The Monthly Event is

Talent Show

Aug 22, 10AM

Dear SEFSD Pilots,

I hope this message finds you in great spirits! I am excited to announce that this month’s event will be a spectacular “Talent Show”. The stage is truly YOURS this time! We invite all of you to come down, own the runway, and show off your incredible skills, unique style, aircraft prowess, or any other R/C talent you may possess.

This is a wonderful opportunity to shine and showcase your talents in front of fellow enthusiasts. Whether you have a hidden skill, a flair for performance, or simply want to flaunt your favorite aircraft, we encourage you to participate and make this event memorable. Let’s celebrate the creativity and passion of our community together!

Looking forward to seeing all of you there and witnessing the amazing talent in our midst!

Jovi

The Monthly Event is July 25th, 10AM

Beans start flying at 10 am

Club meeting and BBQ to follow.

Typical 3S 2200 style airplane preferred. Not an event for Micro, or Large Scale.

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AND THEN:  it’s DART DROP!

PROPCHELLA CURVE BALL!!!!
Slight change with our event Saturday.

Start time 11:00am due to a Presidential TFR in effect until 11:00am

TFR 6/0844 – VIP Movement
Inside planned area
[ – ]
Info: https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_0844
Starts: Jun 26th 2026 04:30pm PDT
Ends: Jun 27th 2026 11:00am PDT

Remote pilots are responsible for checking the airspace they are operating in per Part 107.49 and complying with all restrictions that may be present such as restricted and prohibited airspace, temporary flight restrictions, etc. To obtain the most accurate and up to date information operators should check tfr.faa.gov and ensure their operation(s) do not overlap with any active TFRs or other restricted airspaces prior to launch.

______________________________________________________

ITS JUNE!!  

That means it’s time for PROPCHELLA!

 SEFSD PRESENTS:

PROPCHELLA! 

Dust off your favorite flyer, cue up your playlist, and get ready for a day of fun, laughs, and friendly competition at PROPCHELLA—our RC aviation take on the famous music festival!

Three Games to Play, and you can play as many times you want in Aileron Bandstand There will also be a 3D all-up and a T-28 race:

Aileron Bandstand

Fly to a song of your choice!

Show off your flying style and choreography as your airplane becomes part of the performance. You dont have to finish the song, and you can fly 1 time for each airplane you bring if you want more than 1. This is where the t-28’s race to a song, and the 3-D All up to another top-hit.

Musical Flares

RC Musical Chairs!

When the music stops, can you make the landing zone before everyone else? Just don’t be last!

Dirty Landing

Inspired by Dirty Dancing

Precision, timing, and a little bit of flair. The top score using the target in 1 minute of touch and go landings wins! 

Bring your favorite aircraft.

Bring your favorite music.

Bring your sense of humor.

Spectators welcome!

Whether you’re competing or just enjoying the show, PROPCHELLA promises a day of music, flying, and unforgettable moments with your fellow SEFSD members.

 SEFSD Flying Field

Saturday, June 27th

Music starts 10:00am

Who’s ready to headline the skies? 

#PROPCHELLA

#SEFSD

#RCFlying

#ModelAviation

#AileronBandstand

#MusicalFlares

#dirtylanding

For those that read our email blasts,  there will be a SPECIAL SUPRIZE from Jim at the event.

Saturday May 23rd, 10AM

Meeting to Follow

Prizes 1st through 5th Place

💥 MONTHLY SEFSD EVENT – BOMB DROP! 💥

Get ready for one of the most exciting events of the season!

🗓 Saturday, April 25, 2026

⏰ 10:00 AM

Hosted by Jim, this is one event you won’t want to miss!

How accurate is your drop? Come test your skills in the SEFSD Bomb Drop challenge and see if you can hit the target!

We’re adding even more fun this time with extra games using the bomb dropper device—perfect for pilots looking to dial in their aim and try something new.

🎯 Small prizes will be up for grabs in these bonus rounds!

