|============== Azalea City Model Aeronautics, Mobile, Alabama,
USA ===============|
============== “From the Pits” Field Activities
— Aug. 22 & 23, ’09 ==============
………….....….. All photos and videos
by Frits Jetten unless otherwise indicated …………………..
Remember there will be an ACMA Fish Fry & Nite Fly on Saturday,
September 5. Location: Irvington Field, Irvington, Alabama. Food items
that need to be warmed, fried or cooked should be brought to the field
by 4:00 PM, Saturday, September 5. A food plate will cost $6.00 a
plate, or $3.00 a plate if you contribute a side dish or other needed
items. A discount will be available for families. Get out your night
flying planes and join the fun!
In case you are wondering, the annual Holley Field jets event in
Navarre, Florida has been canceled. This comes from Rob Baker, who
is the organizer of this event.
Now here’s something all of you MUST SEE! It’s extremely
important because it’s in the interest of safety.
Okay, now that I have your attention… No, it was not one of
our club members, nor did it happen around here. But he’s a
friend of club member TJ Rohyans’. The picture is on RCUniverse.com
on one of its forums, along with the injured person’s comments.
Here’s part of what he posted:
“I've done this a thousand times. I walked down to my plane,
set the radio down away from the prop, reached around and grabbed
the fuselage, attached the glow starter, and started the engine with
the chicken stick. The engine was at an idle so I was going to get
my radio and step behind the prop to remove my glow starter. I removed
my hand from the fuselage and reached for the radio.”
“I bumped the throttle with my hand as I reached for it and
the plane jumped towards me. What happened next was pure reflex and
I don't know if I could have done any different if I had time to think
about it. I reached up with my hand out of reflex to keep the plane
from hitting me. Unfortunately an APC prop does not do nice things
to flesh.” To read his complete report, here’s the link.
At our flying field, one of our club rules states that another person
must retrain your airplane while trying to get it started, or you
must use a mechanical restraining device... I’ll add my two-cents
worth. It's also a good idea to dull new props slightly by scraping
a knife along its edges. And when replacing a propeller, hold on to
the prop with the blade wrapped in a paper towel or rag when tightening
the prop nut… Many of us have been cut by props. Pay attention
whenever you start an engine or when you work around a running one!
Now to the fun stuff… Roger Hagler flew three of his planes
this weekend, the EXTRA Little, the Fokker D-VII biplane, and the
Focke Wulf FW-190.
He let Rob fly the Fokker.
Rob flew it wildly at times. Whoah!
That was a little closer than Rob had planned!
In spite of Rob’s flying the little Fokker survived…
Paul Kelly flew his Seagull Models Super Star, a Four Star 40 and
a Cub. All went
well… Mike McLaughlin brought out his small, electric Corsair.
It’s a hot
one! That little war bird is very
fast!...
Larry Rogers flew a couple of test flight on his newly repaired Airstar
International “Mongoose”.
This is a gasser heli with a Zenoah G26 engine.
It seemed to hover just
fine… That little lake has been there for some time, hasn’t
it?... Frank Rowell showed up with his Ultimate biplane and a
brand-new aerobatic plane, a Sukhoi.
Paul Verger got the honors of making its maiden
flight. It seemed to fly well, and Paul trimmed it out for Frank.
I LOVE that color!...
Paul flew his WildHare RC Extra, another nice plane designed to do
aerobatics.
He went through his routine of rolling circles, rolling loops, 8-point
rolls, slow rolls and more…
Lee Carroll flew his Seagull Models electric Edge-540.
At least I’m pretty sure that’s what it is…
David Etheredge showed up with two of his planes, a Edge-540 and
an U-Can-Do 3D…
Bill Powell brought his small trainer. It’s either an Eaglet
or a small Carl Goldberg Falcon.
Frits took the plane up and Bill was amazed at what that little plane
could do…
Dale Herban was back with wife Brandy and his Hangar 9 F-22 Raptor
trainer. Frits flew that airplane a couple of weekends ago, but
Dale didn’t fly it then because he didn’t have his AMA
license yet. Well, he’s got it now, and during the week Dale
came out and decided to take off the Raptor by himself. Well, he shouldn’t
have! Seems Dale had forgotten that he doesn’t know how to fly
yet! Or maybe he though that it couldn’t possibly be that hard.
Dale said the Raptor didn’t get very high or far— 20
or so feet up maybe. Brandy had told him not to take it off on his
own, but he didn’t listen. Frits took the plane off, trimmed
it out, and Dale finally got to fly it. They didn’t use a buddy
box, because there wasn’t one that was charged up. (JR buddy
boxes must have a battery and must be charged up and turned on to
work! Unlike a Futaba buddy box, which needs no battery, no crystal,
no antenna…)
Dale did very well, even though the plane was a bit too sensitive
for him. He and Frits made some adjustments after
the flight. The reason Dale had crashed it was that he didn’t
have the throttle up to full speed when he pulled it up to make it
airborne. Lesson learned: a plane won’t take off right until
it’s good and ready to. Keep it on the runway until it wants
to go…
Ken Tow flew his unique electric foam Star Destroyer space
craft. (Did I hear that a guy named Howell build this plane? I
thought Ken did.) The all-foam electric craft flew pretty well for
something so unusual.
