HOST OF THE NEAT FAIR

The Newsletter of the Silent Electric Flyers of Long Island HOST OF THE NEAT FAIR Dedicated to the Advancement of Electric Flight President: Tom Hunt (631) 835-5359 tomhunt@optonline.net Vice President: Jim Reid Secretary: Alan Ford Treasurer: Rick Cascella Newsletter Editor: Jim Perlowsky jimp.sefli@yahoo.com SEFLI Main Website: www.sefli.org SEFLI Newsletter: www.sefli.org/news.htm SEFLI Current Events: www.sefli.org/current.htm SEFLI Web Forum: http://sefli.proboards11.com NEAT FAIR: www.neatfair.org For changes in the monthly meeting or contest dates due to weather/conflicts contact Tom Hunt at the above phone or e-mail. Inside this issue: Prez Sez 1 Watts Up? 2 LED 101 3 Show n Tell 4 Egg Carton Flyer 5 WRAM Show Report 6 From The Field 7 Tom s Mustang Bash 8,9 Schedule of Events 10 Prez Sez by Tom Hunt Dear SEFLI ers, Now that the dust has settled after the New Year and we finally have a good count for renewing and new memberships, as of this writing, SEFLI stands at 84 paid members. We consistently get 35-40 members at the meeting on the third Tuesday; more when the weather does not threaten in the winter! I have been to some other clubs (to lecture) on the Island and I can say without hesitation that this puts us square in the middle on number of attendees, but WAY ahead in percentage of attendees/ members. I would like to see more members make the meetings, mainly because there is a lot to be learned in our part of the hobby (eflight) that just does not get disseminated in the magazines. If you are reading this and are truly interested in electric flight, come on down to a meeting once in a while and ask questions. That is what we are all here for. For those of you that have web access, I want to remind you that all my presentations a WRAM show and club invite lectures are available on our website at: http://www.sefli.org/wram/index.php The April meeting will be our awards night to honor and reward those who won first, second or third in any of the three contest categories for 2008. We also have a couple of special awards for a few members. We also will be hosts to the finals in the penny plane contest at break time. So come on down and support all the fine members we have in this club. See you all at the field! Prez Tom April 2009

PAGE 2 SILENTS PLEASE Watts Up? Let The Games Begin! Sport Electric Sailplane (SES) GENERAL CONTEST RULES Any motor up to 7 cells (NiCD/NiMH) or 2S lipo. Any model with no more that 3 control functions (one must be throttle or ON/OFF motor). 2 minutes motor run maximum, 10 minute total flight. Motor may be stopped and restarted within first 2 minutes, but must not be restarted AFTER the 2 minute mark or flight is scored as a 0. Exception: If motor is turned on to save model from impeding doom, the clock will be stopped and the flight time recorded. EasyStar Events (ES) GWS Slow Stick Any motor up to 7 cells (NiCD/NiMH) or 2S lipo. Stock EasyStar ARF only, the rudder may be enlarged with any material to increase controllability. Model may be strengthened in any way desired. Foam parts may only be replaced with OEM foam parts. Events rules will be published no later than 1 week before contest and the newsletter. Typical events are Limited Motor Run (similar to SES), Duration, Target Tow, Limbo, Racing, Bomb Drop and whatever else we can come up with. Slow Stick Combat (SSC) Multiplex EasyStar Stock GWS Slow Stick with stock drive system up to 10 cells (NiCD/NiMH) or 3S lipo. Brushless motors are allowed but limited to 7 cells (NiCD/NiMH) or 2S lipo. Models will fly in 4 minute rounds with 15 feet of magnetic tape streamer. As many models as frequencies allow to be flown at once. Streamer cuts are 25 points, streamer touches are 10 points. All models involved in mid -airs that are still in the air at the 4 minute mark will receive 50 points. 2-3 rounds will be flown, winner is maximum point total for all 3 rounds. The Easy Star Event for the April Contest: Easy Star limited motor run. 2 minute motor run, 8 minutes of total flight. No spot landing. Motor may be stopped and restarted within first 2 minutes, but must not be restarted AFTER the 2 minute mark or flight is scored as a 0. Exception: If motor is turned on to save model from impeding doom, the clock will be stopped and the flight time recorded. Bob Aberle has written a new book!!! It is only available on CD through John Worth at Cloud9 R/C. Titled: THE WORLD OF INDOOR/MICRO RADIO CONTROLLED MODELS, the CD can be ordered on -line at: http://www.cloud9rc.com/cd.asp Or phone John at: 703-273-0607

