PILOT TALK Colonial Virginia Aeromodelers Chapter 1474 Volume No. xi Issue No. 7 Editor: Ken Howard Sr. Date: 11 July 2011 President: John Backes (757) 566-1403 jb753@cox.net Secretary: Anthony Morning (757) 253-7720 toonafish@netzero.net Safety Officer: Cliff Casey (757) 229-2562 rccasey@verison.net Activities: Joe Musika (757) 564-8957 jajlmus@verison.net Newsletter/Badges: Ken Howard Sr. (757) 480-2697 unlimitedsky@cox.net Vice President: Bill Van Cleave (757) 220-2320 b72750vc@aol.com Treasurer: Ivan Davis (757) 253-0244 deanie2@cox.net Field Marshal: John Hofmeyer (804) 829-2555 Field Maint: Tom Treese (757) 258-9666 tmtreese@msn.com Visit the CVA Web Site at: www.homestead.com/cvarc/ Training: Alan Fry (757) 229-7698 Alanwfemail- CVA@yahoo.com John Backes President President s Column 2011 Meeting Schedule All meetings (except for the Christmas Dinner) in 2011 will be held at the Williamsburg Christian Church on the second Thursday of the month, starting at 7 PM. The next meetings will be 14 July and 11 August 2011. Directions to Williamsburg Christian Church The building is at 200 John Tyler Lane. At the intersection of Route 199 and Route 5, turn the OPPOSITE direction that you would turn to go to the field. Go 50 yards and turn right (left is Strawberry Plains Rd.). You can t miss the Church; it is on the right just past the Professional Park that can be seen from Route 199. Everyone needs to be warned that there is an additional fine of $200 for going over 25 MPH and the cops are there a lot. MEETING LOCATION Williamsburg Christian Church 200 John Tyler Lane 7PM Thursday 14 July 2011 1
Keeping your cool I have been much more comfortable during the hot humid weather since I found shirts that are made to aid in evaporative cooling. Look for Reebok Play Dry or shirts by other manufacturers that advertise hydroweave. In addition to being cooler and drier, the shirts do not stick to you when wet. Don t try this at home Do not try this unless you fully understand the concept and it is advisable to do it outside. I am talking about reviving lipo batteries. Most information says that the lipos are ruined and must be discarded if the voltage goes below 2.7V per cell. It varies somewhat but most lipo chargers will give an error and refuse to charge batteries at or below this voltage. The way to possibly revive the batteries is to use another charger or charger setting to boost the voltage above the lower limit of the lipo charger. You can do this by setting the charger to the Nicad setting at a low current level such as 300 Ma. You need to be able to monitor the voltage. Exceeding 4.2 Volts per cell must be avoided. You only need to bring the voltage up to about 3.2 Volts to get the lipo charger to work. This has worked for several batteries that I know of. One of my batteries was tested before and after being over discharged and there is no noticeable loss of capacity. Again, do not try this unless you fully understand the concept and are able to monitor the voltage while charging. The next step When you build a plane and set it up according to the directions, that should not be the end. You need to fly the plane and make adjustment so that it flies the way that you want. The designer of the airplane had to make decisions on how the plane should be set up for the target audience. Your flying skills may be greater or less than the target audience. You flying style may be different. When you go flying, take the time to consciously evaluate how the plane is reacting to you commands. Does it feel nervous and twitchy or is it unresponsive? Adjusting the control throws, dual rates and exponential can make a big difference in your comfort level. Properly trimming an airplane is too big of a discussion for this column but go on the internet and search for RC pattern trimming guide or RC trimming for aerobatics or similar wording. Here are a few links that I found: http://www.rcplanetalk.com/trim.html http://nsrca.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=177:trimchart&catid=114:flyin g&itemid=187 http://www.palosrc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52:trim&catid=41:ic &Itemid=50 Show and Tell We are going to have a short show and tell at the end of each meeting. You are invited to bring a new plane, a neat gadget or to show an interesting building technique. Contact Me Phone: 757-876-1241 2
Email: jb753@cox.net Address: 8630 Diascund Road, Lanexa, Va. 23089 Minutes Buck Morning Secretary C.V.A MINUTES June 9, 2011 The meeting was called to order at 7 pm at the Williamsburg Christian Church. The President announced the minutes of the May 12, 2011 meeting as published in the last newsletter. A motion was made and seconded to accept the minutes. A vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously. The treasurer reported on the club finances Site Improvement: No reports Activities: Tom Treese commented on how great the turnout for Warbirds Over Williamsburg was and that the newspaper article was a plus to get the word out on the event. It was estimated that there were 97 vehicles in the parking lot during the event. Safety: Ken Howard Jr. mentioned the safe practice of standing behind your aircraft while doing a tachometer test of a running engine instead of in front of. It was also mentioned to check cables to all control surfaces. Training: No new students Old Business: None New Business: There was some discussion on the possibility of extending the shelter, but most thought the use of tarps was still ok. Carl Rannigan suggested instead of doing a paintball event for charity this year we try an open fly-in with donations of food and or gently used clothing to the charity FISH. Show and Tell: Cliff Casey showed a G-FAST 90 that he is working on using plans from the AMA plan service. John Backes showed picture he took while at the Barksdale Air Force Base of a P-51, B-52, A-10 and a MIG. There was also an auction of various items that belonged to member Ernie Barlow who had recently passed away. There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 8:10pm 3
