Volume 7 Issue 5 Pages 8 AMA #530 District 11 www.eugenerc.com May 2011 Club Mailing Address: Eugene R/C Aeronauts, PO Box 26344, Eugene, OR. 97402 ERCA News and Information Next CLUB Meeting – May 17, 2011, 7:00 pm at EWEB. If you have a building project, bring it with you for "Show and Tell". At the April Meeting – There were 17 members in attendance. Al reported that we have 68 members current on their dues. Show and Tell - Several members brought aircraft to the meeting. Some really nice aircraft to look over UP CLOSE! Demonstration - Frank Blain preformed a repair on the covering of a wing, and explained how to use trim seal. Other news - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NOTAM - July 23 - There will be a NO FLY DAY Saturday, July 23rd, the land owner is having a family reunion and will be using all the parking space he can for those folks. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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: 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 TUES, OCT 25 - Pizza WED, NOV 23 - EWEB DEC - No meeting Pylon Racing ERCA 2011 Pylon Race Season * May 14th Race #1 and electric * June 11th Race #2 * July 9th Race #3 * Aug. 27th Race #4 Final BAM 2011 Race Season (weather permitting) * July 23 Race #2 (Field of Dreams) * September 10 Race #3 (Popp’s Field) * October 8 Race #4 Finals (Dorrance Meadow) Presidents Corner The big thing for this time of year to remember is safety. We seem to be talking all the time about safety but that is a good thing. Safety should always be foremost in your mind when out at the flying field. So lets remember as more and more members are making it to the field to keep safety in mind. Our first summer flying event is the Big Bird Fly-In in July. We will need to have some volunteers to help out at the event and even be the Contest Director. We will be asking for help at the May meeting, so come and volunteer. We are continuing to do research for a possible future solar powered battery charging station, so if you have some thoughts about it please come and share them we the rest of the club. We will also be going over the Constitution and By- Law changes at the next meeting. Don’t forget about the 50/50 pot at the next meeting (all members that bring in show and tell will get one free 50/50 ticket) and the Trump’s Hobby’s gift certificate. There are several members with raffle tickets so you can buy them at any time. Thanks Frank for a great class on aircraft repair and covering. I know that we all learned something new; I hope not to be putting these skills to use except for on new building projects. If anyone has topics that they would like to talk about at the May meeting, than email or call and I will put them on the agenda. Hope to see you all at the field and at the May club meeting. Regards, Brad S. Werneth April Meeting - Good turnout Vice Presidents Corner There are few moments when it appears spring and warmer dryer weather might actually come to pass! Many of us are dusting off the winter’s accumulation of aeronaut inactivity. As we head out to the field with “old reliable” and our new projects, please remember to “dust off” your flight-line etiquette. Our sport is tremendously fun, fascinating but carries a potential for injury and harm. The last thing any of us want is someone getting hurt. Here are a few items we should all remember and keep fresh in our minds whether we fly all the time or just getting going again: ? Please review the rules posted on the east end of the club shack! ? Not all flyers skills are equal – heads up – be alert. Engine, electronic, and equipment failure can happen to anyone! ? Pre-flight inspections can often save planes and costly problems. ? Every flyer is to obtain and wear a frequency pin and post either an AMA card or a Club Membership card in the club shack. ? Always vocally announce when you are entering the field (crossing the flight line) for any reason. ? Always vocally announce” take offs” and “landings”. ? We do not have an established flight pattern at our field but please be respectful of the pattern others are flying and always give priority to pilots experiencing problems. ? Always vocally announce “dead stick” or other flight problems. This list does not cover everything but I hope we all can have a safe, fun and enjoyable time as we fly together. Cool heads and respectful interactions go a long way to build a enjoyable experience and a great club! BIG BIRD Event is coming soon! July 16th. Mike Farr Treasurers Corner We are at 79 members and bracing for a great flying season. Happy landings. AL Barrington Sec/Treas, ERCA Raffle drawing near $500 Gift certificate for Trumps Hobbies It's a chance to win a Gift Certificate to purchase any item that is available at Trumps and help out the club along the way. Members selling tickets: Brad Werneth, Doug McWha, Jayne Krenz WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS A guy I fly Freeflight with is one of those poor souls who have to go to work every day, putting money in the Social Security