|============== Azalea City Model Aeronautics, Mobile, Alabama,
USA ===============|
================== “From the Pits” Field Activities
— August 09, ’09 =================
………….....….. All photos and videos
by Frits Jetten unless otherwise indicated …………………..
When I made it to the field, a prospective member was waiting for
an instructor to arrive. Dale Herban and wife Brandy had brought Dale’s
F-22 Raptor, a trainer by Hangar 9. Frits made a couple of flights
on the plane and they both went
well. The Raptor still has its flaps fixed in the maximum position,
slowing it down considerably. Dale will be back as soon as he gets
his AMA card…
David Doss showed up with his Seagull Models Yak-54, a nice-looking
black and yellow aerobatics
plane. He had a brief flight because the engine quit prematurely…
Jim Quint (far left) was up and about and paid us a visit.
I’m sure he shared some old jokes as he usually does…
Dewey Brown brought his P-51 Mustang. It has the name “Kaye
Baby” on its cowl.
The flight went very
well. Dewey has had some problems with this Mustang in the past
but this time he was happy.
Dewey just needs to come out more
often. Special effects done on my iPhone. Yep, there’s an
app for that!
Jeff Foster was not at the field today. Good thing. Jeff, our club’s
Field Marshal, would not have been happy. It all started when Al Ayler
guided Bill Culberson in to park his truck and trailer. Well, Bill
got stuck. So
Al uncoupled his trailer and tried to pull Bill out. The strap broke
several times.
Then Dewey and his 4-wheel truck had a try at it, using a chain this
time. Bill’s truck would not budge and the chain ended up in several
pieces. So then
someone called Bill Powell, and he finally pulled Bill’s truck
and trailer free, using a winch.
Yeah, Jeff would not have been happy.
Jeff had just cut the grass and made the field look so
great. That spot looks a bit rutty
now…
Robert Sanderson had his Double Trouble twin-engine speed plane ready
again, the left engine firmly reattached. Frits flew it and then handed
the controls over to Russ
Green. Russ flew it just fine, even making a nice landing.
But the next flight, with Frits at the controls, didn’t end
so well. After Russ’ flight, Robert had “tweaked”
one of the engines, and when Frits brought it in for a landing and
cut the throttle, only one engine stopped. This caused the plane to
swerve to one side and crash.
One of the engines was ripped off and was left stuck in the soft
soil.
John Walker and Joe Krebs were discussing some large
engine. I think it was John’s. Then they ran it on a test
stand… A photogenic Henry Waltman again insisted on having
a picture taken of him (“To liven up the Pits Report”),
this time with Joyce
Walker. Sorta makes you think of the Beauty and the Beast, doesn’t
it?... Henry flew his Kadet “Senior Citizen”. He also
let Tony Farmer and Frits take turns at the controls...
Frank Madison showed up with his P-47 Thunderbolt. At one point the
P-47 and Dewey’s Mustang flew together.
The landing was nice
and smooth.
Bill Culberson took off his turbine jet powered F-16 Thunderbird.
At first the flight appeared pretty normal. But then, witnesses said,
its path became erratic and it finally went in south of the runway.
Many people joined in to look for the scattered
parts. The jet appears to be a total loss. At least the airframe
has seen its better
days.
Jonathan Festa was back with his 40% Edge-540, his favorite 3D
plane. He flew while the sky was steadily turning darker and darker.
But it didn’t stop
him. Jonathan had a couple of nice flights practicing his IMAC
maneuvers (IMAC - International Miniature Aircraft Club). After the
last flight he was a happy
camper.
Al Ayler waited until later in the afternoon to fly his SNJ Texan,
a nice scale warbird. But things went wrong from the very start. First
the takeoff was wild and scary.
Just when I thought that he got the plane back under control, the
unexpected happened. What a shame! It was such a fine aircraft. Not
sure what caused the crash. Al drove out to the crash scene. The pilot
figure, although unhurt, appeared very agitated…
Damage was not what I expected.
The engine had come off, but the rest of the fuselage had not sustained
much damage at all. The wing appeared totally intact! This glob of
fishing weights and epoxy survived
also. That flight pretty much wrapped up the excitement for the
day!
This report is a bit short and light, so here’s a bonus. It’s
from a recent article in Popular Science magazine: First Robotic Ornithopter
Hovers, Flies Like a Hummingbird. The creepy, tiny wing-flapping UAV
(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), designed for indoor flight, is modeled
on hummingbirds. The tech company Aerovironment recently won a $2.1
million contract to further their work on the Nano Air Vehicle (NAV).
One of many progressive projects from Darpa (the Pentagon's advanced-research
unit), the NAV is the first-ever "controlled hovering flight
of an air vehicle system with two flapping wings that carries its
own energy source and uses only the flapping wings for propulsion
and control," says Aerovironment. Here is a video of some of
the test flights.
In the future, Darpa plans to use the teeny NAV for secret indoor
and outdoor government missions, like dropping off listening devices
and other cargo, and transmitting sound and video to locations as
far as a kilometer away. Aerovironment plans to make the next batch
of birds smaller (10 grams and 7.5 cm), faster (22 mph), quieter,
and more wind-resistant.
Here’s a nice picture Elton Sullivan sent me of Galveston
Bay. Nice shot, Elton!... 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
