Volume 6 Issue 9 Pages 8 AMA #530 District 11 www.eugenerc.com September 2010 Club Mailing Address: Eugene R/C Aeronauts, PO Box 26344, Eugene, OR. 97402 ERCA News and Information Next CLUB Meeting – September 28, 2010, 7:00 pm at EWEB. If you have a building project, bring it with you for "Show and Tell". At the August Meeting – There were 22 members and guests in attendance. Fund raising was mentioned. Members decided to raffle off a member ship and a Lift-n-Lok tool box. Labor day Fun Fly – Good turnout 50 members and guest attended - lots of flying. Two raffles were conducted. Thanks to Jayne they both made the club a profit. Check the web site for pictures from the event. Upcoming ERCA events - Pylon Race October 23rd . Meeting minutes are ONLINE at: http://eugenerc.com/meetings.html Presidents Corner Well guys, Labor Day Fun Fly was a great success. We had lots of pilots and weather was perfect that day. All the flight benches were taken and people were able to fly until late in the afternoon. Check our web site for the pics of guys and their planes. Jenny did a great job of selling raffle tickets to raise funds for the club. Many thanks again to Doug and the maintenance crew for keeping the runway green and grass cut low for the event. Al did solid work at the BBQ as usual. As you guys have noticed, the rain has arrived in Oregon and the flying days will be scarce again. It's time to build and fly every chance you get. Bring your next project for show and tell at the meeting at EWEB building. At the next meeting, I will remind people to discuss with prospective members about running for club officer positions for 2011. We will take nominations at the Oct meeting and vote at Nov meeting. 2011 may be a challenging year for the club depending on what Mike Burgess will decide on land use long term. We will need officers that can devote the time necessary to keep the club going. We have several members in the club that I know can do a wonderful job if they're willing to step forward. Please start discussing among members for some prospective nominations by October meeting. See you guys next week. See you then. Khoi Tran PROJECT - a Marty Wittman project - Visit EugeneRC.com for more BONZO 09-23-2010 As you can see I have been busy ( the rain is good for something ). The can-o -pee is cut and detailed. The cowling is cut and needs detailed. I have spent a lot of time on little things like , cowl cheeks to wing faring top and bottom, fitting the engine to the cowling and sanding sanding and sanding. (one of my favorite things). It has been an interesting build but it is structurally complete. Now comes ALL the little things that has to be done. I still have to make wing mount to fus and a mount for the cap-o-pee and make some “ L “ brackets to install the cowling. None of witch are difficult. Then start installing the control linkage for elevators and rudder. The wing has to have ailerons cut in and hinged and wires run for the servos (holes are already in the ribs for this purpose). When I build the wing I did plan ahead and installed servo mounts and the wing hold down hard wood. So just a matter of remembering were they are!!.. (No I marked the plans ) The engine is inverted and the exhaust will be the biggy. I would like to put a Pitts muffle on it but I don't have the room front to back and a inverted side mount will be cause to remove the left side of the cowling. Well that's not an option ether.. So what now ?? Looking at the plain, one would say the cowl cheeks are huge and they would be right, (all made to scale ) however, they are hollow inside and the cowl cheeks would be a good place for a muffler. I'm guna have to design and build one, but that is where it's guna live. It will be easier to make the muffler if I don;t have to worry about muffler pressure, so I have researched it and I will put on a Perry VP- 30 pump on it. No muffler pressure required. A lot of you have asked when BONZO will be done? Hell I don't know. It depends on the weather. The more it rains the more I work on it. However I do hope the flying season is not over yet!!!! So if you see rain then you will see BONZO real soon. I'll keep you posted!! Marty For Sale - More items on web site - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Birdworks - MOG Slope flyer - No instructions, mostly self-explanatory assembly Needs Radio gear (Rx, Rx bat pack and two servos) Also needs a 48" spar, suggested wood dowel, I would recommend either carbon fiber tube or fiber glass tube .370" $25 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Futaba - Skysport 6A - 72 MHZ on channel 42 - Tx bat holds a charge, Rx works, by needs a longer antenna, three of the servos work well, one slow, cleaning it may fix, switch harnes works. NO Rx bat pack $27 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Top Flite - Magnetic Balancer - New in box $17 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hobbico - HOT SHOT Glo-starter - New in package $12 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Top Flite - Cessna 182 - Started, unknown if all pieces are in the two box halves. $75 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Contact Jim Corbett Email: james.corbett@comcast.net WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS Oh, my. I have been closing windows that have been open all the time since late June. There has even been (no, don’t say it!) rain to keep me from flying on a couple of recent days. Harbingers, I fear, of those endless months when the sun makes only cameo appearances in our skies. I’m glad that there has been a fair amount of action since the last meeting, because this column is, again, being typed a week early. Your columnist is off to God’s Country, i.e., Sussex County, N.J., from which he will make a sidetrip to the New England Air Museum at Windsor Locks, Conn., and return via Rhinebeck. It’s been 18 years since I have seen either place and I expect there have been some changes. The most recent Fun Fly took place on Labor Day, a Monday, and thus qualifies for mention here. There were 50 people registered for the event, which means that 51 flew, your truly having forgotten to sign up. I made four or five flights with the Aquila and found a small five or six minutes worth of a thermal on one. On the last one, however, I hooked into a dandy. No skill involved; I flew right into it off the launch line. “Over 20 mm.” was one report and “just under 30” was another. Which ever it was, it was at that point that my neck gave out and I came back to land. The big news was the total destruction of Doug’s Disgrace, that disreputable old EasySport Doug McWha had been flying since the Short Mountain days. He was making a pass at the Limbo Line and flew it into the ground at speed. A roar of delight went up from the assembled throng and joy reigned unconfined. At last, we were rid of the scraggly old thing. Understand, though, that The McWha strapped the mess together with a carload of rubber bands and actually made one circuit of the field, just to show it could be done, but that sorry sack of splinters was through. Hmm. am reliably informed that all that cheering and catcalling was not only cruel and heartless, but — are you ready for this? - quite premature. Chuck Jenkins, the soul of reliability, you’ll agree, tells me that Doug replaced the oil-sodden mush that the model’s belly had become with a piece of plywood, then dipped the whole fuselage into a vat of “Gorilla Glue”. That thing will again appear at the field to offend our delicate aesthetic sensibilities. Are you listening, Pat? Pat Willis, himself, made a pass at the Limbo as did Marty Whitman and Ivan Williams. The line didn’t survive any of the three, though it exacted revenge on two of them. The tall fin on Pat’s big Giles sliced right through it without the airplane even noticing. Marty’s Skyraider hit it nose-on and was dumped unceremoniously on the turf with not enough damage to keep it from flying later in the day. Ivan’s profile P—51 got its landing gear tangled after a couple of good passes, but I don’t think the damage was mortal. Wayne Wahrmund brought so many planes to the Fun Fly that he had to remove the l.g. from his LT—40 to fit it back in the trunk. Wayne’s also been flying the modified Funtana he got from Doug Devereaux. The main mod was an extra three inches of wing to see if the landings could be made at a slower rate of knots. Wayne says the Funtana still drops like the well—know rock below a certain speed, a speed below which Wayne would like to be able to fly. Donny Krenz is doing all his own flying now on his Toledo Special. He has also acquired a U-Can-Do, that popular “second plane”. He was installing the WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS (continued) control pushrods at the field the other day, but I don’t know that it’s been flown yet. Maybe still breaking in the engine, a new Saito .82, like the one in the Toledo Special. Another guy honoring the great Ohio city is Mike Farr, whose Special has a Saito .72 under the cowl. Why not the .82? “I HAD the .72”, Mike explained - not at all a bad reason. John Byrne’s Skyraider met with a mishap, but is again on the flightline. “Rebuilt from the wing trailing edge forward” was the way John described the fuselage — and it’s a bright yellow now. A lot of the usual guys with the usual ships have been seen at the strip: Roger Winz and his orange Skyraider, Ken Springate with his Excelleron (“best plane I have”), and Al Barrington flying his Eagle II. I know Al has other aeroplanes, but it’s always the Eagle in the air. Almost always. Today (9/10), he was flying an Ember, the Indoor electric, on the near- calm, albeit foggy, Friday. By the way, if you haven’t been to the Indoor gatherings at the Springfield Armory lately, please be advised that they now start at 1:00. On the 17th, give a thought to Calbraith Perry Rodgers, who, on that date 99 years ago, set out from Sheepshead Bay, Long Island, N.Y., on the first transcontinental flight -all the way to the Left Coast in California. You’ll have to wait until November to mark the end of the flight - it was not an easy trip. C ‘OD PROJECT - a Kenton Melville project - Visit EugeneRC.com for more MS Composit P-51 EPP “Foamy” pylon racer Purchased at Trumps Hobbies for @$130 (plane/motor/ESC/battery) for pylon racing. While up there I grabbed a few $14 Hitec HS-55 micro servos, $1.50 APC slowflier 8x6 props and of course some 3ft CF rods and sticks(@$20 for 3 sizes total). I used a spare HS-81 servo for the wing. PROJECT (continued) Buy foam safe CA glue and kicker only. I use thin and medium thickness rubberized Bob Smith as it flexes instead of cracking, it may be listed as “hinge CA” and when hit with kicker it will cure almost instantly. 