Prez Sez
by Al Campana
December 1998. For those modelers who still build,
this is their time. The weather is getting chilly
and there are less flyers on the flight line.
It is also a time to reflect on our past year. Last
February we boarded a bus for our annual excursion
to White Plains, N.Y. for the WRAM Show. We held our
first Fun-Fly of the year in June and our second in
September. In between we had several outdoor meetings
with interesting speakers and great show-and-tell models.
In October a busload of members traveled to Silver
Hill, Md. for a guided tour of the Smithsonian Air
& Space Facility. And in November we held our
Annual Auction which was attended by approximately
175 people. During the year at our field in Valley
Forge there had to be thousands of flights made but
only one reportable accident. Our Noise Abatement
Program went along very well with only one aircraft
failing the test. All in all, I would say that it
was a very good year for flying and hanging out with
your flightline buddies.
December also brings elections for club officers. On
December 15, the Board of Governors will meet to discuss
club matters and elect the 1999 officers. I have decided
not to seek a second year as President. Being President
and Newsletter Editor takes a great deal of time and
I would like to get back to building models again.
The cooperation I have received from the officers,
BOG members, and club members, has been extremely gratifying.
Running the club is not a one man show. There are
many members involved, all voluntarily doing the things
necessary to keep the club active and going forward.
I have really enjoyed my role as President but I feel
it is time for someone else to take the reins and provide
the leadership for 1999. I will continue as Editor
for another year or until someone else comes forward
to take it over.
A few weeks ago, long-time club member Charlie Swope
had his 8th, repeat 8th mid-air collision. Just to
refresh Charlie's memory, he and I had a collision
on the runway two years ago. I had just landed and
was taxiing back to the flightline and Charlie landed
and ran into my plane. So Charlie now holds the Blue
Max with 8 Stars and 1 Runway Cluster. One more mid-air
Charlie, and you go back into training with Harry!
Our November Auction, held at the Lockheed Martin Facility,
was a big success. Thousands of dollars of used equipment,
models, engines, etc. traded hands and our food and
snack concession sold out of most items. In order to
make the Auction successful, many club members volunteered
their time. These workers included: Jim Myers (who
obtained the auction site), Ed Snead, Warren Barrick,
George Sprenkle, Joe Pasquini, Sam Andreas, Jim Campana,
Jeff Troy, Joe Weizer, Carl Sutton, Rudy Forst, Joe
Yalove, Walt Pierzchala, Paul Davis, Al Primas, Ron
Gallo, Alex Patson, Dennis DiBonaventura, Tony Szczur,
Sandy Shewell, and Bonnie Davis. As you can see, it
took a lot of people to make the Auction work. I would
like to thank all of you for your participation in
this important activity. Special thanks to Jeff Troy
for contributing one-half of his profits from the sale
of rolls of Coverite and books, which amounted to $136.
Our next meeting will be December 8 at the Church.
Unfortunately, due to a previous commitment, I will
not be able to attend. Our Vice President, Ron Gallo,
has agreed to chair the meeting in place of me. However,
I will be at the next BOG meeting on December 15 to
oversee the election of the 1999 officers.
Finally, here's a great recipe for a Holiday Fruitcake.
You'll need water, sugar, four eggs, dried fruit,
salt, brown sugar, lemon juice, nuts, and a bottle
of whiskey.
Sample the whiskey to check for quality.
Take a large bowl. Check the whiskey again. To be sure
it's the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.
Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer, beat one cup in
a large fluffy bowl. Add one tsp. of sugar and beat
again. Make sure the whiskey is still OK. Cry another
cup. Turn off the mixer. Beat two leggs and add to
the bowl and chuck in a cup of dried fruit. Mix on
the tuner. If the fired druit gets stuck in the beaters,
pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the whiskey to check for tonsisticity. Next,
sift two cups of salt. Or something. Who cares? Check
the whiskey. Now sift the lemon juice and strain the
nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something.
Whatever
Grease the oven. Don't forget to beat off the turner.
Throw the bowl out the window. Check the whiskey. Check
the oven every 5 doneness for minutes. (Hic)
Club Dates
December 8 (Tuesday)........ Club Meeting, 8:00PM at the Church.
December 15 (Tuesday)........Board of Governors Meeting, 7:00PM at Church School.
