NEW PLYMOUTH MODEL AERO CLUB

Transcription

1 CONTACT NEWSLETTER FROM NEW PLYMOUTH MODEL AERO CLUB 1 May/June 2017

2 New Plymouth Model Aero Club Officials, Club Patron NPDC Councilor Harry Duynhoven President Justin Whalley Secretary/Treasurer Keith Butler Recording Officer Andrew Robinson R/C Steward Mike Pillette Free Flight Steward Andrew Robinson Control Line Steward Andrew Robinson Bulletin Editor Steve Blackman Committee Members Dave Bull Trent Lochhead New Zealand s Leading Oil & Gas and Pipelines Engineering Consultancy. P.O Box 660 New Plymouth New Zealand Ph Fax manager@pandp.co.nz Website. Plant & Platform Consultants Ltd has kindly donated the printing of this Bulletin. 2

3 Editorial! Writing this as the country is in the strangle hold of a polar blast that s bought the highways to a standstill in many parts. Temperatures have meant that the workshop hasn t been tempting enough in the evenings and the couch in front of the fire with a hot coffee has won out! Despite the general lack of flying over the last couple of months we did get a decent Warbirds day in, as evidenced by Mike s report and Andy s photo s later in this bulletin. A successful prize giving dinner was also held, well attended and enjoyed by all. Unfortunately I had double booked myself and was unable to attend. Glad to hear that Ross was fine after taking a bit of a turn and generating a bit of extra excitement for the evening. Visiting with a few club members, I m aware of a number of projects being worked on. As a result I m looking forward to the summer and seeing these new models coming out to the strip and taking to the air. Please remember to take a few pics on the way through the build/ assembly and put a few words together. It s all great material for the bulletin! There s a Club Night scheduled on Sunday evening the 13th August at the Star Gym. Feel free to bring your latest project along and say a few words about it. It s also an opportunity to bring any gear you re wanting to sell. Hoping that the weather eases up to allow some weekend flying especially for the scheduled theme days. Look forward to catching you at the strip and/or the Club Night. Cheers, Steve B. Front Cover: John Robinson s Lysander 3

4 President s Report May/June 2017 During the last few months the weather has certainly been kinder to the midweek fliers than to us weekend pilots. The retirees in the club have had a feast of good flying and have certainly made the most of it. - Lucky buggers!!!! Keith called me yesterday with some bad news; one of our past members Colin Johnson has passed away aged 95, Colin was a member of our club for many years and one of the founding members of the Silver Fox squadron. He served on our club committee for a few years as a committee member, I can recall test flying many of Colin s models, some being highly modified master pieces!!!! In fact My Seamaster seaplane was originally Colin s so for me his memory will live on there. Colin to me was a guy who always took interest in what I was building or doing, he was a true gentlemen and a very sharp dresser. I m sure you all will have your own fond memories of Colin as do I. A good night Friday 29th at the Cobb for our Social and Prize giving evening, great to see everyone out with wives and partners together for a meal and time to socialise. I think Harry Dynhoven enjoyed himself, its great to have a patron who is mechanically minded and so personable. Congratulations to all who picked up prizes. Since moving back to Dorset Ave- 28 now, not 26a I have set about sorting a workshop space in my double and a half garage. The garage is of concrete block construction so one of the first things to do is to paint the walls, the down side to block construction is that all shelving brackets need to be retained with concrete retainers- a noisy and messy job!!! I kept my heavy duty workbenches from my last workshop so have placed them around the sides and back of the space. I have constructed a central movable island bench using a trolley as a base and constructing a wooden frame around it, a door from Bunnings for a nice flat top and some plastic draws on each end for storage completes the unit. I find this system great for working on and being able to move it and access what you are working on from each side is fantastic. Storage is always an issue for me as I like everything neatly packed away, 4

5 I have many plastic draws and bins for my gear- this is something I learnt from the great Stu Parsons when I was a lad, Stu had all his gear in clearly marked boxes for ease of finding. I believe a tidy space motivates you to work tidy, thus taking more care and more attention to detail. I don t really have a favourite tool in my workshop although I like my magnetic tool holders I have attached to the walls for screw drivers, pliers, files and such; they keep tools off the benches and are in easy access points for use. I have good lighting in the space from a large sliding window, clear light sheeting on the ceiling and plenty of light fitting- I am hoping to change these to fluorescent s soon when I can get the electrician father round again!! I have plenty of projects on the go as I like to collect aircraft, unfortunately as I have a busy job and family building time is very limited so getting stuff done takes time, I am also renovating our home so plenty of jobs on the go there as well!!!! Currently I have a P39 Aircobra nearing completion, the kit is from the ESM stable and has required several modifications, just needing a final push and she should be in the air soon. I have also been working on a Bobcat pusher, this plane has also undergone modifications including retracts installed and is on the final stretch to completion. Till next time, Fly safe- over and out- Justin 5

