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Friday, February 14, 2004 Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I tried to get on my computer and write this Pits report. Just too many things have been happening, including several family matters that took priority. And don't forget Mardi Gras activities! Perhaps that's why some of these last weeks' field happenings are a bit hazy. It could very well be that some of these events are not quite in the proper chronological order... I did manage to visit the field for brief periods. I watched Wes Batson fly his latest Edge 540 3D aerobatics plane. He put on another impressive show, of coursephoto... Scott Duke and his Dad Steve came from across the Bay, but I had to leave and I did not watch young Scott fly his trainer. I hope Scott had brought the wing to his plane. The last time he showed up he had forgotten it!... During one of the Mardi Gras parades I saw club member Bernie Frazierphoto and his wife all decked out (the lovely lady's name escaped me then, and I have absolutely no clue now. I'm so sorry. But she looked just beautiful...) Alvin Reed and Andy Anderson fired up the new grillphoto and cooked eggs and sausagesphoto. Alvin just LOVES those fried egg sandwiches! After Sam Howell's oldest daughter Anna mentioned she can cook, Alvin wanted to find out and he talked her into frying eggs and cooking the sausagephoto. She passed with flying colorsphoto... Yes, as usual Jeff Foster smelled the food all the way from Coden and came out to get a bitephoto... Sam got some flights in with his Ultra Stick ARF, not quite as fast as one of Sam's other planesphoto. Remember his Nelson powered F-3D racer? That one is scaryfast... Saturday, February 21, 2004 Club flight instructor Frits Jetten (the only one...) met newcomer Tim McLeod and gave him some instruction flights on his Hobbico NexSTAR trainer... Edward Johnson and David Rushing flew Edward's Spacewalkerphoto. I guess they removed that obstruction in front of the pilot before taking offphoto... Edward can get quite animated and extremely loud after making a successful landing, have you noticed? (Have you heard him scream yet? We do have a sound rule, Ed...) David flew his Raptor helicopter and his Funtana Numero 2, without incidents this timephoto. Wife Kelly kept him companyphoto... Scott Gayle and Robert Harrison flew Robert's Raptor helicopter. Scott still has the cast on his leg, a reminder that skating with the kiddies can be hazardous to one's healthphoto... Don Koval brought the Ultra Stick 40 that Frits had crashed big time and had given him. Don did a great job rebuilding it, and he asked Frits to fly it. Billy Frost had already flown it the day before on its first flight since the rebuilding. The plane flew great and maneuvered just as Frits remembered it... Speaking of Billy, while doing my Mardi Gras thing on one of the Joe Cain parade floatsphoto, I saw him on a passing float having a good ol' time and throwing beads and stuffphoto. This Pits Reporter sometimes has to dig for information, and often has to resort to "borrowing" from other sources. The Internet is a great collection of useful and useless information. That's where this reporter sometimes goes to fill in the blanks, so to speak. I usually don't go to the flying field during the week, but I discovered that one can find some feeble attempts at midweek pits-reporting on a somewhat obscure Web site with the impossible name Alvin Beez Waxed. So in trying to "bulk up" this report a bit, I borrowed (...okay, I stole...) a picture and some information from that site... I found out that Tal Fowler has had a crash with his fine Fury helicopter after I had left the field. Must have been a mechanical failurephoto because Tal just doesn't mess up much any more, even while doing those seemingly impossible 3D maneuvers... Oh, and who crashed one of those big 3D planesphoto a week or so ago? The pilot was not mentioned in that rather sketchy report... The last time Eugene Bentz came to the field it was in his pretty red and shiny Corvette, but this time he drove up in his other girl magnet, a 1937 Jaguar! For a picture of it you should go to that crazy Web site — at your own risk, I should warn you — Alvin Beez Waxedlink... Previous Weekend Report Follows Saturday, February 7, 2004 Still cold, but the sun was actually out and the sky was mostly blue today. On