Daily Archives: June 24, 2021

13 posts

Chairman’s Corner for June-July 2021

Hey guys, now that the state of California is officially open, I am seeing more and more of you at the field. I am really enjoying catching up and seeing a lot of you bring new planes to enjoy this summer! It was great to see so many of you at the Swap Meet at Discount Hobbies on Fathers Day!

Right off the bat, one thing I’d like to discuss is that we had an issue at the field with a homeless person. As Mission Bay had a decrease in overall usage for the past year, the homeless have really moved into the outer field areas. While I do understand that people have fallen on hard times, the mental states of some of these folks are questionable. Two of our members were injured in a confrontation with one of them early in June. He was arrested and charged with felony assault. Please attempt to maintain your situational awareness while on site, and look out for each other. Be extra vigilant if you are by yourself at the site. My thoughts are that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep bear spray/or pepper spray in your vehicle and handy if needed. Something to go along with your fire extinguishers. Again, please take care of each other on site.

One thing your president and I have been pinging on lately is the number of people who are currently flying, and appear to be progressing well until you find out that they never get out of safe mode. You owe it to yourself and the rest of us at the club to actually learn how to fly your aircraft!  If you accidentally turn it off in flight, or buy a plane without safe because “you have this!”  you increase the risk to us all and any spectators on site, not to mention what happens to your wallet. While safe mode can be a great tool to get started, please don’t rely on it as a crutch.

As the summer begins we have already seen some pretty heavy temperatures at the site. Please remember to bring plenty of water to stay hydrated, and limit your unprotected sun exposure as I keep hearing of members with bad sunburn and some skin cancer issues. Protect yourself!

Just a reminder on field etiquette, always yell loudly when you are crossing or stepping on to the runway. Please announce your take offs and landings so others have an awareness of the situation around them. I keep hearing people whisper to themselves, but I implore you to use your man voice! Also, as you place your planes on the field prior to flight, please think for a moment on where your prop/fan blast will throw the sand and dust. Quite a few people are getting the back of their SUV’s filled with sand and are asking me to make an official rule. For now it is just a note – please think about others!!

For the last few months I have been asking for help from members in re-arranging the boulders along South Shores Drive to keep people from jumping the curb to use our site without being members. The response was crickets…Quan has been communicating with the city about keeping our site safe from interlopers that want to take advantage of the great conditions you pay for. Part of our written agreement with the city requires all pilots be members in SEFSD and AMA and to keep non-members from jumping the curb and using the site when no one is around. If they hurt someone, we know who will catch the blame. The city responded to Quans request by re-arranging the rocks 😊 themselves and adding some large heavy wood posts. Thanks Quan!!  See Randy’s video.

 On June 26 we will hold our first club meeting  at the field in 16 months. We will also have  a fun fly that morning.. The fun fly begins at 1000 and is one of our historical favorites, Don’t Spill The Beans. Bring a plane that you’re comfortable to fly and that lands nice. Anyone can play! Jovi and Jim will be running the event. There will be $150 in prize money. The club meeting will follow, somewhere between 11 and 12 AM depending on how many play the game. Sorry, we decided to wait to serve Hot Dogs until next month.

The Fireworks should be spectacular this year, and the view from our field is one of the best available.

We will not be having any actual event for the Fourth of July, however the field will be open for daytime flying from sun up to dusk. I’m going to have the members only sign posted on the gate and ask members to open the gate, pass-through, and close the gate behind them. In the past when we allowed a lot of general public persons on site into the evening they left nearly a thousand pounds of trash for us to pick up the next day. A closed gate-Members Only Fourth of July will help keep our site clean, and is one of the benefits of membership. Per our agreement with the FAA, there is no night playing allowed and class B airspace, which is us. This will probably never change. Feel free to bring gas barbecues and have lunch/or dinner on site, and also remember no glass beverage containers are allowed in Mission Bay Park. Exiting after the show can be simpler than people think. Instead of turning right or left on Sea World drive, going straight through the light puts you on Old Sea World Drive – and an immediate left will bring you to Friars road which can get you to I-8 pretty quickly.

 On a closing note, If you replace your lawn chairs or carpeting in your home, we can use your old items at the field.

Brad

Alex and Otto

 

Brad and Randy

 

Members

President’s Corner for June-July 2021

Happy Days are Here Again!

