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TRANSCRIPT
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UPDATE
Volume 49, Issue 06 AMA CHARTER CLUB 797 June 2017
The SANTA BARBARA RADIO CONTROL MODELERS INC. is incorporated in the State of California as Chapter 797 of the ACADEMY OF MODEL AERONAUTICS (AMA).
The purpose of this club is to promote the hobby of model aviation in a safe and enjoyable manner.
Regular meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month at the Santa Barbara Airport Visitor’s Center, 45 Hartley Place (off of Hollister at David Love Place). Everyone is welcome at our meetings. Please phone or e-mail any officer for further information.
Next Club Meeting
6:30 pm Thursday, June 1, 2017 Santa Barbara Airport Visitors Center
45 Hartley Place, Goleta, CA
Help make the monthly meetings as interesting as possible. Contact Glenn Dorfman at [email protected] if you can contribute with a "show and tell", a good story, a guest speaker, building tips or disasters, etc. It will be
appreciated.
Visit us at: www.sbrcm.org
2017 Club Officers
President Phone E-mail Glenn Dorfmann 805-969-6233 [email protected] Vice-President Ron Roth 805-967-6737 [email protected] Secretary Tom Wolf 805-967-3523 [email protected] Treasurer Lloyd Gibbs 805-688-4855 [email protected] Field Safety Officer Dale Byers 805-967-8822 [email protected]
Newsletter Editor Tom Wolf 805-967-3523 [email protected] Instruction Coordinator TBD Website Herb Rubinstein 805-683-3402 [email protected]
President’s Message
Talk about how time flies. Harry's Plaza Cafe just contacted us to inquire if we are still planning on having our Christmas Party there again, this year on December 2! We answered affirmatively. It was really great to get-together at the Santa Ynez Airport Day, particularly with those of you who hangar in the North County and don't get to the meetings. That would include Lloyd Gibbs, Bernie Rios and Doug Cowin. Whomever I forgot gets a lunch at the Burger Barn on me. Also nice to see Dennis Cordeniz who lives in the south but is usually too busy flying celebrities around the country to have much time for model airplanes. Finally, Scotty did a nice job of parking his Bird Dog so that we could utilize the shade of his wings as required.
At the airport event we displayed the sign seeking help with locating a new field and a few people did carefully read it and chat with us about the problem. However, thanks to Charlie DiMauro’s "never give up" spirit and always deployed antennas, we learned that the Chumash were a sponsor of the airport event and the Young Eagles group which means that the tribe has an interest in youth aviation. We spoke personally with the director of the event who referred us to the attorney for the tribe who is receiving an email version of the club presentation regarding who we are, what we do, and what we need. Results are pending. We also got a tip about University of California owned Sedgwick Ranch and particularly a place known as Windmill Canyon. Again, we reached out in the same way and are hoping for some kind of response.
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There was also discussion about the possibility of float flying again, given that Cachuma is about 50% full (or empty) depending upon your attitude. I believe that Tom Wolf will be putting together a reconnaissance party to see if it can be done. The current issues to investigate are whether the pump barge that at last observation was sitting smack in the middle of our float fly pattern is still there, and if so, when it will be moved and secondly, whether it will be possible to drive down close enough to the water. Stay tuned and in the meantime, I hope to see more of you at the monthly meetings and also down at Lake Casitas.
Glenn Dorfman, SBRCM President
Club Meeting Minutes 5/04/2017
The meeting was called to order at 6:35 PM by Secretary Tom Wolf. President Glenn Dorfman was on vacation in Canada. All other club officers were present. A total of 10 members and 0 guests were present.
Old Business:
Treasurer’s Report: We have approximately $25,000 in the checking account.
Safety Officer Report: Dale Byers gave a report on the rattlesnake situation at the Lake Casitas Flying Field. Two rattlesnakes have been found in the last month. One was by the log barrier at the edge of the parking lot, adjacent to the pit area, and the other was under one of the tables in the pit area. He cautioned those who fly there to keep their eyes open and to be careful.
Elings Park: Fred Wudl reported that the flying strip is overgrown and mostly not usable. Those who were flying there have been going to Viola Park in Carpinteria. Fred felt it was not worth pursuing getting the park to fix the situation.
Flying Site Search: Tom Wolf gave an overview of the current status of this effort. The advertisement that was run in the Santa Ynez newspaper for four weeks (8 total issues) yielded only one response. Glenn Dorfmann was contacted by someone who saw a flying strip near Aliso Road (Happy Canyon area), but could provide no further information. Subsequently, a search on Google Earth was undertaken and we found two airstrips in that general area. One was at Shepherd Ranch, near the roundabout on HWY 154, and the other was about a mile from the end of Aliso Road. Tom and Glenn Dorfman drove up to the area on Thursday, April 27 and left copies of the newspaper advertisement in mailboxes that were associated
with promising pieces of land, including the airstrip properties. About 20 mailboxes were targeted No response has been received to date.
