Volume 7 Issue 3 Pages 7 AMA #530 District 11 www.eugenerc.com March 2011 Club Mailing Address: Eugene R/C Aeronauts, PO Box 26344, Eugene, OR. 97402 ERCA News and Information Next CLUB Meeting – March 23, 2011, 7:00 pm at EWEB. If you have a building project, bring it with you for "Show and Tell". At the February Meeting – There were 23 members in attendance. A 50/50 Pot raffle was held, Jim Corbett won $40 plus. Discussion held on raffling a $500 gift certificate. The raffle for a $500 gift certificate may start at the next meeting as well. DUES are DUE - Please have your current AMA card and your 2011 Dues payment for the treasurer at or before the meeting. Renewals must be completed by March 31st to keep from being dropped off the active club roster. The March meeting will have a guest speaker. If you do not like the weather outside, see the indoor flying section. Meeting minutes are ONLINE at: http://eugenerc.com/meetings.html 2011 Meeting Dates Meeting dates EWEB came up with that were available and closest to our requested dates: WED, MAR 23 - EWEB WED, APR 20 - EWEB TUES, MAY 17 - EWEB - 3rd Tues TUES, JUN 28 - Field - 4th Tues TUES, JUL 26 - Field - 4th Tues TUES, AUG 23 - Field - 4th Tues WED, SEP 21 - EWEB WED, OCT 26 - EWEB WED, NOV 23 - EWEB DEC - No meeting Obit - Al Barrington I don't know if you or any of the others in the club knew Fritz Peters. I am friends and former co-workers with his son Rich. I understand Fritz was quite active in model flying before cancer grounded him. I just wanted to relay this announcement of Fritz Peters' passing. Another of our pilots has earned his "wings". Presidents Corner Well what can I say, yuck. This weather has been a real pain in the you know what. I hope that all this bad weather will mean we will have a great summer of flying season. I’m so glade that we have a sun shelter with a retractable roof, thanks Doug and Jim and all who made that happen. I’m happy to say that the Pizza meeting was a success. I don’t have the final count but there had to be at least 30 to 40 people there. We had a 50/50 pot and the winner (and the club) walked away with $45.00. The 50/50 pot will be at all club meeting from now on so check the clothes dryer for some extra change before the next meeting. We also started our raffle for the $500.00 gift certificate to Trump’s Hobbies in Corvallis. The tickets are $5.00 each and the winner will be drawn for no later than the June meeting or sooner if we sell 200 tickets before then. There were several members that helped out with the coast of pizza and drinks, at the end of the night after the 50/50 pot the club had no expenses for the meeting. Thanks to all that helped out. We are starting to get some new members at the field that are new to this hobby. Lets make sure that we all do that we can to help them out and also teach them about the flying field rules. This is a time of learning for some of the new members and they my not know the basic stuff. I think that if we keep this in mind, there can be fun for all to have. I’m putting together a large sized electric helicopter for when ever I can get back out to the field. This months meeting will have a guest speaker to take about all things electric. If you have topics that you would like to talk about at the March meeting, than email or call and I will put them on the agenda. Hope to see you all at the field and at the March club meeting. Regards, Brad S. Werneth ERCA President 2011 Pylon Racing ERCA 2011 Pylon Race Season * April 30th Warm up * May 14th Race #1 and electric * June 11th Race #2 * July 9th Race #3 * Aug. 27th Race #4 Final Pylon - Contact:: Marty Wittman BAM 2011 Race Season (weather permitting) * April 16 Warm-up (Popp’s Field) * May 7 Race #1 (Popp’s Field) * July 23 Race #2 (Field of Dreams) * September 10 Race #3 (TBD) * October 8 Race #4 Finals (TBD) Requests for the upcoming month - from our members My request is. STOP THE RAIN ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Mine is wind less than 15 mph! I want the rain to stop NOW! Treasurers Corner Unless you count kites, I haven't done much flying lately with the stormy weather we've had. I did receive the new Radian Pro from Horizon Hobby. It's all together and programmed to the Spektrum DX7. Now we just need a good day of weather for its maiden flight. Until then I'll be flying the simulator and working here around the hangar. As I write this, I believe I saw a school of fish swim past my window. SCUBA gear may be required to step outside, let alone fly. Thanks to all members who have renewed their AMA and ERCA memberships. We are at over 60 members now. That leaves about 40 members from last year's roster who will be dropped after this month's meeting. I will bring a list of those members to confirm dropping them from the roster. If you have contact or influence with those members, please encourage