Hear Ye!

August, 2005
No. 458

FROM THE PRESIDENT
By Bob Sudermann

I want to thank Steve Kolet for putting together the presentation on sound
for the July meeting. We all understand the importance of keeping our
aircraft as quiet as possible, and understanding how and what causes the
sound emitting from the aircraft will help us to understand how to make them
even quieter. The BOG will be evaluating our current sound limit this fall
to determine if a reduction to the current 95 db limit is in order.

Speaking of the BOG (Board of Governors), we will be taking nominations for
the 2006-2007 term at the August meeting. We are looking for individuals
who want to participate and contribute to the club. We need a good
cross-section of our membership - power flyers, helicopter flyers, glider
guys, and electrics. We need people who just joined the club and longtime
members. We need some young blood to help keep the older guys on their
toes. If you are interested, please come to the August meeting or have
someone place your name in nomination.

I will be spending a week in late July with my Father in Spokane,
Washington, for his 75th Birthday. I hope to get out and see his 'Headless
Pusher' fly (see the District 11 report in the AMA magazine) and maybe get
out and do some float flying. I'll let you know how it goes.

Safety Topic: Check out the AMA District 11 report. The District VP talks
about the use of a spotter or buddy on the flight line. We make this
mandatory at our fun flies but it is a good idea to do this all the time.
It provides a second set of eyes as you concentrate on your aircraft.

Remember - Fly Safe and I'll see you at the field.

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IF IT LOOKS GOOD, IT'LL FLY GOOD
By Rob Caso

A few months ago, in the middle of the so called "building season," during
which modelers try to make up for the six inches of snow on the field by
actually doing something more related to modeling than to shoveling, Bill
Sunick and I decided to design our own "sport flyer" - a "cheap,
easy-to-build, everyday flier with no bad habits," other than those of its
pilot.

Central to the "cheap" concept, the intended design had to be constructed
wholly from "whatever we had lying around the shop." This initial part of
the project was a bit more stressful to me than to Bill, an overly
organized, "hotshot" Boeing aerodynamic engineer who nearly stillborned the
project at the start with almost government-like efficiency. While my shop
is usually only able to yield a single, well used main gear wheel from a
previously matched pair, along with brand new gas tanks missing their rubber
stoppers, Bill's shop is comprised of neatly arranged new model aircraft
components, organized by manufacturer and date of acquisition. His shop
equipment is intelligently arranged and none of it exhibits any traces of
balsa dust. Or any dust for that matter. Bill, seeing my plight,
reluctantly allowed me to purchase certain critical components as long as I,
after physical receipt of same, organized them by manufacturer and date of
acquisition. In his shop. After shaking off this initial scare, Bill and I
got down to business.

We wanted something a little "sporty." A high-wing design was discussed and
summarily discarded - we had too many of those already, in any case.
Biplane? Too many pieces. Canard? Neither of us really knows how those
things fly or where to balance them. Furthermore, given my inventory
management limitations, the required reverse pitch prop was out of the
question, as it would probably at some future date wind up on a "normal"
plane with potentially dire results. Scale model? No way was he going to
wait the three months while I airbrushed on all those markings. I
acquiesced here, since I was out of white "Hobbypoxy" anyway, and buying
some (if I could find it) fell pretty far outside the original concept.
Twin? See biplane and canard.

This was starting to get way too complicated, and I was almost out of beer,
so a 40-sized, low-wing design won by default. As an aside, Bill and I
carefully avoided the idea of using an electric motor for the power plant,
since we feel that slot car motors powered by wet cell car batteries
represent the latest technology here, and, in any case, "the 'real planes'
don't use 'em." Being a CAD guy, I immediately started in by drawing the
outlines of a (to me) good-looking, aerodynamically clean, low-wing
monoplane. Bill came over a few days later, ostensibly to look at my
three-view, but I know that he was secretly hoping for a forty-page
PowerPoint presentation. No wonder that the Osprey is, at the same time,
both in a museum and still under development.
When I showed him the design like a proud father, Bill quickly took the wind
out of my sails.

"How do you know it'll fly?" asked Bill.