December Raffle
Jim Myers, Raffle Chairman, has provided the following prizes for the December meeting:
One - Sig Four Star .40 Airplane Kit
One - OS LA .40 Engine
Three - $30 Gift Certificates to Penn Valley Hobby
Center in Lansdale
Five "gifts" just in time for the Christmas
Season. Feel lucky? Come on out to the meeting and
buy a few chances for the Raffle.
The Garber Facility
By Ernie McGauley
On Saturday, October 31, I was part of a group from
the Valley Forge Signal Seekers R/C Model Airplane
Club that took a bus trip to the Garber Facility in
Silver Hill, Md. The trip was hosted by Joe Weizer
who did an outstanding job of making transportation
arrangements and providing refreshments and entertainment
(airplane videos) to and from the Facility.
Thank you Joe!
Upon arrival we were divided into two groups, each having
a volunteer guideperson. We were taken on a tour of
several buildings which stored probably hundreds of
aircraft and parts of aircraft. This Facility is not
to be confused with a museum atmosphere where the displays
are laid out for viewing in an attractive manner.
Rather it would be comparable to a workplace-type repair
facility with pieces and parts and many whole airplanes
which are in various states of corrosion and decay.
In a word, I felt as if I was touring an aircraft
junkyard. This is the place that all of the items
seen in the Air & Space Museum are restored before
the Museum puts them on display. One of the buildings
had restoration shops such as a machine shop, a wood-
working shop, etc. In these shops, airplanes are restored
to a level where they could be flown. They will never
fly again since this is considered to be "Airplane
Heaven" (a final resting place).
The tour guides provided knowledgeable information about
the various things that we saw. Their manner of speaking
was conversational as opposed to a memorized textbook
delivery which made the tour even more enjoyable.
Relics Visit Relics
By Warren Barrick
Our Saturday, October 31st visit to the Garber Facility
of the National Air and Space Museum was a real blast.
Joe Weizer organized the trip and 38 participants:
members, wives, friends and even grandchildren had
a worthwhile experience. We enjoyed hoagies, refreshments,
the bus ride, and also had a group picture taken in
front of the Facility.
The Garber Facility is the attic/storage space/restoration
location of the Air & Space Museum. When we arrived
we were divided into two groups and docents (lecturers)
led each group on informative tours of several of the
buildings . This writer was fortunate to be in a group
which included several club members who are veterans
of WW II. Thus the title "Relics Visit Relics".
Bob Flick, Joe Weizer, and Bud Sherwood to name a
few were just as knowledgeable and experienced as our
docent. Each added much to the tour by recalling first-hand
experiences at stops along the way through the facility.
The nostalgia was tangible. It was a great moment
for all of us who were there.
Planes shown us dated from the origins of manned flight
to the present and include aircraft from former enemies
as well as allies in past wars. Space capsules in
various stages of restoration were also displayed.
The machines and toolrooms of the restorers were
equally awesome.
This was a real "trip" for an airplane junky.
It would be foolish to try and list all that we saw
except to say that everything you ever wanted to see
and then some was there.
Our docent, by the way, was a graduate of Upper Darby
High School, and a classmate of Al Campana.
Make plans to visit the Garber Facility.
Training Update
By Jim Campana
Since the winds of October continued blowing through
November, there were no new soloed pilots this Fall.
I decided that this would be a good time to disclose
how the training program went this year.
We began the year with 22 students. This number does
not include the 8 students which dropped out from the
previous year. We picked up 28 new students this year.
I was able to assign all but 5 students. Of these
50 students, 8 soloed. We currently have 42 people
in the instruction program. This number will be difficult
to carry into next year.
VFSS currently has 11 active and 7 inactive instructors
(not assigned any students). The inactive instructors
aid the active instructors by helping students for
a day when too many students show up at one time.
What I need are a few more active instructors. I need
qualified pilots with a couple of years of flying under
their belts and a willingness to pass on their capabilities.
I will not force you to take on 3 or 4 students.
If you could come out 2 or 3 times a week and spend
an hour or two teaching, I would like to talk to you.
It is an incredible thrill to see a smile on a new
pilot when he graduates from the training program.
I want guys who can help generate that smile. Call
me or email at jmcampana@erols.com.
Building With Epoxy
By Robert Caso
Most of us follow the good building practice of using
epoxy in joining firewalls and landing gear mounts
to fuselages. Epoxy is a natural gap filler, retains
some degree of flexibility when set and certain types
have high tensile strength when mixed and applied properly.