Click for a short video

Hello fellow SEFSD members.  I am happy to say, now that the state of California is opening 100%, we are now open to continue our activities starting with our club meeting and a Fun Fly on Saturday June 26th.  Spill the Beans will be the Fun Fly! As far as serving hot dogs, that will happen on our July meeting – so just one more month to go for goodies.

This also means that everyone who is fully vaccinated should no longer need to wear a mask.  However, those remaining unvaccinated should continue wearing a mask until you are fully vaccinated.  SEFSD is not going to enforce this rule. Instead, you are on your honor to use best judgment while following state and local guidelines.

Since this is our first meeting of 2021, you will finally get to meet the new board members which include your new president, me, Jovi.  This is very exciting for me to meet all of you.   During the past six months I have met a few of you at the field on Saturdays (which is the only available time for me to fly, something that I am going to work on and try to get out more often).

So I thought I would give a brief description of who Jovi is.  So let’s get started:

I started with RC airplanes back in the mid 70’s. At that time, you had to build your airplane (Old School) and it took some time before you could actually fly.  My first club was the Torrey Pines Gulls.  I would head out to the glider port and spend a Saturday afternoon when the winds were blowing.   There were full-scale gliders (no hang gliders were around at that time) as well and it was fun.  The first glider I learned to fly was the Wind Ward with a KRAFT radio. The Hobie Hawk was my best glider to fly.  It was fast, it could climb in the thermals, it soared over the cliffs and if you did it right, catch your plane with one bounce to slow it down.  From the mid 80’s to mid-2000, I spent hours away from flying.

I was lucky to travel the world with the company’s I had worked for.  I spent 3 months in Korea working with Samsung’s D Ram chips.  The town I stayed in was called Onyang which had no American food to speak about.  I just lived off French fries and OB beer at this one watering hole. Half way thru my tour I found a restaurant that had steak and A1 sauce on the table. The steak was good!

I have been all over Europe, Brazil and even down in Malaysia!  I arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 3:00 am after a 22 hour long flight, needless to say I was ready to get out of the aircraft, but I was not expecting on the humidity at 3:00am and the heat…OMG.  During those times my mind was still on model planes and during the off times I would be building a TopFlite kit and would spend years building it.   But as the years went on I would fly here and there.  I would have a nitro airplane out in the sand dunes to go fly around. It was a challenge with sand, thick sand, but having balloon tires, a 90 size 2-stroke engine and a tune-pipe turned out to be no problem!  Out by Lake Mead they have a runway setup for models, but not many fliers would show up. Plus it was 100 degrees when I was flying, so it was nice to be the only one and having the background of the Lake Mead was sure nice.  Took my toy trailer out Lake Mead RV Village; yeah, those were the days!  The field is still there.  Today I work for General Atomics where we build the new launch and arresting gear for the new Ford Class Carriers using electromagnetic systems. To be exact, they are called Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG).   I invite you go online and check them both out, they are very cool.   Today, I’m back full speed with my RC planes and I am all electric – no more nitro.  I am a scale type person who just loves to fly straight and level, but I’m still working on loops and rolls!!!

I would like to take a minute and talk about safety when flying and this happened a few months ago, but it still worth mentioning:

Heads-Up”, which has three meanings:  Adjective – showing that you are very aware of what is happening around you and it also goes for heads-up football.   Noun – a message that tells or warns someone about something that is going to happen as an example, gave him a heads-up that an investigation was pending.   Interjection – used to tell someone to look up because of possible danger or to clear a passageway.   Out of the three definition of heads-up we are more commonly known as to Interjection.   There are times out at the field, you hear heads-up and sometimes we just don’t look because someone say heads-up, especially when the voice projecting heads-up is not all that loud and, in most cases, we keep our conversation going with a fellow pilot until we hear from other pilots on what just happen.  Aircraft down….

As part of the club’s safety, we need to Shout Out heads-up when your aircraft is in danger and you are over the pits or parking lot.   The end of March there was an incident, well names don’t need to be mentioned……Ok, fine it was me and I was flying my Hawaiian Air.  Take-off was perfect, then 30 seconds into the flight I was in trouble.

