Volume 7 Issue 11 Pages 6 AMA #530 District 11 www.eugenerc.com November 2011 Club Mailing Address: Eugene R/C Aeronauts, PO Box 26344, Eugene, OR. 97402 ERCA News and Information Next CLUB Meeting - Wednesday, November 23, 2011, 7:00 pm EWEB. If you have a building project, bring it with you for "Show and Tell". At the October Meeting - Good turnout, good pizza, officers elected (same as the current year). Show and Tell - Tom Snyder brought in some models for sale and a large list of others available. See the For Sale page on our web site for the list. Volunteer (or two) Needed - Our columnist is retiring from his monthly contribution. In his words "I am retiring from journalism, though I won't promise to stay that way." I hope he will send in some tid-bits from time to time. Chuck O'Donnell has been writing the "Weekday Warriors" for many years. He even sent in contributions for our club newsletter after he moved "back east" in 1968! My thanks to Chuck sharing his newsletter library with us. We now have some copies of Aeronauts Newsletters starting in 1968. My request is that one or more of our members will step up to the plate (or sit down in front of their computer) and contribute some regular input for our newsletter. Several members have contributed product reviews, vender experiences ect. Your newsletter editor would really appreciate more member input. Dues reminder - From December 1971 Newsletter - "A second major item and a related one will be making up an accurate club roster for our AMA charter. Have you sent in your AMA fee yet? If not, you should right away ..... yes headquarters will check our roster against the list of paid memberships, send in your money." Meeting minutes are ONLINE at: http://eugenerc.com/meetings.html Winter Flying Rules Attention All Pilots: During November, December, January, February Saturday, Sunday & Wednesday NO FLYING before 12:00 Noon. NO ARRIVING before 12:00 Noon. October Meeting - at Roaring Rapids Pizza Web site HITS - January 6 - November 17, 2011 forsale 3351 weather 2216 field pics 1940 newsletters 1058 events 987 movies 898 projects 875 pylon 632 meetings 532 pictures 506 links 463 members 463 flyingfieldinfo 388 notams 375 ocorner 348 instructors 263 invitation 237 forums 220 techtalk 195 contactus 173 aboutus 146 reviews 133 memberapp 127 constitution 10 At the field - October 26 At the field - October 31 At the field - November 1 At the field - November 4 At the field - November 9 Raffle - a second raffle being held Get your tickets from: Brad Werneth, Doug McWha, Jayne Krenz. WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS No sooner had I ranted a bit about the rain in October than it stopped. We had less than half of what is normal. November is following in the same vein; we have had only about 1" when we should have had about 3" by now. That's not to say that we have been overwhelmed by good flying weather. The fog has been down around our ears all through many mornings and fliers unable to forget the balmy airs of Summer are standing around with chattering teeth when it's still a mild 48ø and the breeze is less than 15 mph. Get out and fly, guys; it will only get worse until 7/1/12 comes along. Craig Canaday came out with his out-sized Yak 54 and made only a couple of flights before fleeing to his fireside. Mike Vaughan brought out a small, electric Fokker D.VII, but retired to someplace calmer and warmer after but one flight. Made of sterner stuff (and blessed with a somewhat nicer day), Mel and JR Graham were trimming a Super Sportster, built from an old Great Planes kit. Covered with silk and doped, too - you'd almost think Mel was as old as I am. Power is an 0.S. .91 tilted to starboard which lays the muffler down along the fuselage side and gives the model a sportier look. This one is not for Pattern competition, just for quotidian sport flying. JR is still flying his Reactor Biplane. You'll remember that it began life with that problematic Y.S. 110 in the nose, then received a 20cc Chinese gas-burner. Alas, the ignition system on that one went haywire and is off for repair. JR now has a Y.S. 120 for power and the most interesting thing is that all these engines pretty much drop into the same mounts. Wayne Wahrmund's AT-6 has again come a'cropper. It bounced upon landing and Wayne poured on the coal to go around again. The bounce must have put the nose just a hit too high for that sort of treatment and, instead of a go-round, there was a snaproll. Thin- winged Scale ships are not nearly as forgiving of coarse stick-work as are sport ships. The cowl is cracked, the firewall pushed in a bit, and the tailwheel torn off. Definitely not the first time for that tailwheel. Wayne may he