SCRC Monthly Meeting Notices

Monthly meeting are generally held the first Tuesday of each month with exceptions caused by holidays, etc. During the summer months, June through September, 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 monthly meeting notices are maintained on this page. Past meeting notices can be found by clicking here.

Call to Order		Member's Rapt Attention

NEWSLETTERS OF THE STATE COLLEGE RADIO CONTROL CLUB

Next Meeting - Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 at 7:00 PM

At the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology

(formerly known as the Centre County Vo-Tech School; Click for map)

Room 129 is the most probable meeting location.

Check the sign in the Lobby for possible room changes!

Minutes from the December Meeting

Last Meeting - Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 at 7:00 PM

At the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology

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

Room 129 is the most probable meeting location.

Check the sign in the Lobby for possible room changes!

Minutes from the November Meeting

-The November Meeting-

     The meeting was called to order by SCRC President Jim Rhodes shortly after 7pm. There were 16 members present.

 1. Minutes - Minutes from the October meeting were approved as posted on the web site.

2. Treasurer’s Report – George Gurney reported some members have paid for next year. Expenses included a memorial for Karl Stashak’s mother and $64 for 1000 stickers that go on AMA cards. The report was approved.

 3. Old Business - The annual Winter Banquet has been scheduled for the Elks Club on 1/14/06 at 6pm.

The new nominations committee of Al Niessner, Jeff Favuzza, and Al Jones announced their nominations: George Mock as President, Chuck Paulson as Vice President, Henry Margusity as Secretary, George Gurney as Treasurer, Sam Stitzer as Newsletter Editor, Woody Struble as Field Marshall, Hugh Zinsmeister as Safety Officer, and Al Niessner as Webmaster. The floor will be open for additional nominees at the December meeting.

 The card for Peter Spink was signed by members at the meeting and Nathaniel Rice volunteered to send it out.

 Letters were sent to three members for safety violations, following a motion approved at the last meeting.

 4. New Business – Jeff Favuzza gave a report on discussions with Dave, Mike, and Elizabeth Grove who own the flying field. They had complaints regarding too much noise, high activity, a lack of privacy, barbecue smoke, and swearing when meeting with George Gurney, Al Niessner, and Jeff Favuzza on 10/13/05. At another meeting on 10/27/05 between Jeff Favuzza and Dave Grove various options for moving the flying field were discussed but it was decided our club should find another flying field.     Finally, further talks between Jeff Favuzza and Dave Grove resulted in agreement on an 8 month lease ending on 8/31/06. Dave Grove is preparing a potential lease.

 Following discussion, a motion was made and approved to lease the current flying field from 1/1/06 to 8/31/06 subject to the condition of having no fun flies, picnics, or air shows.

 Another motion was made and approved to form a group to establish a committee to find another flying field. Jim Rhodes volunteered to head the group. Volunteers for this group include Al Niessner, George Gurney, John Werner, Sam Stitzer, Brad Fisher, Will Coder, and Chuck Paulson.

5. Program – there was no program.

6. Announcements – Will Coder read a proposed infractions policy and it will be put into the newsletter so members have a chance to review it.

7. Show and Tell – Al Niessner showed the Polycharger 4 which can charge 4 Lithium Polymer battery packs simultaneously. It can be bought from Tower Hobby for $100 and is made by Electrifly. He also showed the Computer Battery Analyzer which can be bought from WestMountainRadio.com for $100. It can display discharge curves on a computer for various discharge rates.

 (See picture below showing discharge curves on Al’s laptop computer.)

7. 50/50 Drawing – Sam Stitzer and the club split $21.

 The meeting was adjourned about 8 pm.

- Flying Field Search Committee -

   Our committee has hit the ground running! We have already met twice, and visited several potential sites.  We have zeroed in on three promising sites, and will make a presentation at the December meeting. Of course, nothing is set in stone yet, so we are eager to hear other ideas from the membership. If you know of a potential site, please let us know ASAP.