them to act now. It's easier to retain current members than to recruit new members. I need to send AMA our finalized roster and it would be great to have everyone on it. The treasury remains strong after paying the major bills for the year. We are paid in full on our field lease, AMA club charter, insurance, instructor pilots and some administrative costs. Everyone who was present at our February meeting seemed to have a good time. This was our annual pizza meeting at Roaring Rapids. With the generosity of members who donated toward the cost of the pizza, the club broke even. I welcome your feedback and suggestions for next year's pizza meeting. One bit of feedback I have received so far is to plan more pizza meetings during the year. I look forward to hearing discussion on this at future meetings. Our next meeting is on an odd day. Wednesday, March 23rd. When submitting our meeting schedule to EWEB, I requested our usual 4th Tuesdays of the month far in advance but EWEB had those occupied with meetings of their own. I'm on a quest for a new, convenient, stable and free meeting place where we can get back to a regular schedule. I welcome all suggestions for discussion. Happy and dry landings to all. AL Barrington Sec/Treas, ERCA Projects - Alan Wellentin photo SebArt Miss Wind S 50e My most recent project. It's an electric plane that has a 6S lipo, Hacker a50 16S with a 75 amp ESC and will be swinging a 16X10 prop. I'm setting it up for pattern flying, I plan to get back into precision aerobatics this coming season. Alan Wellentin Tech Tips - Jim Corbett Awhile back there was a discussion at the field about Lithium Polymer battery voltages balancing. I researched the subject via Google and found a wide range of expert advice and specs. Below is a spattering of the info found…. Max voltage/cell 4.23V 4.205V 4.12V Minimum voltage/cell 2.73V 2.47V 3.0V Imbalance of one cell of greater than; 0.1V difference from lowest to highest cell voltage 0.06V compared to average of other cell(s) in the pack. My Opinion - Max 4.1v Min 3.0v Bal 0.1v between highest and lowest. Best Battery Brand ? - I have no opinion, I have tried MANY. Some same-brand, same- size packs purchased from the same-place at the same-time have behaved differently. Worst Battery Brands - I could list a few, but none of those are for sale anymore! What works best for me - Not running the pack down until the ESC cuts it off. Using approximately 70% of the battery capacity before recharging appears to have doubled the life expectancy of the packs I have used. If anyone else has experiences or opinions on LiPo packs, PLEASE share them with us. One of the GREAT things about this HOBBY is folks share information. Pizza Meeting - Doug McWha photos WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS Granted, I was away for two weeks, but I have been back for over two and still have seen fliers at the field only on one occasion. Again, I missed one passable day to a doctor’s appointment, the one-year check on my most recent right knee. It’s fine, by the way, and I’ve taken such good care of it that they’re letting me keep it at least another two years. The one time I did catch some action, it was Wayne Wahrmund who had a new Park Zone Extra 300. This is slightly smaller than what I’d call “medium’. Wayne says the electric powerplant is the equivalent of a .15 glow engine. It’s all made of that smooth, fairly-hard foam, and Wayne was flying it without the landing gear which he says is pretty cheesy and would probably not stand up to the strip as it is now. The plane goes like blazes and, being initially well out of trim, gave Wayne some interesting moments on the first flight, though he got it all sorted out in the end. His verdict is that it will be a challenge and that the thinks he’ll like it. Mel Graham was the other lucky soul who realized that the weather would be flyable that day. He was trimming out his Option, a Pattern ship he built a couple of years ago. Started with a set of plans and a big pile of wood. You may remember that it went straight into the field last Summer; this was its first outing since repairs were finished. He’s now using a YS 140 in the nose and so far thinks the high rate on the ailerons is too high and the low rate too low. It also needs more rudder to do a good knife-edge. Last column, I reported on Secundo Campini’s tart note to the Italian Air Ministry telling them that his N.1 was not a ducted-fan. Well, I’ve finished the book and can tell you that it was certainly flown that way many a time. Without the burners going, the takeoff run was protracted and the rate of climb dismal, but, in truth, the latter was still pretty punk even with the jet in operation. And I find that there were two prototypes built at the same time. The one in the Italian AF Museum is the second and it did not do much flying. Its piston engine was