| News Letter EUGENE RC AERONAUTS | |
| PDF version 2004_JFMAMOS_ERCA_NL.pdf
October 20, 2004 At our next meeting we
will be discussing the situation about our flying field
possibilities. I have a little bad news about the Beacon
Drive property north of Eugene. I was informed by the
person who heads up the Wastewater Management of the
City of Eugene that because of so many federal and state
regulations regarding waste water and its contact with
the public, it would be impossible for us to have a
flying field on that site. Therefore, that field is
gone. I offended the Central Lane club meeting and
talked to them about our using the Cinderella Field at
Creswell. The field is in pretty poor condition because
they haven’t been using it for quite a while. Doug McWha
and I borrowed Mark Staffords mower and did o rough
mowing of the field and pit area. Doug will mow it
closer as soon as the weather permits. We con start
flying at the field now. We also cut down some
blackberry vines at the end of the field. With a lot of
work, the field will do nicely until a new one can be
found. I am meeting this Friday with the Sec-Treasurer
of the Central Lone club concerning an agreement for our
use of the field. I have been finishing
my scratch-built GlasAir plane. It has been quite a
project. I hope to have it done for Show & Tell at
the meeting. It looks like the rains are here and that
means time to build that new plane you have waiting. I
want to encourage you to bring in your projects for
showing the rest of us. I am sure that there
will be lots of questions concerning the future of our
club, so I hope you will come and express your Thinking
and possible suggestions about how we can best acquire a
site soon. I am sure that something will work out before
long. See you Tuesday
evening at 7:00 p.m. at the EWEB building Frank Blain 345-7449
September 21,
2004 Well, as most of our
club members know by now, our flying field has been sold
to Marty Smith. He apparently made an offer to Otto
Glausi that couldn’t be passed up. So, our last day to
fly will be Thursday, September 30. We have been looking
hard for a different piece of land that would work for
us. So far, we have just a few possibilities. I have contacted the
person in charge of the City of Eugene Open Spaces.
Johnny Medlin. He has been very helpful in checking out
the various areas that are possibly available. I have an
appointment with him and the waste water management
supervisor of the City of Eugene. We have located some
property on Beacon Drive in Santa Clara. It would be a
perfect spot for a new field. They haven’t said “No!” so
far and are willing to discuss the situation. I will
show them some pictures of the old field and try to sell
them on our low impact uses. In the meanwhile, if any of
you know of some land in This area that we might lease,
please let me know. We will be having our
meeting this month at the EWES building on Tues.,
September 28, at 7:00 PM. I hope that we have a good
turnout so that we can discuss the future of our
c1ub~-and-the status of a new field. I also hope very
much that we will stick together as a club and try to
work out these problems. We are optimistic that we will
be flying at a new field as soon as possible. Frank Blain 345-7449 FOR SALE Hi Carl here is the list of my stuff Here is a list of my R/C package would like to sell all at once (cheaper) 1. never flown patriot ARF with new motor, retracts, gear servo just hung in garage 2. never flown Christen Eagle ARF for .90 size engine, 90 % complete needs wing struts) 3. .60 size cub 76” wing, with ASP .80 4 stroke engine, concept 6 ch radio, flown little good flyer lots of power with toe setup 4. Concet 30 chopper with radio, gyro, 2 new blade sets, new pull starter etc only ran on test stand, 5. 120 size biplane, used ( out of a estate sale) 6. new kit still in box Sukor SU 26 with a new ASP .90 engine still in box 7. field box (home made) with field charger, tach, control panel, electric fuel pump, field battery checker, plus other parts. 8, extral rolls of monokote, several cans of paint, extral fuel, glue 9. parts cabnet with lots of extra servos, small parts etc etc, 10. another box of parts, wheels, props, fuel tanks, etc etc 11, different monokote irons, heat gun, etc plus a lot of other stuff that I can’t think of at the moment, I dont have the time or money to support 2 hobbies so I will let this stuff go in a package at a very cheap price, about 25-30% of the original value, I will take 800 bucks for the whole works first come first serve I can make a lot more on ebay but dont want to hassle and would like to get rid of the stuff before I change my mind, contact me by phone 541-689-8545 or my email wj7s@yahoo.com CALL Larry Lane 689-8545 The status of this column is uncertain for the next six or seven weeks. On Monday next, the 24th, my classic, 1932—model left knee is going to be torn out and a modern fake put in its place. Since my car has a proper transmission instead of a slush pump, they won’t let me drive for six weeks. That’s going to make it hard to get to the field — flights of angels are showing a distinct reluc-tance to take me out there on a regular basis. Further, if I am reading all the bumpf correctly, I shall have to be either sitting with my leg out straight in front of me or up walking around to exercise it. Neither of these modes is conducive to typing - or working at the building and