Thunderbolt. November Club Meeting. Monday, November 1, 7:30 pm. Ribcrackers Model Airplane Club. Don. Editor s Note: November 2012

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Dominic Henderson
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1 Ribcrackers Model Airplane Club We re on the web! Club 2067 F November 2012 Thunderbolt Ray Field LAT: N LON: W Editor s Note: Fall represents to me kids getting back to school, elections everywhere and for the Ribcrackers Model Airplane Club. This year s election is a time for our club to give considerable thought to it s future direction. Such as: Ray Field, community involvement, youth activities, membership to name a few. Are we satisfied with the status quo, e.g. a nice convenient field with occasional get togethers? Not bad, sounds and has been good for us.comfortable. Question what happens if or when the economy improves, corporations start to release money for new sites. Ray Field sits on a very desirable tract with utilities in place and close to expressways. If lost where do we go? Search committees, oh boy! We ve had them ad nauseum to the point of immobility. What gets me is every month reading Model Aviation magazine featuring clubs getting new fields, involved in their communities, youth programs, air shows etc. We were there at one time but since losing the Lang Aerodrome flying sight, our club hasn t been the same. So while we are planning to nominate officers for the coming year, I suggest that all Ribcrackers give some thought to the future direction that you want this club to venture. Of course the big thing is who among us are willing to lead us in those directions. I hope some do, because I really like this hobby/ sport and particularly our club members. Received a nice, concerned note from former Ribcracker Nobuya Nishizaki, now living in Japan, wondering how the Frankenstorm was affecting us. Good to hear from him after all that his country has gone through. The official student training program has come to an end for this flying season. Many thanks to Matt Jerue and his crew for a job well done, they have given a lot of time to the well being of our club. Club meetings move to the Livonia Senior Center with a new start time of 7:30pm. That is a change from the summer meeting times. When in doubt of club activities, check out the schedule on the club s web site. Roger has done a great job in keeping it current. See you at the meeting and give some thought to the future direction of the R. M. A. Club Don November Club Meeting Monday, November 1, 7:30 pm Livonia Senior Center 5 Mile & Farmington Road

This month s maneuver is the inverted flat spin: Once a safe altitude has been attained apply full right rudder and aileron and full down elevator to flip airplane on its back.

2 Ribcrackers October Meeting Minutes October 1, 2012 Meeting more or less started on time. Due to failing light it was decided to reverse the agenda and do the flying demonstration first before the business aspect of the meeting. This month s maneuver is the inverted flat spin: Once a safe altitude has been attained apply full right rudder and aileron and full down elevator to flip airplane on its back. Once the plane is inverted feed in throttle as necessary to start the spin cycle. Center controls to recover. Thanks to Scott for demonstrating this month s maneuver. Previous Month s meeting minutes were approved as written Treasurer s report The club is still solvent and all bills are up to date for the year. Only outstanding expense will be the student instructor s dinner. Secretary s report The club is once again listed as a nonprofit organization. Student night has been very successful this year with 4 people signed off. President s report Field cleanup is scheduled for October 20 at 9:00am. Scheduled tasks are to take down the canopy and general clean-up. Flight stations will be left up until December. New/Old Business As we transition to having our meetings at the Senior Center we need to have someone that can get a key to the Center that can be there for most of the meetings. Time to think about running for office. All executive board positions are up for grabs. If you feel up for any of the positions please let us know. Also looking for someone to run the raffle. o Marshall volunteered to run the raffle next year. No Model of the Month Raffle Prizes Balance Charger went to Louis Marcon $50.00 gift card went to Marshall Stern Official meeting was ended due to darkness although informal discussions continued for some time. Respectfully submitted, Warren Wells greets long lost Ribcracker Bruce Whitney October Field Cleanup Prez Gus reports that the fall field clean up was a success. About 20 Ribcrackers showed up with tools in hand. The brush was trimmed on the west approach. The field looks great and the grass never looked better. Good work Ribcrackers. I didn t have a listing of all participants at publishing time but thanks to all from the club. One question, were they looking for Hank and Art s culinary skills on the barbie? Where was Hank anyway? Hummmm.? Gerald Klose

A Neat iphone/ipad App for RC pilots Recently, I did a search of iphone/ipad apps available with the keywords radio control just to see what turned up.

3 A Neat iphone/ipad App for RC pilots Recently, I did a search of iphone/ipad apps available with the keywords radio control just to see what turned up. There were the various games, simulators, and online magazines I expected to find, but there was one I had not seen before that sounded interesting, so I downloaded it and tried it out, and it turned out to be a gem. It s called RCFlightBook, by Claus Bonnhoff and it functions just like a full scale pilot s logbook, but with several very neat features that make it ideal for tracking key information about all your models, batteries, and flights. It does this in a simple automated fashion that makes it very easy and painless to maintain. Over the years I ve tried several times to build my own database of key info in Excel, but it s always turned out to be more trouble than it s worth to keep it up, and eventually I got tired of writing down the data each time I flew, carrying it home, and entering it into the computer. With this app on the iphone or ipad, the data is with you all the time and you can enter new info right at the field with just a poke of a button. You start out using the RCFlightBook app by entering basic info about each of your airplanes (or helis), and the batteries you currently use. Figure 1 is a screenshot of the model info page, where you choose which of your aircraft you want to track or enter info for. Selecting a model takes you to its info page, (see Figure 2), where you can see or enter info about each of your models, such as the model name, type of aircraft, date purchased or completed, and anything else you d like to have a record of while you re at the field. For the Wolf Samson model in the figure, you can see I ve put in the type of battery it flies on, motor specs, ESC info, prop size and pitch, and the CG location. I can t recall how many times I ve been at the field and wanted to know an airplane s CG, but couldn t remember. The other info on the page is tracked automatically by the app, more about that later. Figure 2: Model Info Page Figure 1: Model Selection Page

Figure 3: Battery Selection Page Figure 4: Battery Info Page Figure 3 is the battery selection page, where you choose which of your batteries you want to use for the flight you re about to make.