"Because it looks good," I replied.

Seeing where this was going, I showed him a spurious wing loading
calculation and a rib profile that I had drawn freehand about 15 minutes
before he arrived.

Bill: "What airfoil is that?"

Rob: "It's a 'NACA Series 10 Doppler 226 Clark Y29'."

"B."

"Why? Didn't you recognize it, Mr. 'Aerodynamic engineer'?"

"Come on, Rob!"

"Bill, a Mustang, a Spitfire and an Albatross are all good flying planes -
right?"

Bill reluctantly nodded a weak "yes."

"And they all look good - right?" Without waiting for him to answer, I
said, "Right! It's a universal airplane postulate that if a plane looks
good, it'll fly good - end of story."

Of course, Bill, still reminding me of his background, was trying to shame
me, an accountant, into doing the very thing that I did not want to do: go
through rows of murderous technical calculations, the end result of which
would be to prove something that we both already new.

Years ago, I had made the tactical error of not only buying a few model
aircraft aerodynamics books, but also telling Bill that I bought them, and
Bill remembered, of course, that I had them. He also knew full well that I
hadn't read any of them. I was really worried at this point that I would
never get to play in CAD on this one and start doing what I considered to be
the "real" work on the design.

Cracking the new binding on an Andy Lennon book, I started looking at the
formulas. I knew that I was in immediate trouble when I saw what I thought
were Egyptian hieroglyphics. Bill corrected me by noting that they were, in
fact, Greek letters. To me, it didn't make any difference. It was like
sitting around the dinner table with six barking dogs, trying to understand
what each of them was actually saying. The only previous experience I had
with Greek letters was in college, and I could only remember two of them,
neither of which was in any of the calculations. "Why don't you do this?
You're the technical guy here," I said. Bill, not having much defense
against this one, immediately backed down from wanting me to do the
equivalent of wind tunnel-based laminar flow experiments.

As it turned out, I did most of the calculations, muddling through Lennon's
explanations and plugging weird formulas into my Excel program, eventually
coming up with two pages of detailed calculations that seemed to jive. Of
course, what I should have done was buy a "Four Star 40," copy the
dimensions and hide the plane in my attic. It's a good flyer, and why?
Because it looks good; everybody knows that. Except Bill.

To make a long story short, I eventually drew the plane in CAD, built it in
a month or so, and flew it one steamy Sunday evening at the field a few
weeks ago. After a few harrowing dead sticks (I'll just break it in the
air), and Bill Short's engine tuning tutelage, our design (now called
"Scrappy") flies well with no bad habits bordering on "fun."

Bill, who was absent during the successful test flights, called and asked,
"How did it fly?"

I said, "Well, it looks good, right? So how do you think it went.?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THANKS!

The club is grateful to Harry Charnock for his donation of an EASY-2
trainer, which will be used in the R/C training program for new pilots. The
plane has a 46 FOX 2-stroke engine. The R/C system is a HITEC Laser-6, FM,
Channel 38.

Russ O'Brien

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CLUB CALENDAR

Tuesday, August 2 -
BOG Meeting at the Field, 6:30 PM.

Tuesday, August 9 -
General Membership Meeting at the Field, 6:30 PM.

Tuesday, September 6 -
BOG Meeting.

Saturday, September 10 -
Fun Fly.

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FOR SALE

SIG LT-25, Futaba 6xA computer radio with 3 model memory, on ch. 56, 3 S148
servos with B.B. tops, 1 S130 B.B. servo on aileron, aileron extension,
switch harness, charger, instruction manual, batteries good. O.S. Max .26
Surpass 4-stroke engine. Plane flies great. $200.00

Astro Flight cobolt direct drive 05 motor. Astro Flight #217 speed control.
Futaba sec. conn, switch harness w/fuse, battery conn, power switch. Can
supply Sermos conn, no extra charge. All good condition. $70.00

O.S. Max .28 F-H low time helicopter engine, with standard and heliball
mufflers, excellent carb. All engine info and box. Good for plane with
cowled engine. $45.00

Many building and field support items for sale also.

Herb Hellings - 610-275-1252 - therb50@localnet.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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