Chumash Property: Charlie DiMauro reported that about a week ago his son gave his business point of contact with the Chumash a copy of the letter we sent (about two months ago) to the Chumash tribal chairman. The woman promised to get the letter to the appropriate person. There has been no further communication up to this time.
Arrowhead Point: Scott Loepkey may have a possible point of contact with the ranch owner through an acquaintance. We are awaiting feedback through the acquaintance.
Santa Ynez Airport Day, Saturday, May 20: The club will again have a display at this event, in conjunction with Scott Loepkey’s Cessna Bird Dog. Club members who are willing to display their aircraft (fixed wing or heli), please contact Tom Wolf.
Tom Wolf will publish information regarding when to arrive to set up, etc, when this information is available.
SB Airport Career Day Wednesday May 24: This event is being coordinated by Tim Lawton and will be held at Isla Vista School. Tim has asked the club to set up a display of RC aircraft, answer questions and put on a helicopter flying display. Kenny Hill has volunteered to do the flying display. Several club members have volunteered to bring aircraft and help with the display. More information will be published by Tom Wolf when we are closer to the event.
New Business:
The club’s web site is down, probably due to the URL fee not being paid this year. Tom Wolf is attempting to contact Peter Chen to see what the issue is. Peter was the person who first set the web site up. The consensus of the members present was that we should get the site back up.
Christmas Party 2017: There was a discussion about whether to hold the party this year, and those in attendance thought we should proceed. Lloyd will reserve the room at Harry’s Plaza Café.
Show and Tell:
Dale Byers brought in his new Quaker that he bought at the recent Ventura Comets sale of airplane stuff from the estate of a long time Comet’s member. Dale has converted the plane from glow power to electric. He modified the upper nose section to make an access hatch for access to the battery. The hatch fits very nicely and is hardly noticeable when in place. He expects to fly
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it for the first time this coming Tuesday, at the Lake Casitas flying field.
Dale Byers with his Quaker that he converted to electric
Program:
There was no program for this meeting.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:10 PM.
Submitted by: Tom Wolf,
SBRCM Secretary
Member Spotlight
There was no submission for this feature this month
Santa Ynez Airport Day 5/20/2017
Once again SBRCM had a display of aircraft at the open house event at the Santa Ynez Airport. Our display was anchored by Scott Loepkey’s full size Cessna L-19 Bird Dog. Our display drew a lot of attention from those who were in attendance, especially the kids. Thanks to all of those who helped with this event: Dale Byers, Dennis Cordeniz, Doug Cowin, Glenn Dorfman, Lloyd Gibbs, Jim Kolanek, Scott Loepkey, Peter Nickel, Bernie Rios and Fred Wudl.
SBRCM members who helped with our display. L-R: Scott Loepkey, Glenn Dorfman, Dennis Cordeniz, Peter Nickel, Bernis Rios, Dale Byers, Fred Wudl, and Jim Kolanek. Not pictured, Lloyd Gibbs and Doug Cowin.
There was always a group of people gathered around Scott’s airplane to get a chance to sit inside.
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Maybe a future pilot? The kids were excited to get a chance to sit in Scott’s airplane.
One of the more unusual airplanes on display
A really nice T-28 flew in. This is one BIG airplane!
A very nice Yak
Santa Barbara Airport Career Day 5/24/2017
This event was organized by Tim Lawton, the education/community liaison point person at the Santa Barbara Airport, and was held at Isla Vista School. On several previous occasions we have helped Tim with aviation education projects for local elementary schools. This event focused on careers in aviation-related fields, with displays and question and answer sessions. The entire school cycled through the display area in groups, over a four hour period. Our club provided a display of several radio controlled aircraft and multiple exciting flight demonstrations with an RC helicopter, flown by Kenny Hill. There was a lot of interest shown by the students and our club members answered numerous questions about the hobby. Thanks to those who helped with this event: Dale Byers, Kenny Hill, Jim Kolanek, and Fred Wudl
Dale Byers gave the kids some hands-on time with his transmitter and Quaker, so that the kids could see how the controls work. He always had a crowd around him.
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Jim Kolanek explains the transmitter controls to some interested students.
Kenny Hill flew multiple helicopter flight demonstrations for the student. His flying was a hit with the kids.
Kenny did a lot of low inverted flying as well as some wild flips and other impressive maneuvers.