   We are fortunate to live in a mostly rural area, where open farmland is abundant. The trick is finding land with a flat area for a runway with no large trees, power lines, fences, etc. in our way. And, we must be a good distance away from homes where noise complaints might be a problem.

  Another major consideration is investment. Many sites will require removal of trees, rocks, crop stubble, etc. and possibly making or improving an entrance road, and planting of grass on the runway. This all takes significant amounts of time, effort, and money that would all be for naught if we were evicted. We are considering all these things and more, and we would like your input as well to help us make the best possible decision for our club’s future.

That’s all for this month.

Sam Stitzer  814‑364‑9530

     samstitz@yahoo.com

Past Meeting - Tuesday, November 1st, 2005 at 7:00 PM

At the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology

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

Room 129 is the most probable meeting location.

Check the sign in the Lobby for possible meeting room changes!

Minutes from the October  Meeting

-The October Meeting-

     October 4, 2005

The meeting was called to order by SCRC President Jim Rhodes at 7pm. There were 17 members and 1 guest present. Our guest was Greg Granville, who is planning to join the club. Welcome Greg!

1. Minutes - Minutes from the September meeting were accepted as written.

2. Treasurer’s Report – George Gurney reported that the August air show took in $128.81 and cleared $44.33 after expenses. Some members paid dues and we had the usual newsletter expense. The report was approved.

3. Old Business - PSU club member Justin Heinly sent email to Ron Angle about 2-3 weeks ago regarding joint club activities and possible access to PSU facilities including Holuba Hall, but nothing has happened since. Also the PSU club is planning on an R/C float for the homecoming parade at the end of October.

4. New Business - Jim Rhodes appointed a nominating committee of Jon Polay (chair), Al Jones, and Paul Bittengle for next year’s slate of officers.

Al Niessner reported that Spectra Wood was contacted by Ellis Dunklebarger to make new card holders to fix the current problem with the frequency board.

Hugh Zinsmeister brought up several violations of the safety rules that have occurred. These include high speed passes over the runway, flying across roads at less than 25 feet altitude, and improper frequency board usage. A motion was made to draft a warning letter to the individuals involved. The motion passed.

A motion was made to have a winter banquet at the Elks Club. The motion passed.

5. Program – there was no program.

6. Announcements - Al Jones has nametags and booklets for new members. Contact him at 237-2284 if needed.

 Nathaniel Rice announced that Peter Spink is moving back to Australia in December. The club decided to get a farewell card to be signed at the next meeting. Jim Rhodes volunteered to get the card.

George Gurney, Sam Stitzer, and Al Niessner are giving a flight demo at Penn’s Valley on 10/11/05.

Jeff Favuzza said Dave and Mike Grove (our landlords) asked if they are covered in case anyone gets hurt at the flying field. He did not know, but Al Niessner volunteered to contact AMA to get a letter regarding insurance coverage.

7. Show and Tell - Eric Marsh showed a nicely built SR Batteries Cutie with a 44 inch wingspan. He replaced the Speed 400 motor with a brushless motor and 2100mah LiPo batteries and reported that it has lots of power and can fly for about 25 minutes on a charge! Eric also has another wing for the Cutie. This wing has much less dihedral, and has ailerons.

Here is a photo of Eric and the Cutie.

Nathaniel Rice showed plans he sent for in the Flying Aces newsletter. He is going to scan the plans into a CAD program and scale them up to the appropriate size.

7. 50/50 Drawing – Nathaniel Rice split $19 with the club.

 The meeting was adjourned about 7:50 pm.

Using CAD for plane design

 At the October meeting, Nathaniel Rice mentioned using AutoCAD software to help design and draw R/C planes. I use Auto CAD daily in my work as an engineer & drafter. I have used it often for model designing. It is a wonderful tool for the R/C modeler!