fund, so you and I can buy new engines, radios, and the like. He’d like to get in some test-flying, as well as some work around his house, but he threw up his hands the other day and asked, “In Oregon, what follows two days of rain?” and he then supplied the answer, “Monday.” Being, as he is, cooped up in the mill all day, he may not have realized that Monday often turns out to be rainy, too. I am not sure we Weekday Warriors have been making out any better than the weekend guys, even if we do have more days to choose from. The Weather Bureau’s radio station informed me the other day that only 63% of April had measurable rain, but they failed to observe that much of that other 37% was rather windier than we like it, especially with those winds generally being across the runway. That 5-2 edge we have over the weekenders did yield a bit of flyable weather and it was taken advantage of by some of us. Roger Winz has been tuning up his Skyraider for the upcoming Pylon season as has Dwayne Graville. Roger’s also been flying what he terms a “T-34”. This one has been handed down from son to father instead of t’other way ‘round and Mark has told him to “fly the covering off it”. The vertical tail is pretty T-34-ish as is the canopy, but strip ailerons? There are two little chin intakes which leads me to believe that a T-34C is intended, but, on the whole, I don’t think Beech would claim ancestry. Flies like the devil, though, with a GMS .47 up front. Dwayne’s other plane has been a Twist, a 40-size model, in which he has (remarkably for this field!) an O.S. 40. This is the one he broke in half on its very first flight last Fall, then put back together in the wee hours and flew the next day. Wayne Wahrmund is another flier of Twists, though his, being ex- Doug Deveraux, is in modified form. Wayne is true-blue; he follows the fine old Eugene R/C tradition of putting a .71 4-stroke in this 40-size ship. Wheel pants not only make a plane look good, but their extra streamlining improves the model’s handling, right? Mel Graham took the pants off his Venus II to install bigger wheels, the better to cope with the soggy runway. Both Mel and his son, JR, think that the Venus handles distinctly better with its pants off. There’s probably a vulgar remark I could make here, but I will not - and neither should you. This is a high-class publication. Ron Hokinsen boasts dual citizenship: He’s from Florence and is in that club, too. Ron’s all-electric and was flying a Magpie. This bird has a foam-slab of a fuselage and a foam wing. The wing has a real airfoil section. Not so the tail feathers, whose leading edges are uncompromisingly square. 220 watt motor, full-house, but no landing gear. Ron had one of those foam SR-9s, too, and they do fly nicely, don’t they? Mike Vaughan, who fled Florence for Cheshire last year, heard a funny noise while flying that big P-Si Voodoo racer. He not only took out the motor, he took it apart, but found nothing wrong. Then he probed a peculiar mark on the motor mount and the mount came apart in his hands. I guess there would be funny noises from a model with that big a motor running in a cracked mount. New mount built; no more funny noises. Your columnist spent 3½ days down near Sacramento at the Northern California Freeflight Championships. Yes, my friends, there is a sun, and I spent 3½ days sloshing on the suntan lotion in carload lots and enjoying the 73 - 80 degree temperatures. Not everything was perfect. For 2½ of those days, the wind blew - 22 to 35 mph. Sunday, the last day, was beautiful. 800 and about a 2 mph wind. I had models for four rubber-powered WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS continued events. Of course, I had left all of the props at home. You can’t just borrow a prop from someone else. These are parts of assemblies that include a noseblock which fits an individual model. So I was reduced to throwing Old-Timer Hand-Launched Glider, something I can go back to doing now that I have two good knees under me. Still have to work on getting back my coordination. I was throwing as though my arm, torso, and legs belonged to three different people who had never even met. I got 2nd. Yes, there were only two of us entered. But it certainly was beautiful sitting out there on those sunny, warm days. And the rain didn’t start until I was almost 30 miles back into Oregon on the way home. C. O’D. For Sale 3W 85xi with two mufflers (RTF) http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/item.cfm?itemId=745459 Raptor 50 Helo OS 50, 401 gyro, all servos. $ 350.00 Marty Wittman 541-968-2094 wittmanm@yahoo.com O.S. “Gemini-160” FT-160 Twin-Cylinder 4-Stroke Engine Brand new, never ran. $800.00 Mickey Cohen mcaviation@comcast.net --- That's All Folks - Eugene R/C Aeronauts Newsletter Editor 1618 Gilham Rd. Eugene, OR. 97401 May 2011 «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 coordinator: Marry Wittman - 541-968-2094 - marty.wittman@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 – Tuesday, May 17, 2011 – 7:00 pm at EWEB December 2009 2 May 2011 5