drawing boards for that matter. I’ll see you when I can; don’t do anything really serious until I can be there to bear witness Now, that’s for the Weekday guys; you Weekenders are on your own. C.O’D. --- July 2004 WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS Okay! On 7/7, the doctor not only took me off the crutches, he also gave back my car keys, so I’m now able to get out to the field again. I’d give you all the details of the operation, but you will probably want to wait for the movie anyhow. Not sure whether it will be the Christmas Disney release or just replace The Sopranos on HBO. Suffice it to say that I am again trudging across the southwest corner of the field in a quest to get four models ready for the Northwest Freeflight Championships a month hence. In the last chapter, Morris Ostrovsky was coming to the conclusion that his Air Core was all set to be pensioned off and replaced by something whose approach to landing was not quite so much like that of a garbage barge. This has come to pass by his acquisition of an Easy Sport 40 with an in-teresting provenance: Built by Jim Smith for Bill Bodley who used it as a back-up to his other E.S. 40 (also Smith—built). Chuck Jenkins got it from Jim after Bill sold up and now he’s passed on to Morris. And Morris is flying the devil out of it. He needs no more help; all the landings are his own and gentle enough to leave the engine running and allow a taxi back. Jim S., himself, has been flying gas lately - that .25— size tailless whose name neither he nor I remember. It is a short-coupled bird and the other day it did a rocking—horse act down the runway after a firm landing. Wiped the landing gear off, as luck would have it. Doug McWha has been seen with his old—faithful Kaos and with his Hog Bipe as well. In between bouts of keeping the strip and environs mowed and in good shape, he even flies them. Ken Springate’s Ultra Sport 1000 is powered by one of the larger YS 4—strokes and is a slick machine. It comes whistling down the final approach and Ken often has to resort to standing it on its nose in the weeds at the end of the strip. He has tried “flaperons” and they made the shop so squirrely that it wound up out in my territory, the tall grass. Only just, mind you, but I charge if you damage that soft surface I need for test—flying. Vaughon Hanchett — late of Reno, now of Santa Clara -is flying a 4—Star 60 with a Magnum .80 4—stroke in the engine room. He is enjoying the glorious Eugene Summer. Wait until Winter when he finds himself up to his knees in mud in the pits and his truck up to its hood in mud in the parking lot. Bill Hastings is flying a tailclragger powered by an older O.S. .40. He got the model from Mary True’s old shop in Creswell and the only name we can find on it is “Pacific Air-something” on the fin. I know; I should have written it down, but I am sure of the “Pacific” and the “Air”. I’d say it had a banana-shaped fuselage, but that’s exaggerating the situation. The port side is straight and the starboard curved which should give him an airfoil lifting toward the latter side. Bill says it seems, to have no affect at all. Calling this ship a “taildragger” as I did above is another gross inaccuracy; the tail does anything but drag. Not with the size of the tailwheel under this one! The shaft comes up through the fuselage in front of the tail surfaces and a big tiller is connected to the rudder horn by a pushrod. All a bit — well, er — agricultural, but it seems to do the job. El Goodman has had his Parasol out regularly and, just in time to make the deadline for this column, landed it heavily and knocked out the firewall. Clean break, easily repaired. Doug Ward was also just in time for the deadline. He has bought a ship from Jim Smith and had the indefatigable Chuck Jenkins test-fly it for him. Chuck had been helping Doug learn on an Easy Sport 60 earlier in the week. The plane is a pseudo—WWI monoplane, bearing no close resem-blance to anything — certainly not to either Fokker or Pfalz Eindekkers. And a good thing, too; they both had all-flying tails, vertical as well as horizontal. Anyhow, this day saw the Fox (35?) not performing at all well and it painted Chuck into a corner. He had to make a downwind “arrival” which snapped the glass-plastic motor mount and sprung a couple of joints in the open—work fuselage. Doug W.’s buddy, whose name I didn’t get (it’s hard getting back into the swing of this journalism stuff) has bought Bill Bodley’s other Easy Sport 40. Rest assured, sir, that I will get your name right in the future, probably when you have done something horrendous like flying through the door of the storehouse and out the window. C. O’D. --- June 2004 - No Newsletter
May 20, 2004 Spring is rapidly
fading into summer, during which many refit sunny flying
days will be upon us. The field is in terrific shape,
Thanks to Doug McWha and others who have been faithfully
mowing and trimming as necessary. Gary McClellan and
several other members successfully moved the van box
onto The trailer. Thank you, Gory, for your two
wreckers. This should solve the problem with the County. We have received two
more letters complaining about The noise at The field. I
can’t express strongly enough how serious this problem
has become. I know that many of you have addressed the
noise problems with better mufflers and flying only
during the requested hours, particularly the 9:00 a.m.