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7 Warbird Theme Day 11TH June Mike Pillette It s been a month since we had this day and I m writing this from a yep I think that happened.. point of view. No it s not the onset of Alzheimer s, it s just that a month is a long time when you re trying to recall things, so I hope I haven t missed anything out. If I do, and you re upset then maybe it s time you stepped up and wrote something for the bulletin, Steve surely would be grateful. Anyway the 11th June was the last fine weekend since, so we were pretty lucky in that respect and because we are a scale oriented club the turnout was excellent as usual. The pits were full, the carpark overflowing and the amount of hot air being generated by all the s**t talk could have easily turned the day into a thermal theme. That s the great thing about our sport/hobby, it s not completely about the models and the flying, it s also about the camaraderie that goes with it. The range of aircraft was pretty diverse some big, some small, traditional balsa and ply, fibreglass fuse and foamies. The ARF genre were the dominant species and I guess this is because of a lot of factors that we are all familiar with, but they are definitely getting better all the time. A great example of this was John Robinson s Seagull Lysander which cruised around the sky powered by a rather nice petrol twin looking the part. I wouldn t call this a pretty plane but it certainly has a presence in the sky and flew beautifully. John also had his ESM Seafury which he showed off nicely with some very scale flying. Nice job John. In the foamie squadron, I flew my FMS Mustang which flies superbly even in the wind and my Albatross, John Robinsons has his Corsair, Alan Lawrence his SE5a and Ross Giddy had a very pretty little Parkzone Mosquito. There was also at28 but I m not sure who flew that sorry. Other aircraft included a brace of Harvards, a Japanese Hein, Mustangs, a P47 Thunderbolt, Rob Whalley s Hellcat, a Zero, my Tucano and various others (which weren t really warbirds as such). There was only a couple of incidents neither of which resulted in any real serious unrepairable damage (apart from the pilot s pride. the dreaded walk of shame is always a killer when the audience is vast!). 7

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10 Cheap and Easy to Build Indoor Pylon Racer A foam hand launch glider converted to RC has resulted in a durable fun to fly indoor pylon racer model. Weighing in at 94g AUW and a wingspan of 480mm this model is slow enough to fly in the TSB stadium but not the Star Gym. The EPO foam is durable enough to take a few knocks and can be easy fixed if bent or crushed using hot water which restores the foam to its original shape. The build is relatively straight forward and doesn t require much in the way of tools. The fuselage is hollowed out to make room for the battery, esc and receiver with a Dremel tool cutting bit and sanding drum. 10

11 My current version of this model uses a 5g servo for each aileron. 3.6g servos would probably be more suitable for this model with one for both ailerons mounted top centre of the fuselage. I found my model to be nose heavy so I recommend installing the elevator servo in the rear. The hardest part of the build is cutting the hole in the nose for the motor and installing a firewall for the motor. I used a small piece of thin plywood glued in place with PU glue. Control horns were made from cut down bread tags and 1mm wire was used for the push rods. 11

12 I used clear packing tape for the aileron and elevator hinges and this seems to be holding well. For those that would like to make one of these indoor pylon racers I will do a bulk order of parts to cut down on shipping costs on July 23rd. the list of individual parts you would like or if you want a complete kit to TrentLochhead@gmail.com before 23rd July! Cost per item (NZD) Hand Launch Glider EPO $5.0 Outrunner Motor (2000kv 1811) $13.7 ESC (6A Turnigy Plush) $11.3 Turnigy TGY-1370A 3.6g servos (x2) $9.4 R610V2 DSM2 Lite Receiver $8.0 Gemfan 5x3 Prop (x5) $2.1 Nano-tech 2S 300mah 35C Lipo (x2) $14.8 Shipping $22.9 The final parts cost will depend on a few variables (shipping, bulk discounts, currency conversion). The more people that buy parts/ kits the cheaper it will be per person as shown in the table below. People Ordering Total Per Kit 1 $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $68.1 If parts are not in stock when I make the order I will get equivalent parts for a similar price. The proposed motor will have a prop saver not a spinner as shown above. Colour of the models available are: speckled orange/black, yellow, blue, or red. 12

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14 Colin Johnson Another Silver Fox gone! REMINDERS Please keep to the metalled access track leading to the RC strip. If you need access to the quarry to recover a model during operating hours, go back down the access track and enter the quarry through the main gates and report to the quarry office to the right of the entrance. If outside operating hours, please contact Garry or Russell Marsh on the numbers below to receive instructions. DO NOT ENTER THE QUARRY WITHOUT PERMISSION HAVING BEEN SOUGHT AND RECEIVED. Flying is suspended at the RC strip during mowing operations. Normal mowing time is Thursday 10am to 1.30pm but this is weather dependant and may vary. Please pit to the north of the club container and only use the area on the mountain side for pitting if the northern end is full. Contact Numbers: Gary Marsh Russell Marsh

15 COMING EVENTS Control Line: Note:- Events may change to suit conditions or circumstances. Practice until 2 pm, events start at 2 pm. Contact Andrew Robinson PH Free Flight: Start time is 9 am 9.30 am If weather looks bad in the morning ring Andrew Robinson to check. It may be postponed to the following weekend. Radio Control: July 23rd Multi Wing Biplanes and Triplanes August 6th Warbirds 13th Club Night Star Gym 20th Civilian/Agricultural September 3rd Slope soaring Back Beach 17th Pylon/Speed Competition events start time is usually pm. Contest Directors Thermal & Electric Gliding Pylon Racing/Scale Float Planes Allen Lawrence Justin Whalley Keith Butler Contact details for these gentlemen are on the inside front cover 15

16 This space is available to advertise to the members of the NPMAC for $50 p.a. If you re interested in this opportunity please contact the Bulletin Editor CONTACT OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER NEW PLYMOUTH MODEL AERO CLUB c/- P.O. BOX 574, NEW PLYMOUTH MAIL CENTRE,