The Radiator

Edition 2007-2 February 2007

THE NEXT MEETING DATE

The next monthly meeting for the Atlantic County Sky Blazers RC Model Flying Club will be held at the

Lions Club International John D. Young Blind Center

100 Crestview Ave, Absecon, NJ

Wednesday, February 7th at 8:00 PM.

2007 Dues are now due. Dues for 2007 are $75.00 per year. (see comments in minutes)

What’s in the February 2007 Radiator?

The Next Club Meeting 1

Map to the John D. Young Blind Center 1

Minutes of the December 7th meeting 2

President’s Corner 3

Winter Storage, Spring Thaw 4

Upcoming Events 5

Strawberry Authorized Pilots 6

Club Officers 7

From the Safety Officer 7

Advertisement 7

Map to the February 7th 8:00 pm meeting site, the John D. Young Blind Center, Lions Clubs International, 100 Crestview Ave, Absecon, NJ. This is a large white building almost directly across the street from the old meeting site at the Woodlands.

Minutes of January 3rd, SkyBlazers meeting, 8 pm, Young Blind Center, Absecon.

About 15 members were attending.

Pres. Soucy opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance.

It was decided to defer reading Minutes of the December meeting.

Ed McAllister provided a detailed Treasures report, showing a balance of $1,760.

Reminder to all, please get 2007 membership dues to Ed, if you have not already.

Mail to:

Ed McAlister

715 Fuae Ave.

Northfield, NJ 08225

Riverbend – a member reported that the gate has been locked in a fashion that does not allow our keyed lock to open the gate a couple of times. With some calls, the county opens it. We need Bob Stinson to continue coordination with the county to lock the gate so both the county and SkyBlazers lock will allow entrance.

Strawberry – Ron Lockhart reports it is looking OK. Ed McAllister noted it is a bit rough, and could use rolling in the spring.

Grass cutting at Riverbend and Strawberry was briefly discussed- we probably need to establish a grass cutting machine committee to consider the condition of the Green Machine, Sears riding mower, and figure out what we need for next year. Mike Skwarlo, Roy Wilson, and possibly Damian Russo are likely members.

It was decided to continue the club incorporation service and process.

SAM 12 – Roy Wilson notes the SAM gang is planning to attend swap meets, including a long standing one at Lebanon PA on March 10th.

Safety – Ron notes there are a number of 2.4 GHz radios around. We want pilots using them to get a 2.4GHz pin from the board, and leave a club card, same procedure as for regular radios. We need to know who is flying at our fields, and give pilots a chance to see any informational posts that may be at the Frequency boards. Karl Bender volunteered to make card slots on the boards at both fields; that may already be done. (Thanks Karl) 2.4GHz pins are at Strawberry, and Ron will bring them for Riverbend at the next meeting.

Holiday Dinner – details were briefed by Dick Soucy. Plans are looking good, door prizes include a DX-7 2.4GHz radio, a Seagull ARF, 2 gallons of fuel, with more expected. Please send in your RSVP cards, or email or call Dick or Roy Wilson, Ed Langowski, or Ed McAllister.

Club Swap Meet will be March 7th, along with an abbreviated meeting.

A Mall show is tentatively planned for May, and public flying Demo at Riverbend in June.

(See details below in Presidents Corner.)

50/50 went to “Barron” who promptly donated his winnings back to the club. Thanks!!

Show and Tell

Karl Bender brought a Magnum .40, and a Royal .40, both missing minor parts, and offered them to the membership.

Ron Lockhart showed a small hot glue gun he has found useful for building “foamy’s”. The gun and lots of glue was around $10 at an AC Moore type craft store. The gun heats quickly and does not require clean up.

Dick Soucy showed his Seagull X-Ray ARF, this one is powered by an AXI out runner, a 1200mah 3 cell Lipo. On a 10x3.8 electric prop, it draws 22 amps.

Minutes by Ron Lockhart

President’s Corner Hello to all SkyBlazers!

I hope that all of you are at least considering attending the dinner meeting on February 17th at the John D. Young Blind Center. It is a Spaghetti and Meatballs dinner. It will be good! We will also have several prizes to be given away. To top the list is a Spektrum DX7 radio donated by Horizon Hobbies. We also have an Seagull X-Ray EP aircraft, a Kangka 3D aircraft, two gift certificates from Seaport hobbies as well as two gallons of fuel, and three gift certificates donated by Tower Hobbies. We are trying to get more door prizes so your chances improve for winning something if you attend. Sorry, but you must be present to win.