1st - Assembly …. and what instructions? They are a suggestion at best but you get the basic idea. The EPP fuse can have a little snake in it but it comes out when I laid it flat on the build table and carefully using a covering heat gun to heat a large area of skin on the other side it allowed the EPP to stretch and bend the fuse strait. After the fuse was straight enough, I sharpened/saw-toothed the end of a 24inch piece of 4mm CF tube and drilled it slowly down the center of the fuse, starting at the tail and carefully aimed it towards the nose. In the nose I lined up the motor mounting plate to mark where 2 screws go into the fuse, here I screwed in (2) 6 inch CF tubes with medium CA, then attached the motor mount using 2 screws screwed into the tubes. This stiffened the fuse in a huge way and allows for better rudder effectiveness as the fuse will not bend in opposition. Wing halves were joined together using medium CA and a 0.5mm thick CF rib in the middle, with one wingtip lifted to 30mm. The instructions show string being used as a spar, and I agree this to be surprisingly effective! Using a piece of balsa I fashioned a 3mm depth cutting sled with a #11 blade and used a ruler to slice the 3mm deep lines where the spar string is to be buried. Starting with the top of the wing and wingtip with a single string anchored with a little CA and pulled tightly to keep the string taunt, I used a toothpick and laid it into the wing all the way to the other tip, and then follow with the 2nd string. Once one side of the wing had both strings pulled, I soaked the whole length of the wing spar string with thin CA and let sit a minute, then used the medium CA down the spar to help the EPP close together above the buried string, then hit the whole spar with kicker. Repeat the same procedure on the bottom of the wing. The best way I found to loosen up the aileron hinge-line on EPP material is to perforate the hinge-line every ½ inch with ¼ inch of material uncut with a #11 blade, like this……. ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ PROJECT (continued) Installed the HS-81 servo and linkage, then attached the wing using medium CA and once aligned, hit it with kicker. Tail parts are made of a different type of foam that melts! with thin CA, so used the medium and kicker CA and some 0.5mm CF strips to strengthen them. I glued them to the fuse and stuck a CF stick through the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer and into the fuse. Added 1/64th plywood scrap to each control horn for added strength; did this on the ailerons as well. 2nd - Radio I installed the receiver as far from the wing servo as the lead would allow and placed the HS-55 servos as far back as those leads would allow. Attached the brushless 2208/12 motor and placed the Thunderbird-18 ESC as far back as those leads would reach, and then hot glued it into a recessed cutout in the fuse. Tested the radio and adjusted control linkages. Battery placement next… Made a CG jig and flipped the plane over to set the CG while figuring out the location for the battery. Last thing was to cut out the spot and loop Velcro through it to hold the battery in place. Flying weight 11- 14 oz using the Thunder Power Pro 1350 mAh 2S lipo pack in the package. RTF weigh came in at 13.1 oz. NOTE: the CC Thunderbird-18 ESC low voltage cut-off I hooked it up to my Castle-Link and found the factory setting to be 5.5volts!!! Way too low for a 2S Lipo pack. After some digging, it looks like 3.4V/cell will cut the pack off at the @85% depletion point. So, I would suggest a setpoint of 6.8 volts on the Thunderbird ESC. *Note- I have 2 Castle-Links if anyone needs to borrow one to reset their ESC cut-offs. Yeah, I added removable landing gear and a tail wheel! They weigh another ounce….. so @14.2oz. As it turns out, it’s actually a great flier and not very “foamy” feeling in light winds. We need more of these in the club….. Kenton Melville Labor Day Fun Fly 2010 Good turnout – lots of flying We thank Jayne Krenz for her successful effort running TWO raffles. Pit area filling up Silent flying These two members were real happy winners! Big bird discussion Ribbon cutter --- That's All Folks - Eugene R/C Aeronauts Newsletter Editor 1618 Gilham Rd. Eugene, OR. 97401 September 2010 «FirstLast» «Street» «CityStZip» ERCA CLUB CONTACTS President: Khoi Tran - 541-685-0086 - kmtranmd@hotmail.com Vice President: Brad Werneth - 541-285-5935 - brad@werneth.com Sec/Treasurer: Al Barrington - 541-935-4960 - albarrington@msn.com Safety coordinator: Frank Blain - 541-345-7449 - jaibee22@yahoo.com Safety coordinator: Marry Wittman - 541-968-2094 - wittmanm@msn.com Groundskeeper: Doug McWha - 541-741-3326 - flyduke@comcast.net Newsletter Editor: Jim Corbett - 541-344-5022 - james.corbett@comcast.net Next CLUB Meeting – September 28 – 7:00 pm at EWEB. December 2009 2 September 2010 5