And of course, the traditional nut-bomb drop will still be the main event, with gift certificates awarded to the top performers. For this game we provide the dropper device and the nut-bomb. If you wish to build your own dropper device, the 1/4″ dowel must be no shorter than 3″ tall, and must be placed anywhere along the top of the fuselage.

After the flying wraps up, stick around for the club meeting and hot dogs to follow 🌭

Whether you’re competing or just watching the action, it’s always a great time with plenty of laughs, explosions (the fun kind!), and friendly competition.

🔥 Prizes, fun, and bragging rights await!

Bring your plane, bring your skills, and let’s see who can drop it right on target!

** Weather Contingency** If the winds are from the south, we will not play any games with the parachutes!

See you at the field!

Micro aircraft and wings without landing gear will not be allowed. A 3S 18-2400 mAh battery will be the target aircraft size. If in doubt, Ask Jim at the field. If you think you are tricky and may have an unfair advantage – you probably do, and may be asked to fly something else…

This months Fun Fly at 10:00AM on the 28^th will be the LIMBO. How Low Can You Go??!!

Jim also plans to do another Mini Bomb Drop event before the monthly meeting and PIZZA for lunch. See you there!!

The graphic above is from: https://www.rc-airplane-world.com/rc-airplane-games.html

• 5 points – Anywhere on the runway (yes… we had a few!)
• 10 points – Outer circle
• 20 points – Middle circle
• 30 points – Center target

Spot Landing

Dart Drop

Dart Drop Rules are as follows:

Lastly,  If you weren’t one of the 23 folks who picked up a free servo and drop platform, just add a strip of Velcro to your plane and you’re good to go.

Enjoy the day without interruptions.

Warbird Day

Assuming the field dries out in time we will be having Jet Day on Saturday the 27^th. Between 10 AM and Noon the main runway will be reserved for jets only. Following the fun fly there will be a club meeting at the field and the customary hot dog lunch. Hope to see you there!!

Performance requirements may include:

[ ] Smooth scale take off
[ ] Scale turn from take off
[ ] Smooth level flight. Maintain altitude.
[ ] Aileron roll.
[ ] Scan your area of patrol. A smooth high G turn like blue angels for example.
[ ] Perform a round loop. The rounder the better.
[ ] Low high speed pass. Below  flagpole from end to end smoothly gets extra points. Hitting the ground loses points and hurts airplanes.

Will be giving out Gift Certificates.

The August 9th T28 races were well attended with 12 pilots present.  With 12 pilots, all the rounds had 4 pilot heats which made for some exciting and close flying. After the dust settled in the preliminary rounds the groupings were set for the final medal rounds. The results were as follows:

Bronze:
1) Artie
2) John
3) SteveM
4) Roy

Silver:
1) Brad
2) Otto
3) George
4) Larry

Gold:
1) SteveN
2) GlenM
3)  Jeff
4) Corey

In the gold medal race there was some drama when 2 of the pilots took themselves out the race—one by crashing into a pylon and the other by flying a bit too low and clipping the bushes. The net result was “4 planes enter—2 planes exit”.  I think everyone had a good time —see you next month on the 13th of September at 10am!

Just a reminder—to maintain a level playing field be sure you keep the planes stock and do not use HV batteries charged to 13 volts! If you have HV packs don’t charge to over 12.6 volts when racing. There could be spot checks:)

Steve Neu

This month’s club event is the:

DEAD STICK CHALLENGE!

Not too long ago,  when we were all liquid-fueled RC aviators, a skill that was required, was the mastery of the dead-stick landing. These days, with electric power, hearing someone call “DEAD STICK” is something we simply don’t often hear anymore.  Along with the problem of a nitro engine flame-out going away, so did the needed skill of bringing it back to the field without power.

This event  will test your “emergency return” skills, and reward those who have command of the task.

How it will work:

Rule #1.  DO NOT SACRIFICE YOUR AIRCRAFT.  If during the event, you are not going to make it to the field safely, you can simply power up and come back to try again.  You get 3 attempts.  NOT 3 TRIES.  It MUST BE a “safety for aircraft” abort,  not a “you didn’t do well” abort.