starting time. I want to continue to challenge each of
you members to try to have the quietest plane at the
field. There is plenty of technology out there to meet
our needs for quiet flying. Also, flying over the road
area will keep us as far as possible from the Marty
Smith residence. I know it will be difficult to satisfy
Mr. and Mrs. Smith. but I have talked to several 6ther
neighbors and they feel we are trying to be considerate
of them. The later starting time has made them much
happier. At this next meeting,
we will be discussing what else we can do to cooperate
with the neighborhood’s concerns. I Think That we will
be able to save our field if we police ourselves. Otto Glausi has
suggested that we have a meeting involving our club
officers and a committee of neighbors to discuss any
problems that the surrounding residents may have and how
to solve them. This would seem to be a good idea. We
will be addressing This at the meeting next week, to be
held at the EWEB Building at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, May 25.
Bring your planes for Show and Tell. See you then. Frank Blain,
President 345-7449 May 2004 WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS The geese didn’t eat all of the seed Doug McWha put down, because the grass on the strip has very few hare spots left and those are small. Doug had his 4-Star 60 out today (5/19) — his larger ships are beginning to emerge now that the weather is getting better. This big, red, bird is the only ARF in his stable1 as Doug continues to show ~ predi-lection for building his own aeroplanes. (Bravo!) This being the ER/CA, this “60” ship has a Magnum .91 in it. The Magnum came with a muffler that Doug didn’t think deserved the name, so he modified a large 0.S. unit to fit the engine and added a long piece of silicone tuned-pipe tubing to the stack as well. Seems to me to have a deeper, as well as quieter note. Ken Springate is now flying a U-Can-Do SC ARF with an O.S. .91 4-stroke for power. I guess the model can, indeed “do” it, because Ken has expressed himself as very pleased by its performance. Chuck Jenkins is back from California and back on the other end of the transmitter cord from Norris Qstrovsky’s trans-mitter The day I saw them, Morris was doing reasonably well on his landings, but he1s beginning to come around to the idea that the Air Core has reac2~ed the end of its road and needs replacement. Maybe he was influenced by the fact that three or four guys that day were telling him it was. I think the idea is that Chuck has an unused model of suitable performance which he will pass on to Morris. El Goodman had his Parasol on the field a couple of weeks ago. This is an original powered by a Saito .50 4-stroke, El being one who tends not to over-power things. The wing is the one Dave Upton had on that camera ship of his. To keep the nose free for the camera, Dave had the engine up on a pylon above the centersection of the wing. El dug into the wing and removed all that extra structure needed to support the pylon, thus lightening things consid-erably. He also shortened the wing, so it is quite a low-aspect-ratio affair with well-rounded tips. The horizontal tail is pure Kadet Sr. and the vertical tail shows a definite influence of the Sig model. All this is tied toge-ther by a fully original fuselage on a trike gear arid with a cabane for wing mounting. And El got a bit clever here: It is very easy to unhook the radius rods and fold the main gear back under the fuselage and the removal of a couple of wheel collars enables the cabane to told onto the top of the fuse. Easier to fit in the can Oh, yes, and it flies pretty well, too. If you look at the edge of the strip, up towards the right end of the pits, you will see a rather bare stretch just a couple of feet wide. This is Jin Smiths runway for those tiny electrics of his. If he can get enough propwash over the rudder right at. the start to make it effective, the wretched little beasts do take off! The status of this column is uncertain for the next six or seven weeks. On. Monday next the 24th, my Classic, 1932-model left knee is going to be torn out and a modern fake put in its p1ace. Since my car has a proper transmisston instead of a slush pump they won’t let me drive for six weeks. That1s going to make it hard to get to the field - flights of angels are showing a distinct reluc-tance to take me out there on a regular basis. Further, If I am reading all the bumpf correctlv, I shall have to be either sitting with my leg out straight in front of me or up walking around to exercise it. Neither of these modes. is conducive to typing - or working at the building and drawing boards for that matter. I‘11 see you when I can; don’t do anything really serious until I can be there to bear witness Now, that’s for the Weekday guvs; you Weekenders are on your own. C. O’D. ---