LED 101 Part Three by Jim Perlowsky PAGE 3 This month we ll review the nuts and bolts of putting LED s to work for us illuminating planes for night flying. The basic LE D setup comprise the following: Power Source, Wiring, Limiting Resistors and LEDs. Power Source: As previously mentioned we could power our LED s from the main flight battery or even the +5Vdc BEC output, I ll share a neat trick. LEDs can be connected in series, as long as the source voltage is high enough and the selected forward current is acceptable for all LEDs in the string. Doing this can simplify wiring and ease assembly. The higher the source voltage the more LEDs can be put in a series string. An excellent LED voltage source is the Castle Creations BEC. This state of the art, programmable switching BEC can be set to output 9.0Vdc using a USB Castle Link. The output will stay stable throughout the flight and has more than enough current capacity for any lighting system you could ever dream up. With the typical forward voltage of LEDs in the 2.2 to 3.4 volt range you can put a few LED in series as shown below: Castle BEC Information Want to keep it real simple? Use an alkaline 9 volt battery. Yes there s a weight penalty, but is sure is simple, cheap and r eadily available. The small current drain of LED circuits should make a typical 9 volt battery last pretty long. Want to get rea lly clever? Snap two 9 volt batteries together to make an 18 volt source; and go crazy putting LEDs in series. What you do and how you do it is only limited to your imagination. Wiring: The currents flowing through LED circuits are just tens of milliamps; a 30AWG wire is more than adequate. With only 10 volts or so, very little voltage rating is required so basically when it comes to LED hoop up wire, the lighter the better. Two different colored wires works best, one for the voltage source output and another for the return. Strip, tin and repeat! Magnet wire is a solid conductor, varnish insulated wire used to wind motors; this can be just the ticket. The only issue using magnet wire is the varnish needs to be removed in order to solder to the wire. Scraping the varnish off with an Exacto knife and then tinning the wire is what is typically done. If you have a lot of connections to make this can get tedious very quickly. Where to find applicable wire? Radio Shack is not a bad place to fine basic wiring needs. Or just be cheap and creative: old telephone wire, cannibalized computer cables, etc. Current Limiting Resistors: Like it or not if you are going to play with LEDs your going to need current limiting resistors. Wattage rating wise, in most cases a standard 1/4 watt resistor will be more than adequate. Actual values we will typically u se are expressed in ohms (Ω). There s a standard format for resistor values, as they don t come in every value imaginable. The standard 10% value intervals are: 1, 1.2, 1.5, 1.8, 2.2, 2.7, 3.3, 3.9, 4.7, 5.6, 6.8, 8.2. Actual 10% resistor values are available from 10 Ω to 10,000,000Ω. So just multiply by a factor of 10, 100 or any other power of 10 to find the resistor value you need. What to do if you crunch the numbers for an LED setup and it s not a standard value? Unless there is a real close lower value it s best to be safe and round up to the next standard value. This way you will not overdrive your LED s with too much current. I work in the electronics industry and have access to virtually any resistor imaginable, so I ve never bought resistors, but there are many places to buy resistors online like: www.digikey.com www.mouser.com or www.allelectronics.com Again your local Radio Shack should be able to help. Next month we ll discuss in detail selecting and buying LED s.

Show and Tell Photos and Text by Jim Perlowsky PAGE 4 Gerhard Spielmann shows off his scratch -built Flamingo old -timer free flight converted to brushless E-power and RC. The motor is an older Astro 020 geared system. Rick Cascella displays his Edge 540 ARF by 3DHobbyShop. It sports a 40 inch wingspan and weighs 30 ounces. Reaper GR-25 motor, APC 1155 prop, AirBoss 35 amp ESC, Zippy LightMax 3S 2200 lipo (18$). Flight control is via Hitec HS - 65 servos and a Spektrum radio setup. Tom Hunt s P-51D (future Aerocraft kit) is nearly finished; it just awaits servos and RX. This version is completely balsa sheeted and glassed with 0.6oz cloth and Z -Poxy finishing resin and is painted with Rustoleum spray paint. Motor is a BP2826-6 and will use a 3 cell 2500 Enerland lipo on his own scale 4 bladed prop.

Egg Carton Flyer Competition PAGE 5 Winners: 1st Place - Tom Hunt, 2nd Place- Lionel Bernstein, 3rd Place- Alan Ford