able to fix that part in his sleep. "All repairable", he said. This is the time to convert it to one of the French or Canadian fixed-gear versions, right? Scott Fellman had an odd thing crop up in his Army Hughes 500 helicopter. On the first flight with the new, Scale, body, he needed a hit of left trim. Scott put it down to some "weird aerodynamics" associated with the new body. Certainly that's an easy call to make - helicopters are the embodiment of weird aerodynamics - but as time went on it got worse, requiring more and more trim. Scott was awake; he brought the Hughes in to land. A good look revealed a bent pushrod in the rotor system - call it an aileron pushrod. Scott thinks that, in wrestling the Scale body into place, he bent that pushrod slightly. There is a lot of load on a pushrod that moves one of those big rotor systems and the load on this one was now off-center. That made it easy to bend the rod a little more and that, in turn, made it even easier to put even more of a bend into it, thus the ever-increasing need for trim. Scott is of the opinion that he got it down just in time. I've been reading a book about the Nieuport company which you probably know from its WWI N.17 fighter, of which there have been dozens and dozens of kits. Like several other French companies, it was started by two brothers, in this case, Edouard and Charles. The former was a real nut for speed and set out to find the best streamline shape for the nacelle of his first plane. He had no access to a wind tunnel, so he towed a block of soap behind a motorboat on the Seine and observed the shape it was carved into by the flow of water. Both the brothers had been WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS continued killed in crashes before WWI had started, but the company lasted until 1950. And that's it. I am retiring from journalism, though I won't promise to stay that way. It's just that I'm getting tired of trying to come up with something every month and then typing it up. With me, typing takes on all the aspects of hand-to-hand combat (in school I never did get a positive number on a typing test), so you regular readers of this column will have to find something else to do - both of you.. C. O'D. Treasurers Report At our last meeting the membership decided to retain the existing officers for 2012. All officers accepted the jobs. In all the excitement we didn't nominate a member if the year. This will be on the agenda for our next meeting which will be 7pm Wednesday November 23, 2011 - at EWEB. EWEB and I finished negotiating for the 2012 meeting reservation dates. We were hoping for Wednesday nights since they would be more compatible with our VP's schedule. EWEB had all of the Wednesday nights booked up so I had to settle for mostly Thursday nights. Here are the dates that EWEB has approved along with the other non-EWEB dates I chose for the pizza meetings and field meetings. 2012 ERCA Meetings January 5 Thursday EWEB February 23 Thursday Roaring Rapids Pizza March 29 Thursday EWEB April 19 Thursday EWEB May 24 Thursday EWEB June 28 Thursday Field July 26 Thursday Field August 23 Thursday Field September 18 TUESDAY EWEB October 25 Thursday Roaring Rapids Pizza November 29 Thursday EWEB December - No meeting Happy landings. AL 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: Groundskeeper: Doug McWha - 541-741-3326 - flyduke@comcast.net Newsletter Editor: Jim Corbett - 541-344-5022 - james.corbett@comcast.net Next CLUB Meeting - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 - 7:00 pm EWEB --- That's All Folks - Eugene R/C Aeronauts Newsletter Editor 1618 Gilham Rd. Eugene, OR. 97401 November 2011 ®FirstLast¯ ®Street¯ ®CityStZip¯ ___________________________Renewing Current Member____________________________ INVOICE FOR 2012 MEMBERSHIP - EUGENE R/C AERONAUTS Please fill in the following information and send back with your Dues Remittance Member Name __________________________________________________________________ 2012 AMA Membership No.________________________ I certify that I have paid my 2012 AMA Dues. Initial _________ Member Address _______________________________________________________________ Member Phone No. __________________________ Member Email Address __________________________________________________________ Newsletter Preference: ____ Email ____ Regular Mail ____ Do not need to receive newsletter Please enclose your check for $ 60.00 as a current member renewing for 2012 and Mail to: Eugene R/C Aeronauts, PO Box 26344, Eugene, Or. 97402. Or bring this INVOICE and $60.00 to the Meeting, Wednesday, November 23, 7:00 pm at EWEB. Newsletter ONLINE at: http://eugenerc.com/NL/CURRENTNEWSLETTER.pdf December 2009 2 November 2011 5