Siloam Springs RC Modelers

What a wonderful day! It wound up being sunny and warm, and the wind was lower than they’d been forecasting. Yay! We needed a nice flying day.
Mike and I got to the field at 12:30, because he had a new plane to range-check and hopefully maiden. Mike’s been putting this CA Models Epsilon together for a couple of months, and we had run in the new OS 120 about a month ago. We’ve just been waiting on decent weather since then. Mike also had his 60-size Ultra Stick, and he got in one warm-up flight on that, and then it was on to the Epsilon. The range-check went perfectly, so Mike fueled it up and took off. It took a couple of clicks of right aileron, but it flew very well otherwise. Mike got in two flights with that plane, and he had a huge smile on his face the rest of the day
I had my Black Magic and my Abbra, and I got 5 flights in. I managed to hit a mole hill so hard that I ripped the right side of the landing gear out of the Abbra! Arg! Moles!
Many people came out to enjoy the weather: Bill Bergen, Max Freeman, Dave Husher, Bob Stewart, Tony Fox, Ed Jordan, Bill Whitaker, Dan Stelljes, and Mark Labadie. I’ve probably missed someone Oh, Marvin Hexdrix was out, but he didn’t fly. He must have gotten his March flight already? No, this was the first Sunday in March…
Bergen had his 40-sized Stick, and he flew once. Max had his SNJ, and he flew once. Max had Ed Jordan helping, and Ed said they put about 8 clicks of down trim into it throughout the flight. We checked the plane as Max was putting it away, but we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary other than a loose fuel tank. The tank could possibly have moved fore and aft, so it’s possible it was changing the CG. We didn’t see anything else weird, so hopefully that’s it.
Dave had his Fieseler Storch out for show-and-tell, and he has his Edge 540 out for flying. Dave said he and Tony had been preparing the Storch for flight on Saturday and were pretty close.
Tony had his Cherokee, but he had trouble getting it started. I never did see him fly it.
Ed had his Spacewalker, and he flew once of twice. That looks like a nice flying airplane. Ed looks very comfortable with it, which is great to see.
Bill Whitaker has a new electric ducted fan that he maidened. It looked like it flew very nice. It was flat black and a bit difficult to see in the sky, but Bill didn’t seem to have any problems.
Dan Stelljes was out again, and he had his Seagull Models Yak. Saito 91 powered? I forget now. That’s a terrific plane, though. Dan flies it well.
Mark Labadie also had a new plane, a new 60-szed Tiger. Dan helped Mark maiden it, but Mark did a lot of flying once it was trimmed, and Mark brought it in for a nice landing. It’s great to see Mark with another Tiger!
Bob Stewart also had a new plane: a Great Planes Escapade. Bob has an eFlight 46 with a 4-cell Lipo, and it flew very nice. I think Bob flew it 3 or 4 times.
It was a great day of flying with four new planes maidened successfully. Hopefully it’s a good omen for the flying season ahead.