4 Figure 3: Battery Selection Page Figure 4: Battery Info Page Figure 3 is the battery selection page, where you choose which of your batteries you want to use for the flight you re about to make. It s a shopping list of all your available batteries, and choosing one takes you to its info page, which shows the number of cells, capacity rating, C rating, date purchased, and any notes you want to keep about it (e.g.: this battery is at death s door, etc), as shown in Figure 4. If you notice on the model page, the app keeps track of how many flights you ve made with each model, how many total flight hours it has on it, and how many total mah of electrical juice it has consumed. This info is all tracked automatically for you, you don t have to do anything. Likewise, the battery page tallies the total number of flights and flight hours on each battery automatically. To use the app, (once you ve put in the basic data about your models and batteries), is very simple. When you re at the field and have completed a flight, you open the app on your iphone or ipad, pick the model you flew, pick the battery you put in it, and put in the duration of the flight you just flew. It takes about 5 seconds to do. If you re using an ESC with data-logging capability, like a Phoenix, you can just plug the USB wire into your iphone and the app will grab all the flight data automatically, including the battery voltage, current, and power curves. All that info is keyed to the appropriate model, battery, and flight automatically. Now any time you want to, you can just pick a model or battery and see its entire history of flights, flight times, and battery characteristics. Figure 4 shows the data page for one of my batteries showing that it has 55:45 total time on it spread over 11 flights. Pressing the show button on that page will bring up all the info about each of those flights, where and when you flew it, and any special notes. The model and flight info pages work the same way, pressing show brings up all the flights that particular plane has had and which batteries were used for each one, and shows all your flights in chron-

ological order, as shown in Figure 5. All this info is tallied up for each pilot (you can track as many pilots as you want, if, for instance, you have another family member who flies.

GPS and mapping page (Figure 6) that tracks the location of all the fields you fly at, an integrated flight timer, and the battery performance graphing page.

5 ological order, as shown in Figure 5. All this info is tallied up for each pilot (you can track as many pilots as you want, if, for instance, you have another family member who flies.) Now you ll always know the total time you ve spent (frittered away?) in the air. And it adds up faster than you d think. GPS and mapping page (Figure 6) that tracks the location of all the fields you fly at, an integrated flight timer, and the battery performance graphing page. Figure 6: Field Mapping Page Figure 5: flight Info Page It s a whole lot easier to use the app than it is to explain HOW to use it, and I think it s a real find, and especially so for electric fliers who need a painless way to keep track of battery performance and life. The app is free to try, but it will only track one model and battery in the free version. To unlock the unlimited version is $5.99, and well worth it in my book. Support for the app seems to be good, too. I ed a question to the developer and got an answer in less than an hour. If you re looking for a simple way to keep track of all your flying information in one place, this might be it. The nice thing about iphone/ipad apps is that it s very cheap to give them a try. Scott There are other features I haven t described, such as a

Scenes from the Last Official Student Night, 2012 Justin dekruif

refining his skills this last student night.

Hope to see both of you at the field next flying season and the

6 Scenes from the Last Official Student Night, 2012 Justin dekruif (left) signed off in 2009 and came back to recertify this October. John Jushkewich also signed off this October and continued refining his skills this last student night. Congratulations to both. Hope to see both of you at the field next flying season and the club meetings this fall and winter. Official spotters and helpers Ron Duncan and former Veep Hank Wojcik Chief Instructor Matt Jerue flanked on the left by Ron Odom and Prez Gus on the right

UPCOMING LOCAL EVENTS Nov. 4 Midwest Swap Meet Northville Nov. 5 Ribcrackers Club Meeting Officer Nominations Dec. 3 Ribcrackers Club Meeting Officer Elections Jan. 27.

However, weather permitting, more flights are in our future. Students check with your trainers for their availability for some additional time in this year.

7 UPCOMING LOCAL EVENTS Nov. 4 Midwest Swap Meet Northville Nov. 5 Ribcrackers Club Meeting Officer Nominations Dec. 3 Ribcrackers Club Meeting Officer Elections Jan RCCD Swap Meet Check out the details of local flying events on pages of Model Aviation, November issue. Editor s Note October 24 marked the official end to Student Night training. However, weather permitting, more flights are in our future. Students check with your trainers for their availability for some additional time in this year. A few scenes from Wednesday October 24 are shown below. Editor Don congratulating Louie Macron on his latest flight. Matt, Gus & Hank prepping the club trainer for a test flight. Ribcrackers 2012 Board of Directors Club Positions President Gus Dabringhaus gusd@trudexone.com Vice President / Field Marshall Scott Cruzen scruzen@me.com Secretary Matt Jerue mdjerue@mi.rr.com Treasurer Dennis Robbins drobbins421@yahoo.com Librarian Ken Hilton Thunderbolt Editor Don Unsworth dunswrth@sbcglobal.net Safety Officer Alex Alexopoulos Chief Instructor Matt Jerue Minute Recorder Gerald Klose Raffle Coordinator Warren Wells

NEWSLETTER. Wilbourn Model Airplane Field. P.O. Box 2163 Huntsville, AL November 2017

NEWSLETTER. Wilbourn Model Airplane Field. P.O. Box 2163 Huntsville, AL November 2017 www.rocketcityrc.com THE NEWSLETTER Proudly serving the Huntsville community at the Captain Trey... an AMA Award of Excellence Club! Wilbourn Model Airplane Field. P.O. Box 2163 Huntsville, AL 35804 November