HMAC Flight Lines December 2020
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December 2020 Flight Lines Cover Page: Malcolm Foster offering flying lessons. We all needed them on Float Plane Day 2 FLIGHT LINES HAMILTON MODEL AERO CLUB INC. December 2020 www.hamiltonmac.org.nz PATRON Graeme Bradley – Retired and living the life of luxury PRESIDENT Grant Finlay 027-273-7461 VICE PRESIDENT Gordon Meads 021-125-2911 SECRETARY Alan Rowson 07-843-3889 TREASURER Alan Rowson 021-025-93002 CLUB CAPTAIN Sel Melville 027-482-3459 BULLETIN Ed. Dave Crook 021-123-6040 (Editorial Email: send to: [email protected] ) COMMITTEE: Mike Sutton Chris Tynan 022-353-9231 Sel Melville 027-482-3459 Dave Crook 021-123-6040 - Lyndon Perry 021-02518474 WEB SITE Grant Finlay CATERER Colleen Tynan CLUB NIGHT: Wednesday 9 December , 2020 7.30 pm VENUE: Beerescourt Bowling Club 68a Maeroa Road - Hamilton Club Night Theme: Christmas cheer – Bring a plate and a building project. Club Themed Flying Day: Christmas BBQ Lunch, Sunday 6 December – Again bring a plate, a plane and your wife or partner. (Note : This is not a swap meet) 3 Presidents Report Grant Well Xmas is upon us and the silly season has started in the shops and around town. True to form, the weather leading up to Xmas has been all over the place with rain, wind and fine days all in the mix. I managed to attend and compete in the scale competition at Waharoa a couple of weeks ago and this was a nice relaxing day which I really enjoyed. The Aero tow meeting that I was contemplating attending went ahead at Tauranga last weekend, but looking at the weather forecast I opted to stay at home instead. By the looks of it and viewing their onsite weather station, that was probably a wise decision for the most part. I did however get some valuable time in the workshop and got through a number of small maintenance jobs. So something good did come out of the last weeks undesirable flying weather! Novembers Club night action was a bit of a hotch potch of things including some photos, general club discussion and entertainment. The evening was finished off with some home video from the team Briggs’s construction of their very first Composite Extra aircraft which they took to the Tournament of Champions Scale Aerobatics contest in Las Vegas in 1997. A fascinating view on modelling 20 years ago…not much has changed…yeah right !!! December's Club night will be our final evening get together for the year. Everyone is welcome to come along and join in with an evening where I hope you will be suitably entertained with a light hearted wrap up of the year that's been, some awards and more. As in the past, we intend to wind up the last part of the evening with an extended supper, so if you care to bring a plate along to share, then that would be awesome. Also please don’t forget to bring along your models for show and tell, as last month the hall seemed very bare without anything to look at!! November’s themed club flying day was our final float plane event at Lake Kainui. The weather didn’t play the game and was very windy for 4 the most part of the day. For my part I did manage to successfully fly my new Cessna Cardinal Float plane, so I was best described as a happy man. There’s a report elsewhere in the bulletin so I won’t say any more here, except to mention we hope to get our dates sorted for next year shortly, with our first event likely to be in late march or early April up at Lake Puketirini in Huntly. Our final flying event for the year will be our Christmas BBQ Lunch out at our Reekers flying field this Sunday 6th December (Rain date 13th). As in past years, the club will be putting on a BBQ for members and supplying meats and soft drinks, tea and coffee. For all those coming out for lunch, we would invite you to bring a plate of salad or dessert to share for this potluck lunch. And please don’t forget, wives and partners and family are more than welcome to come along and share in the day’s events. We will be organising some low stress flying events to keep 5 Pilots and guests amused as well. If you have a fold up chair, portable table, spare chilly bin, Gazebo for shade or any other useful item, then please bring them out with you if possible to help us through the day. Thanks and I look forward to see many of you there. And so that wraps up my columns for 2020. The next bulletin will be out in the first week of February, as we do not have a bulletin in January, nor a club night meeting. The February meeting will also be our Annual General Meeting, so please consider your involvement in the club for the upcoming year and ask yourself what you can do to add value. I mustn’t forget to add our best wishes to all of those who are partaking in the Model Flying NZ Nationals Events in Carterton in the New Year. Here’s hoping you all have a successful Nat’s and even bring home some of those trophies once more. And that's pretty much all I have for what has been a more than an interesting year for more reasons than we could care to have imagined. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry and safe Christmas shared with friends and family (and without Covid!). At this time I'd like to give a special shout out to Jan Reekers, his family and the farming team for their continued support of our club and its activities, a very Merry Xmas to you from all of us . Likewise I would also like to acknowledge the support from our neighbors, the farm management team of The Land Farm Group next door. Okay, that’s it, one last Merry Christmas one and all. (and please play safe ☺ ) Grant 6 And from the Bulletin Editor: Dave The year that was: 2020 has been a weird sort of year and we all know why. It started off well enough, went quiet for a while and is back to finishing where we started. Regardless of whatever events unfold it will always be the members of any club or organization that are the key to its survival. Here are some highlights of the year that was in case you’ve forgotten. 7 8 9 10 __________________________________________________________ 11 12 Building Tips 1 Al Ward I've been using a cheap supply of light weight straight grained wood which can be laminated in various ways for strength for making stringers, frames, fuselage formers etc. for scratch builders. These are Cedar venetian blind slats usually found in "Op Shops".& not expensive Great for WW1 scale models as there is a lot of exposed varnished wood up front in that type of plane. 13 Cedar Venetian Blind Slats __________________________________________________________ 14 (aka The Curse of the Electron) Bernard Scott As in other areas of aeromodelling, the majority of Vintage fliers have welcomed the adaption of electric power for its benefits of less noise and mess, and the convenience of not having to adjust and manage a glow motor on the field. The first Texaco event to go electric was 1/2E which was an electrified version of the Cox .049 powered 1/2A event. At that stage, 2008, ¬NiCd or NiMH batteries were the options with battery packs limited to seven cells of 650mAh maximum and motors limited to direct drive Speed 400 brushed types. By today’s standards, this power train would be rather puny but the tight definition of battery and motor placed everyone on the same starting line and created an event where the 15-minute target time was a real challenge. When NiCd and NiMH batteries were replaced by LiPo cells the whole game changed. Light batteries with greatly increased efficiency coupled with potent AC motors gave models so much performance (and in Texaco that means duration) that flights became such marathons that it was wise to come prepared with a folding chair and Thermos - and in the case of certain fliers, a sleeping bag as well. Over the years, keeping performance in check has been an on-going challenge for all the electric Vintage events because of ever increasing efficiency of motors and LiPo cells. Interestingly, many of the Vintage electric events in the USA have stayed with old chemistry batteries and brushed motors - not so much a result of foresight as a resistance to change, a rare example of stagnation being better than progress. 15 The NZ Vintage movement runs seven electric Texaco events, each offering a different slant on the “economy run” theme. Three of these events are briefly illustrated here while the full rules for all events may be obtained from the MRNZ website. 1/2E Texaco Models for this event may be up to 350 sq.in wing area and 18oz maximum weight. As with most Vintage events, there is a minimum weight of 8 oz per square foot of wing area. Battery size is determined by model weight. One of the good things about Vintage flying is that you don’t need to bust the bank keeping up with the latest trends and models. You can even be competitive with a simple design as the emphasis is on flying, not on hardware.