One of my favorite old movies is “Animal House” 1978, starring John Belushi as Bluto and in the movie is this one seen where Bluto and D-Day were helping Flounder getting revenge for having Flounder cleaning out the horse stalls and doing push-ups over a horses surprise.   D-day hands Flounder a gun and Flounder goes into Dean Vernon Wormer office where the horse is and as Flounder is squinting his eyes pointing the gun at the horse, which he then points it, in another direction and fires the gun.  But the sound of the gun, killed the horse.  The prank-related accidental death of a horse belonging to Omega member and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadet commander Douglas C. Neidermeyer.

Bluto and D-Day run into Dean Vernon Wormer office and the first words coming out of Bluto mouth was, “MERRY CHRISTMAS”.    D-Day goes and says, “There were blanks in the gun”, Bluto again says, “MERRY CHRISTMAS”.   Those same words came out of my mouth when I was in trouble and I yelled it for all to hear.  As I got some control over my Hawaiian Air I again yelled out “Christmas”.  With seconds I had Dennis coming over.  I hear Brad in the background, “you in trouble Jovi” ……Yes was my response.  Dennis got it under control, gave it back to me and still, I was as nervous as I have ever been.  Brad finally took control and landed her safely for me.  Happy was I.  I needed oxygen after that ordeal.

Mark came walking by me and he mention to me how effective I was in yelling “MERRY CHRISTMAS” and how everyone was alerted of the situation at hand.

Here is what happened to me, I relied on the gyro.  When I took off, I thought I had the gyro on, but as I was heading downwind and when I turned base, that is when I notice I was in trouble.  My Airliner was climbing and I’m looking straight up in the sky and flying over the parking lot and Sea World Dr.   I was able to get back over the field.   I have learned that I cannot depend on the gyro all the time in which I did depend on it. It’s a nice feature to have but something that one should not always rely on. So, I am going to learn to fly without the gyro and just keep it for safety…if that makes sense.

However, the morel of this story is when you’re in trouble, it is most important to be yelling out loud heads-up or Merry Christmas!  Remember you must stay north of the fence line at ALL times.  You should never be flying over the Parking lot or the Pits, for the safety of our club members and guests!

On my bench I have the Top-Flite Bonanza which I started back in late 1998.  This was built to take a Satio 120 four-stroke.  Wingspan 81” and the length, 63.6” also included are the following:

  • Robart Air Retract w/scale Robart Struts
  • Scale Navigation lights that work off two 9-volt battery’s
  • Scale Interior Cockpit that is all removable

As time went by, I really never complete my Bonanza.  But as of late, I got my hands back into it.   She is almost ready to go, however I have a few things that need to be done, one is to replace my flap servos.  I had to replace the v-tail servos.  When I was moving them, I notice that the servo arm was going around in oblong circle.  Not good.  Change them to newer Hitec servos and were back to perfection.   Theses retracts are old and not holding pressure.  It is holding pressure for a good 10 minutes in which I only need about 6-7 minutes…. Maybe some risk here…I’ll keep working that problem.

The biggest task I had was figuring a way to change batteries without taking the wing off like I have to do with my Cessna 182.   The Canopy is bolted down with four socket head cap screws, problem with that was getting to those bolts.  I removed them and now I have a quick latch to remove the Canopy.  You’ll see what I mean in the pictures.   It’s actually very cool how this works.  I can put the wing on and I don’t need to hook up the connectors or the air lines.  Once the wing is bolted, flip the Bonanza, unlatch the Canopy, remove the interior and I have access to everything in the aircraft.  Hooked it all up, connect the airlines and place the interior back into place.  Where the fuel tank would have been are where the batteries now sitting.

Balancing was next, I did a rough balance and she seemed to be good with the batteries mounted up front.  Out at the field on T-28 Race’s, April 10, was the day she was going to maiden!  Complete check out was preformed and she was now certified to fly.

Brad did the maiden flight!  She took off like an F-14 Tomcat heading towards the Sunset as seen in “Top Gun”.  As he was trimming her out, he was noticing the balance may be off.  She acted very weird.  He flew her around and she look very nice up in the sky, you think it was a full-scale Bonanza.  Time was running out and Brad was preparing for landing.  She came and touch down and just rolled down the runway.  I was happy, but the next flight, I am going to dial in the balance and hopefully that helps out, which it should!

Ok, I have made enough noise!

Grab your planes, batteries and radio, and let’s go Flying and looking forward to seeing you all at our Monthly Meeting!

Jovi

Club Event for June 2021

Don’t Spill the Beans!

The single time during the year

You can win CASH MONEY!

 

Any Airplane Can Participate.

