The next meeting of
the winter season of the Scale Flyers of
Minnesota will be held on Friday, November 29,
7:00 p.m. at the American Legion Post, 6501
Portland, Richfield. Come early and dine in the
restaurant.
At the last meeting ...
The
Owatonna Flying Field has been renamed
“Karen’s Field,”
after Tim Johnson’s wife who died in a
freak accident. Karen was well-known and
well-liked by the hundreds of modelers who met
her at flying events. An unforgettable missing
man formation was flown during the Northern
Alliance Military Fly-In (NAMFI) this summer by
four full-sized aircraft led by Tim who
performed the chandelle.
Also, the
Minnesota Valley RC field in Shakopee is
closed. Stay tuned for information on a new
location.
New SFM Members
The Scale
Flyers has three new members who landed
and contributed to the last meeting.
They are;
Ahmed
Bassal, a scratch-builder of scale
models and sailplanes. Ahmed immigrated
to the USA in 2007 from Egypt. “I now
have a man cave.” He started his
modeling career in free-flight and
placed 1st and 2nd in Egyptian national
competition in 1986 and 1987, then
changed to RC scale in 1990 when RC
became available in Egypt. Ahmed is a
very talented and innovative designer
and scratch-builder but he says, “I can
build them, but I can’t fly them.
Pedro
Restrepo, is a native of Columbia.
When he was a kid, “there were no kits
in Columbia, but lots of balsa wood.”
So he grew up on CL. He scratch-built a
Boeing 707 in high school.
Brandon
Archer,won 2nd place at Watts Over
Owatonna this year with his detailed
Corsair. He is a rep for
plastics. He has offered his knowledge
of styrene, foam, and other plastics.
Don
Dreskovich, has a talent for
detailing ARFs. Welcome aboard,
gentlemen!
Don
Dreskovich presented his Top Flite
FW190 ARF. It was purchased via RC
Universe
from its builder in Colorado. Currently
has 7 flights flown by Dan Stahn. DLE
55RA. Don described adding vinyl
rivets, hatches and a sliding canopy
from
IFLYTAILIES.
Cockpit
detail and other details were added from
photos taken at an airshow. A heat
shield was added between the DLE 55’s
carburetor and exhaust to prevent excess
heat in the carburetor.
Our ever
creative Joe Niedermayr showed his
scratch-built original Dornier 217K.
Custom vacuum-formed cabin by Keith
Sparks at Park Flyer Plastics www.ParkFyerPlastics.com from Joe’s plugs in upper and lower
halves. Electric powered
at 150
watts/lb. “String and spring”
retracts - single servo in the fuselage
pulls them up via a string, spring
lowers them. Nacelles are modified
stock Park Flyer nacelles. Joe reshaped
the spinners by adding filler and
sanding.
The plane would
nearly stop on final when power was shut
off-the drag of the stopped props was
too much. The problem was solved by
setting the minimum RPM to a slowly
rotating idle. The plane flew so well
that Joe is designing a larger version.
New R/C Innovation ... Wow!
Can you
imagine flying one of your designs off
the deck of an US aircraft carrier? Pay close attention to the arm mounted
flight controls ... looks like a page
right out the "The Sixth Day" movie.
I'm
confident there's sexier technology being
used by our armed services ... but it can't be shared
yet. To date, the "X-47B " is the
most sophisticated Unmanned Combat Air
System ... this 1st first flight must
have had a huge Pucker Factor!
Dick
Steine’s, Kondor Model Products
“Val” ARF weighs 15 lbs, G26 engine, 80”
span. Dick added a pilot figure
and maybe will had cockpit detail.
No ballast required to balance.
The Chino air museum has a flyable Val.
It is a big as a P-47.
Ahmed Bassal’s fifth-scale
Tucano was scratch built by Ahmed
after a Brazilian design. The
all-composite airplane required 18
molds, including the wing.
The structure is HRV honeycomb and
fiberglass. The nose is carbon
fiber.
Canopy is ELET 0.05” plastic which
Ahmed says form more easily than
polycarbonate.
Air-up
and spring-down retracts proved to
be unreliable. The down-locks
didn’t always actuate. Air-operated
door cylinders move too quickly, so
he has replaced them with Hobby King Turnigy electric door actuators.
The
narrow nose requires a 4-inch prop
extension. Vibration was expected
so the initial flights were flown
with an onboard video camera
monitoring the prop shaft.It
revealed severe sympathetic
vibration at 40-50% throttle. The
solution is to transition quickly
thru this throttle position.
Ahmed's Tucano 3rd Flight
Pedro Restrepo showed his latest
vacuum-forming box. He recommends
butyrate plastic heated in a 350
degree oven until it sags. His
canopy plug was carved pine covered
with smooth Klass Kote primer.
Pedro asked the group several
questions which led to a group
discussion-how to fix delaminating
wing skins, choice of molding
material, etc..
Brandon Archer (brandonarcher83@gmail.com)
promised to bring his award winning
Corsair to the next meeting.
Meanwhile
he
showed how to cover a foam ARF with
thin styrene using his P-47 as an
example. Apply and roll while
applying CA. Don’t use kicker because
it will melt the foam. Use small
panels on compound curves. Sometimes
apply heat. If wrinkles appear, sand
smooth and apply filler. Rivets can
be installed with the tip of a
solder iron, then sanded to
uniformity. He showed how to use
Glad Press‘n Seal for panels and
masking.
Minnesota Aviation Writers
You can find these
great books at your local library!
The Invention
of Voice Mail + Other
Memoirsand Essaysby
David Andersen & Phil
Zuidema
True
North: Exploring the
Great Wilderness by Bush
Plane
by George
Erickson
Speed: the biography
of Charles W. Holman by Noel
Allard
2013 Flying Season ... So many great moments on
the Flight-line!
Andersen's Howard Still Flying!
Al
Swartz' Smooth Fly'in as Always!
Del
Berryman
Jim
Brown's Waco on it's 2nd engine.
Anderson's P-51's
Jeff &
Opie Brothers in Flight!
Steve &
Chris with an eye on the sky!
Mr.
Meyer's beautiful Spad
Jeff
Quesenberry's 1/3rd Scale Spitfire!
Peter's
B-24 Excellent!
Chris
O'Conner's Award Winning T-34
Great
Flight-line Photo
Jon
Bomers is thankful for the
high-level of use since incorporating
...
R/C FlightDeck
into
MNBigBirds.com for all to
use! It is the world's first
and only syndicated, Worldwide RC
Event Calendar/Promotion and Event
Registration system!
In a
highly disaggregated community of
well-attended RC events,
R/C FlightDeck
allows you to search and register
for R/C events worldwide.
Event Coordinators/Promoters can
accept and administer online pilot
registrations, generate sanction
documentation.
I encourage
ALL of you to continue to spread the
word! This Powerful Tool is
growing exponentially since place on
the website. If you have not
checked it out you should do so!
To Our
International Visitors ...
Thank you for
checking into our website from time to time.
We appreciate your desire to keep Scale & Giant
Scale R/C planes flying everywhere!