From the PREZ
Prez Sez, by Walter Pierzchala
This month I wish to express my appreciation to
all the volunteers of
the fun fly. There is Tony Szczur who handles the refreshments
during our
monthly meeting and keeps us supplied with ice and soda
at our fun fly;
Warren Barrrick our announcer and radio impound person;
Jim Campana and his
crew whose job it is to feed us; Joe Weizer and Mike
Estock who run the fun
fly; Ron Boutin and Rob Caso who entertain the kids
with candy drops.
There are also many silent people who, when asked to
help set up the canopy
or rope off the visitors area, do the job well. I highlighted
a few
individuals but many individuals need my thank you for
a job well done.
ANNUAL CLUB AUCTION
Joe Weizer chairman
The club auction will take place at the Valley Forge
Middle School on November 4th. This is the first Saturday
in November. This
is the same location as last year. There is a $3
admission. There is no
additional fee for sellers or buyers. Doors open
at 9AM for sellers and
bidding will begin at 10:30AM. Refreshments will be
available. No items may
be sold after they enter the building except at
the auction. Personal
transactions can be made in the parking lot before
the merchandise is
brought into the school. Bring whatever you have to
sell. You can stipulate
a minimum bid for any item. Each item for auction must
be accompanied by a
seller sheet which is published in this Hearye and
also in the November
issue.
TRAINING
Jim Campana
Last month Walt Pierzchala recognized all of the flight
instructors for all of their time. I figured it would
be a
good time to thank them as well. Below is the current
list of instructors
who currently take students:
Gus Baldassano
John Bragitikos
Frank Butta
Jim Campana
Dennis DiBonaventura
Bob Fritch
Bud Klopp
Jim Myers
Joe Pasquini
Joe Rose Sr.
Bob Sudermann
Joe Weizer
Hani Zaki
We also have a group of instructors who are not assigned
students;
they can help out whenever possible:
Sam Andreas
Rom Boutin
Simon Bush
Tris Colket
Mike Estock
Abe Jones
Dee Messina
Ed Moore
Joe Rose Jr.
Ron Strobel
Even with all this help, there are currently 39 assigned
students, as well as 9 students on a waiting list.
If there are any.
qualified pilots who would like to teach at their own
OCTOBER RAFFLE
Joe Yalove
The following items will be prizes in the raffle at
the October meeting
1. 40 size Kaos kit
2. Woodpecker covering tool
3. Z-bender
4. Handcrank fuel pump
5. 40 size dazzler fun-fly kit
BUILDER'S CORNER
Gerry Keenan
This month we will take a look at kits. There are
a lot of good kits
and manufacturers. VFSS and myself will not endorse
or reject any
manufacturer. I will however give examples of what to
look for. The best
thing is to talk to club members before buying.
Look for certain things in your first kit. Are
the plans and the
instructions good? A good kit has plenty of pictures,
clear blueprints, and
easy step by step instructions. There is nothing worse
than building a
plane, only to find that you forgot to install the pushrods
or something
else, and have to tear it apart. Is the wood good? Is
it die and laser cut?
What about interlocking pieces? Is the wood preshaped
or are you sanding
everything in? Is there hardware in the kit? And last
of all , What is the
cost? Don't forget to add in for things like radio,
covering, glues, engine
and misc. tools.
Now is the time to look at your skill level and
what plane fits you.
If you have never flown then you're looking at a trainer.
These planes have
a HIGH wing and landing gear on the nose. By having
the wing above the main
body (fuselage) in flight it will tend to level itself
out. Just like a
weight on a string drops to the 6 o'clock position,
the fuselage will do
the same and keep you level. The nose gear does several
things. First it
rips off the firewall on rough landings, which builds
up your repair
experience. Second it protects you prop and engine on
hard landings. Third
it cocks, and makes takeoffs impossible (it also gives
you something to do
in the flight line). And fourth on takeoffs you have
a point controlling
the plane at the rudder (rear of plane) and a point
controlling the plane
at the nose (front of plane). This makes for an easier
takeoff and landing.
Two such examples are the Sig-LT-40 and the GOLDBERG-EAGLE.
The next class of plane is the Mid-wing. These
are a good choice for
someone who has flown a trainer and already has some
flying skills. The
wing is located mid-way in the fuselage. Mid-wing planes
are less stable in
flight than trainers but more stable than Low-wing planes.
If this is your
choice, Consider options like four stroke engines and
converting to a
tail-dragger. Both of these options will require more
work, which will be,
discussed in future articles. One example of a mid-wing
is the Sig Mid-Star
40.
The last class is the Low-wing. If you are good
with a trainer then
this is a good jump to make. These are advanced planes
that are not very
stable. A lot of pilot's jump from trainers to low-wings.
Doing so is good.
It will build your flying skills and you will be building
in no time. Most
pilots that have done this can repair just about anything
in a night or
two. It can be done and if you catch on quick then this
is the plane for
you. An example of these is the Sig 4-Star.
One other thing to mention is that our club sponsors
support us. Now is
the time to thank them. Pay them a visit! And remember
the VFSS auction is
coming up. There are usually lots of kits, engines,
and other stuff there.
Next month: YOUR WORK AREA.
Gerry Keenan
Gerry's column will appear every month in Hearye
for the foreseeable
future. The staff of Hearye is grateful for his
help in making this an
interesting publication.
