Daily Archives: December 27, 2019

5 posts

Chairman’s Corner for Dec 2019 – Jan 2020

Hey guys, I hope Christmas brought you all of the little goodies you were hoping for!

I wish everybody a happy New Year’s and I hope 2020 is the year that meet your expectations.

Quite a few things to talk about as we finish up 2019, so I’ll jump right into it. Thank you everybody for respecting the altitude limitations that have been placed on us by the FAA and air traffic control, and keeping your aircraft below the 200 foot ceiling imposed upon us. Like you, I am unhappy with the decrease, but at the current time this is our ceiling. Quan, Eric, and Steve Manganelli will be dealing with air traffic control and the FAA in the future to see if we can get our flight ceiling restored to at or near 400 feet – which was our previous limit.

 We had elections for the Board of Directors in the end of November, and I would like to welcome the board members for 2020. Tony Blackhurst is again our President, stepping in as vice president is Steve Manganelli, Quan Nguyen carries over his duties as treasurer, Ken Dresser continues the secretary and as our monthly FUNFLY event coordinator, Jeff Struthers is new to the board as one of our members at large, Carl Cox continues as a member at large, and Eric Shapiro also continues as a member at large. As the previous President, I will continue as Chairman. Thanks to all of you for stepping up to help guide our club into 2020. George Sullivan is stepping away from the Board of Directors, but will continue on as our membership coordinator. Steve Belknap, of course, continues as our editor for SEFFSD newsletters and the manager for our website. A great big “THANK YOU” to all mentioned for stepping up instead of stepping back!

2020 membership is in progress. All 2019 club memberships expire At midnight on December 31. There are no exceptions. The date printed on the bottom of your membership cards denoted your AMA expiration date – not the club member expiration date. We do not pro-rate, and there are no 2-year memberships for SEFSD. George has designed and is printing the new 2020 badges. For those of you who don’t pick up your badge on badge day at the field, Jan 4th, you should receive them in the mail within the first couple weeks of January. Have you renewed yet? There’s no reason to wait! Once you have your AMA membership for 2020 you can renew your club membership at  https://sefsd.azurewebsites.net/VerifyAma  and 2019 members can purchase their tickets to the holiday banquet at https://sefsd.azurewebsites.net/EventTicket .  As of this writing, there are about 30 seats remaining to the holiday banquet at the Harbor House at 6PM on Saturday, Jan 18th. I highly recommend you get your seats reserved, it will be a great event again this year with lots of raffle prizes and also- like last year, prizes for the ladies.

We have received a lot of rain over the last month and the field is in very fine condition. I really appreciate the members staying off of the field when it’s damp or muddy. Please continue with this trend, all will appreciate it! A couple things to mention from a safety standpoint since we seem to have past members who forget some basics, and new members coming in from other clubs. Unless taking off or landing, please keep your aircraft over the weeds at the far edge of the field. High speed passes do not belong over the fence! One small error and your aircraft is in somebody’s face or in somebody’s vehicle. If you know you are losing control of your aircraft you should be the first to speaking up, warning other pilots that you have an issue. A loud “ HEADS UP!” or “LOOK OUT!” could stop a potential visit to the emergency room. Also, please call out loudly announcing your take offs, landings, and anytime you step out of a gate or from the field onto the runway. We continue to have issues of members stepping out – without announcement – right in the path of aircraft that are landing or taking off. The pilots are concentrating on their aircrafts, it’s on you to call out – and just as important, to turn your head and LOOK to ensure it is safe. Let’s be safe!

Now is also a good time to take a look at your first aid gear and see if it’s still up to your expectation. While some items don’t have an expiration date, some do – and you don’t want to be in need of something that you can’t use. Maybe a look at your extinguishers is also justifiable?

Weather permitting, we will have badge day at the field on Saturday, January 4. This will be an opportunity to come to the field grab a slice of pizza and save the club some postage by collecting your badge in person. New members who need keys for the gate in the bathroom can purchase them at this time for our cost, which is three dollars apiece.