Another beautiful Wednesday and another afternoon where Bob could not be found at his desk With temperatures in the 50s, light winds, and cloud-free skies, I had to get out and do some more trimming on the Black Magic.
I got to the field about 1:15, and Kevin Sisco and Dennis Keigley were already out there. Dennis had his Alpha Trainer and his T-26 foamie electric, and he had already gotten a full day’s flying. Dennis flew his Alpha once while I was there, and he had a battery failure and crashed at the south end of the field. Bummer. Dennis said that he’d charged the batter 3-4 hours this morning with a wall-wart, but that was probably not enough for the 4 flights he put on it. Overnight charging is generally best before a flight session.
Kevin had his 50-sized Raptor helicopter, and I got to see him fly once. He is really getting good with that bird. I was doing loops and rolls and lots of inverted flight.
Mark Labadie, Bill Bergen, Max Freeman, Dan Stelljes, and Dave Husher all came out about 1:30. It has been a very long time since Dan has been out, and we were all happy to see him. He didn’t have a plane, but we were still glad to see him
Mark had his 40-sized Ultra Stick, and I think he flew twice. Bill may have had a plane, but it didn’t come out of the truck. Max, too, didn’t ever get anything out of the truck. The weather was nice, and we had a lot of people at the field, so Bill and Max kept busy visiting with the rest of us Dave had his electric Edge 540, and I saw him fly once.
Oh, I had my Black Magic out, and I’d done a bit of work on it since its maiden flight on Sunday: the fuel tank mounts had come loose, so I beefed those up. When I maidened it, it took 3-4 clicks of right aileron, which seemed weird, and I tracked that down to uneven incidence in the left stab and left wing (compared with the right stab and right wing). I evened all that up and removed reset the trim. I had also found that the plane require absolutely no elevator on inverted flight, which told me it was a bit tail-heavy. I used a different double prop nut that weighed 0.3oz more, which moved the CG forward slightly. I flew it the first time today, and the aileron trim was no longer necessary as I had hoped. The plane required a bit of elevator in inverted flight, which was much better also. I did notice that it now had a noticeable wobble in rolls (vertical and horizontal) and that it was not pulling to the canopy at all on downlines. That meant too much wing incidence to me, so after the first flight I took out half a turn of incidence on both wings. Since those are driven by 4-40 screws, that’s just 1/40 of an inch, which is not a heck of a lot I started right at 0.5 degrees positive, and I suspect I’m at 4.75 degrees positive now. That change made a world of difference, though: the rolls are axial now, and there’s a slight pull to the canopy on downlines. Yay! It flew very well, but I’m still long on my landings, because it floats more than I’m used to. I’ll get that worked out quickly, I hope. I also had problems with the Abbra on Sunday: it was running very lean, which prevented me from taking advantage of a really nice flying day. Mike and I checked it over really well and didn’t find anything other than the check valve on the fuel injector was a bit loose. It turns out that check valve is a press-fit over the injector and being loose it was allowing an air leak into the fuel stream. I found a post by Troy Newman on RCU saying that you could fly without the check valve, so I tried that Monday afternoon, and the engine ran great. I ordered a couple of new check valves, and the Abbra will be back in business this weekend. Whew! I was worried about needing to send it back to YS service. I’m glad it was a simple problem that was easy to fix.
Let’s see… Grover Parent and Ed Jordan both came out about 2pm. Grover had a new electric Reactor that he was ready to maiden. Dan went over it carefully and worked with Grover and Kevin to reduce the throws to more manageable levels Dan agreed to help Grover with the maiden, and that seemed to go very smoothly. Grover got into a bit of trouble once way south of the field and in a weird attitude. Luckily, Dan was able to pick up on what the plane was doing, and he got it back. Whew!
Ed had his spacewalker, and he was setting it up to fly as I was leaving at 3:30. I had a 4:00 meeting, but I wish I could have gotten in a couple more flights.
This weekend is looking pretty good. Get your stuff cleaned off and charged up, and come out. The time change is coming up in a little more than a week, which means more flying time in the afternoon! I’m ready for a bit of after-work practice, although it’s going to have to get warmer, too

About 10:30 this morning the clouds parted, and the sun popped out. I was hopeful that the weather forecasts were wrong. Unfortunately, about 11:30 the clouds regrouped and blocked out the sun for good. At least it was still in the mid 50s with very little wind. The forecast for Sunday was horrible, so any flying this weekend would happen today. I had all my stuff charged up and headed to the field about 12:30. I got there without any receiver batteries in the Abbra, but Beth was able to bring those out to me. She stayed and called the Intermediate Sequence for me twice. The first flight’s sequences weren’t very good, but the pair of sequences I did on the second flight was much improved. I’m looking forward to the springtime when I can get in 10-12 practice flights a week.
About 1:30, the rest of the Saturday gang showed up: Mark Labadie, Dave Husher, Bill Bergen, Tony Fox, and a new member, Dennis Keigley.
Mark had his 40-sized Ultra Stick, and he had replaced the y-harness on the ailerons and checked it out, so it was ready to maiden. Mark had also replaced the battery in his transmitter, and that seemed to be holding a charge much better. Mark and I went over the model, and he fueled it up. We got the engine running pretty well, and Mark carried it out to the runway. It didn’t run quite right and wound up dying what I was taxiing. Hmmm… Mark carried it back, and we wound up going in on the high-speed needle 1/4 to 1/2 turn. Mark carried it back out, and it was much improved. I gave it the gas and headed down the runway when I hit some mole hills on the east side of the runway and ripped the landing gear off. How embarrassing Luckily, Mark is a big believer in nylon landing bolts, so it was an easy fix. Mark fueled it back up, and carried it back out. The takeoff was uneventful this time, and the plane flew nice. It took about 1 click of up elevator, and it was in trim. Yay! Mark flew it around for quite a while (getting his February flight in), and then I landed it. Those are sweet-flying airplanes.
Dave Husher had the foamie electric he’s been scratch building out for show-and-tell, and it looked very nice! Dave said he expects the all-up weight to be around 9 ounces. Yikes! Dave also had his electric Edge 540, and he flew that once. His transmitter battery was going down quickly, so he brought it in and called it a day.
Bergen said he had a plane, but I didn’t see it, so I can’t confirm that When the rain started about 2 or 2:30, Bill headed for the house. I chose to put my stuff up at that point, too, but the rains quite, and it continued to be a decent flying day.
Dennis had an Alpha 40 trainer that he’s been flying by himself, and he got Tony to check it out and stand with him while he flew. Dennis did a terrific job, and he should be cleared for his green card, since he took off and landed by himself. Nice! It was Dennis’ first day as a member, and already making progress towards his gold card. As I was leaving about 3pm, I saw that Dennis had pulled out a foam T-26. It was great to see an enthusiastic new member!
Marvin Hendrix came out about 2:30 with his 25-sized SNJ. Marvin hadn’t gotten his February flight yet, and today might have been his last opportunity! He barely had enough juice in his flight box to fuel up the plane, and he had to borrow Dennis’ starter, but by golly he got that plane into the air! Yay!
Hopefully warmer temperatures are on the way. The days are getting longer, and the time change is only a few weeks away (March 14), so we should start getting more and more flying in. Keep you stuff changed and ready to go, because you never know from one day to the next

