Newsletter Editor

Roger A. Luther

raluther@atlanticbb.net

The Johnstown R/C Club

AMA Charter # 718

April 2012 Newsletter 2012 – Johnstown RC Clubs 50th Year Join us online at: www.Johnstownrc.org

Upcoming Activities.......April Club Meeting: Tuesday, April 3rd, 8:30 pm. Flying at the field should start soon! Note the time change!Annual Club Mall Show: May 4,5,6 at the Galleria Mall. Setup night is Thursday May 3 rd from 7-9 pm. Get a few planes ready for dispay!Sunday Family Picnics: These should start in April, Hold April 29 th open for the first of the year Family Picnic, Hot Dogs at 5 pm at the the field.Toledo Weak Signals RC Show: April 13, 14, 15........Toledo Ohio

I guess we are all "Pluggers"

Member of the Month....

Member of the Month Roger Luther

Roger Luther joined our club in 2005 after he moved back to his hometown of Johnstown, having lived in the Ligonier area for almost 30 years. He and his wife Bonnie owned a Blueberry Farm, but now reside in the Arbutus Park Retirement Community where he is active on their board of directors. Bonnie, who is an artist, usually comes along with Roger for the clubs family picnics and always enjoys the summer RC fellowship and great food.

Roger and Bonnie enjoy a recent RC picnic

Roger started in our RC hobby while he lived over in Ligonier, by first becoming a member of the former Mulligan Hill RC Club near New Florence. After moving back to Johnstown, he soon became active in our club and started the clubs official website in 2007 located at www.johnstownrc.org Today, this website has had almost 36,000 visitors and contains literally hundreds of pictures and videos from our clubs activities taken over the past six years or so.

A few years ago, Roger built the wooden picnic table that now sits under our tent canopy, and he attends almost all of the clubs activities, often annoying our members to take pics for the website and newsletter.

Roger with his Cessna 182 Electric Roger usually flies ARF's and RTF aircraft and owns both gas and electric planes. He likes to fly much more than build, and

sometimes folks say he goes out to the field when it rains and waits for the rain to stop so he can be the first to fly RC that day! Don't believe it for a minute! Many times Ken Reesey is already there! He and Ken are probably the two guys who have flown the most at our field over the past 6 years or so of any of our club members.

Above, Roger helps to repair our entrance gatepost last spring. In late 2007 the club needed someone to take on the Newsletter Editor position due to Al Stein's work travel requirements. Roger reluctantly took on that job and has handled that activity ever since, in addition to his webmaster duties.

Roger with his A-10 Wart Hog In November 2010 Roger started a column in the newsletter called "Member of the Month". After 18 months, he finally made the grade! We salute Roger Luther as our April "Member of the Month"

50 Year Look Back...........

Our "Old Timer" feature for this month's "50 th Year Look Back" is Ken Reesey. Ken got interested in RC way back in the 1950's even before our club was founded. Caleb Butler lived near Kenny, and Ken would hear Caleb running his plane engines on a test stand and go up to see what was going on. That's where Ken got the RC bug I guess and he has been involved in RC since he was about 12 years old. One of Ken's first planes was a Goldburg Falcon which he wrecked on its first flight! This happens to alot of first time flyers to this day!

Jump ahead a few years to 1983 and you see a picture with Ken with his "Lazer" taken at our field taken almost 30 years ago.

Kenny remembers driving over to Ligonier to fly near the old American Legion barn, next to the current Ligonier High School. On one occasion he remembers a guy flying his plane into the flag pole, and then it slammed into Ken's windshield and broke it! Luckily that is the only time that has happened in over 60 years of RC flying. He remembers another fellow from over that way who flew a really large plane and actually strapped his small dog in the cockpit, and then flew his dog around the field! Off times in those days you only got in one flight during your visit to the field, due to constant malfunctions and wrecks!

Above, Ken is sitting where he likes it best, down at his basement workbench and building area, with his electric heater and television both going strong!

Here is a shot of his "extra fuel tanks" which represents quite a lot of crashed air

planes if I do say so! Ken has built countless models over the years and probably has flown more times at our field than any other flyer, bar-none! He has taught so many fliers to fly RC, and is always ready to help out anyone with an RC question or problem. Ken has built planes for other members, repaired planes that crashed, and also handled our spring fuel sale for many years. Over the years Ken has served as our club president, vice president, newsletter editor, flight instructor, you name it, Ken Reesey has done it!

Here Ken poses with his giant DC-3 at the Mall Show in 1985. In the early days, Kenny got started with control line aircraft and has flown just about every type of model since, including B-24's, Shuttle's, Bi-Planes, twin engine's, helicopters, big stuff and lately those newer small electric RTF's. We salute Ken Reesey, one of our RC veteran's!

50th Anniversary Banquet Our 50 th year banquet was a wonderful success with over 50 folks attending. We were fortunate to have our new AMA District III Vice President, Mark Radcliff as our guest speaker. Mark has an impressive resume in RC circles having participated in several world events and competitions. He was on the USA team 4 times and their team came in first each time! He has flown competition in Bern, Switzerland, as well as South Africa and in the United States. Mark

presented a slide show from many of his competition events and the planes he flew. He even has one of his early planes now on display at the AMA Museum in Muncie, IN.

Prior to his talk, Mark presented our club with a plack from the AMA, commemorating our 50 years of AMA affiliation. Above, club president receives the award from Mark Radcliff, AMA V.P. Awards were given out to club members who brought planes for display, but the blue ribbon of the night went to Bruce Thomas, for his beautiful winter project, a P-47 Thunderbolt.

