Volume 8 Issue 8 AMA #530 District 11 www.eugenerc.org 6 Pages August 2012 Club Mailing Address: Eugene RC Aeronauts, PO Box 26344, Eugene, OR. 97402 ERCA News and Information Next CLUB Meeting – Wednesday, August 22, 2012, 7:00 pm at the field. If you have a building project, bring it with you for "Show and Tell". At the July meeting - 14 members and guests attended. Good flying weather, good food. Club shirts distributed. New membership cards handed out. . Oregon Air and Space Museum - our club manned a display of some planes at an event on July 21 & 22nd. Fire in the field. See NOTAMS page on our web site and see report on page 5. Beautiful Evening Flying - Summer flying days are slipping away again. Just wanted to give you a heads-up on some great flying opportunity. Monday evening, I arrive at the field at 6:30 PM. Wind was blowing 14 mph - a bit beyond my courage. I needed to finish breaking in a new Saito 100 so I started up the engine just to run a tank through the new piston and rings. 7 PM the wind dropped to 6 mph and I had the field to myself for a beautiful hour and a half of near perfect conditions. I flew my plane from the middle of the field to the east and the setting sun provide ample brightness to see my plane clearly. Fly directly to west off the runway is blinding because of the setting sun and will cause a rise in your blood pressure when your plane disappears for a few seconds. Just fly to the east! The wind diminishes as the sun begins to set on these hot windy summer days. You can pretty much count on it! Have fun and be safe! See you at the field! Mike Farr Meeting minutes are ONLINE at: http://eugenerc.org/meetings.html Upcoming events - See eugenerc.org Events page for more info August 18, ERCA - Fun Fly. 9am to 6pm August 18-19, WINGS FOR WISHES. September 3, ERCA - Labor Day Fun Fly. ERCA Field. 9am to 6pm. September 8th, BAM Pylon Race 3rd Contest Race October 6th, BAM Pylon Race 4th Contest Race At The Meeting July 25th Doug McWha photos 14 members and guests attended. On our web site Events Page FaceBook Page At the Field July 30th At the Field August 2nd Field Power The system is getting used a fair amount. Several suggestions for improvement have been made, please keep the suggestions coming. Several fuses have blown, I see that as part of the learning curve. If you are charging batteries larger than 3600 ma, I suggest you use the 40 AMP outlets, not the 10 AMP switched ones. Instructions for starting and connecting the generator are in the club house. PLEASE turn off the two 40 AMP circuit breakers and replace the cover before leaving the field. Those that have donated materials, labor and or cash to the project: Al Barrington, Brad Werneth, Doug McWha, Doyle Cook, James Thomas, Khoi Tran, Mark Agerter, Marty Wittman, Mike Farr, Warren Edwards, Robert Morris Sr, Chuck O'Donnel. Some more CASH donations would be appreciated to offset some of my out-of- pocket expenses. Jim Corbett Instructions on EugeneRC.org’s Flying Field Info page. PYLON Racing 2012 ERCA 2012 Race Season: CANCELLED Club 40 Pylon - Contact: Wayne Wahrmund BAM 2012 Race Season: April 14th: Practice Race May ??th: 1st Contest Race July 14th: 2nd Contest Race September 8th: 3rd Contest Race October 6th: 4th Contest Race Club 40 Pylon – Contact: Waldemar Frank 2012 Meeting dates January 5 Thursday EWEB February 23 Thursday Pizza March 29 Thursday EWEB April 19 Thursday EWEB May 24 Thursday EWEB June 27 Wednesday Field July 25 Wednesday Field August 22 Wednesday Field September 18 TUESDAY EWEB October 25 Thursday Pizza November 29 Thursday EWEB December - No meeting At the Field August 10th At the Field August 12th Donnie's new Pilot with da60 - Mike Winklepleck photos At the Field August 13th At the Field August 13th Fire in Field Saturday July 21, 2012 Incident report: At approximately 12:55pm we had an electric plane powered by two Turnigy lipo batteries (bought within the last 12 months & inspected prior to flight) crashed 150 yards northwest of the club house. The crash resulted in a fire. I am very conscious of the possibility of fire due to a Lipo battery so I watched the area for approx 20 seconds before I noticed heat coming up from the crash site. No flames were visible. I called fire and ran for the extinguishers as Shola (guest) and Marty Wittman ran towards the area with a towel. It took approx 90 seconds to reach the area that had erupted into a full blown fire reaching 4 feet high stretching to an approximate width of 7 feet. We concentrated putting out the outside rows of hay first hitting each side with the extinguishers and pushing anything on fire to the middle of the two rows with our feet while trying to create a fire barrier around the fire. The 5 pound extinguishers where quickly emptied and put out the side rows for the most part. While Shola and Marty continued to try and keep the remaining hay that was on fire contained I called Mike Burgess reporting we had a fire and to come out. I ran back to the shed and grabbed the 5 gallon bucket of water. That bucket is very heavy especially when your exhausted and lugging it 150 yards. We used all of the water and some additional water brought to the scene by Mike Burgesses dad Mark. WE WERE VERY LUCKY TO GET THIS VERY FAST FIRE UNDER CONTROL. Fire Observations - it was exhausting for myself, Marty and new comer Shola to run the 150 yards with extinguishers and 5 gallon jug of water. - if we did not keep an eye on the spot it could have taken us a while to see we had a fire. - If it would have taken us another 30 seconds to get to the fire we would NOT have gotten it under control. - two 5 lbs extinguishers were barely enough to get this fire under control. - hay was very dry and extremely flammable! Areas of opportunity: - additional fire extinguishers needed. Brad has increased our 2 x 5lbs extinguishers to 1 x 10lbs and 2 x 5lbs (when they get refilled) - We should never operate any plane or helicopter, gas or electric without having fully charged extinguishers on hand. - proximity of extinguishers to fire. I believe during high risk fire dangers we should keep the extinguishers on the flight line during flying. - we should put on the back side of our new id cards the gps coordinates as field address for emergencies such as this. - we need to post the field address and gps coordinates on the outside of the shack or in the flight line - we need to develop a procedure for fires - we need a policy and probably additional education on the dangers of Lipo batteries. - POSSIBLY routine safety checks on airplanes (during high risk fire season) regardless if it uses Lipo's or not. I believe additional safety policies and procedures must be written and adopted. We must be safe not just for ourselves but the community. This is another opportunity to show the Burgess family and community that we are responsible, safe and considerate. Looking back at this situation I should have given direction to one of them to call 911 then run out and try to address the fire. I can't express this enough, we are very lucky we got this under control. The whole field could have gone up in a matter of minutes. Mike Winklepleck Safety Coordinator --- That's All Folks -- Newsletter Editor 1618 Gilham Rd. Eugene, OR. 97401 August 2012 «FirstLast» «Street» «CityStZip» ERCA CLUB CONTACTS President: Brad Werneth - 541-285-5935 - brad@werneth.com Vice President: Mike Farr - 541-689-4564 - far-owt@comcast.net Sec/Treasurer: Al Barrington - 541-935-4960 - albarrington@msn.com Safety Officer: Mike Winklepleck - 541 -968-0504 - heidisman1@gmail.com Groundskeeper: Doug McWha - 541-741-3326 - flyduke@comcast.net Newsletter Editor: Jim Corbett - 541-344-5022 - james.corbett@comcast.net Next CLUB Meeting – Wednesday, August 22, 2012 – 7:00 pm at the Field Newsletter ONLINE at: http://eugenerc.org/NL/CURRENTNEWSLETTER.pdf December 2009 2 August 2012 5