  Recently, I have been drawing up a Britten-Norman Islander twin for R/C. It will use two Speed 400 motors and a 7 cell battery which I used for a twin motored model a few years ago. To start this project, I found a line drawing of an Islander on the internet, and downloaded it to my computer as a bitmap file. Then I imported the file into AutoCAD. Next I traced over the outline of the plane using lines, arcs, etc. in AutoCAD. I used red lines so I could see them over the black lines of the bitmap image. Once I was finished, I simply erased the bitmap image, leaving the lines intact.

   I had decided that I wanted the model to have about 350 square inches of wing area. Doing a little math showed that I needed a wingspan of about 48 inches. The drawing I made had a span of about four inches, so I needed a scale factor (multiplier) of 6.  Now here’s where CAD is so useful. I used the “Scale” command, selected all the lines, then typed in a scale factor of 6, and instantly the drawing jumped to six times its original size! Sweet! Doing that on a drawing board without CAD would have taken hours of tedious work.

With the drawing now being the actual size I wanted, I then copied outlines of the motors, props, spinners, servos, battery pack, airfoil, etc. from other drawings, and inserted them into the new drawing. Then I began drawing the structure around them.  Once the basic outline is done, it’s fairly simple to make outlines of individual pieces (fuse sides, bulkheads, wing ribs, tail surfaces, etc.) of the plane. When it’s done I can plot it out full size on the big plotter at my office, and build the plane from that drawing.

    The ability to scale a drawing up or down is a great feature for the model designer. You can design your model to exactly match your power system, rather than build a kit or build from purchased plans for a plane that might be just a little too big or too small.

    Not everyone has access to AutoCAD software, but there are numerous inexpensive CAD packages available in stores or on the internet. If you want to design your own planes, CAD is a worthwhile investment.

That’s all for this month.

Sam Stitzer 814‑364‑9530

     samstitz@yahoo.com

Past Meeting - Tuesday, October 4th, 2005 at 7:00 PM

At the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology (CPI)

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

Jim Rhodes has contacted CPI and has confirmed that CPI will be available.   Room 129 is the most probable meeting location.  Since there is considerable renovation going, on the meeting room may change.

Minutes from the September Meeting

The meeting was called to order by SCRC President Jim Rhodes at 7:02pm. There were 23 members and 6 guests present. Our guests were Eric Marsh who wants to join the club, Gayle Larson, and 4 members of the PSU R/C club, Justin Heinly, Jack Tsai, Bill Den Heyer, and Dan Strikowsky. They invited any interested club members to help with an R/C airplane oriented float for PSU homecoming at the end of October.

1. Minutes - Minutes from the August meeting were accepted as written.

2. Treasurer’s Report – George Gurney reported that the August air show took in $128 and cleared $44.33 after expenses related mainly to food and drink. Expenses also included $200 for mowing to Woody Struble. The report was approved.

3. Old Business

 Jim Rhodes expressed appreciation to all who contributed to the August air show and made it a success.

 Al Niessner contacted Ellis Dunklebarger about the issues of missing frequency numbers and cards falling through the slots on the new frequency board that has been installed at the field.

4. New Business

On the dates 9/23 – 9/25 there will be an estate sale at the house where the field is located. A motion was made and passed that there be no flying from 9/23 to 9/25 because of the crowd of people that will probably be there. Jim Rhodes volunteered to make a sign to this effect and Woody volunteered to post it.

5. Program – there was no program.

6. Announcements

The Grove family sent the club a nice card expressing appreciation for the flowers the club sent on hearing about the passing of Leonard Grove, who owned the land our field is on.

 Nathaniel Rice attended a helicopter fun fly near Rochester, NY with Sandy and A. J. Jaffe in August.

Al Jones showed a frequency scanner that checks for interference before you fly. Its costs $49.99 from Tower Hobbies and has a better antennae option for $8 more.

7. 50/50 Drawing – George Gurney won the 50/50 raffle and split $25 with the club. Clair Jones won a set of screwdrivers donated by Will Coder.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:26 pm. 