The SBRCM team (L-R): Kenny Hill, Fred Wudl, Jim Kolanek, and Dale Byers. Not pictured: Tom Wolf.
New Projects:
Bob Root’s Aeronca C3
Bob Root test flew his brand new 1/4 scale Aeronca C3 on May 9. . It is modeled after an airplane that he saw at the 1965 Watsonville airport fly-in. At the time, Bob was living in Seattle, but he was working a 6
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month assignment at NASA Ames and decided to attend this fly-in. Continuing in his own words: ”I fell in love with its quirky looks and took a bunch of (poor quality) pictures. I have wanted to build a model of this airplane ever since. After 50 years I finally have my 1931 Aeronca C-3 model.”
The model is ¼ scale and I have tried to include everything on the model that I have full size airplane pictures of. This scale results in a 9 ft. wing span. I started with plans by Phillip S. Kent which I got from Model Airplane News magazine. I first saw this particular design in the English Flying Scale Models magazine. Since each of these old full size Aeronca airplanes has been rebuilt more than once, none of them are the same. This resulted in numerous changes from the plans I had. The model weighs 14.5 pounds and is powered by an ASP 1.6 cu. In. 4 cycle glow engine. Onboard glow is utilized for starting and engine idle reliability. The original airplane had a 36 hp. twin cylinder engine. I made molds and fiberglass parts for the 3 cowl parts and the aluminum aileron skins. I formed the stainless exhaust pipe and steel tubing functional landing gear and had Jim Woods weld them for me. All the controls are actuated in a scale manner. The one piece windshield/overhead is held on with screws as per the full size. In 1931 the airplane had a tail skid which doesn’t work for an airplane which must operate on pavement. I built the model tail wheel to match my pictures.
The models first flight occurred almost exactly 50 years after I saw this airplane at the Watsonville airport. It was 36 years old then.”
Bob intends to compete with this airplane on the US Scalemasters circuit. While Bob is not a member of SBRCM, he is local, being a member of the Ventura Comets and flies regularly at the Lake Casitas flying field. Bob’s achievement with the model is noteworthy, hence the exposure here.
The aircraft that Bob modeled, as seen at the 1965 Watsonville Fly-in
Bob’s Aeronca features scale exhaust system, panel fasteners, landing gear, all the flying wires and a fully detailed cockpit. This airplane is museum quality.
The C3 on a slow fly-by.
Bob’s C3 is a majestic, slow flyer. It looks and sounds like the full size version.
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Does that look awesome, or what?
Around and About:
Frank Dorris putting his plane through its paces at the Lake Casitas flying field.
The editor’s Ventus C sailplane and TJ Moran’s giant Quaker prior to some aerotowing at Lake Casitas. The Ventus has a wing span of 147 inches and weighs 8 ¼ pounds. The Quaker has a wing span of 168 inches and weighs 45 pounds. Photo by Irene Dorris
TJ Moran’s giant Quaker coming by to drop the towline. Photo by Irene Dorris
The Ventus C on short final with the spoilers deployed. Photo by Irene Dorris.
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SBRCM Calendar
06/01 Club Meeting 6:30 PM
07/06 Club Meeting 6:30 PM
07/27-07/30 Central Coast Giant Scale Fly-In Tri Valley RC Modelers, Santa Maria
08/03 Club Meeting and BBQ 6:00 PM
09/07 Club Meeting 6:30 PM
9/16-9/17 Float Fly Castaic Lake Lower Lagoon
Canyon Crosswinds
(www.canyoncrosswinds.com)
10/05 Annual Club Auction 6:30 PM
11/02 Club Meeting 6:30 PM
12/02 Annual Christmas Party 6:00 PM Harry’s Plaza Cafe
Flying Field Schedule: Elings Park: Daily Sunrise – Sunset
Note: Elings Park requires a park pass ($70/yr) for usage of the model airstrip, in addition to SBRCM and AMA membership. The Elings Park site is restricted to small to medium electric aircraft only, and pilots must not overfly areas outside of the flying site. No ducted fans or other noisy aircraft (i.e. high rpm screamers) are permitted.
_ Copyright 2017 C/O Tom Wolf SBRCM Newsletter Editor 805-967-3523 [email protected]
AMA CHARTER CLUB 797 The SANTA BARBARA RADIO CONTROL MODELERS INC is incorporated in the State of California as Chapter 797 of the ACADEMY OF MODEL AERONAUTICS (AMA)
If you have any suggestions for topics, would like to submit pictures or other information, please e-mail them to [email protected] or mail to Tom Wolf 566 Windsor Ave Goleta, CA 93117. If you have any photos of what you’re working on or flying, please forward them to me and I’ll put them in the website’s photo gallery.