An often overlooked property is it's ability to seep
into and therefore bond together wood or other compatible
fibers. This is generally why a slow setting epoxy
has a higher tensile strength than the 5 minute stuff.
The epoxy joint will be stronger the more seepage
that is allowed to occur into the material prior to
setting. Although it is this last feature that is
the most important
it is probably the one most often overlooked attribute
in determining the appropriate building situation for
an epoxy based adhesive.
Now we get to the issue as to why "things are ungluable".
Glues themselves bond in a mechanical way by seeping
into fibers as mentioned above and then hardening.
Metals generally are not fibrous and therefore don't
allow for this seepage to occur. Nevertheless, one
could successfully attach a piece of screening to wood
with some success because of the mechcanical bond that
would result. Roughing up the surface also helps but
is not a guaranteed solution. The bottom line here
is that without this mechanical bond, hardened epoxy
by itself is rather weak. Don't believe the weakness
argument? You can snap in half a 1/16 in. piece of
hardened epoxy with about the same level of effort
needed for a slightly thicker piece of hard balsa.
When you examine two pieces of wood joined with epoxy,
what you wind up with is a very basic form of composite
construction, with the wood fibers mechanically locked
together. In composite construction, such as a fiberglass
fuselage for example, each material separately has
little or no strength alone, but when combined utilize
the best properties of each other to generate strength.
Ever get CA on your shirt? Now you why it's so hard
to remove!
OK, so how do we use epoxy to maximize strength and
for what applications? If you believe the above arguments,
then we should conclude that the less free standing
epoxy there is in a joint, the stronger the joint will
be. Assuming we're doing wood, this conclusion is
valid since it is not the epoxy we want, it's the mechanical
bond between the materials and among each of the material's
fibers that we're after. Less is more in this case.
This is another reason to clamp a joint and to use
a slow set epoxy (at least 30 minute) for critical
applications such as firewalls. Surface variations
and voids between fibers will be taken up by the viscosity
of the epoxy, creating the desired mechanical bond.
Excess "pools" of epoxy add virtually no
strength but a lot of weight since epoxies are relatively
heavy.
Another technique that I have recently been using is
mixing in some 1/16" milled fiberglass strands
to slow set epoxy. This helps in two ways. First,
any free standing epoxy is now laced with little fibers,
creating a composite structure. Secondly, the fibers,
when set up in the epoxy matrix will knit together
the surface grain of the materials so that the wood
is less likely to fracture along the grain when exposed
to a load. This adds a tremendous amount of strength
since now you have hardened glass and wood fibers
everywhere when things are set up.
FCC R/C Specs - 1998
The following info was printed in Scale R/C Modeler,
September, 1998 issue.
"The FCC has informed the Radio Control Mfg. Assoc.
of new policies that require all R/C transmitters which
operate in the 72 to 76 MHz band meet narrow-band and
other certain emission standards in order to be operated
in the United States.
Operation of wide-band equipment, which does not meet
such guidelines, would be a violation of FCC Rules
and Regulations, and may be subject to penalty. Non-compliant
equipment can no longer be serviced or updated by your
manufacturer.
Pursuant to Federal Communications Commission Rules
95.623 and 95.635, as of March 1, 1998, all remote
control transmitters that operate in the 72 to 76 MHz
band must be maintained within a frequency tolerance
of 0.002% and meet certain emissions standards.
Users who continue to operate transmitters with a frequency
tolerance of 0.005% or fail to meet the emissions requirements
after March 1, 1998, will be in violation of Rule(s)
95.623 and/or 95.635 and may be subject to legal liability.
Transmitters that have already been narrow-banded
under a FCC Class I Permissive Change within the meaning
of Section 2.1001 (b) are not affected."
Signed, FCC.
What does this all mean? It seems to say that old wide-band
TX's can no longer be upgraded, but TX's that already
have been modified (narrow-banded) are OK.
By virtue of this law that is now in effect, it's a
pretty sure bet that the AMA insurance would not cover
any incident involving this illegal equipment.
1999 Club Applications
Membership Applications are being updated and will be
included in the January issue of the Hear-Ye
Newsletter. You did remember to send for your 1999 AMA
card. Right?
Feedback or comments to:
Al Campana , HearYe editor
Michael Myers, Webmaster
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