I’m talking about their
planes.
Gary Johnson finished the repairs on Russell’s Avistar trainer.
Russell installed the engine and other items at the field.
Several hours later the plane was ready for flight. Andrew did the
test flight and it survived. And then Russell worked up enough nerves
to fly it himself. There were no problems!
Don’t forget our Armageddon Fun Fly on May 30. Details follow
below.
I’ll see you at the field. Fly safe!
======= 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.
=========== 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.
========= 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