April 22, 2004 If you didn’t attend
our Sportsman Primer on April 10th, you missed a great
time! Gary McClellan and his friends from his pattern-f
lying club did a wonderful job of organizing and running
a fine primer contest. We had about 15 participants and
many more spectators. The meet started at 9:00 a.m. and
continued until about 4:00 p.m. It was truly enjoyable.
A special thanks goes to Bill Broich and Doug McWha for
mowing the runway and surrounding grassy areas. Also,
kudos to Mark Stafford who brought the hamburgers, hot
dogs and pop, and the ladies who provided the cookies,
brownies and salads. Congratulations to the 3 winners of
The contest: 1st place - Spencer Harris, 2nd place -
Grant Sharp, 3rd place. Steve Harris. Now, for some
less-favorable news. Mr and Mrs. Marty Smith are very
upset about our noise and flying too near to their
property. They want us to leave our flying field badly
enough that they have been contacting the other
neighbors to get them to write protest letters to Otto
Glausi, our landlord. He forwarded them on to me. It
appears from the letters that we have been flying planes
that are much too loud, we start flying too early and
keep it up too late. Last Friday, I visited four of The
people and asked them how we could improve the situation
short of vacating. I was told that if we could start
flying at 9:00 a.m. and quit by 5:00 p.m. it would help
very much. We seem to have several planes that are
particularly noisy. I assured them that we would address
these matters and correct them if at all possible. For
this purpose. I will purchase a decibel meter so That we
can test our planes for excessive noise. Any that are
over 90 decibels will have to have a new muffler applied
to them or they will not be allowed to be flown at our
field. I am sorry that this has come up, but our only
other choice is to lose our field. We will be discussing
this and other problems at the meeting, so I hope we
have a large turnout for it. Come with ideas on how to
rebuild some bridges with the neighbors there. The
meeting will be Tues. April 27 at 7:00 p.m. at EWEB
building. Bring Show and Tell items. Frank Blain,
President 345-7449 April 2004 WITH THE WEEKDAY WARRIORS We had a bit of nice weather at the end of March and beginning of April and the pits went a long way towards drying ut. Even the road and parking lot improved to the point where you no longer had to he concerned about your car sinking from under you. This has brought out some of the weekday contingent and a fair amount of flying has resulted. Your columnist managed to miss some of the best days by inept scheduling of various appointments with doctor, dentist1 dermatologist, and ophthalmologist, to give only a few examples. Still I did see some of the action worth reporting on. Doug McWha has been mowing, rolling, and seeding the strip regularly. At one Point this had earned him the unstinted approbation of all the geese in. southwest Eugene who found the seed just the thing for a rid—morning snack. So intent were they on the feast that they didn‘t even look up then buzzed at low altitude. Only when Doug taxied to within fifteen feet of them did they pat their lips with their napkins and flap off — right straight up the runway, by the way. Doug’s been flying his old 40-size Kaos and EasySport. He says the heavy stuff, 1-34 and Ultrasport 1000, will come out later in the season and he’s working on a Piper Tomahawk from a New ZeaLand Flair kit. As straight clown the runway as those geese was El Goodman’s flap-equipped Kadet Sr. the other day. The two of us had the strip to ourselves on a solid1y-overcast, almost- -windless Thursday. I was test-gliding my rebuilt Casino Glamour Girl, a 1940 Wakefield, arid El was making flight after flight with the Kadet. Morris Ostrofsky was doing a lot of flying with the Air Core high-winger with Chuck Jenkins on the other end of the buddy-box set—up! Morris does reasonably well in the air, but that ship approaches fast and sinks like a concrete pigeon, so Morris is often out in the rough with