most of the time down in Rome as a back-up for the first prototype. They had tons of trouble with the piston engines, Issota Fraschinni V-12s of a nominal 850 hp. They rarely managed more than 730 horses. That first prototype was damaged by the Germans in their zone of Italy, then taken to Farnborough by the Brits after the war. It was thought not worth putting back together and was then scrapped. That fan was a three- stage affair with 45 variable-pitch blades, so it was a pretty sophisticated contraption. At the RAAF Museum at Point Cook, they put on a one-plane air show at 1:00. The ‘Heritage Flight” has six planes to choose from: An Australian-built P-51 (yawn), a CT- 4 trainer (double yawn), a Pup replica, a Tiger Moth, a Harvard, and a Winjeel. The Harvard was scheduled for my day there, but came down with a cold (or the aeronautical equi- valent) and the replacement was (hurrah) the Winjeel, a plane I’d never seen in the air. The RAAF used it as an ab initio trainer from the mid-50s until the early 70s, then the Army used it to train Forward Air Controllers for another twenty years. It’s a low-wing, side- by-side ship with a P&W R-985, a fixed landing gear (two mains and a tailwheel, as it should be), and flaps. A nice, neat, clean, well-proportioned ship which I think would make a good model (see below). Oh, and I can also tell you that Moorabin’s DC-2 restoration is coming along fine. The fuselage and fin look new. I came home with five Australian model magazines, four Airbornes and a Radio Control Model News. I paid for the newest Airborne and the RCMN - bought them on the first day T was there in Sydney. Almost two weeks later, I was browsing through some back issues of Airborne down in Hearn’s Hobbies in Melbourne when the lady in charge told me to go ahead and take them, if I WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS continued wanted then. One of them had a kit review for a 1/6-scale Winjeel - a nice size for a nice plane. The kit comes with no plans. You get a fistful of exploded views, because this kit is so precisely laser-cut (with no burn marks) that the pieces lock together in perfect alignment. Since this company’s forte is the laser-cutting of wood, not plastic or glassfibre, the kit also comes with neither a cowl nor a canopy - they’re up to you. Wonder how many of the ARF crowd had to he revived by the Rescue Squad after reading that? Assuming, of course, that any of that crowd would read a kit review. I’ve been a busy little bee at my reading desk. Read a book about the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Some of you may remember reading of the government in Paris keeping in touch with the rest of France by flying balloons out over the heads of the Germans, but did you know how many they flew? I’d figured somewhere between six and ten. 65! Only five fell into enemy hands. Two disappeared, probably blown out to sea, and one intrepid crew of two wound up in Norway - safe and sound, if slightly frost-bitten. You find aeronautical stories in some unlikely places. C. O’D. Indoor Flying Flying Schedule - Thursdays at 1:00 - at the National Guard Armory Gym. NOTE - Wednesday is NOT a Armory fly day until further notice. Channel Survey Radio Systems We are seeing more and more flyers using 2.4G radio systems. The Frequency control board has 20 2.4G clips now. PLEASE be aware that at ALL AMA sanctioned events ONLY 2.4G transmitters can be used. There are still a lot of us 72 MHz flyers. In an attempt to figure out how many of us are using which frequency bands we are doing a survey. PLEASE indicate what channels you are operating you RC equipment on. See Clip board in the Club house. --- That's All Folks - Eugene R/C Aeronauts Newsletter Editor 1618 Gilham Rd. Eugene, OR. 97401 March 2011 «FirstLast» «Street» «CityStZip» ____________________________ Renewing Current Member ____________________________ INVOICE FOR 2011 MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL - EUGENE R/C AERONAUTS Please fill in the following information and send back with your Dues Remittance Member Name __________________________________________ Name Tag Clip ___ Pin ___ 2011 AMA Membership No. ________________________ I certify that I have paid my 2011 AMA Dues. Initial _________ Member Address ________________________________________________________________ Member Phone No. ____________________________ Cell: ____________________________ Member Email Address ___________________________________________________________ Newsletter Via: Email _____ Regular Mail _____ Do not need to receive newsletter _____ Please enclose your check for $ 60.00 as a current member renewing for 2011 and Mail to: Eugene R/C Aeronauts, PO Box 26344, Eugene, Or. 97402. Or bring this INVOICE and $60.00 to the Meeting Next CLUB Meeting – Wednesday, March 23, 2011 – 7:00 pm at EWEB December 2009 2 March 2011 5