There will be some changes to the clubs monthly events for 2020. Popwing Racing has officially ended due to the non-availability of Popwings. There have been a few suggestions of other aircraft to use as alternates. However, our Popwing master (Thanks JIMMY) for the last several years is currently too busy to run the race series for the year… If you have an aircraft to suggest that is inexpensive and readily available *AND* you would like to take over as race master for the year, please bring your suggestions to Tony, Steve, or myself. The current height limitations are forcing us to modify the electro-glide event, however, It will continue on the 3rd Saturday monthly with a slightly different format. The F5B, F5D teams will also continue with a few modifications, and their 2020 schedule should be on the Calendar within a few weeks. Night flying is also currently on hold per our agreement with ATC at Lindburgh, but hopefully we can have that discussion and renew night operations shortly…

Mark Davis has been our hot dog master for the last year, and he has done an amazing job!! THANKS Mark!  His work plan for this year has a lot more travel in it and we are looking for a volunteer to take over on fun fly days. It involved moving/taking custody of the club grill, and purchasing/bringing the supplies (Dogs, Buns, Condiments, Chips, and Beverages) You will be reimbursed by the club. Please let us know if you would like to help!

There is no event this month with so many on travel. Kenny is making the event calendar for 2020 now, If you want to suggest something new, let me know and I will pass it on.

Here’s to a Happy and Healthy New Year!!

Brad

 

Adventure Multiplex Panda, Fly the Thing

By Carl Murphy

Flight (10) 11 End of January year 2018 (So.) The wind swirls over the hills and between the apartment buildings where I live, so, I was way off, ninety degrees on the wind direction and half down on the strength. Up in the Tanus Hills, where I expected the wind to be blowing up the saddle, the wind was blowing up a forested hill and back down. Which is normally too turbulent to fly a plane of this type, except that, right at the saddle is a pocket of not much swirl and I’m here. The Panda flew for twelve minutes, just not right and it was quickly evident this is a still air airplane. I’ve been flying a medium speed, way up powered Mentor which responds directly to control inputs, I had to relearn how to fly with just ruder and elevator. Even full stick throw, which seemingly doesn’t do enough, until putting full amps to the Panda.

Flight 12 same day At the nearest slope soaring hill (38) km away. With rain or snow every other day and the winter darkness of this fifty degrees north latitude I’ve been stuck in a tunnel for months, I just had to get out some. This can be a gently slope soaring experience looking out over the valley. Instead the wind is blowing up the slight slope covered with trees, conditions aloft are turbulent, the view under the clouds a thousand feet up clear.   The Panda flew for fifteen minutes, this time using all the down trim the transmitter had and holding the elevator down from stick neutral too.

Flight 13 I marked the elevator for reference, then moved the aileron one tooth at the servo arm. Now it needs all the up trim and some more holding down. The flight went twenty minutes. Considering the unsuitable flying conditions and that the battery still had a third more usable charge there was more to be had.

I put my Reinforced Mentor in the air, what a difference.

I reset the full flying elevator to correct neutral. That (1/16) inch off (about one and a half millimeters) as measured at the leading edge of the full flying stab is likely why the original owner gave up on this Panda although that casting lip at the wings leading edge made it worse too. It is now up for sale or trade.

 

A Multiplex Panda

A True ARF   Easy to Carry Ok to Fly

No Longer In Production  

Conclusion

I could add more rudder and elevator (half an hour, nominal cost), even add in ailerons (two to three hours, thirty to forty bucks, plus forty grams) and more power (an hour or two, fifty to a couple of hundred bucks). But I won’t. They had a near identical RC airplane with from the factory ailerons (also discontinued, although a local store in Rhein-Main has a new one in stock) I won’t be looking for one at any price. Multiplex insisted if it had their name on it that the quality would be up to their high standards, there can’t have been any profit for them with the Panda at what they sold for. Kind of like the Edsel, the Panda didn’t fit a need for when it came out. Unlike the Edsel though (the Edsel may have set the all time record for poor build quality of American cars) the Panda quality was consistently rather better than comparable ARFs. You get what you pay for! Continue reading