Beans, and holder device provided.

Take off,  climb 100ft,  perform loop or roll and land.  You get 20 beans, and each bean is worth $1.  Quan your treasurer,  has lost his beans and will buy each bean back for $1.00 each after your flight!  He only wants beans that have flown!

 

$150 in Cash awarded to top winners!

 

Saturday, June 26th 10:00am

Club meeting to follow.

T28 Race Results for June 2021

By Steve Neu
 
The June edition of the SFSD T28 racing went off on June 12th as scheduled without problems. Twelve pilots were signed up to fly which made for 4-plane heats in the preliminary rounds and the finals. Four planes in a heat makes for some close racing! 
 
The results of the preliminary rounds resulted in the following matchups for the finals:
 
Bronze:
Daric
Mark
George
*Jim
 
Silver:
*Quan
Frank
Larry
Bob
 
Gold:
*SteveN
Alex
 Brad
SteveM
 
(*) denotes winner
 
The silver race had an exciting start where 3 of the 4 planes jumped the start—and none went back to correct the mistake—effectively handing the first place finish to Quan who did not jump the start. The gold race was close with no clear winner until the final few laps. Steve Manganelli who flew a tight course had to endure the wait while Carl our west end cut judge came down give the bad news to SteveM that he was cutting the corners a little too close. With that news his ownership of the “better luck next time” medal was within his grasp.
 
Jim ran into some propeller problems which resulted in his breaking a prop per flight—a new record. Jim has now carried out the T28 air “Worthiness Directive” (AD) along with a change to a more durable APC prop to avoid future problems. Steve Manganelli managed to again capture the coveted “better luck next time” award du to his relentless quest to shorten the course to the minimum possible resulting in three unnecessary cuts. Quan ran a close second with 2 cuts. 
 
The medals were handed out to the group winners and we had a raffle of various electric flight goodies for the pilots and helpers that made the racing possible. Our next race is on the calendar for July 10th—come fly or watch—it is a lot of fun!
 
If there is interest in a “how to setup and fly a T28 for racing” clinic I would be willing so schedule something for a Saturday or Sunday at the field. This would be a informal thing with sharing of tips and tricks to make your plane go fast AND be easy to fly. If interested let me know by email “sneu@mac.com” and we will arrange something.
See the photos here.

Electroglide Report for June 2021

We had a fun Electroglide this past Saturday. The weather could have been better but it is, after all, June. The sky remained overcast and winds were a bit spotty, peaking around 8 mph from the North West.

 A total of eight pilots launched their aircraft at the first launch. Lift was hard to find but a little was available over the palm trees to the North West of the field. I ended up with the long flight at 4:22 minutes, plus a 10-point landing. Scott Vance came next with a flight of 3:22 and Baptiste Petit was third at 3:20 minutes. Neil Yihe Zhu picked up a 20-point landing.

 Second launch was into very light lift, Scott had the longest flight at 3:50 minutes plus a 20-point landing. Alex Sutton came in second at 3:20 with a 30-point landing and Dennis LaBerge flew for 3:16 and also scored a 30-point landing. Neil Zhu picked up a 30-point landing.

 Third launch yielded a little better flight times with Dennis now getting the long flight at 4:30 minutes plus a 30-point landing. Frank Gagliazdi flying an old Wanderer kit glider was second at 3:58. Alex came in second at 3:41

Neil had another good landing worth 20-points and both Baptiste and Stephen Treger had 10-point landings.

 Fourth and final launch pitted new school Radians against an old school balsa kit Wanderer. It was fun to watch. A Radian flown by Alex had the longest flight at 5:57 and Scott, also flying a Radian was second at 5:35 plus a 30-point landing. Frank and his Wanderer were third at 3:48. I’ll point out that this was Frank’s first Electroglide. A pretty good performance Frank.

 Winner for the day’s event was Neil Yihe Zha at 166 total points. Second place goes to Alex Sutton with 156 points. Third place goes to Scott Vance with 151 total points.

Next Electroglide will take place on July 17th, 10:00 first launch.

See you there,

Jeff Struthers

SEFSD BOD Minutes for June 2021

6/9/2021

SEFSD Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

Quorum at 6:37 PM, meeting convened.

In-person participants: Brad, Steve N., Quan, Steve M., Eric
Online participants: Jeff, Carl, Jovi, Steve B.
Not present: Kenny

Meeting held at Steve N.’s home.