Wednesday I had ventured out to the field to meet some new people, but the weather was not too great, cold and gray, and I had just missed them, apparently. I watched Wes Batson fly his latest Carden Aircraft Edge 540, a nicely detailed 3D plane that's 40% scalephoto... Steve Thomas flew his Tiger 2, and made a less-than-perfect landing, flipping it over. But there was no damage, and soon Steve got it back in the air after he and Ray Brown washed the dirt out of the enginephoto... Did anyone cook? Well, Alvin was there and Jeff too. That is usually cause for someone to cook! Alvin promised to cook some deer sausage Billy Frost had left in the fridge if Jeff would get some hot dog buns. No sooner had Alvin uttered the words than Jeff got in his vehicle for a trip to the store! So Alvin cookedphoto. And almost everyone, Eugene Bentz, Frits, Justin, Scott Gayle and Roger Harrison had some deer sausage dogs. And let's not forget Jeffphoto... Roger Geil drove up with a trailer behind his vehicle which contained an Ultimate Biplanephoto. The bipe was for Homer Anderson who appears to be moving up in the airplane world! Go, Homer!... Roger flew one of his 3D planes, an Extra 330, I think... John Kenna flew his Tracer. He complained about the wind and his cold-natured engine, a Y. S. .45, I believe... Justin Peacock flew his Ultra Stick. It has a K&B .48 engine on it which seemed to power it very well. Justin actually did some prop hanging. I believe Justin could quickly get the hang of that 3D stuff if he only had a proper, big 3D planephoto... Eugene flew nothing. He had driven up in a bright red Corvette (an '89, I think) that looked just great. Unfortunately I failed to take a picture of it. If you must see Eugene's nice 'vette — and if you have nothing else important to do — go to Alvin's silly blog site with the totally ridiculous name Alvin Beez Waxedlink... Sunday, February 8, 2004 I got to the field very late because I had to attend a meeting of my other club (the fishy one), which ran pretty late... It was cold! According to the guys still present there had been a nice crowd at the field that afternoon. Joe Krebs, who is the Vice President of the Koast Air Modeling Society in Ocean Springs, MS, paid us a visit. Here he is with the usual bunch — Wayne, Billy, Charlie, and Ray. (I stole this pitifully small picture from Alvin's blogphoto)... By the way, Joe's club has a new Web site now, so check it out and see what's going on with the KAMSlink.... Andrew Smith was flying a tiny plane. An Air Hog, I think he said. An all-foam electric. It had tiny twin motors no less! It appeared a bit tail-heavy as it continually porpoised in flight, but it flew pretty wellphoto... Scott Godbee has a new Ultimate biplane now, a nice blue one. He flew it for the first time today and had no problems with it. Scott also flew a small electric-to-nitro converted Cub which also flies fine according to Scottphoto... Billy Frost didn't get to fly his new contraption, a hard to describe plastic plane with appendages sticking up here and therephoto. Billy said there were some problems getting the plane started, but I'm sure he'll resolve them next time. Being a connoisseur of odd things, I'd like to see that strange thing fly!... As if Billy doesn't have plenty planes already, he acquired another one from Jeff Foster, a Pizzaz fun fly planephoto. Jeff claims he's getting rid of all his rc gear. He has already parted with all his helicopter stuff, I believe. From now on he just wants to stop by the field to irritate people and eat, according to Jeff... Previous Weekend Report Follows Saturday, January 31, 2004 When I got to the field Ray Brown was already there, on the south side of the shed, out of the wind. It was cold and windy! A little later Alvin Reed, Homer Anderson and Jon Koppish showed up. Alvin fried some eggs on the grill and some of us had eggburgers. He also found some honey buns and oranges. Someone got a heater out of the shed and everyone gathered around it... Newcomers Tim McLeod and sons Aaron and Alex showed up with their brand-new Hobbico NexSTAR trainer. The NexSTAR comes with airbrakes, anti-stall wing slats and an "active flight system" (ASF), which is an automatic flight stabilization system. This was the third NexSTAR Frits had seen at Irvington field. As is recommended, the AFS (a "copilot if you will," according to the write-up in the