Visit to Silver Spring R/C Club Field

 Today (Sept. 24), I went to visit my son, Mike who lives near Lancaster, PA. Mike flies R/C planes and just joined the Silver Spring R/C Club, whose field is located only about five minutes from Mike’s house.

  Their field looks much like ours. It is a mowed strip along a road with corn and bean fields bordering the field on three sides. The runway is shorter than our field by at least one hundred feet, which makes landing a bit tougher when the corn is high, but there’s still adequate room.

   Mike flew his new Goldberg Matrix ARF. It’s a beautiful plane with 3D capability. Mike has a YS .63 four stroker on it. It’s a great engine! Easy starting, even inverted, and totally reliable throttle response. It has a pump which pressurizes the fuel tank and regulates fuel flow. This makes tank position non-critical, so it can be placed on the center of gravity.

  Mike put the Matrix through its paces. Roll rate is about 3 per second with the radio on high rates! He did inverted flat spins, instant snap rolls, and climbed straight up at full throttle! The plane slows down nicely for landings. It’s light for its size.

  When he first flew it a month ago, he noticed some weird handling – a couple of near fatal, unplanned snap rolls! I suggested he check the wings for washout. He found that the right wing actually had wash-IN, meaning the tip was set to a HIGHER angle of attack than the root, rather than vice versa. This is a dangerous condition that will surely lead to a nasty tip stall at the worst possible time! Mike warped the wings to add a couple degrees of washout, and now it flies perfectly! (A word to the wise: Check your new plane’s wings for washout before its first flight!).

   I flew my electric Uproar and my little Daydreamer parasol wing plane, which both seemed pretty tame compared to the Matrix! The little Speed 400 powered Daydreamer handled the choppy wind surprisingly well and it actually thermalled for a few minutes!

   We had a great time flying and talking plane stuff, and I hope to go there again soon!

Here’s the Matrix. Nice!	Taking off. Looks like our field.
Landing approach over the corn.	Just before touchdown.

That’s all for this month.

 Sam Stitzer  814‑364‑9530

     samstitz@yahoo.com

---

Past Meeting - Tuesday, September 6th, 2005 at 7:00 PM

At the SCRC Flying Field

In case of inclement weather

 meet at the Central Pa. Institute of Science & Technology

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

There is considerable renovation going on here so the Room is not known!

Check the sign in the Lobby for the room where the meeting will be held!

Minutes from the August Meeting

-The August Meeting-

August 2, 2005

The meeting was called to order by SCRC Vice President Will Coder at 7:03pm. There were 21 members and two guests present. Anthony DeLullo was a guest, as was former SCRC member Bob Grove.

Our secretary, Chuck Paulson was absent, so Sam Stitzer agreed to take minutes for the meeting.

Minutes from the July meeting were accepted as published on the SCRC website.

 Treasurer's report: George Gurney reported that the June 19 Fun Fly/Picnic netted a $62.00 profit, and the July 17 picnic brought in a $15.00 profit.

  Old Business: Planning for the August 14 Air Show was conducted by Will Coder using Jim Rhodes' checklist from past years. Volunteers were found to bring the required food, drinks, ice chests, etc. A signup sheet for pilots wishing to participate in the show was passed around by Sam Stitzer.

  Official start time for the show is 2:00pm. We will open the field at noon to sell food and drinks, and for spectators to look at the models. The safety fence will be set up at 8:00am on Saturday, August 13.

  George Gurney read the text of a press release he sent to several local radio and TV stations. Some suggestions were made for contacting additional radio stations in Mifflin County.

   Sam Stitzer said he would have Al Niessner send all SCRC members an email telling them to let Sam know if they were planning to fly in the show.

   Announcements: Bob Grove mentioned the "Wings over Piper" flying event in Lock Haven on August 5, 6, and 7. Modelers are invited to fly any type of R/C model. Attendance in past years was high, and some jet models were present.

   Program: There was no program, except for some good flying after the meeting.

   50-50 Raffle: We had no raffle since the tickets were not there.

