SCRC Meeting Notices
Monthly meeting are generally held the first Tuesday of each month with exceptions caused by holidays, etc. During the summer months, the meetings are held at the club's flying site. All other meetings are held at the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology, (formerly known as the Centre County VoTech School) in Pleasant Gap. The meetings start promptly at 7:00 p.m.

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Newsletter for the February 2004 Meeting

Past Meeting - Tuesday, February 3rd, 2004 at 7:00 PM

This meeting has been cancelled until further notice

No Meeting This Month

   At the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology

(formerly known as the Centre County Vo-Tech School)

Room B-127 - or another room nearby!

Check the sign in the Lobby for room confirmation!

Minutes from January Meeting

‑The January Meeting‑

The January meeting was held on January 6, 2004 at 7:00pm with 22 members attending.

  George Gurney gave his annual financial report stating that the club is in good shape, and we have seventy dues-paying members!

  Al Jones had a sign up sheet for the Winter Banquet. He needed an accurate count by January 12.

  Al also announced that he will make name tags for any club members who want one. These are nice to wear at SCRC functions, especially with so many new members on board. It's hard to tell who's who!

   Our new president, Jim Rhodes thanked all who agreed to serve as 2004 officers, as well as last year's officers.

   George Gurney reported that he flew at 8:40am on New Year's Day, making him the first SCRC member to fly in 2004! (I went to the field at about 10:00am and no one else was there. Too bad, you missed a great day for flying. I put in two nice flights with my electric Uproar. I took along my one burner gas stove and brewed a cup of hot tea to drink while I recharged the flight batteries.)

   Jim Rhodes asked for members' input on ideas for meeting programs. These winter meetings are great times to pick up tips on building, covering, flying, etc. before the new flying season arrives.

   Will Coder won the 50-50 raffle and took home $14.50.

‑Show and Tell‑

   I didn't write down who brought this device (sorry)(Gil Halbleib, inserted by Webmaster), but it's called a Tail Trap. It restrains your plane when starting the engine. It has a spike which holds it in the ground, and the cool part is that when you pull on its release cord, it folds forward and lets your plane taxi away! No more lifting the tail up to clear the plane holder, and dorking the spinning prop into the ground! Good design.

    One of our younger members (sorry again, I didn't get his name either)(Nathaniel Rice, inserted by Webmaster) showed us his new Futaba 9C computer radio. This is a state of the art radio with more switches than a 747! Well, maybe not that many, but it does allow you to make a multitude of settings like control surface throw, end points, high & low rates, mixing, etc. for many different planes, and saves it all in memory. I am constantly amazed by the technology available in modern R/C equipment. Someday, we'll be flying along and throw a switch marked “LAND”, and the plane will set up a perfect approach and make a perfect 3 point landing at our feet while we just watch! Would that be a good thing?......I'm not sure!

‑Flutter‑

   The program at the meeting was a well researched and presented dissertation by Al Jones on aerodynamic flutter. Let me attempt to summarize Al's talk:

    Flutter is when a control surface goes into a high speed oscillation, usually followed by the surface departing the airplane, and the inevitable crash. Entire wings can flutter too, with even more spectacular failures!

    The problem arises when the plane goes fast enough for the moving air to push the surface into a vibration at its natural resonant frequency. This frequency is dependent on its mass, stiffness, and center of gravity.

     The way to avoid flutter is to keep the natural frequency high enough that the plane will never go fast enough to make it buzz.

    We can do this by making the surfaces light, and very stiff, and having most of its mass inboard. Keep your pushrods rigid, and minimize any slop in the linkages, too. Things like tip tanks and other weight near the extremities can be a problem. Short, stubby wings are less likely to flutter than long thin ones (look at jet fighters). Sailplanes with their long, thin wings don't often flutter because they fly at slower speeds, although I did lose a Gentle Lady glider when diving out of a thermal once. The excess speed put the wing past its critical speed. The wing fluttered violently, then snapped in half!

    If you hear or see any part of your plane begin to flutter, you must slow it down by pulling back the power, or pulling the nose up on a glider to kill speed. Then land as soon as possible!

   Our thanks to Al Jones for a great, and very useful presentation!

‑2004 Winter Banquet‑

    We had our Winter Banquet on January 17, at the State College Elks Club.  The food was great, as was the company!

  “Captain” Al Jones donned his pilot's uniform and gave a great stand-up comedy routine filled with aviation-related jokes.

We gave out some good door prizes to club members, then Diana Coder gave out some prizes to the wives for putting up with us all year! She had some beautiful hand-knitted scarves, and hand made potpourri lamps. Thanks, Diana. That was a great idea!

  I handed out a few “Crash & Burn” awards for amazing and/or stupid things done with R/C aircraft in 2003.

   Chris Wharton got the “Up Yours” award for making his Ugly Stick plane go up and over the utility pole at the east end of the field after striking it.

    A.J. Jaffe got the “Disorient Express” award for crashing his helicopter after getting disoriented while flying it.

    Finally, Henry Loewen, who is usually good for at least one good crash per year, got the “Oh, Henry, You Didn't Crash” award for not crashing in 2003. This award came complete with an Oh Henry candy bar!

    Many thanks to Al & Avis Jones for organizing this event.

Winter Banquet attendees having a good time.

That's all for now.

 Sam Stitzer  814‑364‑9530                 samstitz@yahoo.com

For Access to past SCRC Newsletters --  click on the month for the desired year.