The August Meeting

   The meeting was held on August 1 at 7:00pm at the field. Minutes from the July meeting were approved, as was the Treasurer’s report.

Old business:

1.  Details were firmed up for the August 13 Air Show. A parking plan had been laid out, and members of the Civil Air Patrol will assume the spectator parking duties. A work party was scheduled for 8:00am on Saturday, August 12 to erect the safety fence and canopies for the show.

  George Gurney reported that he had sent air show flyers to radio and TV stations, and to the Centre Daily Times.

  Permission was granted to Nittany Line Hobbies to have a booth at our air show.

2.  Roy Long suggested that we get out up a speaker outside the Airport Office so we can hear any full scale pilots talking as they approach the airport when we are flying there.

3. The SCRC by-law amendments as proposed by Al Jones were approved by the members present.

4. The EAA Fly-In breakfast will be on October 7 & 8. SCRC members will help cook/serve food on Oct. 8. We decided that there will be no regular R/C model flying at the field that weekend.

New business:

1. George Mock suggested that next year we incorporate a flea market into our June fun fly.

2. Several members reported they had seen some radio interference on channels 39 through 42. Vigilance was encouraged, as well as frequently range checking your radios.

Show & Tell:

Henry Margusity has found a website which has the insignias for a wide range of military aircraft.  (Sorry, I didn’t write down the address – Sam)

50-50 Raffle:

Henry Loewen won it!

 

SCRC Air Show

 

   August 13 was a perfect day for our show! The weather was warm, but not sticky hot, as it had been the previous week.

   Spectators began arriving around noon, and enjoyed looking at the models and chatting with our members. They soon cleaned out our food and soda inventory. I’m glad I got my hot dog early!

   Al Jones borrowed a wireless microphone system, complete with two mikes, for the announcer (me) to use. It was great! I wandered up and down the flight line, blabbing away with no cords to tangle! Ron Angle chimed in on the second mike to help narrate Nathaniel Rice’s incredible helicopter aerobatics. I didn’t know what to call some of those moves!

   The show was opened with three skydivers, thanks to Mike Songer, who is a skydiver as well as an R/C modeler. He offered the skydivers free of charge to SCRC. Thanks Mike. The crowd loved it!

   The show came off pretty much without a hitch, except for a few balky engines and dead stick landings. It sure is nice to have a 2000 foot runway for dead stick landings!

   To thank everyone involved with this event individually would take more space than I have in this newsletter, so I’ll mention the ones I can think of. Thanks to all you pilots who flew in the show. You guys showed the crowd a great variety of aircraft types and styles of flying, and they loved it! Thanks to Al Jones for the wireless mike and for being my “gofer” (assisted by Mark Wharton), prompting each pilot when his turn to fly was coming. Thanks to all who helped run the food stand, an often thankless job! Thanks to Roy Long and his Civil Air Patrol personnel for doing an excellent job of parking cars, and monitoring full scale flight activities. Thanks to Bob Grove, who gave two lucky raffle winners a nice ride in his full scale Piper, and demonstrated his ultralight! Thanks to all who helped set up the safety fence and canopies on Saturday morning. Thanks to all who brought planes for display.  Thanks to George Gurney for getting us some good publicity from the Centre Daily Times and radio & TV stations. Thanks to Mike Songer for the skydivers. Mike’s group is called PSU Skydive (www.skydivepsucorp.com or phone 866-BLU-SKYS if you want more info). And, of course, thanks to Jack Garbrick for letting us have the show at his airport.

  I apologize if I’ve missed thanking anyone. It was a great event for everyone there! Next year will be even better!

 

Plywood Source

  For the last month or so, I’ve been working on building a teardrop camping trailer. It’s built on a 5’ x 8’ utility trailer frame. The top is curved, almost airfoil shaped, and is sheeted with plywood. The plywood I used is 1/8” thick Baltic Birch (aka Russian Birch), and is available at Industrial Plywood Co. in Lewistown. (800-603-6019). It is very much like the stuff we use in models for bulkheads, wing spars, dihedral joiners, etc. It’s a beautiful product, easily glued, screwed, or nailed without splitting or delaminating. It comes in 5’ x 5’ sheets for just $9.25 a sheet. Try to get 25 square feet of 1/8” ply at a hobby shop for that price! The five foot length means you could make wing spars with dihedral in one piece. Or how about something like George Gurney’s Mystery Man wing with its gull-like center and elliptical dihedral at the tips? It could easily be done in a single piece! You could probably even build a quarter scale plane entirely of the stuff using a single sheet. Industrial Plywood has a great inventory of birch and many other plywood types too. Check out their website at www.industrialplywood.com.

 

Part of the Air Show flight line.

 

That’s all for now. 

Sam Stitzer  814‑364‑9530

samstitz@yahoo.com