   The meeting was adjourned at about 7:40pm.

A Sad Note

   We lost a club member and a good friend on the evening of August 2 when Harry Anderson passed away.  Harry was one of the first guys I met when I began flying R/C back in 1972. He was a good pilot and model builder, and always seemed to have a big smile, even in recent years as his health declined. He flew a Top Flite Contender many years ago. He used to take off, then at only about a six foot altitude he would roll it over and climb out inverted! That became his trademark maneuver, and he chuckled when people remarked about it.    In more recent times Harry was our chef at air shows and picnics.

   Harry was all about enjoying the R/C hobby. He didn’t build big or flashy planes. He just went out and had fun! I admired him for that attitude.

   I have to wonder if it was just a coincidence that Harry passed away the same evening we were having our meeting at the field. Maybe it was God’s way of letting Harry pay a final tribute to those of us he knew and loved. Goodbye, Harry. We will miss you.

 Wings Over Piper

  I attended the Wings Over Piper model meet at Lock Haven on August 6. I was impressed to see that this has become a major event! There were many large scale models there, especially Piper Cubs up to 1/3 scale. One was a winner from the Top Gun Scale Championships. It was incredible! Completely detailed cockpit and exterior! A B-25 bomber of about ten feet span flew with two big gas burners for power. It was beautiful! It was so realistic at that size. Many other scale models flew, including a Stearman PT-17 biplane, a Waco Bipe, and some WWI biplanes (Sopwith and Fokker) I love scale models, and these big birds were the cream of the crop! It was definitely worth the short trip to Lock Haven, and I hope to return next year. Hmmm, maybe I should build a Cub!  (See photos at the end of the newsletter.)

SCRC Air Show

  August 14 was stinkin’ hot! I believe the weather kept some spectators away, as the crowd seemed a bit smaller than recent years. Nonetheless, we had a great Air Show! I opened the show with a dedication to the late Harry Anderson and Leonard Grove. Jeff Favuzza suggested this idea, and it was a good one.

   A wide variety of aircraft types were flown to the crowd’s delight. Trainers, sport, scale, gliders, pylon racers, helicopter, the Stop Sign, the Mud Duck, and more had great flights!

   Brian Julius and Karl Stashak did a mock pylon race with a Sukhoi and a Shoestring which showed the crowd some real speed!

   Jeff Favuzza’s bomb dropping P-40 was a crowd pleaser, especially when the right main gear refused to come down for landing! I think he was doing the old “Wing and a Prayer” act! He retracted the left gear and belly landed it perfectly on the grass!

   We had a mass launch of five electric Soarstars at once. It looked and sounded a lot like a nest of bees! Brad Fisher’s model suffered a wing failure in flight and fluttered into the corn! He got it back, and will have it flying again.

   Woody Struble’s Flying Stop Sign was a favorite, as always, with it’s hovering over the runway.

   Nathaniel Rice had the only helicopter in the show, and it performed well with quick aerobatics and a feather soft landing.

   Of course while all the flying was going on, the Wingerts and the Zinsmeisters were busy serving up great burgers and hot dogs! The hot weather made for brisk sales of cold sodas and water. I drank five sodas that day and was still thirsty when I got home!

   Our thanks go out to all who helped in any way to make this event a success: Pilots, all who brought food, soda, etc., those who set up the safety fence and canopies, and special thanks from me to Al Jones, who acted as my “Gofer”, making sure each pilot was ready to fly when his turn came up. This effort really smoothed out the flow of action, and made the show very professional. I’m sorry if I forgot anyone. Thanks again to you all. Your effort is greatly appreciated.

  That’s it for now. Remember, the September meeting is at the flying field. In October we will return to the Central PA Institute of Science & Technology.

Sam Stitzer  814‑364‑9530

     samstitz@yahoo.com

 Wings Over Piper

These planes were big!

B-25 flying over looks real!

Only the hat in the back seat shows that it’s not a full size Cub!