latest HobbyTown newsletter) was not hooked up for these first few flightsphoto. Frits had already found out that the very effective AFS is a hindrance to teaching to fly in the beginning. Everything you do the AFS wants to undo! You bank, it wants to un-bank, you want to nose-down, it wants to nose-up! Tim had wisely left it disconnected, and he had also decided to leave the airbrakes off... Frits took Tim and Aaron up against a gray sky and everything went very well. He didn't use a buddy box because the 4-channel Futaba radio came with one of those new rectangular jacks and the club has no trainer cord for those yet. Both Tim and Aaron had flown before, plus had spent much time on a computer simulator. They did very well, which was great for Frits as he could keep his hands in his pockets throughout the flights! Tim and Aaron each got a couple of flights in, while Alex decided to wait for a better and warmer day... Sunday, February 1, 2004 Another cold, windy and gray day! Ray and Billy were already at the field, up against the west side of the shed, out of the wind. Jeff Foster showed up and joined them. It made for a sad group picturephoto... Tim McLeod and sons Aaron and Alex did show up but they didn't even get out of their vehicle and left. They decided to wait for another day... Then Alvin drove up. He heated up some food left over from yesterday — fried eggs and barbecue pork. He claimed he had no food at home. Jeff must have been feeling bad, because he turned down the food Alvin offered him...[ jeff said that he had just eaten earlier - alvin said that he had also, but what did that have to do with it ] Then Alvin took a couple of pictures, but nothing out of the ordinaryphoto. They were for his senseless, ever-growing blog, Alvin Beez Waxedlink... No one stayed very long and soon everyone went home... Previous Weekend Report Follows Friday, January 23, 2004 John LaFleur has some nice, sparkly new decals on his 35% Edge 540 3D plane. Looks goodphoto!... Tal Fowler did some wild and cool gyrations with his Fury helicopter... Don Koval had his SoloStar trainer and put many flights on it... Roger Hagler had his tiny Focke Wulf 140 and he and Billy Frost flew it. A couple of times I could hear Roger cautioning Billy not to get it too far away, because he (Roger) couldn't see it! It's a very fast little planephoto! Roger asked Frits if he wanted to fly the FW 140 but Frits turned it down. He's flown it a couple of times before. Besides, Frits is still licking his wounds after crashing Roger's Spinsation a couple of week ago... John Kenna found some free time to grace us with his company and he flew his Great Planes Tracer... Jon Koppish, new to our area and about to become an ACMA member, flew his 3D plane, an Extra 330L with BME gasoline enginephoto. Jon has been doing this 3D stuff for a while, judging by the way he flies that big birdphoto... Saturday, January 24, 2004 Jimmy & Trey Davis came from their neck of the woods to fly with us. They live up north in Jackson, Alabama, and fly in Grove Hill. Trey, who's 16 now, flew his CAP-232, which he's been flying for some time nowphoto... Frank Poole showed up with a unique model that he's putting together. Apparently some of the structural parts came from the remains of a couple of crashed planes! The fuselage appears to be new, howeverphoto... Ronnie Dressler brought out his brand-new SIG Four-Star 40, but there were problems with the engine staying lit. The fuel he was using was 4 years old and became suspect after all other problems were weeded out. Could still be a tank plumbing problem, perhaps... Don Koval flew his trainer several times and later on got Billy Frost to test fly a new 40-size Giles 202. That flight went well... John LaFleur flew his Edge 540 again, doing his 3D stuff high up... Jon Koppish didn't mind doing an immediate four-point roll right after clearing the ground and flying his Extra 330L inverted and low to the ground. Jon is my kind of pilot!... Dave Rushing flew his Raptor helicopter without any difficulty nor mishaps. He's getting the hang of it!... I stumbled across what I thought was some sort of new and secret new modelphoto. But, no, it turned out to be one of those all-foam Pigi-3D planes! There were two of them. Both had broken props and one had a broken tailphoto. Then I found out that Dave and John MacArthur had something to do with their pitiful