You get 20 seconds of motor on.  Once the motor is off,  the flight timer starts.  Timer ends when model stops moving on the ground.  Points for flight time are accrued. Landing on the runway allows for a time score.  Off field landings are zero.  The position on the runway ONCE MODEL STOPS, can score bonus points.

Scoring will be similar to electroglide where a long glide is helpful and the scoring bonus zones will be larger than the standard electroglide target.

No gliders allowed.

This is a dead stick challenge of a regular airplane not designed to be flown power-off.

If you play Electroglide you will understand because it’s similar. Where the model stops, is where the score is calculated from (unlike spot landing challenge which is where the model touches the runway).   Scoring zones are LARGER than the Electroglide target.

Gliding starts at 10:00am, and like usual,  Meeting, Awards & Lunch afterwards.

By Steve Manganelli

University of California San Diego has capstone design classes in Engineering Departments other than Aerospace.  I discovered this while on the Campus of UCSD on May 17 where my intended purpose was to deliver a lecture to Dr. John Hwang’s MAE-155B Aerospace Engineering Capstone Design Class entitled “Pratfalls of R/C Model Design”. However whilst on my way to their Engineering Lab to review progress thus far, I was intercepted by a group of Mechanical Engineering  students whom had their own pretty ambitious project in mind : develop an R/C Model autogiro that would takeoff, fly around the pattern and land autonomously!

The first small step in autonomous flight is piloted flight which of course, none of them was experienced in doing. So after many crashes, they enlisted me to perform some additional crashes for them as apparently, I don’t know how to fly an autogiro either! The team consisting of lead Aaditya Shivadey, members Arham Nawaf and Pranav Sakhuja and Telemetry Operator/Controller Rouchen Li met me on SEFSD Field on May 22^nd, 2025 with all their spare parts, charged batteries, tools and laptop computers at the ready. In the interim I did a little research on R/C autogiros and discovered they are weight sensitive and even larger batteries would make one difficult to fly. The students informed me that the 150+ grams of added autopilots, GPS receiver, compass, camera, transmitter, pitot tubes, etc. were no problem…sure and that their custom made carbon fiber tube reinforced floatation foam fuselage was just like the OEM one they crashed : OK, roger that!

We decided that some headwind would be good so we waited until 1:00 P.M  for the maiden voyage.  Sure enough, after engaging the pre-start motor, we rolled down about ½ the runway without taking off, the throttle was retarded and heads were scratched : more runway!

Next time, the beast was placed on the East end of runway and I stood at the sign to better monitor the takeoff roll. She finally got up enough steam to levitate about 20 ft from the West end of the runway clearing the bushes by a few feet but not enough beans to make the downwind turn : crash again, but no real damage as she was a tough little cuss and the process repeated. One memorable crash ended up in one of the drainage cuts made on the North side of runway (with a lot of silt around them). I had inadvertently left the pre-spin motor running which began churning up a huge cloud of dust after impact. We first pegged this as a lipo fire until we got close to it; disaster averted! The last test flight of the session got even windier and we attained at least 25’ by the time we cleared the runway. I banked left, then right (maybe). She crossed the fence, then headed back over the runway and plowed in with a skier style “yardsale”, parts everywhere. The students were not dissuaded, feeling they learned a lot. The telemetry master indicted they lost link and it was inalterably programmed to “return to home” : Hong Kong? UCSD? Maybe I didn’t crash it after all!

I was quite surprised to have a 2^nd test fly session request from the students for June 5^th. The broken parts replaced and the fuselage rebuilt with the same construction. I.e. still over weight. Mostly the same results as the previous session. After one aborted takeoff, in the middle of the runway, I bailed out and pulled the throttle to off. Defiantly, she took off anyway, climbed to about 25 ft then made a successful 180 degree turn to downwind all with the throttle stick jammed to off! Okay, maybe I can steer this after all, so “we”  made a base and final turn approaching the runway, then it plowed itself into the ground about 50’ short. Notice there is no more “we” ; failure is an orphan. When I told the students what I did vs what it did, they were elated as about 90% of their flight goal of a complete autonomous flight had been achieved and another opportunity to help our future aerospace engineering community safely in the books!

