Hey SEFSD,
I hope everyone had a great July!
Our Taco Day at the field on Independence Day was great. There was an amazing lunch provided by the club for those that flew, and the families that joined us. It was a great day for flying, and some members stayed past sunset and had a front row seat to Sea Worlds annual mega fireworks show. I hope you were able to attend.
Moving in to August, the board is always looking at a remedial solution for our ongoing runway problems. Since I hear the question often, I will state here again that the city will never allow us to pave our runway or the parking lot. The entire site is a reclaimed area that cannot be developed. We are arranging a water truck and roller to recompress the loose clay and sand, which will hopefully get us to the end of the dry season. John C is going to attempt a test patch with an approved substance to determine if there is value.
Dennis has strategically placed traffic cones in the parking lot in an attempt to slow people down as they arrive and leave the site. It’s somewhat effective, but some people treat it like it’s a drifting area. Please people – 5 MPH in the entire off pavement area, in AND out.
For those that haven’t noticed, I have had 3 in flight battery fires in the last 90 days on larger ( 12S ) aircraft. 2 of them were landed quickly enough to get the batteries out before the plane was entirely consumed, one was a 40% aircraft that was a total loss.
All of them were using the SMC High voltage batteries. I attributed the first failure to using cold batteries, but the second led me to think it was the batteries – so I stopped charging any batteries above 4.2 volts. The fire last week used 10 month old batteries that were charged to 4.2, but had previously been charged to 4.35 V – so I am throwing out any packs that were ever charged to the HV standard. Use at your own risk!
The holes in the tables are for people to place their umbrella poles. As it gets warmer, I have received numerous complaints of the holes being filled with candy/chip wrappers, and broken bits of airplanes. Please help a fella out and don’t put trash in the holes.
This months club meeting and fun fly will be held on Saturday, July 26th. The event will be the Dead Stick Challenge, which will begin at 10:00 AM. There will be prizes as usual.
Hope to see you there!
Brad
