Daily Archives: November 16, 2022

Happy Thanksgiving SEFSD members.  I would like to say Thank You to the BOD for this past year.  Steve Manganelli was a great President for our Club.  He kept us all informed with all events and how the club was running and what we have planned as a club for the city of San Diego.  Thank You Steve!  Here’s the good news, Steve is going to be our Treasure for 2023.  Stepping in for President is going to be Brad Bender.  I want to welcome Brad back to the BOD and we all look forward as you guide us through 2023!   Thank you, Quan, being our VP for 2022 and he is going to continue as VP for 2023.   Allen, for his contribution in being our treasure (I hope Allen returns and comes to our banquet.) and Quan for stepping in, to take over the treasure for the last few months.  Ken Dresser for being our secretary when he was able to contribute.  Coming in for next year for secretary with be Eric Shapiro, thank you Eric to returning to the BOD!  Our Safety officer, Steve Neu, who kept us safe and for the T-28 races each month, and those races are fun, I do believe we’ll have a couple T-28’s at the banquet to give away….

Yes, I will be back as Chairman to guide us though the 2023, and I look forward to the fun we will have next year.

 Our members at Large for 2022 were Carl Cox with his contributions at the BOD meetings, Carl will be returning for 2023, Jeff Struthers, wow what I can I say about Jeff.  Jeff contributions this year and the many years before are greatly appreciated and we are sorry to say that Jeff is stepping down for the upcoming year.  However, Jeff will continue to host the Electroglide for 2023 which is a great event if you have not yet participated in.  Jeff Thank You and we hope to see you soon on the BOD once again!  Larry Kosta for our logo and shirts, hats, stickers, magnetic logo.  Thank You Larry, and we look forward to your continuing contribution to the club.   Hello Nick for joining as a member at large for the upcoming year.  Thank you for joining us!

We have many non-BOD members who have contributed in more ways than one can really Thank.   Jim Bonnardel, who took the task of being our Contest Director for the past year, great news is that, Jim will continue to do our monthly events for 2023.  Next year you will see all events on the calendar on our website, this way you can schedule your life around flying…. lol   Dennis Laberge, keeping our field in great shape, helping newcomers in flying. Always stepping up no matter what the task is, Dennis will be there, Thank You Dennis!  Mark Davis, bringing all that food and drinks, for our Monthly meetings, I tell you is not easy task to do, I have done it.  Thank You Mark. 

The last Thank You, goes out to each club member who are the ones who make our club, in coming out during the week or the weekends.  Joining our events, everyone contributes in many ways.  We have two moms who come out and have contribute to the club, Laura Thompson with her son Ty and Spring with her son Neil, matter of fact, both Ty and Neil are in the same class at Bishop…..

It is that time for renew of membership and starting Dec 1 or 2^nd, when Quan gets the renew button setup, you can renew for 2022 and most importantly, get your banquet tickets.  Event will be held at the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park.  Cost:  Yes, we upped our dues for next year to $60.00.  Within this past year the cost of supporting our field has gone up.  Banquet tickets also increased in priced to $55.00 per person.   With the purchase of the banquet ticket, you can enter the Air and Space Museum anytime during the day and stay inside the building once it closes.  Our Banquet starts at, we’ll check in at about 5:45 and then get your picture taken by Frank Sutton, (Thank You Frank for your contribution with all the photos and videos you have created).  The event starts at 6:00pm, dinner is around 6:30 – 7:00 pm, and then it’s, give away prizes! Here is a list of prizes……

• Skynectic SXtarling 1230mm PNP
• Freewing Vulcan 4S
• Flightline P-51D Mustang 850mm
• Flightline Spitfire Mk.IX 1200mm
• Freewing Rebel V2 70mm
• FMS 800mm T-28 Trojan V2
• FMS 64mm EDF F-16 PNP
• FMS 64mm EDF F-18 PNP
• Gliders, work in process

And our Grand Prize:

AVIOS (PNF) King Twin 1700 Sports/Scale Executive Turboprop Airplane!!!

I cannot forget our better half’s that allow us to go fly our airplanes, that we will have some real nice items for our wives in which Steve Manganelli wife, who greatly is taking on this task.  Thank You so much for your contribution!  I have also created a video this past year (Who Started the Fire) and I look forward to sharing it all with you at the banquet.  100 tickets will be sold, so get yours as soon as you renew and don’t wait too long, for they will sell out!

As a last item to discuss is Thanksgiving:  It’s so easy to get caught up in our busy lives. These Thanksgiving quotes will help you feel appreciative anytime you need them.

• Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings after each flight. Suddenly, so many things become so little when we realize how blessed and lucky we are to bring our planes home in one piece.
• I love Thanksgiving because it is a holiday centered around food, family, and airplanes, three things that are of utmost importance to me.
• Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for those perfect landings.
• Give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current airplane.

Happy Thanksgiving and be safe this coming Holiday Season!

Happy Flying!

Jovi

By Steve Manganelli

As the Newsletter year and my tenure as your President comes to a close, this needs be my “Thank You” edition. I’ve enjoyed R/C modeling virtually my whole adult life, but at the end of the day, the people I’ve shared it with and the places it has taken me, become more memorable than any particular model. I like to think the popularity of our Club is not just because we have the most central City location, least expensive dues and certainly the best Summer weather in San Diego, but that we all like hanging out with each other, sharing each other’s triumphs and commiserating with each other’s follies. We like learning things from each other between flights and getting first hand advice for our next model by searching the flightline for attractive models. In this context, I thank my fellow BOD members whose energy and enthusiasm sets the tone for the Silent Electric Flyers of San Diego, and makes the Club what it is.

The glue that keeps us together is this newsletter, the Club Calendar and a series of E-mail blasts that reminds us of events. All of those tools are the purview of our editor, Mr. Steve Belknap. Thank you for your service, kind Steve! Thanks to Jovi Murek for chairing the BOD to keep us on the straight and narrow, for procuring great raffle prizes for the banquet (hint : we have some awesome raffle prizes for the Winter Banquet, you won’t want to miss it!) and scoring/officiating T-28 Racing and the Monthly Fun Contests. Jovi also pitched in as Hot Dog lead when Mark Davis was unavailable. Thanks to Quan Nguyen for paying our bills, keeping our books straight as replacement treasurer and being in charge of club events as Vice President. Beyond simply paying our bills, he arranged and negotiated our expenses such as the outhouse rental, water truck and Dust Down procurement.  I’m going to try to fill Quan’s shoes next year, but it’s going to be tough!

Thanks go out to Steve Neu for keeping us safe, hosting BOD meetings at his home and running the T-28 Racing Series. I have it on good authority that the prizes from the post-race raffle come from his Neumotors business and the club may or may not get a bill;  it’s wholesale if we do! I Next want to thank Jeff Struthers whom provided valuable input to the Board of Directors and along with his Misses, conducted Electroglide throughout the year. Even better, Jeff is standing up to do it again next year; thank you kindly, Jeff! I want to recognize Larry Kosta whom along with BOD issue insights, used his business to provide a variety of graphic arts items to the Club at no cost. These include the Lindberg Field warning addendum to the main sign board, the “SEFSD Property” sign and stencil for the new chairs, numerous paper stickers with our new logo and the and Electroglide medal inserts. Larry’s professional graphic artist “Felix” is the one responsible for our new logo. Next, thanks to Carl Cox for reasoned input to BOD decisions and pylon judging for T-28 Racing. Lastly, thanks to Alan Issacs and Ken Dresser for doing what they could when available. Non-BOD members whom made great contributions to SEFSD include Dennis Laberge, Frank Sutton, Mark Davis, Randy Wyant and Jim Bonnardel. Dennis for his selfless field maintenance activities, Mark for his incredible home-made salsa and the rest of the hot dog roasts, Randy for surveilling our field for nefarious homeless encampments and lost airplanes, Frank for his expert photography and graphic arts and Jim for running the Club Fun Contests all year and maintaining the tables. Yes, it’s all those efforts that make us what we are and I appreciate it!

Military scale at the last Club Members Meeting in October  was a hoot! It took all year, but master of ceremonies Jim Bonnardel finally found a scoring rubric that us rocket scientists could handle using only half our brains : every other method tried seemed to need all our brains which apparently could not be mustered for these contests…”Ever watch a dog show on TV” says Jim? You just walk up and down the flightline, put the medal on your favorite airplane and declare it the winner! Quan and I had a lot of fun watching the show and coming to agreement on the winner, er “Best In Show” which I recall was a twin bomb dropper guided by Bob Simpson. The lack of paperwork to be second guessed was a bonus!

In closing please support our new President, Mr. Brad Bender, new Member at Large Nick Anton and new Secretary Eric Shapiro and the rest of the 2023 BOD (details contained in the November BOD Meeting Minutes elsewhere in this issue)  and of course, see  you at the Winter Banquet on January 13^th where there is at least one surprise awaiting one well deserving somebody, just saying.