Click the pic for the whole album

By Steve Manganelli

June 13^th marked the third University of California San Diego (UCSD), Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department (MAE), capstone design class fly-off hosted by SEFSD. Seven teams competed in the combination low density/high density cargo carrying competition beginning at 0800 with awards handed out at 11:30 A.M. This year, flying chores were shared among myself, Dennis LeBerge and Jim Bonnardel whom was in his element doling out his folksy charm and hopeful-to-the-end, guidance Yes, everything will fly no matter how bad the controls are!

Our past member at large Larry Kosta believing the event had community significance, issued a press release to the local news organizations and this year we got a hit : KUSI’s Jason Austell came out early, interviewed myself and UCSD Lab Manager Paul Arcoleo for the “Good Morning San Diego” show that aired at 9:00 A.M. and a slightly different segment (more flying) that aired at the 5:00 P.M. “Good Evening San Diego” show. My imparted wisdom made the cutting room floor unfortunately, but my bright green bike riding jacket can be seen here and there as is Jim Bonnardel’s back and a snippet of Alex Sutton helping out our ace photographer Frank Sutton. However, SEFSD was prominently listed on the banner and named as a sponsor, which is a win for our community service posture.

My lecture about the pratfalls of R/C modelling given to the class on May 13^th had some positive effect, but most airplanes needed some corrective measures before being deemed airworthy. The “Col. El Pollo J. Rosso” Team led by Frenchmen Johnpierre Khachi was sufficiently prepared to have me perform test flights a week before the competition. After adding 6 oz of lead to the nose and adjusting the controls, she few okay. For the 2^nd flight we added more weight to the nose and it started to fly really well then got unexpectedly squirrely on landing approach. I kept going around and around until the motor fell off, then we landed! 3D printed motor mount no Bueno!

Recall from last issue of Peak Charge that the score is a function of the volume of the cardboard box and the weight of the high density cargo. As we surveyed the field all eyes focused on “Team 7” which purported to carry a box 3X the size of everyone else’s. “If that flies and deploys, we’re screwed!” could be heard muttered under the breath of many passing students.  Well, it did!  In the capable hands of Jim B. the box was dumped almost in the center of the runway to the loud cheers from the assemblage. Only 2 other teams managed to deploy their boxes; my team failed to deploy after at least 5 attempts. As scheduled, Professor Dr. John Hwang ended the fun and handed out award certificates bringing to a close SEFSDs highly entertaining community service adventure.

Click here for the KUSI TV spot.

We had a good showing with most of the usual suspects attending. The preliminary rounds had wing tip to wing tip races—it is worth noting that there were no midairs for the whole day—everyone went home with their planes intact. There were a few cuts and starting line jumps which added to the excitement. The results of the preliminary rounds resulted in setting the groupings for the finals with the results as follows:

Bronze:

1) Glen
2) George
3) John

Silver:

1) Cory
2) Brad
3) Jeff
4) SteveM

Gold:

1) Quan
2) Alex
3) SteveN

Glen got first in Bronze plus he also picked up the “Better Luck Next Time” award for getting the most cuts. Also of note the entire gold flight group cut a turn —but since everyone did there was no change to the results.

Our next race will be July 12th@ 10am—mark your calendar.

Saturday May 24th, 10AM

Meeting to Follow

Prizes 1st through 5th Place

Micro aircraft and wings without landing gear will not be allowed. A 3S 18-2400 mAh battery will be the target aircraft size. If in doubt, Ask Jim at the field. If you think you are tricky and may have an unfair advantage – you probably do, and may be asked to fly something else…

Contest should start at 10am with meeting to follow. Hot Dog lunch to follow the meeting.

The graphic above is from: https://www.rc-airplane-world.com/rc-airplane-games.html

Saturday, March 22, 10AM

Bomb drop devices, and bombs are provided.

ANY FIXED WING CAN PARTICIPATE!

SPOT LANDING CHALLENGE

2/22/25

There will not be a club event this month.

Happy Thanksgiving!