(PREZ SEZ column will resume next issue and be written by Club President Bob Sudermann)
Welcome 1999! We're already past the shortest day of the year (Dec. 21st) so things are looking up. Time to get working on that next project to have it ready for Spring. Let's hope for good weather and an active membership in the coming year.
At the December meeting of the Board of Governors, the Board voted to raise the annual dues by $5.00. This is the first increase we've had for several years. It seems we spent more than we took in last year. We had some heavy maintenance on our grass-cutting tractor.
Well, we have a new President for 1999. Bob Sudermann was elected President, a post he held in 1993 and 1994. As I remember, Bob was a good administrator and I am looking forward to a banner year in 1999.
Joe Yalove was elected Vice President and Dee Messina (Secretary) and Al Primas (Treasurer) were elected to serve another year in their respective offices.
Congratulations and good luck to all the Club Officers!!
A new Club Membership Application has been included in this Newsletter. Fill it out and bring it to our January meeting with your 1999 AMA card. Or, if you can't make to the meeting, send it to our Treasurer with a copy of your 1999 AMA card and your check.
New Club Member Directories were printed in December and distributed at the December meeting. If you haven't received your copy, pick one up at the January meeting. These Directories will not be mailed to members, they must be picked up at the meetings.
A reminder also, the Annual Club Banquet is coming up in February. The Banquet will be held on February 9, and will take the place of our regular monthly meeting. This year the BOG voted to charge $5 per person for the Banquet. The folks at Camelot have always provided us with a great dinner and a nice place to rehash flying stories and renew acquaintances. See you there!!
Pilot Profile
Alex Primas
Our featured modeler this month is our present Treasurer, Al Primas, known affectionately by many members as "Uncle Al". Born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., Al started building paper airplane models at about age 6. In those days the newspapers printed paper airplanes for kids to make. These paper models then led to the small stick and tissue models that many of us built as kids. In later years, Al built a Victor Stanzel "Shark" powered by a Bantam ignition gas engine, but he remembers having a lot of trouble starting the engine. The Shark was the forerunner of "U-control" and was flown using a long pole with a single line to the to the model. After "U-control" came into being, Al built and flew the famous Jim Walker "Fireball". Al also built and flew free-flight models. He recalled having a buddy that had built a free-flight model but didn't have an engine. Al loaned him his Forster .29 and they attended a contest in upstate N.Y. He remembers that Hal DeBolt was the big winner there. Al also built a Carl Goldberg "Zipper" but never flew it.
Alex attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating in 1951 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. In 1954 he was drafted into the Army and after training was was sent to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL. as part of a technical group. He worked on rocket launchers and solid fuel rockets such as the "Little John" ground-to-ground missile.
After his discharge from the Service, he was employed by Thermal Research and Energy which engineered and built industrial combustion equipment. The company also built heaters to heat high pressure air to very high temperatures used in testing turbine engine components. Alex is still retained by the company as a consultant.
In the early 60's Al tried his hand at R/C, using a 463 Mhz "Citizenship" radio system in a rudder-only Sterling Mambo. He tried flying it at the parade grounds in Valley Forge Park but was unsuccessful. He then built a Sterling Rudder Bird (which he still has!) that had rudder and throttle controlled by escapements. However that model was never flown because the frequency of his radio equipment became illegal. He flew some control-line models after that but eventually left modeling.
In the summer of 1994, his nephew Chuck Karr invited his Uncle Al to the VFSS field and Al's interest in R/C airplanes was rekindled. Chuck was his Uncle's instructor and Al finally was able to fly his R/C models.
Al is a good builder and has quite a "stable" of aircraft. He is currently building a quarter-scale Tiger Moth which is powered by a YS 1.40 engine. His radial engine powered Stearman flew last year and he is presently flying a Four Star 40 and a Big Stick.
Important Dates
January 12 (Tuesday) .........Club Meeting, 8:00 PM
Bring your aircraft, finished or "in progress" for
Show and Tell.
February 9 (Tuesday).........Annual Club Banquet at
the Camelot, Bridgeport, PA.
Time - 7:00 PM.
$5.00 per Person, Member or Guest.
February 27 (Saturday).......Bus Trip to the WRAM
Show.
Reserve your seat on the bus and travel to
the best Hobby Show on the East Coast. More
details to follow from Joe Weizer.
March 13 (Saturday)........Central Penn Aeromodelers
Assoc. 19th Annual R/C Flea Market.
Located at
the Lebanon Fairgrounds. 9:00 AM til 3:00 PM.
Fly-away F-15 Eagle!
One of our members, Bill Troutman, would like to alert club members about a lost model. Bill and his Dad operate a farm off Black Rock Rd. in Collegeville. He made his own runway on the farm and uses it quite often. Sometime in December Bill took his Great Planes F-15 Eagle up for a flight. A few minutes into the flight Bill suddenly found the Eagle did not respond. The F-15 apparently was very stable as a "free-flight" because it kept circling the farm, climbing all the while. It was a cloudy day and the model eventually disappeared into the clouds, but Bill could still hear the engine running. Bill looked at his watch and 4 minutes later the engine finally stopped. Both he and his Dad scanned the sky but never saw the plane come out of the clouds. They searched all around the farm but still could not find the plane. Unfortunately Bill forgot to put his name in the model.
So, if anyone comes across a "lost" F-15 Eagle or knows of someone finding it, please let Bill know.