It looked to be another nice day in the middle of February, and work was stressing me out, so I chucked it all and went flying. It was 46 degrees with a moderate NW wind. The wind made it feel much cooler, but luckily it didn’t blow very hard or very often.
I got out to the field about 2pm, and the rest of the gang was already there: Max Freeman, Bill Bergen, Dave Husher, Mark Labadie, Ed Jordan, and Grover Parent. Only Bill, Dave and I flew, however. Bill had his electric Gee Bee and flew twice. Dave had his electric Edge 540 and had one nice flight. I had my Abbra and flew twice.
Mark Labadie had a 40-sized Ultra Stick that hadn’t been flown yet. Mark, Max, and I piddled with it off and on during the afternoon getting it ready. We got the servo throws and directions set up, and Max and Mark found a bad aileron y-connector. The engine (Thunder Tiger 46?) was a bit stiff, so Mark loosened it with a bit of fuel and it was fine. Mark also found that his transmitter battery was weak. He suspects that might has been the cause of his Tiger crash a few weeks ago. Bummer. By the end of the day, it looked like Mark had a few pieces to replace, but he ought to be ready to fly the next time he’s out. Yay!
Hopefully the weather will get better and better from here on out. I’m sick of winter. I did notice that the days are getting noticeably longer: the sun is pretty bright at 7am and it still pretty bright at 6pm, which is a vast improvement over a few weeks ago. Of course, it’s been cloudy and overcast for the most part, so it’s hard to know
Sunday looks like a wash-out, but Saturday might be nice. Get your stuff ready just in case!

Some of you who were at the club meeting back in August remember the built-up fuselage for the Black Magic I was building. The fuselage was nearly done at that point, but I don’t think I’d fiberglassed it yet. I covered it with 0.7 ounce fiberglass cloth and finishing resin. There’s a trick to laying down very little resin, since it weighs a lot, but you need enough to fill in the weave of the fiberglass to get a smooth finish. The trick is to first seal the balsa sheeting with Coverite’s Balsarite, then use a foam roller to put a thin layer of resin on the wood. Then you lay down the fiberglass cloth and smooth it out. You can then use the foam roller again to soak up excess resin, squeezing the resin out of the roller with paper towels. Once the fiberglass cloth has a good coat of resin (but not too much!), you apply microballoons with your hands, rubbing it into the resin. That works to fill the weave of the cloth and soak up any excess resin. It was a good trick, because the fueslage came out really smooth, and I added less than 2 ounces! It needed very little primer to smooth it out nicely, and the primer only added another ounce.
I went down to Van Buren on Saturday (01/16) to help Mike paint the fuselage. I say I went down to help: I mostly stood around in amazement at the work Mike was doing. He worked from 9am until 6pm on that plane. It was really interesting all the steps he went through to lay down a color, mask off other areas, lay down another color, etc. It was impressive to see it slowly come together into the pattern I’d drawn. I got down there at 11am, and I had to leave at 2pm. I got a bunch of pictures, and I left my camera, so Mike could get more after I’d left.