WRAM Show Report by Tom Hunt PAGE 6 It s rare that I miss a WRAM show. Despite the downsizing in recent years, I still find the need to make the 140 mile round trip for all three days. Seeing people and vendors I have not seen since the last show or the NEAT Fair is also a factor. Helping out AeroCraft and lecturing to the masses is always on the list. This year, the show was certainly smaller. There were no vendors in the basement (static displays and car tracks took up that real estate). The main floor seemed a bit light even though every booth was taken. The stage which at times has also accommodated vendors was empty except for the award stable and the AMA booth. As there have in the past, some heli and 3D indoor foamy demos were in a side room. There were some new products to be seen and touched. HiTec/Mulitplex showed their new Aurora 2.4GHz radio system, due out around mid -year. Polk hobbies also debuted their Tracker III 2.4GHz system, of which I should receive a BETA system soon. Luke s RC showed the new Kyosho full-house indoor Piper Cherokee. This less than 1.5 ounce model incorporates the 2-servo, 2.4 GHz RX and ESC brick found in the other Kyosho indoor models (also sold under the Horizon Eflite brand) but has two extra servo ports on the board, making this tiny system/model a full -house radio. I understand the innards will be made available for the scratch builder also. Personally, I scored a very big product review for Fly -RC. Just about the time of this writing, a 5.5 ft long box arrived from KMP with their new BF-110 twin fighter bomber inside. You may remember I reviewed the KMP BF -109 Messerschmitt a couple years ago and still fly this model. The BF - 110 is 95 in span with 9.33sqft of wing area. I project the model will weigh near 22 lbs when loaded with 14 Lipo cells (7 per motor) and I plan to input about 2 kilowatts (2000watts). I gave a seminar titled Understanding and Choosing Propellers for Electric Powered Aircraft on Friday and Saturday of the show. Attendance was down a bit from previous year's lectures, but so was total show attendance. As with all of my other lectures at the WRAM show and other club meetings, the presentation can be found on the www.sefli.org website. Dr. Keith Shaw (this year s recipient of the Howard McEntee Award) also gave a great lecture on a retrospect of electric flight. Keith talked about the humble beginnings of e-power through the last three decades. Lastly, my newly designed P-51A for a future Aerocraft kit came in third in Electric Scale at the show behind a Fokker DR1 (first) and Dr. Keith Shaw s Crosby Racer.

S I L E NT S P LEA S E PAGE 7 Photographs by Jim Perlowsky From the field...

ARF Bashing the SIG P-51B By Tom Hunt PAGE 8 Years ago, industrious kit builders would kit-bash any model to make it look like something else. Sometimes the effort was minimal; sometimes significantly more work went into bashing than would have to build the stock. Nowadays ARF bashing is much more prevalent, mainly do to the fact that kit building is a real lost art. ARF bashing takes its form mostly in foam models these days. There have been a number attempts to make a Multiplex CargoMaster into a stand -way-off B-17. Many GWS warbirds have taken on different shapes and many other pre - painted warbirds have gotten new paint jobs. This is popular even in SEFLI, as with the Eflite T-28 Trojan. Last year I reviewed the SIG P -51B 67 span ARF for Fly R/C magazine. I have always loved the earlier models of the Mustang. I built the TopFlite P -51B (slightly smaller) many years ago in my youth. Though I gave the model high marks for quality of construction and flying qualities, the model was certainly less than scale in my eyes. The fuselage is 2 too short forward of the LE of the wing and 1 too short aft of the TE of th e wing. The wing planform is very close to scale but the flap is too short. That area had been given up to the aileron. The sta bilizer was a bit too long in span and because the fuselage was too short, it was too close to the wing. The elevator also did not have the pronounced balancing horn/weight out near the tip. The vertical fin and rudder were also a bit short on shape an d also lacked the balancing horn/weight. This winter I began stripping down the model to see what could be down to make it more scale. I also wanted to bash the model into a British Mustang MK1A (four 20mm cannon Alison engine version). The strip down proved to be worth the time and I began working on cleaning up the model in preparation for the plastic (pun intended) surgery, as most of the new parts would come from my favorite 3D printer. Within these pages over the next few months I will describe how I have instituted the changes to create a more-scale-like early version Mustang. The fuselage was a bit too narrow in the area above the wing. I added 1/16 th sheet balsa to both sides. This also has the benefit of covering up some of the holes in the sidewalls from the original model. I also split the entire length of the fuselage from rudder post to the wing TE to spread the fuselage to the proper width in the aft section. The distance is appreciable. It translated into about 5/8 in most places. 3/8 square balsa cross braces were glued across the width of the fuselage at the old former positions to put back the strength of the fuselage.

PAGE 9 The aft fuselage was lengthened nearly 1 from the stock model and a new horizontal tail saddle was fitted to put the horizontal tail the correct distance above the wing and to set the incidence at 2 LE up as in the full scale aircraft. The white part you see just ahead of the balsa saddle is the new aft fuselage turtledeck. The cowl has been temporarily glued in place and the forward plastic deck/canopy frame and the aft turtledeck have been glued onto the old, modified fuselage. I have not decided yet if I will do the greenhouse A/B canopy center section or a Malcolm sliding hood. I am leaning towards the later. The forward lower fuselage skin, just behind the cowl, needed a new shape to match the new P -51 Alison engine cowl. One side has been sheeted here. Next month I will finish up the fuselage and start describing the modifications to the tails.

SEFLI SCHEDULE OF EVENTS April 21 April 25 May 19 May 23 May 23-24 June 16 June 20 General Club Meeting @ Holtsville Contest Flying @ Calverton General Club Meeting @ Holtsville Contest Flying @ Calverton Jones Beach Air Show General Club Meeting @ Holtsville Contest Flying @ Calverton A sad salute and tribute to Bob Baranaskas, who was lost in a tragic accident this month practicing in his P -40 for an upcoming airshow. Bob, the founding member of Warbirds Over Long Island will most certainly be missed. Silents Please Jim Perlowsky, Newsletter Editor 41 Buhl Lane East Northport, NY 11731