RC BEES of Santa Cruz County, Inc.
Newsletter April 2011
Editor: Alan Brown, 388 Aptos Ridge Circle, Watsonville, CA 95076-8518 Phone: (831) 685-9446. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.rcbees.org
Next Meeting
Thursday, April 21st, 2011, at the EAA building, Aviation Way, Watsonville Airport, 7:30 PM.
Treasurer’s Report
Beginning Balance $9144.56
Income
Donations $190.00 Dues $170.00 Fuel Sale $34.00
Subtotal $394.00
Expenses
Field toilet service $65.40
Subtotal $65.40
Ending Balance $9473.16
March meeting
Seventeen members attended the meeting on March 17th, 2011. President Steve Boracca called the meeting to order at 7:37 p.m. and the minutes of the February meeting and treasurer’s report as published in the March newsletter were approved.
Old Business
Because of the inclement weather forecast it was decided to postpone the Warbirds fun-fly to March 27th, and the secretary was asked to send out a message to members accordingly. (In fact, there
had to be a further postponement to April 3rd
, when
a very successful event was enjoyed).
Allen Ginzburg reported that the camera was doing fine with the existing solar panels as the days are lengthening. He can, if necessary, reduce camera run-time from his telephone.
New Business
The approaches to the runway need mowing prior to the upcoming fun-fly. John Williams and Steve Boracca will coordinate this work.
Richard Vigurs has sold the O&R 23 engine which was donated by a lady in Santa Cruz some time ago as part of her husband’s model airplane material; the proceeds will go to the club. Thank you, Richard!
Raffle tickets are going well for Dave Seiler’s Spitfire; the raffle will be completed at the fun-fly.
Show and Tell
Alan Avery, Mel’s son, has graciously donated a number of his father’s airplanes to the club, and they were put up for auction following the business part of the meeting.
They included some large powered sailplanes, a massive Senior Telemaster and Saito 120 4-stroke, and a large scale model of a home-built airplane, which Mel himself used to fly many years ago. The model has a 7-cylinder 4-stroke German engine, which seems to be quite unique. John Williams bought this and two of the sailplanes, Bob McReynolds took the Telemaster and engine, and other smaller airplanes and material were also sold. The only outstanding item from Mel’s collection is a ¾ finished P-51 from a Top Flite kit, beautifully constructed. Thank you, Alan, for this donation!
In other show and tell activity, Benno brought his Aero Bird Swift, a small electric pusher airplane with a carbon-rod fuselage.
Allen Ginzburg showed his ParkZone De Havilland Mosquito. These micro-sized airplanes continue to amaze. Just over 20” wingspan, weighs two ounces, tremendous scale detail and accuracy, contra-rotating propellers, and a very good flyer in Allen’s capable hands. And it comes bind-and-fly for only $119.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m. so that a board meeting could be held immediately following.
Board Meeting
The main purpose of the meeting, which was attended by Steve Boracca, Allen Ginzburg, Don Good, and Bob McReynolds with Alan Brown taking notes, was to discuss training and validation of beginning pilots.
Steve Jones had put together a proposed pilot’s training course, which involved four phases. The prospective pilot could be checked out at each level before being finally allowed to fly in an unrestricted sense.
It was proposed that airplanes may be divided into two categories, park flyers and those that are larger. Anything on these lines will, of course, be subject to overall membership approval.
Field procedures were also discussed, and Don Good will e-mail the membership with the board’s suggestions.
Steve noted that he had put a new lock on the gate. It certainly seems to be sturdier than earlier locks.
The board meeting was closed at 9:30 p.m.
Down by the River
The major event this month was, of course, our Mel Avery Memorial Warbirds Fly-In. This was admirably run by Jacob and Steve Boracca. Most of the events were pylon races, with several classes.
The first one was for micro airplanes, taking advantage of the lower winds earlier in the day. Quoting from Jacob; “We only had two people entered, so we thought we could get three if we raffled off the Micro Spitfire that was donated to the club. Dave Seiler, who donated the plane, drew the winning ticket, which was Stephan Warnke’s. (The club made 67 dollars with the raffle plane.) So with three competitors flying 5 laps, it made for an interesting show.
1st was Benno, 3 points - Micro Park-zone T-28 2nd was Marcelo, 2 points - Micro E R/C Spitfire 3rd was Stephan, 1 point - Micro E R/C Spitfire”
“Next there was only one entry for the T-28 pylon race so we changed it to Scale Electric Warbird Pylon Race which landed us three competitors. Five laps were flown. 1st was Paul Weir, 3 points - P-51 Mustang 2nd was Benno, 2 points - Park-zone T-28 3rd was John Williams, 1 point - Park-zone T-28”
Here’s Paul’s P-51, always great scale models – check out the 4-bladed propeller!