condition. Poor Pigis! Not sure if they were trying to make a biplane or some baconphoto... John also flew his nicely detailed 35% scale Carden Aircraft Edge 540. It is powered by a 3W 106 gasoline enginephoto. John wanted me to take a picture of him hanging it on the prop. Well, I did, but the plane was not very low and John (being very cautious with his nice new plane) could not be talked into getting it any lowerphoto... Tony Farmer got to fly his Funtana 3D plane after Frits took it up for him. Frits convinced Tony that he was well capable of taking this plane up and landing it. Tony did just that, doing some touch-'n'-gos and landings that were pretty perfect. (Wonder who his instructor was?...) Roger Hagler brought his tiny Pitts Special biplane and flew it a couple of times. One takeoff ended quickly when the plane scraped a wing and cartwheeled a bit. No problem though. It's a tough little plane and minutes later it was airborne again... Not sure if you noticed. Wayne Boudreaux has apparently become John MacArthur's 3D mentor now. Yeah, Wayne could be seen giving John instructions on his 3D stance, John's unique signature posephoto. At the time, John was flying Roger Geil's old Texas Hurricane, which now belongs to newcomer Edward Johnson, who was not even present. (Actually, Edward, both John and Dave flew the stuffing out of your plane, so to speakphoto!) After a few minutes of Wayne's intensive coaching, John hovered the plane on its prop and then he gently lowered the plane — Edward's plane — to within inches of the asphalt. Damn impressive! Wish Wes could have been there to witness it! Tony even got into the act and touched the rudder just like the big boys do sometimesphoto. John appears to be picking up this 3D thing pretty fast, don't you agreephoto? But we'll see. Things sometimes just aren't the way they appear to be... Sunday, January 25, 2004 On this day the weather turned bad on us, but David Lanzo and I were supposed to meet at the field anyway to replace a cooling fan on David's helicopter's engine. Billy Frost, Ray Brown and Jeff Foster were already there... David replaced the fan with no problemphoto. The drizzle had stopped, so he then decided to hover the heli and that went wellphoto. David asked Alvin to fly it. Well, Alvin hasn't flow his own chopper since it kissed the ground hard about a year ago, but he accepted the offer and flew it around a few timesphoto. Hopefully that will get him fired up and fix his chopper... Alvin has been taking pictures with his digital camera lately and it's now clear to me what that's all about. Apparently all that healthy green food he's been eating has released Alvin's creative juices and he's started rambling, uhhh, writing now. Yep, Alvin has started a "blog" (does that stand for bio log?) [actually Weblog] Well, this blog is an unnecessary addition to a long list of Alvin-created Web sites, all part of the conglomerate by the name of AlvinRC Productionslink... So if you are absolutely bored out of your gourd or don't have a life to speak of, go to his new Web venture, Alvin Beez Waxedlink, where you can read Alvin's thoughts and see exciting photos of Billy talking on his cell phonephoto. Perhaps even a shot of this reporter with a camera stuck in his facephoto... Makes me wonder if this new endeavor will last longer than another short-lived venture of his, Alvin's Aliens Amid Uslink Web site. It's rumored to be visited only by an occasional extraterrestrial passing through our Solar System. It too contains some riveting stories. Great for rainy days!... Previous Weekend Report Follows Friday, January 16, 2004 Not too many people showed up and those who did didn't stay long!... Occasional flier Rod Gilbert brought his Tiger Stick (What? No electrics?!), but I didn't see him fly it. Not sure if he had a problem with it... Don and Rick Koval flew both their SoloStar trainer and Advance 40 several times... I decided to shoot some video with my new Sony Handycam of Tal Fowler and his wild and woolly Fury helicopter and also of Roger Geil and his new Katana 3D plane... Later at home, I took still pictures off the video of Talphoto and of Roger and Rodphoto. This seems like a step backwards in providing you with quality pictures, as the still pictures are only 1 Megapixel in resolution versus 2.1 in my Kodak still camera. But they will do in a pinch, and I will identify them with "VideoPic" in the corner... Sunday, January 18, 2004 Saturday was a terrible, rainy day, so I didn't even go to the field. Instead I spent a lot of time with my Sony camcorder and iMac computer and started delving into the world of video editing, something I have been wanting to do for many years!... But on Sunday, the weather was nice and sunny. Henry Waltman showed up, not with a plane, but to give Frits the latest information on ACMA's All Scale Fly-In, scheduled for May 1st. This would be our first scale fly-in to be held in the spring... Our annual Armageddon Fun Fly will be the weekend before that, on April 24. Start getting your planes ready!... Speaking of fly-ins - Web Master Extraordinaire Alvin Reed has added a great new feature to ACMA's Web site. It's the Gulf Coast Area RC Event Calendar. Check out this very useful calendarlink... Tal Fowler flew his Fury helicopter again, making it go through contortions as only he can do... Roger Geil had his Extra 300, just one in his fleet of 3D-capable planes... Robert Harrison is making steady progress with his Raptor helicopter. Still going through hover flights that are getting higher, wider, bolderphoto... Recent ACMA member James Sansing brought his young son Cameron. James flew his small, electric Rascal while Cameron was busy flying his tiny Corsairphoto... Don Koval had converted his SoloStar trainer into a tail dragger, and was not having good luck taking it off. Frits walked out there and gave him some hints and then took it off to check the trims and balance. All appeared okay and Frits brought the plane back down. That's when they noticed the right wheel had disappeared! The axle had broken. Unfortunately no one had a spare wheel so Don went home... Wayne Miller flew his Hangar 9 Advance 40 and Alan Pritchett came out and flew his orange Raptor 40 helicopter. No problems... Edward Johnson wanted Frits to take his Spacewalker up. This is the one that used to belong to John MacArthur. No buddy box was used because Edward has a JR radio and the club's JR trainer boxes weren't charged. (Not a problem with Futaba trainer radios, as they require no batteries at all.) The flight went well and Frits let Edward fly it. He did fine, but when he got it pretty far out Frits told him to get it closer in case the fuel ran out. And sure enough, while Edward flew it toward himself, they noticed the engine had quit! Frits quickly took over, but was too low already and had to make a downwind landing toward the Northwest corner of the field... David Rushing later took it up also and landed it deadstick in the Southwest area of the field. The plane must have a plumbing leak somewhere. It always deadsticksphoto!... Eugene Bentz, another occasional flier, flew his Thunder Tiger Raptor 30 and had a couple of great flights... John MacArthur flew his new 35% scale Edge-540 once and tried some 3D maneuvers. He appeared to be a bit shaky after the landing. This 3D plane must take some getting used to! John also got out his all-foam Pigi-3D plane, but I didn't see him fly the thingphoto... Andrew Smith flew the red Ugly Stick a couple of uneventful flights... Steve Thomas had brought his Tiger 2 and got a couple of flights in with it... Frits took up new pilots Gene Guy and Ronnie Dressler for some flight instructions. Both are doing well with their trainersphoto... Jim Quint came out with a brand-new Fokker VII biplane and asked Frits to test it out. Frits did some squirrely pirouetting on the runway because of a tail wheel that was not glued properly. The small crowd jeered, of course! After that problem got fixed the Fokker took off nicely. The plane only needed a little down elevator trim and then it flew just great. Frits looped it several times it but he didn't try a roll because the ailerons were not very responsive. Jim decided not to fly it at all this time... There are times when I get a pleasant surprise when I download my pictures to my computer. Sometimes David Lanzo will get my camera while I'm instructing or flying my own airplane or heli and take a picture or two and I always appreciate that. But this time the surprise was not pleasant. It's the first time I've been mooned! What a revolting sight! This being a PG-rated report, I had to censor the picture. I'm absolutely sure Jeff took it, and I'm almost 100% sure the other David did the modelingphoto... Previous Weekend Report Follows |