Brad: May resume club monthly meeting in next couple of weeks as city opens up post-pandemic.
Looking at June 26th and to include a Fun Fly: Don’t Spill the Beans.
SD City noticed the homeless to leave the area.
July 4th (Sunday) will be a closed gate, members only event. Gas barbecue grills only allowed.
July 10th (Saturday) FAAST event will have one FAA representative and we will provide lunch.
Porta-Potty to be cleaned by Hitec after FAAST event.

Steve M.: SEFSD will be in September AMA magazine about our T-28 racing – look for it!

Jovi: Review BOD rolls.

Quan: 303 members as of 6/9/2021
Bank balance sufficient and financials available to club members upon request.

Jeff: Replacement sound system works much better than old system.

T-28 racing this upcoming Saturday at 10:00AM – 6/12/2021.
Next Electroglide upcoming at 10:00 AM – 6/19/2021.

The board is split about serving food during first club meetings, so we will hold off until July.

Motion and seconded for additional signage.

We are considering alternative surface material for airfield to replace dirt.

Next meeting date 7/7/2021.

Meeting adjourned at 8:20 PM.

Eric Shapiro
SEFSD Secretary 2021

AMA Administers TRUST

The following is from the AMA:
Dear valued AMA member,
When the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 was signed into law, it included a requirement for recreational UAS users to pass a knowledge and safety test. The Recreational UAS Safety Test, or TRUST, has the goal of increasing awareness of safety and best practices in the most complex airspace system in the world. AMA has worked closely with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), ensuring that TRUST meets the intent of Congress without placing an undue burden on our hobby community. AMA has been there to help make decisions regarding guidelines, administration, and questions included on the test.
Since 1936, the AMA has been dedicated to the hobby of model aviation, educational programming, and safety in the airspace. As such, the FAA selected AMA as a test administrator for TRUST.
What can you expect from TRUST? First, AMA is offering it for free for all recreational fliers. But don’t worry, it is more like a brief training session than a test, because you can’t fail! There is some information to read that deals with flying safely and legally, along with 23 multiple-choice questions. If you select an incorrect answer, you’ll be guided to the correct response until you get it right. After you finish, you’ll receive a TRUST completion certificate that you should print, save electronically, or take a photo of with your phone. This certificate is proof that you passed, and you will only have one opportunity to save it. To protect your privacy, the FAA dictates that taking the test is anonymous and no record is kept by anyone other than you, so losing your certificate means you need to retake the test.
More information about TRUST can be found at www.modelaircraft.org, including frequently asked questions. We’re here to ensure that you can quickly pass the test and potentially learn something new as a recreational pilot. We even have a quick tutorial you can look through to get an idea of what you’ll need to know. It will allow you to get through TRUST quickly and easily, allowing you to prove that you are a safe and knowledgeable pilot. Learn more at MODELAIRCRAFT.ORG/TRUST.

Treasurer’s Report for June 2021

SEFSD has 303 members as of June. It looks like we are right on track with our 2019 membership levels before the pandemic. With the county and state reopening on June 15, the board is making plans to resume our normal activities, including serving food in July at the monthly field meeting. We’ll have a meeting this Saturday in June, but it will be without food since we weren’t sure what the status would be to plan things out.

We have a great relationship with the city, and I want to thank Mike, Bill, and Karolyn for assisting us so quickly with securing the field with pairs of railroad ties around the southern edge of the parking lot along S. Shores Pkwy. It looks great too. Without their help, we would have had to call up volunteer members to help move rocks around prior to the 4th of July, since Brad threw out his shoulder trying to do it himself a few months ago.
Lastly, I wanted to share an article I wrote on behalf of the County of San Diego. In December, I had the opportunity to interview a docent at the San Diego Air & Space Museum (which by the way is fully open now, so go visit them!) They are also doing virtual tours for those who are not ready, or unable to leave their home. 
-Quan

Some Fun Videos

Click the pic for the video:

Here’s the first video clip from our new GoPro Fusion 360 camera, as you can see it can do all kinds of pretty cool special effects! – Frank

 

Great Blue Angels Video

 

This is without a doubt the fastest R/C jet available anywhere, it tops 150MPH even before lifting off the runway! 😉👍 WARNING: THIS JET IS NOT FOR NOVICE PILOTS!

 

Drone Flying at SEFSD Field