Benno’s second place T-28 comes into the pits.
And here’s John’s T-28, very secret, no markings!
Next we had Post WW II Pylon entries which were all Electric Ducted Fans. 5 laps were flown.
1st was Marcello, 4 points - F-35 2nd was Stephan, 3 points - Scratch-built L-39 3rd was Paul, 2 points – F-9F Panther 4th was Benno, 1 point - F-5 Tiger
Marcelo and Stephan are our resident EDF flyers, so no surprise that they took the first two places.
A triumphant F-35 taxis back towards the pits.
No Pictures of the L-39, but here’s Paul’s F-9F,
and Benno’s very colorful F-5.
“Next we had 2 entries for the WW II pylon race. We didn't keep score because Rick Wright and I (Jacob) had a mid-air when we tried to see how close we could get to each other in a formation lap. My T-34 landing gear hit the canopy of Rick's T-34
and we both pulled away and landed safely in a side by side landing. We started off the race by taking off together simultaneously and ended landing simultaneously. People thought our midair was the highlight of the event. (No damage to either plane).
Rick Wright, Jacob Boracca, 2 points each – 0.46 size T-34's.”
And here they both are:
And again:
No prizes for guessing who’s inverted. Yes, that’s Jacob! Now - strafing the enemy vehicles!
Mission completed successfully!
All pictures up to now by Richard Vigurs, and more to come by him and Don Good. Thank you both.
“The Speed pass had the best turn out. Each competitor got three passes to try to get a reading on Allen Ginzburg's I-Phone. The highest reading was counted for the competition.
1st was Marcelo, 104.1 mph - 5 points - F-16 2nd was Jacob, 96.1 mph - 4 points - T-34 3rd was Paul, 82.1 mph - 3 points - F9F Panther 4th was Stephan, 64.8 mph - 2 points - L-39 5th was Benno, 50.4 mph - 1 point - F-5 Tiger
Here’s Marcelo getting ready for take-off on his record-breaking run!
The others you’ve seen already, except the L-39.
An event which I had looked forward to was a true scale competition, where models were judged for static appearance, followed by a scale flight as defined by the flyer. However, time did not allow for this to be completed, and only the static judging took place. The results were as follows, broken down into two general categories, ARF’s and kit- or scratch-built, 15 points being a maximum.
ARF’s: 1st was Paul, 14.5 points – F-9F Panther 2nd was Paul, 14 points - F-86 Saber 3rd was Marcelo, 13 points – F-4U Corsair 4th was Rick Wright, 11 points - PT-19 5th was Benno, 7 points - Park-zone T-28
Here’s Marcelo’s Corsair.
Our tough contest director decided that only one entry should be allowed per contestant, so Paul’s second entry was tossed out.
Then came the scratch- or kit-built competition, which was won by the only entry, Stefan. He has made more than one completely scratch-built plane from Depron, and has published the plans for his
entry on the internet. It is a Kawasaki 61, Tony, which garnered him 13 points in the fun-fly.
Now on to the overall totals and winners.
1st was Marcelo - 24 points 2nd was Paul - 22.5 points 3rd was Stephan- 19 points 4th was Benno - 14 points 5th was Jacob - 6 points 6th was Rick Wright - 2 points 7th was John Williams - 1 point
Non-competitively, Rick Wright and Rick Sullivan decided to perform some formation flying with their identical PT-19’s.
Bob McReynolds brought out his turbojet powered F-16 and his very large electric-powered P-51 complete with Rolls-Royce Merlin sound system. A couple of taxi runs entertained the spectators greatly!
So it seemed that it was a great contest, Jacob did a fine job, and everyone enjoyed themselves. And here is your contest director taking care of business.
It was followed by the usual excellent lunch put on by Bill Moore, and a small swap meet, which was quite successful.
Here’s a general view of the scene, with some of the swap meet airplanes on the right, and Bill Moore preparing lunch on the left.
A closer view of some of the swap meet airplanes.
And finally some crowd scenes assaulting the lunch line, preceded by the lull before the storm!
Coming Events
For those of you who like big airplanes, I can recommend two upcoming events. On the weekend of April 30th and May 1st, the Salinas club is holding the annual Bob Francis Memorial IMAA fly-in at its field in Chualar, south of Salinas. An even bigger IMAA fly-in is the West coast Mini Fest at Castle Airport, Atwater, CA, in the central valley on May 26th through May 29th. This is an outstanding collection of large model aircraft, and every modeler should go there at least once.
And of course there’s our floatplane fly-in on May 22nd. Can’t miss that! Better think about what we should be building or buying. That’s it for now!
