The June Meeting

The meeting was held at the SCRC Flying Field. It was a beautiful evening!

Meeting minutes from the meeting held May 1 were approved by the club members.

Treasures report – George Gurney presented the treasure’s report. The report was approved by the club members.

Old Business – None!

Altoona R/C Club fun fly will be held June 11th.  This will be last year at their current site.

Our fun fly will be June 25th.  Make sure to bring your favorite planes to fly.

New Business –

Name tags - Al Jones presented a motion to pay for new members name tags.  Motion was approved.  If you don’t have a name tag, please contact Al Jones for a name tag.

Al talked about the organization of the air show for the July meeting. People need to know what they will be flying and their frequencies. We also need to think about our marketing literature for the Airshow.

Program – None. Hugh Zinsmeister presented a motion to have the programs in the fall and winter. Motion was approved by the club members. All programs will be held during the times when we are at the Vo Tech School.

Announcements – Next meeting is at the flying field on July 11th due to the 4th of July. Rain or shine.

Show and Tell – Will Coder presented the airplane he has been building the past two years. It’s a .60 powered parasol wing original design patterned after the Cutie model. It spans 78”, and uses a wing kit for a Sig Kadet Sr. with most of the dihedral removed. The wing struts are made of .093” aluminum, and are secured to the Lite-Ply fuselage with screws and nuts for easy removal or repair. To help keep cooling air from stagnating behind the engine cylinder, Will put holes in the cowl with an internal baffle to direct the air out the sides. Very ingenious!  The covering is Monokote, done in the usual Will Coder style – perfect! Will plans to fly it later in the summer.

Al Niessner showed his Hobby Lobby foam electric plane with an inexpensive brushless motor and a three cell Li-Po battery. It goes straight up, and can easily perform all manner of fun stunts! Very nice!

The Meeting was adjourned at 7:30 pm.

 

Willow Grove Air Show

My sons and I went to Airfest 2006, a full scale air show at Willow Grove Naval Air Station near Philadelphia on June 17. It featured the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds Show Team, some jet fighter demos, and several civilian aerobatic acts. No admission or parking fees are charged for this show, and it’s certainly worth the trip!

   The Thunderbirds were great! Their formation flying requires incredible skill to fly only a few feet from each other at 500 mph!  Everything they did was precise and glass smooth!

  Jurgis Kairys of Lithuania flew a Sukhoi in a routine that mimicked our 3D models! He kicked the nose up into a hovering attitude and just hung there, doing torque rolls!  He also made a pass at about a 45 degree angle of attack, then climbed nearly straight up into a frenzy of aerobatic moves! Amazing! And, oh, man, the sound of that radial engine is sweet!

  Sean Tucker put the Oracle biplane through its paces, including knife edge ribbon cuts twenty feet off the deck! Wow!

  Jim Leroy’s Bulldog Pitts biplane went through some maneuvers that, it seems, would knock the average guy unconscious!

  Today’s new generation of aerobatic planes have power to weight ratios rivaling that of our overpowered models!

   Manfred Radius flew some amazing aerobatics with a sailplane. It was weird to see him climbing inverted with the wings flexing DOWN!

   The opposite end of aircraft speed was shown by F-18 and F-15 jet fighters. The speed, power, and sound of these planes is awe inspiring! The F-18 made a pass at supersonic speed. That was strange. The plane zipped by in total silence, then a few seconds later the sound and sonic boom caught up to us with an explosive roar! All we could do was laugh! It makes you giddy to see and hear it!

   A particularly poignant moment was when a WWII vintage Corsair flew in formation with the F-18 Hornet, symbolizing the incredible progress made in military aviation in the last sixty years.

   A huge static display was also on hand at this show. Many old warbirds were represented including a P-51, P-40, TBM Avenger, B-24, B-25, B17, and more. Military choppers and jets were there too, as well as some civilian planes, and even a few homebuilts.

   We all had a great time, and I would recommend this show to anyone who loves aircraft, as we all do!

 

June 25 Fun Fly

   The Fun Fly was cancelled due to a terrible weather forecast which was quite accurate. Thank you Accu-Weather! We have another one planned for July 16. Let’s hope for better weather!

 

That’s all for now. Remember, a good pilot breaks ground and flies into the wind – not the opposite!

 

Sam Stitzer  814‑364‑9530

samstitz@yahoo.com 

 

 

Here’s Will Coder and his original design parasol wing plane. Nice!