As you may have noticed, the March 7th meeting will be a club swap meet. We will have a short business meeting followed by the swap meet. Bring what you want to sell or swap. Someone’s junk can be someone else’s treasure!

We are also planning on the mall meet. I spoke to the contact person at the Shore Mall. She was extremely enthusiastic about our putting on a static display. We discussed a date, and it looks like Saturday, May 19th is the day. So, please, polish off those demo aircraft, clean up the engines, and wipe off that excess oil and get ‘em ready for the Mall Show. I will be looking for volunteers for this event between now and May. I want to lock in names and aircraft well in advance of the show so we know what we will have and what we will need. By the way, for those of you that are wondering, the Hamilton Mall is going through a management re-structuring and are limiting any activities at the mall to what was held in the recent past. They are not ready to add new items to their schedule of events. So, it looks like the Shore Mall is the place and they are enthusiastically looking forward to our presence.

Remember, that following the Static Mall Show will be the Air Show at Riverbend. We will do some advertisement at the Mall Show to attract attention to our real-thing at Riverbend. These are all non-for-profit events, however, at Riverbend, there is nothing to say we can’t sell burgers, hot dogs, and whatever else Ed McAlister may have in mind, and perhaps turn a slight profit for the benefit of the club. Keep that in mind, we will set a date for that event soon. Again (as stated in last months Radiator), it will follow the Mall Show by about three weeks. We are planning on doing air demonstrations of all disciplines of RC including Helicopters, Pattern, Sport aircraft, Foamies and Electrics, SAM, anything else that flys. Maybe someone in the club has a flying Snoopy Dog House or something like that to entertain the kids. If so, plan on bringing it. We can and will dazzle them.

Wphew.. this is going to be a busy year. Added to all that, we are also thinking of having a real Family BBQ this Summer. I hope to have some sort of fun fly at the BBQ, but numbers present will determine that. It’s up to you. If you attend, we will have fun. If you don’t, well, those that attend will have some fun.

Also, we have another grand event in September, the 2007 Combined Helicopter Gathering. Bob Stinson will have more on that as we get closer to the event.

That’s all for now.

Your 2007 Club President,

Dick Soucy.

Winter Storage; Spring Thaw

Have any of you been in that position? There are several things we can do to help prevent this sort of thing from happening. What are they? Well, here is a short list. It may not be in order of precedence but you get the idea. The one on the top of the list is my favorite:

1. Cover the aircraft with oil while flying it. Clean the oil, and put the aircraft away. Three to five days later, cover it with oil again by flying it. Keep this up from October to April. Then begin the Summer flying season. Don’t forget to charge the batteries in between those days, though.
2. If you are not a winter flyer… ahem…. Well, as the song goes, let’s start at the very beginning… Do Re Me.. ok ok.. the OTHER beginning. First, clean the plane surface. Thoroughly clean the covering to remove the oil and dirt that may be accumulated during the season. Use your favorite cleaner with a nice soft cotton rag like an old tee-shirt or cotton towel. Paper towels are somewhat abrasive (yeah, really!!) so use cotton cloth to wipe it down. Let it dry if using a water based detergent (be careful not to use to much) then apply a coat of car wax on the covering. A light coating is fine, then carefully and softly, buff it out with a soft cotton rag.
3. Make sure you remove all the fuel from the fuel tank. Drain it completely dry. Purge the fuel lines with some sort of solvent, alcohol comes to mind, then re-drain the fuel tank. This will get out any residue that may be in the tank and keep it from sludge-ing up with oil residue.
4. Remove the battery, cycle it to insure that it is ready for a full charge, then fully charge it, then stord it in a cool and dry place. Periodically check the battery to see how it fares through the winter and recharge it if it goes below a minimum voltages as indicated on an expanded scale voltmeter. This goes for all other types of batteries as well, not just the receiver battery. This includes rechargeable Glow Driver batteries. NiMH’s, LiPo’s, PB, and so on all need some care and feeding during the off season.
5. Remove the propeller and store it in a safe place. Put the prop nut back on the shaft against a small sized block of wood or rubber tubing and snug it up finger tight.
6. At this point, you may wish to remove the engine and completely check it out. This will also give you an opportunity to check the engine mounts and firewall for any signs of wear or un-before-seen damage. If a trike setup, check the nose-gear and the linkage. Repair it or replace it if necessary.
7. If you don’t pull the engine, then put a little more after-run oil than you would normally do in the engine on the last flight of the season. Then remove the glow plug, and squirt a little after-run oil in the cylinder. (Mobile ONE synthetic oil is good for this). This will displace any moisture and prevent any rusting or damage from oil residue or wax that formed up by heat. If you DO remove the engine, when finished inspecting it, then put some after-run oil or Mobile One, or whatever your favorite after-run oil is, in the engine and store it in a cool and dry place, or remount it on the plane. Your choice. You will have to mount it at some time in the future, so it’s up to you when you decide to do this. But, with the engine removed, you can do a little more than you could with it mounted. Again, your choice.
8. Check all connections on all linkage prior to putting it away for the season. Replace any linkage that shows signs of wear. You can do this when the season ends or wait until the new season begins (and then curse at yourself because you don’t have the right part and have to wait three weeks to get a replacement while everyone is out enjoying the day at the field. This includes Pull-Pull cables. Make sure that you replace any cables that are showing signs of wear by fraying or fragmenting.
9. Check the hinges and the hinge line. If you were thinking of sealing that hinge line, now is an excellent opportunity to do so. If you are not sure about how to do this, there are plenty of people around that can help you out, so just ask! While you are at it, check the control horns on all surfaces to make sure they are tight and don’t wobble around. If they are loose, replace them. If you find you can’t really fix them, there are ways to replace the control horns and harden up those tie-points on the control surfaces. Again, ask how.
10. Check the control rods. You don’t have to remove them to do this. They are probably pretty secure inside the plane, but you can look inside the fuselage and see if there are any obvious problems. Now may be the right time to secure any loose control tubes for the Sullivan rods type installations to keep them from bowing during operation. You can do that easy enough now that the fuselage is on the bench. Again…. Ask if you don’t know how to do this!!!
11. The end of the season is a good time to send in your transmitter and receivers to the manufacturer or Radio South four a thorough going over and tuning process. It may take several weeks, so if done at the beginning of the season, you will have that much time to wait to go flying again.
12. If you have less than a half gallon of fuel left over in that gallon container, get rid of it. (dispose of this fuel as you would any other hazardous material). It could, and probably will, absorb water during the off season. Although it may not get totally useless, you may find that your engine woes will go away with a fresh gallon of fuel rather than using that old watered down stuff.
13. Are you planning on building a new plane during the off season? Well, consult sources of information such as RC Universe or from your local hobby shop for up to date hints on building that model. Someone else has probably gone through what you are about to go through and may be able to offer some useful hints about that new build.
14. When you are ready, reassemble and check everything at least twice.