Landings are slow…
Ken also brought out a couple of tiny electric planes. One was a little
Sukhoi, which seemed to fly very crisply.
Both Ken and Rob flew it.
And then Ken flew a really amazing little plane, made of very thin
and flexible foam. The servos were case-less — the innards were
totally exposed!
The speed controller was also naked. I suppose to save weight.
It flew and hovered very well!
Rob Baker flew his F-4 Flash turbine
jet. The nose gear would not retract, so Rob flew it like
that. He made a smooth landing.
I think he’s had problems with that gear before.
Rob also flew the Reactor, a small 3D-capable aerobatics
plane . It was very agile.
The Reactor survived the flight
… Russell Ward was oblivious to all the stuff going on around
him. He was resting and he had not even done anything!
His truck full of planes was not even unloaded!
Jimmy Kennamer and son-in-law Ramsay Clevenger were
back. Ramsay had Frits test fly the ParkZone Typhoon 2. It had
ended up with a broken nose several days earlier, so Ramsay wasn’t
sure. Well, good thing, because the plane was way out of trim. Frits
took it up, had a short, wild flight and quickly brought it down!
They made some mechanical adjustments and then the Typhoon flew fine.
Ramsay flew it and he did okay until he lost control of it! He had
gotten it too far away, and Frits thinks he might have gotten it out
of range…
Jimmy has this really cool anemometer. He picked it up on eBay. Very
sensitive and supposedly it is accurate.
Esam tried to calbrate his iPhone’s wind speed indicator with
it. (Yep, there’s an app for that!) That didn’t work too
well. Frits thought that because the iPhone uses the sound on the
wind blowing across the microphone as a measure of speed, any extra
sounds (like flying airplanes) would probably influence its accuracy.
Testing and calibration are still up in the air. (No pun intended…)
Speaking of wind. Most RC modelers don’t like wind. Frits always
tells his students: “Wind? What wind? — There is no wind!”
And now we have a really confusing situation at our field. First of
all we have our main windsock in front of us when we fly. It’s
right there where you can see it when you are flying. The sock swivels
and responds to the changing wind speed and direction. It works.
But now we also have this little bitty windsock, the one right in
front of the pavilion. I knew a sock like that would never work. It’s
too short and the material is too stiff. I took this picture when
there was NO wind blowing!
The angle of the sock today is no different than when it was installed
a month ago.
There was no wind blowing then either! The sock is always perpendicular
to the pole!
May as well have used a piece of plywood in the shape of a windsock.
Oh well…
Wayne Miller showed up with his Sopwith Pup biplane and “Neville’s
Devil”, a Fun
Fly plane. Wayne has had this Pup for a pretty long
time. It flew very
nicely. Wayne made a pretty smooth
landing… Raymond Murtha also brought his Sopwith Pup biplane,
but I didn’t get a picture of his.
Well, you saw Wayne’s. It looks just like that one!...
There were at least five Cubs at the field on Sunday. Not sure if
all of them flew. Joe Krebs brought his Cub. Not the big Super Cub,
the smaller one. Henry Waltman was there with his Cub. And Tony Farmer
had brought his. Russell had two in his truck, remember.
Well, they never became airborne!...
There was some sort of Cub formation flying, but close it definitely
was not…
Jon Koppisch joined the Cubs with his rather unattractive Mud Duck,
a large plane powered by a Saito .91 4-stroke.
In flight it sort of waddles like a duck!
You should see its high speed pass! It won’t break any speed
records. Well, it’s a sight to behold nevertheless…
Russ Green flew his new, smaller foam combat plane. With a streamer
this time. It appears to fly very well and can make some tight
turns. For a moment it looked as if he was going for Paul’s
Super Star!
Russ also flew his normal combat
wing… Johnny Jones flew his latest, a Trik Stik, a homemade
plane that uses an arrow shaft for a fuselage.
It seems to fly great.
Esam Guirges got to fly his Solo Star trainer again, doing figure
eights and doing them very well. He also made a test hover on his
E-flite Blade CP, a small electric helicopter.
Tony made the first test flight, and then Esam and Frits had a go
at it. The Blade still needs some adjusting, but it hovers okay.
Robert Sanderson showed up with his latest, the Double Trouble 2,
another twin-engine speed plane. This one is much lighter.
Well, now Robert decided to relocated the engines. What the…?
Hmmm, another wild and exciting first flight will be coming up soon!
Frits is ready to report for duty as test pilot, Robert!... Later
that afternoon, on the way home, I again came across a colorful
sky…
Remember our Fish Fry & Nite Fly event on Labor
Day weekend… And our Fall Scale Fly-in in October…
This is all I’ve got. I’ll see you at the field. Fly safe!
============ 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..
=========== 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.
======== 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