Here is a picture of the canopy and the chin cowl (click on the picture for a larger version):

Here is a picture of the fuselage (click on the picture for a larger version):

Here is a picture of the rudder (click on the picture for a larger version):

It really turned out great! Mike said he’s got color sanding and polishing still to do. I shold get it back in a week or so. After that, I’ve got a good 2-3 weeks of re-assembly to do before it’s ready to fly. Just in time for the weather to turn off nice

I got the wings and horizontal stabs covered over the Christmas break. Here is a picture of the tops of the wings and horizontal stabs (click on the picture for a larger version):

Here is a picture of the bottoms of the wings and horizontal stabs (click on the picture for a larger version):

I got a bit of video of Kevin flying his 50 size Raptor for the first time. Looks awesome, great job man.

Ugh… Weathermen… At least it wasn’t overcast, just very cloudy. Also, it was 55 degrees at noon, which is a full 10 degrees warmer than Sunday. Again, they got the wind correct: S at 10-20 (the sustained winds were every bit of 15, and it gusted to 20 and beyond). John and I got to the field about noon with my Focus Sport and his electric Ultra Stick. John hadn’t been out since the New Year’s Day Fly-In and was looking forward to some more training. Unfortunately, he wasn’t comfortable enough with the wind to do take-offs, and just flying around took its toll on him. He fought with the wind for 2 flights and called it quits. He flew well, considering how much the wind was blowing him around. I wish we could have gotten some landing approach practice in, but there’s plenty of time for that. Just flying in this wind was good for him: it’s difficult for all of us to fly in a blustery wind like that.
I wanted to get a few more flights on the Focus to make sure the regulator was working well. I got in 3 flights, and both battery packs were used very equally. Yay! I think the manufacturer has got this figured out now.
My wife, Beth, and my daughter, Megan, came out to watch John and me, but they only hung around for 2 flights. The sun wasn’t out, and the wind had a real bite to it. I didn’t blame them for leaving early
Kevin Sisco and Bill Bergen came out around 1pm. Kevin had his 50-sized Raptor again, and he got in a great flight, considering the wind. I saw quite a bit more side-in hovering from Kevin today, and he was holding it very steady.
Bill had his new electric Gee Bee and his 40-sized Ultra Stick. Neither one came out of the truck Bill has been waiting for a decent day to maiden the Gee Bee, but there hasn’t been one! I don’t blame him for not flying: it was blowing us all over the sky, and landings were just treacherous.
Bob Stewart came out about 2:30 as John and I were leaving. Bob had his Stick with the gasoline engine. I’m not sure what kind of Stick it is, but it looks like the original version.
The weather is supposed to turn ugly starting Tuesday. Of course, it was supposed to be much nicer this past weekend, so who knows. Hopefully we’ll continue to get reasonable winter flying weather.