The October meeting
on October 10 will be held at the church
at 8 PM
BOG elections will be held at this meeting
JUST A REMINDER
It is deer tick season. Everyone should take the suggested
precaution to
protect themselves. Above all stay out of the high grass
and wear long
pants.
NEW CLUB DIRECTORY
Year 2000 club membership directories are now available.
Pick up a copy at
the next meeting or look for one in the barrel at the
field. Included with
the directory is a copy of the club rules which you
have agreed to when you
accepted your year 2000 membership. These rules
are also posted on the
bulletin board at the field. Please read and comply
with them.
The Annual VFSS banquet will take place on February
9,2001. This will take
the place of the regularly scheduled meeting.
AIRTRONICS BUDDY BOX
An Airtronics buddy box has been donated to our
club by one of our
advertisers;
Penn Valley Hobby Center
Thank you Bill and Jean
Responses to Flight Simulator Survey
Dave Korenstein
Sept 15, 2000
This article summarizes my recent poll of the Email
list concerning R/C
flight simulators. I received a total of 8 responses.
Four responses were
about Great Planes RealFlight, one about NHP/CSM from
the UK, one about the
Dave Brown simulator, one opposed to flight simulators
in general, and one
lamenting the lack of any flight simulator for the Macintosh
class of
computers. The numbers do not add up because some responses
mentioned more
than one item. I also received a few comments about
full scale flight
simulators, but that was not the intent of my poll.
RealFlight was the most popular with 4 users responding.
It received very
positive reviews by both new students and instructors.
Students who put in
an hour or two a day, some before they ever took
a model into the air,
reported soloing in about half the time usually needed.
The main benefits
were in developing the feel of the controls (not over-controlling)
and the
orientation of the model (the transformation from the
transmitter frame to
the aircraft frame), and the feel of control coupling.
The main drawbacks
reported were: (1) the price of the simulator, (2)
the computer resources
required, (3) the effect of bumpy ground handling
on grass is not
simulated, (4) the wind simulation gives you some
idea of what wind is
like, but is not realistic; it is rhythmic and predictable,
and (5) the
limited view of the field presented on the monitor
is not realistic; the
monitor cannot provide the panoramic view of the
field your eyes do on a
real field. This last effect is most noticeable as
you approach the field
and the plane seems to be coming right at you.
This effect, I expect,
would apply to any small (home computer) screen
flight simulation.
RealFlight requires a good graphics card with lots
of memory (one user
reported good performance with 16 MB on the graphics
card), and another
user reported barely adequate performance with
a 266 Mhz. Pentium II
processor. One user recommended a 300 Mhz. Pentium
II with 64 MB RAM and a
3D accelerator as a practical starting point for 1280
x 1024 resolution.
Recommended computer resources, as well as other aspects
of the product,
are presented in the Tower Hobbies catalog and on the
RealFlight web site
www.realflight.com/system.html.
One user reported on NHP/CSM from the United Kingdom.
I think this is
distributed in the U.S. by Horizon Hobby. It was reported
that the flight
simulation was "pretty good", it uses less
computer resources than
RealFlight,.and the graphics are not as good. It was
described as a
good/economical buy. More information can be found
at
www.slewin.clara.net/csm/csmv10.htm, which includes
a description of the
upgrade from v9 to v10. Since buying RealFlight deluxe
with heli's, this
user doesn't use CSM very much any more.
One buyer of the Dave Brown R/C simulator reported that
it was good in its
day, but he returned it in favor of RealFlight.
I looked through the shelves at the local computer store,
and talked with
sales people to see if any full scale flight simulator
offered the option
of flying the plane while watching it from the ground.
The answer seems to
be no.
The conclusion from this limited survey is a clear
consensus that flight
simulation is useful for learning to fly radio control,
the choices are not
very many, and that RealFlight from Great Planes currently
dominates the
field. The RealFlight users agreed that flight simulation
accelerated the
learning curve, maybe by half, but no one thought that
it can replace buddy
boxes and real air time.
Dave Korenstein
BOG MINUTES
Dee Messina
9/19/000
18 members present
1 Year 2001 banquet fee will be $5 per person. Two
door
prizes will be drawn. A $150 gift certificate for
Penn Valley
Hobbies for the men and a $50 certificate for the
mall for
the ladies.
2 The windsock has been replaced
3 Some interest has been shown for using an IZONE camera
for putting pictures on the club membership ID cards.
This
will remain under discussion.
4 Nominations will be taken at the November general
meeting for the Doug Davidson Award and Technical
Achievement Award.
5 The club is always looking for special interest topics
and
speakers for our meetings.If you have any prospects
please speak to Walt Pierzchala.
6 The club members must pay stricter attention to returning
the equipment to the barrel and closing /locking
them at
days end. Do not depend on someone else to do this.
The
tumblers must be spun on the lock after closing
to properly
secure it.
NEW PILOTS
Brad Zogol
Dean Connell
Congratulations!
ADDRESS CHANGES
All address changes and other member information should
be sent to the club
membership chairman "Rudy Forst". The newsletter
editor does not maintain
this database. Rudy's name & address can be found
in your membership
directory. If you do not have a directory, make sure
that you get one. It
contains a copy of the field regulations that you have
agreed to when you
signed up for membership.
Feedback or comments to:
Ernie McGauley , HearYe editor
Michael Myers, Webmaster
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