Sam Kaplitz with District III V.P Radcliff

The Blue Ribbon for the night was won by Bruce Thomas for the best built model on display.

Bruce with his Top Flight P-47 Thunderbolt

Bruce did a fantastic job building this great looking airplane. We can't wait to see it in the air this summer! Bruce said he may wait until after the Mall Show to take it to the air! Good idea Bruce! The American Legion staff prepared a great meal, and the facility was a perfect location for our banquet. Sam thanked all of those who contributed prizes and gifts for the give-away at the end of the evening, where everyone went home with a doorprize of some sort!

The highlight of the evening was honoring our four remaining "Charter Club Members" who have been affiliated with the club for the whole 50 years. They are from L to R above, Paul Yuhas, Jim Patterson, Caleb Butler, and Ken Reesey.

50 th Year Club President with our Club's 50 th year Newsletter Editor, Roger Luther.

Roger met with Mark earlier in the day and took him out to visit our flying field. Both Mark and Roger had planes ready, but the wind was blowing so hard, neither flyer wanted to risk flying in those conditions! Mark promised to come back again to test out our field and show his "stuff" to our club members.

The club also presented our President Sam Kaplitz, with a "50 th Year President's" award, a neat "Altitude Instrument" clock, to

commemerate him being our president during this important 50 th anniversary year. There are many additional banquet pictures available for viewing on the club website.

www.johnstownrc.org

The other winners from the plane display are listed below:

Ladies Choice Award First Place...............Bruce Thomas

Second Place...........Scott Holsopple

Third Place..............Jim Patterson

Best ARF Airplane First Place...............Scott Holsopple

Second Place...........Jim Patterson

Third Place.............Bill Rosage

Best Hand-Built Airplane First Place..............Bruce Thomas

Second Place..........Dave Kissinger

Third Place.............Jim Patterson

Shirts and hats with the new 50 Year logo shown above, were given to our President, and to our guest speaker, Mark Radcliff.

March Club Meeting......... The regular club meeting for March was held only 3 days after the banquet on Tuesday, March 6 th. There were 20 folks in attendance. Sam reviewed the successful 50 th Anniversary Banquet and we all agreed it was a wonderful night. We reviewed the related expenses and income and all felt that we will no-doubt have to increase the cost/person for next year. No secretary's report was available, since Paul couldn't make it to the meeting. After some review of our finances, it appears that an increase in annual dues will probably have to occur for next year. Even with ever increasing costs for postage, mowing, and other ongoing club expenses, our dues have remained the same for the past 12 years or so. There was quite a discussion about fundraisers, dues, special assessments, etc. and what to do about the clubs increasing expenses. One interesting idea was to institute a "crash fee" of say $10 or so for anybody who wrecks a plane! There was mixed feelings about this idea! A final decision on this subject will be made later in the year. A good number of our members went down to Pappy's for Pizza and Pepsi after the meeting.

2012 Mall Show................

The next important and major club event is our annual Mall Show, which will be held on May 4 th, 5 th, and 6 th. We would like to again have at least 50 planes for display, so

get a few ready for the show. Setup night is Thursday, May 3 rd from 7-9 pm. If you can, plan to spend parts of those three days at the mall to answer questions and sell raffle tickets. Our memberes always seem to have a good time talking shop, and visiting nearby Auntie Annies pretzel stand, in addition to talking to mall visitors.

Mall Show Tickets............ Please get your Mall Show tickets from Ken Reesey and make sure you sell them and turn in the money and ticket stubs prior to the Mall Show. Any unsold tickets MUST be returned before the Mall Show so that they can be sold prior to the end of the show. Remember, this is our only fund raiser of the year and it takes the support of every member to make it a success!

FAA & Drones................. The FAA has authorized a 3-Year study to chart a path for safety in our skies concerning the use of UAV's or drones. Within a few years, that flying object overhead might not be a bird or a plane, but an unmanned drone! Drones, perhaps best known for their combat missions in Afghanistan or Iraq are increasingly looking to share room in America's skies with passenger planes, and that's prompting safety concerns.

An X-47B Military Drone

Right now, remote controlled drones are mostly used in air space by the military and other government agencies in restricted air space. But, everyone from police forces searching for missing persons, to academic researchers counting seals on the polar ice

cap, is eager to launch drones weighing only a few pounds to some the size of a small plane. A few weeks ago, the Senate sent to the President, legislation that requires the FAA to devise ways for that to happen safely in three years. Initially, our RC hobby was to be included in these regulations, but our AMA was successful in removing our sport from these new regs...for now! Commercial pilots have raised safety concerns and while pilots who spend time flying planes are required to hold licenses, no similar rules exist for the controllers of remote aircraft. This potential conflict between our RC hobby and others who may eventually use UAV's will continue as our hobby gets added technology and the ability to fly our planes "out of sight". Look for lots more press in the coming years about these conflicts as others begin to utilize UAV's for commercial use.

Fuel Sale....................... J & C Hobbies finnally got their spring fuel pricing information together, and Roger will again take his truck down to Pittsburgh sometime in April to bring back a load of fuel. The fuel will be Wildcat, and the cost is as follows:

10%................ $16.50/gallon

15%................ $17.50/gallon

Give Roger a call ASAP and give him your order if you want to buy fuel for this flying season. Make your checks out to Roger Luther, and specify which type of fuel and how many gallons you want of each type. He is not getting any extra fuel, only for the guys that give him checks prior to the fuel trip. J & C wants the order by March 24 th, so act now if you want to order any fuel. He plans on going down to pick up the fuel order in early April. Pick up will be from Ken Reesey's garage as before.