A lot of this is simply common sense. And some of us to not do any of the above. But, some of us also experience the first of the season blues with engines that won’t start, batteries that won’t charge or hold a charge, or fuel tanks that leak, and so on and so forth. So, take the time and put up your planes correctly and you can be well prepared to fly on that very first day out on the field. Enjoy your winter and I hope to see each and every one of you at the field this coming season.

Upcoming Events:

For Sky Blazers and other organizations

EVENT

Location

Coordinator

Start Date

End Date

Skyblazers Monthly Meeting

Blind Center

7 Feb 07

Valentines Day

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Don’t forget this one, guys!

14 Feb 07

Skyblazers Holiday Dinner

Blind Center

17 Feb 07

WRAM Hobby Industry Show (See Model Aviation Ad) and www.wram.org for info.

White Plains, NY

23 Feb 07

25 Feb 07

Skyblazers Monthly Meeting and Swap Meet

Blind Center

7 March 07

Skyblazers Mall Show Static Display

Shore Mall

Dick Soucy

19 May 07

Pattern Contest

Hamburg, NY

9 June 07

10 June 07

Skyblazers Riverbend Air Show

Riverbend

Bob Stinson

16 June 2007 Rain 17 June

Pattern Contest

Pocono, PA

23 June

24 June 07

Family BBQ and Fun Fly

Strawberry Field

AC SkyBlazers

4 July 07

Pattern Contest

Sayre, PA

7 July 07

8 July 07

Pattern Nationals

Muncie, IN

AMA

16 July 07

20 July 07

SAM 12 Old Timers Meet

Strawberry Field

AC SkyBlazers

5 Aug 07 Tentative

Atlantic City Air Show

Atlantic City, NJ

15 Aug 07

Strawberry Update and Authorized RC Pilots

The following members have a Strawberry Operating Procedures sheet on file and are authorized to fly at Strawberry in accordance with those procedures, Providing, they also hold a current AMA license and SkyBlazers membership. This is part of our agreement with the NJ Department of Forestry.

This list is updated as of January 5th, 2007. If you are not listed here, and you believe you should be, or want to be, please contact Ron Lockhart at phone or e-mail addresses in the newsletter.

Aiken, Earle

Hadden, Bill

Merlino, Andy

Soucy, Richard

Angelucci, Mark

Herd, William

Miller, Ed, Sr.

