Siloam Springs RC Modelers

The weather forecast had been all over the board during the week leading up to New Year’s Day, so I was prepared for the worst. When I got up and around Friday morning, it was 19 degrees (but no wind), and the sliding doors on my van were frozen shut, as I suspected they would be. About 10:30am I went for a drive to warm the van up and un-stick the doors. I went by the field, and Roger Youmans and Gary Kapity were already out at the field! Yikes! It was still below freezing, so those guys were dedicated to getting their flights in early
I went back home and got all my stuff packed up and was back at the field about noon. The weather perked up nicely by that time: it was in the upper 30s and there was still little or no wind. By the end of the day it had gotten into the low 40s (although the abundant sunshine made it feel even warmer), and there was never much wind to speak of.
When I got to the field, Roger was just leaving, but Tim Eubanks and his son Brian, Kevin Sisco, and Tony Fox were there along with Gary.
I’m not positive, since I didn’t get a change to talk with Roger, but I think he got the first flight of the New Year. He had his NexStar trainer and his P-51, but I’m not sure which he flew.
Gary had a Hangar-9 Alpha Trainer with an Evolution 46 engine on it, and the engine was being a bit balky. The plane is marketed as Ready To Fly (RTF), but the engine is not broken in, and I suspect there were several other issues that had to be straightened out to get it flight worthy. Gary had lots of help throughout the day getting the engine running and broken in, but I’m not sure if he was ever able to get in a flight. Hopefully he did or will be able to very soon.
Tim and Brian had been there for quite a while and had gotten several flights on their Ultra Stick 25. They’ve got an E-Flight Parkflyer 400 motor in it, and it flies very nicely. I didn’t ask how long of flight times they were getting on their 3-cell Lipos, but they seemed to be up for a long time. Tim handled the take-offs and landings and handed the transmitter to Brian for the flights. Brian did a great job: he got into trouble a couple of times, but he was high enough and quick enough to recover in plenty of time.
Kevin had his 50-sized Raptor helicopter, but he seemed to be having some problems with it. He fiddled with it and then left for a long time, but when he returned he started it up and had a terrific flight.
Tony had his electric Chipmunk and his electric Seagull Models X-Ray. Both are very nice flying airplanes. The Chipmunk has a 5-cell pack and flies with a lot of power. The X-Ray uses a 3-cell pack with a Hacker A30-28. Tony got in several flights throughout the day along with helping Gary with his Alpha Trainer.
My son, John, came out with his mom and sister at noon, and he got in his New Year’s Day flight with his 40-sized electric Ultra Stick. He’s using a 4-cell 5000mah Zippy pack with an Axi 2826-12 motor, and he gets 9-10 minutes on each flight. John has been taking off for a while, and we’re starting to work on landing approaches now. He should solo this spring. The Ultra Stick flies very nicely and is a much better plane than a trainer for learning to land, in my opinion.
I had my YS 160-powered Abbra, and I got in 3 flights practicing the Intermediate sequence. I love flying that airplane: as good as my YS 110-powered Focus Sports flew, they pale in comparison to a full 2-meter plane.
Mike Lavey also came out about noon with his 60-sized Ultra Stick. Mike has a Thunder Tiger 61 on that plane, and that’s a great combination. He worked on trimming a bit, and he was really doing a great job on his straight-and-level flight. He’s got all the bits and pieces of the Sportsman sequence under control now, and we will work on putting it all together this spring in preparation for the first contest in late May or early June. He’s going to be flying a CA Models Epsilon, but that Ultra Stick is a very good practice plane that he could also use for backup.
Many, many people showed up at the “normal” time (1:30pm): Mark Labadie, Jeremy Schrock, Dave Husher, Paul Chmielewski (Shem-less-ski), Marvin Hendrix, Max Freeman, Bill Bergen, and Bill Whitaker.
Mark had his Thunder Tiger 61 powered Goldberg Tiger, and he flew very well. His first two flights were a bit touchy at first as the engine bogged down when he pulled the nose on takeoff. On his first flight, he leveled out, and the engine picked back up just fine. On his second flight, however, the engine never did pick back up. Mark did a terrific job of getting the nose down and just flying straight ahead and landing in the tall grass. There was no damage, and Mark richened up the high-end a couple of clicks and had no problems on his third flight. I’ve said it before, but that Tiger is a great plane for Mark. It’s both stable and aerobatic, and it lands like a dream. Hey, on Mark’s last flight I even caught him using the rudder to guide the plane off the inside edge of the runway to land right in the center! Great work, Mark
Max had his Thunder Tiger 61 powered Ultra Stick, and he had a great flight going until it came time to land. The idle was a bit high, and with no headwind, the plane didn’t want to come down. Max went down a couple of clicks on the idle and tried again with the same result. After a couple of circuits lowering the idle and trying an approach, Max finally got the plane slow enough. Unfortunately, he was going much too slow when he made his 90-degree turn from downwind (going south) to perpendicular to the runway (going west). The plane was about 20-25 feet high and appeared to stall and go into a spin. Max was much too low to be able to recover, and the plane went in right on its nose. Ugh. It really tore up the fuselage back to the rear of the wing saddle. The wing looked okay, though. That was our first crash of 2010. Sorry Max.
Jeremy had his Pulse XT, which is powered by a Tower Hobbies 46 engine. The engine ran great for the first half tank, but Jeremy had two dead-sticks when it died halfway through each flight. On the first flight, Jeremy did a nice job of getting back to the runway, but on he was not so lucky on the second flight. It didn’t look like the damage was too bad: the landing gear was ripped off, and the wheel pants poked holes through both wing’s covering, though. On one wing, the wheel pant went clear through the top side of the covering! That was the second crash of the New Year.
Dave Husher had his electric Edge, and he was flying well. Dave seemed to be having some power issues with it, though. I saw him go up for a couple of flights later in the day, run very low on power, and come in much earlier than I expected. I hope there’s no problem there. That plane seems to match Dave’s skills very well. It’s quite aerobatic, and I’ve seen Dave really wring it out. The plane also seems to land very nicely, which is always a good thing.
Paul had his Avistar trainer, but I didn’t ever see him fly. I’m not sure if I just missed it or what.
Bergen had his 40-sized Ultra Stick out, and I saw both him and Whitaker flying it. Mike was telling me that Bergen told Whitaker to do a rolling circle, and he did. Wowzer… I have trouble figuring out how to do a decent half Cuban after two weeks off, but Whitaker does rolling circles when I don’t think he’s flown more than half a dozen times in the past year
Marvin was a busy camper the whole time he was out. He flew his 25-sized SNJ pylon racer once, but he spent a lot of time performing his club secretary duties: passing out 2010 membership cards, taking money, etc. Marvin also brought out a huge jug of hot chocolate that was greatly appreciated in the 40-degree weather.
Abe and Arley Schrock were late to the party, but they came out and had several flights each. Abe was flying his Tower Kaos, and Arley had his Gee Bee Dreamer biplane. From the time they arrived, there were few moments when one or both wasn’t in the air. Unfortunately, Arley’s bipe suffered a malfunction and crashed hard at the north end of the field when Arley completely lost control. Bergen told me later than Arley checked the battery after picking up the pieces, and it was too low. Roger had come back to collect his stuff and was just leaving when the crash occurred. He said the plane missed his van by about 6 feet. Yikes! That was crash number three for the year.
We had a tremendous turnout again this year. The weather was again much better than expected (42 degrees, sunshine, and no wind on New Year’s Day?!), and there was an incredible amount of flying. Hopefully it’s a good omen for flying weather throughout 2010. We’ll ignore the three crashes and assume they were flukes that will not be repeated