Best Crash
(This Story Was Found on Internet)
It gets real chilly here in Alaska, so when we finish a new model, sometimes we run the engine at home prior to bringing it out to the field. Hal Fry had just finished a Little Stick with an OS 40 Schnurle on it (this was over 20 years ago) with a tuned pipe. He secured the model by opening his garage door about six inches, and had the model in the garage, with the rudder outside of the garage, and with the door holding it in position.
He started the engine, got it to a reasonable rpm, then sat down in a chair to break the engine in a little bit. The noise was deafening, and the engine sounded great, so he went to full power, thinking "listen to that mother hum!"
Just about then , his wife drove up into the driveway and punched the garage door opener from her car, the door went up, and Hal's airplane did a carrier takeoff in his garage!!
He tried to yank and bank, but the "projectile" wedged itself between the freezer and tool cabinet , totally destroyed.
Needless to say, he won the crash trophy for the month, and we still haven't bettered that one to this day.
It's a true story!!!
TOTAL_________
Check should be made out to VFSS.
Please send your check and this Form to Walt Pierzchala,
(Deadline for signing up: Feb 3, 1999)
Biplane Comparison
By Jim Myers
Biplanes represent aviation nostalgia: the Wright Brothers; World War I; Snoopy and the Red Baron; barnstorming in the 20's and 30's; and romantic movies such as "The English Patient". These gallant craft represent a pioneering age of aviation, a time when the only pilots seemed to be daredevils. Nowadays, nearly every modern air show includes at least one aerobatic biplane. These relatively slow birds are quite a contrast to today's modern jets.
On a smaller scale, R/C biplanes almost always draw attention and admiration from fellow modelers and also from spectators. Have you ever flown a biplane? It is not not much different from flying a reasonably agile monoplane with tail-dragger gear. However, do not let the bipe get too far away, or you may not be able to see whether it is right-side up or inverted! Also, some bipes are far more maneuverable than others. I would like to give you a little information I have gained with R/C biplanes over the last five years.
My first biplane, a Super Areomaster, was built from a Great Planes kit, powered by an Enya 91 four-stroke. The Aeromaster can be built with a choice of three different wing configurations. Following the advice of the late Ed Casson, I had mine built in the "original" Aeromaster style: upper wing swept, with no dihedral; bottom wing straight, with dihedral, both with 48-inch span. This was a very convenient size for fitting into the back of a hatchback or small wagon, without removing the wings! At least two other configurations are included in the plans. The finished plane weighed in at 8.5 pounds.
Ed also soloed that plane for me, and saved me from crashing it my first time at the controls. Ed did a snap roll during its maiden flight. For the first summer I flew that plane, I used to start feeling very thirsty about halfway through each flight. Eventually, I realized that, as I watched that plane climb, dive, roll, loop, and spin, my mouth was hanging wide open! I remember doing a tail-slide which fell at least 25 feet backward before it flipped nose down.
During the Aeromaster's second year, the Enya became less reliable. It quit at unexpected times during the flight. Compared to a trainer, biplanes have a fairly steep glide path, so dead-stick landings can be risky. The Aeromaster took some pretty rough landings, causing minor damage to the wing mounts, vertical fin, and other parts. It was always repairable, but I was getting tired of dead-stick landings.
On Christmas Day, 1995, my wife Carol surprised me with a brand-new biplane, the "Super Skybolt", complete with engine and radio. She acquired it through an ad in this newsletter from a former member of our club. The plane was already built and covered. It just needed some additional work and mounting of the radio and engine. I also checked that the wing incidences and engine down-thrust and side-thrust angles agreed with the plan specs.
The engine that came with the Skybolt was an OS 91 four-stroke. I removed it and put it on the Aeromaster to replace the Enya. I then relearned how to land the Aeromaster with the engine running and had a lot more fun with it. However, about a year ago, the Super Aeromaster dived into the ground with enough force to cause a lot of damage, including the engine and some of the servo gears. I have not rebuilt the plane yet, but I did repair the engine and radio, and mounted them in the Skybolt, which I started flying in last July.
To compare the two planes, I will first note the similarities. Both planes used:
The same OS 91 four-stroke engine
The same Airtronics 6-channel with dual rates
Kits by Great Planes
Upper wing swept, no dihedral
Lower wing straight, with slight dihedral
(This article by Jim Myers will be continued in next month's Newsletter)
Raffle Items
Our Raffle Chairman Jim Myers has obtained the following
items for our January meeting:
Sig J-3 Piper Cub kit
Kaos 60 Airplane kit
Spirit 100 Sailplane kit
Electric Fuel Pump
Exacto Knife Set
Cutting Mat, 18" x 24"
B.O.G. Review
By Dee Messina, Treasurer
The Board of Governors met December 15, 1998
Meeting called to order by President at 7:05 PM.
OLD BUSINESS
1.) End of year Financial Report indicated modest loss
in Treasury. Spending exceeded income.
2.) Need to develop additional monies for tractor escrow
account.
3.) R/C Hobby Trade Assoc. (RCHTA) awarded us a total
of $200 for media coverage of Club functions.
NEW BUSINESS
1.) Motion made to increase Regular Membership dues
by $5 and Family Membership dues by $5.
Junior Membership to stay at old rate.
Motion carried.
2.) Motion made to charge $5 each to attend Annual Banquet.
($10 per couple).
Motion carried.
3.) Ed Snead resigned as Field Marshall.
Austin Gutman resigned as BOG member. Mike Estock to
serve in his place.
4.) Club Officers for 1999 are as follows:
President - Bob Sudermann
Vice President - Joe Yalove
Treasurer - Alex Primas
Secretary - Dee Messina
Meeting adjourned 8:18 PM.
Feedback or comments to:
Al Campana , HearYe editor
Michael Myers, Webmaster
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