Stark, Spenser

Bender, Karl

Impagliazzo, Frank

Miller, Joe

Stinson, Bob

Brennenstuhl, Carl

Hestermann, Keith

Milewski, Ed

Stow, James

Butterly, Ed

Langowski, Ed

Misinski, Peter

Stringer, Chris

Callaco, Joe

Leak, Ray

Morey, Ray

Stringer, Greg,

Caruso, Joe

Lenegan, Joe

Murphy, Chris

Taylor, Dan

Cherry, Charles

LeTrent, John

Oakes, Bruce

Thomas, Al

Chubb, Walter

Lockhart, Dave

Passarelli, Tony

Tindall, Brian

Costa, Angelo

Lockhart, Ron

Perkins, Tom

Veit, Carl

DeMarzio, Mike

Lodovico, Harry

Moore, Kevin

Vogel, Richard

Doughty, Barry

Lonchambon, Andre

Popovich, Stephen

Wallace, Richard

DuHamell, Charles

Maloney, Dan

Russo, Damian

Warner, Dave

Eiting, Dave

Maloney, David

Schall, Michael

Subriani, John

Geary, Walt

Manning, John

Schoenrock, Arthur

Wilson, Roy

Goldenberg, Richard

McAllister, Ed

Siegel, Mary

Womelsdorf, Al

Goldenberg, Robert

McFarlan, Dick

Siegel, Todd

Zebuski, John, Jr.

Hackney, Bob

McGowan, John

Skwarlo, Mike

Ziegenfus, Joe

Hackney, Joshua

McGregor, Tom

Skwarlo, Steve

Zuccarino, John

Hill, DJ

Merola, William

Soden, Bob

Please pick up your cigarette butts, rubber bands, and other trash at the fields. Ron

Club Officers:

President: Dick Soucy cgretired@msn.com 404-9416 (home) 513-2760 (cell)

Vice President: Ed Langowski rcnut123@msn.com 377-7797 (home)

Secretary: Ron Lockhart ronlock@comcast.net 652-3959 (home)

Treasurer: Ed McAlister epooldoc@comcast.net 214-0625 (home)

AMA Safety Coord: Ron Lockhart ronlock@comcast.net 652-3959 (home)

Coordinators and Chairs:

Program Chairman Roy Wilson roywilson210@verizon.com 625-3472 (home)

Strawberry: Steve Popovich stevenpop@cs.com 335-2235 (home)

Riverbend: Bob Stinson rs609@comcast.net 927-0439 (home) 442-0741 (cell)

Training: Dick Soucy cgretired@msn.com 404-9416 (home) 513-2760 (cell)

Sam12: Roy Wilson roy.wilson201@verizon.net 625-3472 (home)

Pattern: Ron Lockhart ronlock@comcast.net 652-3959 (home)

Historian: Frank Impagliazzo soloseat2@aol.com

Newsletter Staff:

Editor: Dick Soucy cgretired@msn.com 404-9416 (home) 513-2760 (cell)

Webmaster: Ed Milewski edmiles11@verizon.net 567-0456 (home)

From the Safety Officer:

Re-emphasis: 2.4 GHz Spread Spectrum radio’s. Sellers are reporting that the new Spektrum DX7 Spread Spectrum 2.4 GHz radio’s are selling like hot cakes. That also goes, although for a lesser extent, the DX6, which is used for small park flyer type models with limited range. The club has put up new frequency pins marked 2.4 GHz and should be used by anyone that is operating one of these radio’s. The purpose is to insure that we can identify all flyers as AMA members, Skyblazers members, and to see who is at the field with such a radio during times of peak operation. So, if you have one of the new radio’s, please grab one of the 2.4 MHz pins and put your AMA card or Skyblazers card in the slot provided.

From Seaport Hobbies:

Dave has been receiving some new stock for the Spring season. He has several new fixed wing ARF’s, in the large economy size, in the smaller size, and electrics, as well as numerous new engines, electric motors and ESC’s, radio’s, and accessories. He also has a new collection of RC cars and boats for your RC pleasure time activities. As mentioned last month, he also is starting to carry the new DX7 as well as other Spektrum radio systems. He also has a good supply of servo’s for all your requirements, from micro mini servo’s to the large scale super powerful servo’s used in large scale aircraft. Seaport Hobby Shop is open 6 days a week, 10 AM to 7 PM. It is closed on Tuesdays.

Dave and Carole Eiting.

Seaport Hobbies (609) 296-4413 http://www.seaportinc.com/

700 West Main St., Little Egg Harbor, NJ 08087 (Route 9 south of Tuckerton)