the main gear off. Chuck had let him shoot some landings with the Intro Plane and he was fine. The one time I have seen Jim Smith out with a plane, he had his New Ruler in the air. This Hank Struck design was originally a 6-footer complying with the “new rules” that were introduced in 1940. Jim’s is the 36” version for a Cox TD .020 and Jim flew it with that engine for a few years. He has now converted it to electric power which has upped the weight by at least half, causing a notable deterioration in the glide. Still better than Morris’s Air Core though. As many of you know, I spent 17 days in Australia in February. Didn’t see as much as I wanted to, because, on the second day, my left knee let me know that it had retired from the wa1king-around game. There were, however, some bright spots. The RAAF Museum at Pt. Cook had its newly-re-stored Seagull y on display. This is a biplane, amphibious flyingboat with a single pusher engine, a slightly clumsy--looking machine which nevertheless did a great deal of valuable air-sea rescue work in WWII. The rest of the world calls it a “Walrus” and thereby hangs a tale. The Aussies ordered it first and accepted Supermarine’s standard name for its flyingboats, “Seagull”. When Britain’s Royal Navy showed a belated interest in the plane, that name had to go. Firstly, the Air Ministry naming scheme dictated sea-animal names for that class of aircraft and, secondly, the word “seagull” is not uttered on a ship of the Royal Navy - bad luck. The Australians, not. being under that scheme nor having that superstition, persisted with Seagull V and so it is labeled at Ft. Cook. The Queensland Museum at Brisbane has the last remaining of eight Avro Babys built. This was a nice little, 25’, biplane of 1919 which would make a nice model. They also had the remains of Bill Lancasterts Avro Avian. Lancaster took off from Croydon (London) on April 11, 1933 in a bid to break the London-Capetown record. He refueled at a stop on the Trans-Saharan Track the next day, but suffered an engine failure that night and flipped over upon landing in the dark. He waited by the plane, shelter-ing under the wing and keeping a log of the experience. A French Foreign Legion patrol found him there - in March of 1962. He had lasted eight days and the last entry in the log said “Please come quickly! I also brought home two Australian model magazines, Airborne and Radio Control Model News. The former, which comes out every two months was so good when I first saw it in ‘79 that I almost subscribed. Two years ago, I disco-vered that it had gone downhill into the swamp of “a11 R/C” and this yearts was worse. It seemed to be mostly “product reviews” of, mostly, ARFs and grammar, spelling and punctuation were not up to standard. RCMN (also bimonthly) was worse. It scored by having reports on two or three contests, but grammar and spelling were appalling and punctuation seemed to be at random. I was reading an article on turbines and thinking, “This guy really needed the services of an editor. Why didn’t Ye Ed clean this up before publi-cation?” Then I looked to the top of the page and found that the author was the editor! Worse than an American model mag, if you can believe that. C.O’D.
March 21, 2003 Here we are, nearly in
April, enjoying the Spring rains, but knowing that our
beautiful sunny days will be becoming more frequent as
well - And those are the days we fly! I haven’t been flying
much at all during This month because I have spent much
of my free time, deep within the walls of my shop,
building a new Dyna-Flight giant scale Chipmunk. All of
the hard work is done, which includes the gluing (I am
seemingly very allergic to this glue, with my asthma),
so after a lot of sanding and several hours of covering,
it will be ready to go. I lost my last
Chipmunk because I forgot to put up my antenna and had a
“fatal” crash. I sure hope I don’t do that again! I
think I definitely need to use a check-off list before I
take off. I have talked to a
greens keeper about what kind of fertilizer we should
use on the new field. He advised waiting until the first
part, of April and using some 16-16-16. When the ground
out there dries up enough to walk on, we will give it a
shot. This month’s meeting
will be held at The EWEB building at the new time of
7:00 pm, Tuesday, March 25. This new time should be
better for most of us. The demonstration will be given
by Clayton Foster on how to program your computer radio.