Activities Joe Musika Activities Coordinator We are now half-way through the year. We have had some successful and some not so successful fly-ins. In June, we held "Warbirds over Williamsburg", and it was the biggest success for a fly-in since I've been in the club. Over Something Different 20 pilots, and over 40 planes flying all through the day. We saw several Warbirds from WW1 13 August 2011 variants all the way up to modern day Drones. There were lots of very detailed scratch built models that were both flown and displayed. Cub Fly The food sales were great. There was a good 10 September 2011 show of visitors with over 90 cars counted in the parking lot. During the noon-day walk through, there were lots of questions about both the planes and the Club. We were mentioned in the "Gazette" as The Pick for the Weekend, and the turnout proved it. Thanks to the event coordinator Tom Treese, who built this event from scratch!!!!! July has no scheduled events coming up. We will pick-up more in the August newsletter about upcoming events. Very Low Pressure Fun Fly by John Backes DATES TO REMEMBER The Very Low Pressure (VLP) Fun Fly was held on Saturday, June 11. We had a good turnout with 11 pilots participating. There were 6 pilots from CVA, four from NNPRC and one visitor from Texas. The object of the event is to have a Fun Fly in which any type of plane can be flown and the people flying trainers are not at a big disadvantage. The first event was the 2 part - 2 minute timed flight. Each flight is timed from when the wheels leave the runway until the plane touches the ground (hopefully near the runway). At the completion of the first flight, the time is recorded and the pilot is told the time needed to make the 2-minute total. The winner is the pilot with the combined time nearest 2 minutes. Alan Fry (CVA) was first with 1.8 seconds, Owen Dwire (NNPRC) was second with 2.2 seconds and third was Bruce Thompson (NNPRC) at 2.7 seconds. The second event was a Taxi Race. The course consisted of a start/finish gate and 2 pylons in a row. Each pilot was required to weave through the pylons and return. There was a 3-second penalty for knocking over a marker and a 5 second penalty for having to restart the motor. Bruce 4
Thompson (NNPRC) was first with 57.4 seconds. Carl Rannigan (CVA) was second with 1 minute 24 seconds and Alan Fry (CVA) was third with 2 minute and 31 seconds. The last event was two minute touch and goes. There was one point for each touch and one point for each go. No restarts were allowed. Phil Goodwind (NNPRC) was first with 23 points, John Desmond (visitor from Texas flying an electric plane) was second with 21 points and Bruce Thompson (NNPRC) was third with 19 points. Todd Smitt (NNPRC) and Tom Treese (CVA) each had 18 points. Thanks to Ed Zwerski for helping to run the event. Cliff Casey Safety Officer Safety No Safety items for this month. Alan Fry Training Officer Training Corner Website of the Month This month s website was submitted by John Backes and is called The E Zone. As you may have guessed, this website is devoted to topics on Electric airplanes. Here is the link: http://www.ezonemag.com/ Do you have a favorite website? If so, let me know and I will put it in the newsletter. Favorite online store, how to build, how to fly, etc- send me the link! My email address: AlanWFEmail-CVA@yahoo.com Transporting Airplanes and Gear Safely I have to omit that time got away from me this month. Therefore, I decided to cheat and reprint one of Dave Heape s classic articles from a previous Pilot Talk. I found one that really hit home. A week ago when going to the field, my field box with airplane tipped over in the back of my car. Fortunately, my plane did not suffer any damage. Dave discusses transportation accidents in the following article: 5
One area that we have not covered in the past is transporting and caring for you airplane while getting it to and from the field. We have had some pretty serious damage to airplanes while they were being transported. Things falling over on airplane parts, airplane parts flying out of the back of open vehicles (pick-ups, etc.), field boxes falling over and crunching airplane parts, slamming on brakes and the airplane reaching flying speed before it hits something because it hasn t been strapped down, a variety of holes/tears in covering caused by loose tools, etc. have all been reported by club members over the years. These kinds of incidents are preventable and a little forethought will keep careless accidents from causing unnecessary repairs to an airplane. Always secure your airplane parts and field equipment so these accidents will not happen to you. If you do have a problem, always make sure you check over your equipment before you fly. A crunched tail surface that detaches from the airplane in flight is a bad way to learn that the transporting accident did, in fact, caused some damage to the airplane. A little care and planning in securing your airplane and equipment during transporting them can save you lots of problems in the future. Fly as much as you can. Dave Heape Training Coordinator See you at the field. Misc. Photo of Warbirds Over Williamsburg VI (By Carl Rannigan, Bob Felberg and Tex Harrison) 6
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Editors Note Ken Howard Sr. Editor HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO: JOHN BACKES WILL BISCHOFF JOHN BOLLINGER LESS BRITT MIKE FOSTER GORDON TAYLOR BILL VAN CLEAVE The official CVA FREQUENCY CONTROL POLICY is to place a pin in the frequency control board prior to turning on your transmitter, and to remove the pin from the board after each use. FLY SAFELY 12