February 2000. If you have access to this on the WEB and are still getting it by U.S. MAIL we need to know, send an email to Eschlumber@aol.com. It saves a bunch of time and money.

The weatherman calls for light winds and warm temperatures for the first event (all electric) of the year. What did we get? Warm temperatures sure, but the winds were anything but light! I think they averaged 20 mph. for most of the day with a lot of gust. They were at least down the runway for the most part. All told however, I think that all there had a good time. We shared a lot of stories, some were stretched quite a bit, swapped a lot of lies, and we did manage to get in some flying as well. Where were you Mike McGowan?

This month we have our first glider event (non-powered) of the year. I hope you will try and attend. If you haven’t got a winch, don’t worry, there will be one there for anyone to use. There will be experienced help there for those of you who are just getting started or are interested in exploring the glider scene. I’m fairly sure there will be a glider or two on hand that you can try your skill at. Will you be there for this one Mike McGowan? [Time to clean out the old potato gun, has it been a year already]

Don’t forget to check your batteries! It has been a long time since some of you have cycled them hasn’t it? Don’t want to get the coveted "BROKEN PROP" award because your battery went belly up during the middle of your flight now do you? This is a simple process that is sometimes overlooked by most. Especially you Roland Ashmore, now that you seem to be sincere about getting back into the hobby! [Roland was a founding father of the club, Thanks Roland]

Did you renew your membership yet? Don’t forget! [See the bylaws]

The Prez

Club President, Tommy Vinci brought the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. with 17 members and 6 member applicants in attendance. Then VP, Randy Hawkins talked about our website and it now is up to just about 8000 hits. He also mentioned that every one is invited to write a flying story or hobby tip for the Flypaper. Please forward these to Randy or the club secretary.

Roy Collins, who was filling in for Treasurer, Dave Zeigler then passed out the finance report for everyone to see. We had receipts of $1465 from renewal and expenses of $128 leaving us with a total of all accounts are $10,280.44.[field improvements are on the way.]

Secretary, Ernie Schlumberger said that the club received the charter information from the AMA and will be sending the club renewal for insurance in soon.

Randy then talked about the upcoming events including the Electric Fun Fly on Saturday Feb. 26^th, the Sailplane Fun Fly on March 18^th and the Perry Swap Meet on Saturday March 4^th.

Dave Zeigler will be running the Kids area again this year in a separate building at Perry. All kids are welcome and it should be a huge hit again this year.

 Tom Huckaby and EP Twin.

Tommy and Bill Divins talked about getting a roller some time this coming month to roll the runway area. This should smooth out the runway and we’ll see what we can do after that. New member Mark LeBlanc did some research on runway prices and presented them in the meeting. He found a price of $4800 for materials for a runway 20 x 300 using concrete and our member’s labor. Also, he got a price of $1175 for removal of the broken up concrete when we have to leave the field. He also got a price of $9000 for a black top runway, which is about the same as we had figured last year. Tommy then said the club would roll the runway and see if this does any good before we commit to anything else.

Tommy brought up the idea of adding two more sections to the covered shed area. The idea was seconded and no opposition was made to the idea. He said we’d look into doing it this year.

This month we welcomed 6 new members: Yan Hobson, Mark Patterson, Ron Lawrence, Phil Meyers (Jeff Meyers’ father), Steve Kiker and Todd Lee. Please make them feel at home at the field and lend them a helping hand to get them going in the hobby.

Kell Pryor was nominated for the broken prop award this month. He was flying a $10 pattern plane that he got at the Perry swap meet last year and he lost control and it crashed. He was awarded an AMA CRASHER patch. Ross Pryor (father) accepted the patch for him.

Gene Norman and EP Dart

As I walked out to the edge of the tree line in front of the field where it was last seen I smiled at the wonderful aroma coming from the Pines. A scent always there but seldom noticed. Blue sky and a warm breeze reminding me of the Beaches of Daytona wafted the air. Pleasant peace as I trudged through the close cut straw, heading my way to the Omni present tree of vestige for the wing that refused to fall the day before. As I surveyed the area of the point of impact, behold a wing did show through as if guided by a moonbeam out of the late afternoon crescent. Yes there it is WOW all in one piece, at least half, undamaged ready to fly. Hmmm where is the other wing half? I struggled with the answer, though none to hear my cry but me. And low and behold again as if asking to see a Seagull on an inland lake>>>> There it was in one perfect piece sitting on the ground back in the small Pines. As I continued to survey the crash scene for more missing pieces to the puzzle, I was suddenly stopped in my tracks to realize what I had not yet seen. The amazing thing, never to be doubted is that there is always a story to be told. The wings were from 2 entirely different Models, each a different ARF Trainer, each different though close color schemes and a left and right half.

Hints & Tips

Balancing a new model aircraft correctly is very important.

Proper balancing can have a profound effect on the character of your aircraft in flight. A popular way to balance the model is on your fingertips and eyeballing it, but I like to use a fixture made for this purpose and get it more accurate. Two dowels, two pencil erasers and a block of wood is all you need. This needs no instructions. The diagram below tells it all. Just remember: Always measure the CG with no fuel on board and start with the CG point suggested by the manufacturer.