I am looking forward to learning a lot about that
subject. At lease bring your new planes for Show and
Tell. Also, a reminder about your dues and addresses and
phone numbers for our roster. See you there! Frank Blain 345-7449
February 17, 2004 We have had a mix of
rain, fog and some sunny days so for this month. Several
members have been flying on The good days. even with the
added challenge of muddy ground, but the runway has been
pretty dry and smooth for the winter. I am looking
forward to being able to get the field in shape for our
flying season. Mrs. Cheshire has
asked for some help in selling all of Darrel’s planes
and equipment. If you have interest in some of these
items, please give me a call. I am going to talk with
her this week to see if we can try to help her with
them. Paul Schmitt has
contacted me to see if someone in the club may have
interest in buying his 519 Somethin’ Extra N.I.B. kit
with an OS LA 40cc engine, 2 props, tank, wheels and a
4-channel Lazer FM Hi Tec radio, all for $200.00, new in
boxes. His phone no. is 935-9547. Mark Stafford will be
handing out name tags for the meetings, so now we (I)
will know names and. faces. Please don’t wear them out
the door. We will be collecting them after the meeting
to be used for the upcoming ones, too. I am building a
scratch—built I/4-scale Glasair from kC. Airplanes
plans. It is quite a challenge because the plans don’t
show all the formers and leave most of the details to
your imagination. It is still a lot of fun to try. I am
sure it will take awhile to complete. Our next meeting will
be held at the EWEB building, Tuesday. Feb. 24 at 7:00
PM. Gary McClellan will be giving a demonstration on
aerobatic maneuvers. Be sure to bring any of your
interesting planes or equipment for Show and Tell. See
you there! Frank Blain,
President 345-7449
January 21, 2004 I would like to wish a
very happy 2004 and a great flying year to all of our
club members! Our elections in
November of last year produced the following slate: President - Frank
Blain Vice-Pres. - Steve
Harris Sec/Treas. - Mark
Stafford Field Marshall - Doug
McWha This has been a pretty
wet winter so far, but there have been a few good flying
days. too. The runway is still fairly firm, though a
little bumpy with the gross knobs. The pit area is a
muddy mess, so please be careful when you are there. This week we will
attempt to roll the runway with a roller and, as soon as
it warms up, we will over-seed and fertilize. I am
checking on getting some straw to put over the muddy pit
area. It is cheaper and I think it will do the job. We
won't be able to blow the bark on until it dries up,
because the truck would destroy our driveway. We had a little
flooding about the first of the year with little or no
damage to the field. I think we should, however, raise
the truck box about 12” to eliminate water getting
inside of it. Dan Thomas has
volunteered to head up a building project for a shed to
cover the old lawnmower. He said he could get the
materials and all we would need are some helpful hands
and a little sunshine. With the arrival of
the new year, it is time to renew your club dues and
card. If you haven’t paid your $100.00 field assessment,
you have 6 months to do so. Also, at the November
meeting, it was approved to allow associate non-flying
memberships for those members who do not fly and still
want to be a part of our club. They do not have to pay
the field assessment. Any member who is finding he is
unable to pay current financial obligations to the club
in full, will be considered for a special circumstances
allowance so that he can continue to fly without being
totally current with regard to his club debt. This will
be handled under complete privacy and is at the
discretion of the club president. We want to make your
membership as enjoyable as possible and keep our club
together. I am so very
sorry to have to inform air members of the sudden and
very un-expected death of barrel Cheshire during the
holiday season. He was an enthusiastic flyer and a truly
wonderful man. We will miss him greatly. Our next
meeting Will be held of the Eugene Country Club, 255
Country Club Road, Eugene, Oregon. Enter the twain doors
in front of The clubhouse and proceed through the door
to the left off the entry.. The meeting will begin at
6:30 p.m. instead of 7:00 p~.tn. on Tuesday. January 27,
2004. Please bring your new planes with you for Show and
Tell. See you Tuesday! Frank Blain 345-7449 |
| PDF version 2004_JFMAMOS_ERCA_NL.pdf |