The weathermen are really starting to get my goat. 55 and sunny with 5-10mph winds from the WNW; that was the prediction. Reality was overcast, 45 degrees, and west winds at 5-10. Yes, they got the wind right, so I shouldn’t be too unhappy
I got to the field about noon with one of my Focus Sports and my Abbra. I’d been working with the manufacturer on the dual regulator setup I have in my planes, and he’s sent me a new one to try for this Focus Sport. The regulators let me run a pair of 2-cell Lipos: they regulate the voltage down to 6.2v, and they pull from both packs individually but equally. That part about pulling equally is where I was having problems, and why I was working with the manufacturer. Each of my regulator sets behaved differently, but they all pulled much different amounts from each pack. On some it was so bad, that 500ma would be pulled from one pack and 100ma from the other. Since I’m only running 730mah packs, that’s not good. Anyway… I got to the field early to test out the new regulator. I got in 4 flights on the Focus Sport and none on the Abbra. The new regulator in the Focus Sport did very well. Yay!
Tony Fox came out about 1pm with his Saito 100-powered Hangar 9 P-51. On his first flight, the engine just did not want to run right. Tony had it tuned nicely, took off and flew a few circuits, and had to come back in, because it just wasn’t running all the way up. He tweaked it a bit more and went back up, and it did the same thing. Hmmm… Tony had an idea what the problem might be: the 15% fuel he was using had some castor in it. Before his next flight, he filled up with some 15% that was all synthetic, and the engine ran great! It was amazing how much of a difference that made. I commented to Bill Bergen that Tony’s Saito sounded exactly like Bill’s Saito 72 does. Bill said he’d try the synthetic 15% next time.
Mark Labadie, Bill Whitaker, Max Freeman, Dave Husher, and Kevin Sisco all came out about 1:30. Mark had his 60-sized Tiger, and he got in most of one flight. Unfortunately, he ran into some problems and crashed north of the field. He and Dave Husher drove out of the field and up that access road north of the field. That road must have been pretty soft, because he had to have help getting unstuck. Luckily Max and Tony walked down there and were able to help. Ugh… His plane wasn’t terrible damaged, though: the fuselage was cracked at the front of the wing saddle, and the left leading edge of the wing had quite a bit of damage. It seemed easily repairable, though.
Whitaker had his electric Spitfire, and he charged it up with Tony’s charger while Tony was off helping Mark Bill flew once, and had a good flight.
Max may or may not have had a plane. I didn’t ever see one
Dave did not have a plane, as he had some problems with his electric Edge on Saturday.
Kevin had his 50-sized Raptor helicopter, and he flew once. Kevin flies that ‘copter very well. I’m glad he’s been able to come out and fly with us more often.
Bill Bergen came out about 2:30. He didn’t bring anything. Bill was helping the grandson of some people from church with a small electric plane at the high school practice field. He seemed pretty worn out from the experience Flying those can be a struggle.
Roger Youmans was out about 3pm with a couple of his kids. They had what looked like a brand new Park Zone Cub, and it flew very well. The young man took off and flew the plane very nicely.
The sun finally came out about 3:30, and the clouds broke up and mostly went away. It was too late for all that sunshine to affect the temperatures much, unfortunately. Oh, well.
Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and they’re predicting 62 and sunny for Monday, but the winds are going to be from the south at 10-20. I’ll be out with John to do some more testing on that regulator, so I’m hopeful the weathermen are right.

I’d worked late Tuesday night, so I bailed out a little early today. Yeah, I’d been watching the weather and knew it was going to be nice, so I’d have probably gone out even if I hadn’t worked late Tuesday
It was nearly 50 when I left the house at 1pm, but the wind was much stiffer than the 13mph they’d been predicting. A last-minute look at The Weather Channel confirmed that they’d updated their forecast to 15-20mph. At least it was still sunny and fairly warm
I got to the field about 1:15 and was the first one there. Luckily, Bergen had asked me about the new gate combination earlier in the day, and I still remembered it. There was still a bit of snow just west of the gate entrance by the swamp where the trees keep it quite shaded, but there wasn’t any snow anywhere else. The road wasn’t very good on the way in, and it was just horrible on the way out: swampy, muddy, and deeply rutted.
I put my Abbra together, and about 1:30pm Bill Bergen, Mark Labadie, Max Freeman, Dave Husher, and Ed Jordan all showed up.
Bergen had his 40-sized Ultra Stick, which he flew once. The wind didn’t bother him! Bill also had his new Gee-Bee foamie. It’s a really nice looking airplane, and Bill said it came almost completely assembled and ready to go. It was too windy for a maiden flight on such a lightweight plane, but we had fun looking it over.
Mark may or may not have had a plane: he didn’t open up the hatch on his car I think he said that he had everything all charged up and ready to go, but the wind forecast was too much, so he didn’t bring anything out. It was a nice day, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Max had his SNJ, but he didn’t pull it out of the truck.
Dave had his electric Edge 540, and he flew once. Dave did a terrific job of getting the plane on the ground with the wild winds at the north end of the runway.
Ed had his Spacewalker and flew once. He, too, did a great job landing. The wind was from the SW, but it was just enough from the west to swirl over the trees and do that weird thing it does at the north end of the runway. Ed’s plane wanted to float down the runway, and he wound up using every inch of the length of the runway to get landed and slowed down.
I wound up with three flights on the Abbra, and the first and last had some pretty exciting landings.
All in all, it was a pretty nice day. It’s always nice to have good flying weather in the middle of winter. This weekend is looking pretty nice, too: low winds, temperatures in the high 40s, and even some sun Sunday and Monday. Get your stuff charged up, and come on out, but wear shoes that can handle some mud

I finnaly went through all the photos I took on Friday, and I’ve uploaded them in a photo album and a slideshow. You can find those here: 2010 SSRCM New Year’s Day Fly-In.