Flightmasters of Elkhart County, Ltd.

Minutes of May 8^th 2008 club meeting

The meeting was called to order by President Tom Langenhop at Elkhart Airport.

Copies of the Treasurers Report were distributed and approved.  Copies of the board meeting were handed out for everyone to review.  It was mentioned that there was a .60 Mojo for sale on RCU.

Tom wanted to thank everyone for participating and working hard at the club field cleanup day.  We got the ditched cleaned up and in better shape.  He mentioned that he had friends come out and watch the airplanes fly.  They enjoyed themselves and really noticed we had a great community of flyers that were willing to help one another out.  We need to encourage this as it gets new people interested in becoming members.

We need to show respect for one another, and treat others as we’d like to be treated.  If someone is doing something against the rules or you have issues please discuss it in a gentlemanly way.

Stan T. talked about safety and how it is important to do a thorough check of your plane prior to flying.  Especially go through it when you get it out to fly for the first time in the season after its set all winter.  Try and make sure you keep your plane in the flight zone at all times and don’t encroach on the flight line.

Thad brought up we have run into several issues with the new technologies.  If your flying the new spectrum radios with digital servos you need to make sure you have good batteries with plenty of mah for the application and buy low impedance batteries.  He crashed a plane in Florida due to a bad battery pack.  The pack when load tested checked out fine, but as soon as you placed a load with the digital servos and the load tester the voltage dropped below 3 volts on a 6 volt 2,400 mah pack.  Froemco sells a capacitor you can plug into your receiver to help prevent this from happening.  Its called the D-cup.

Jim brought up the new A-123 batteries and his good luck.  People flying 2.4 ghz only have had luck with 1 ea A-123 pack for only their receiver and ignition pack on gas planes.  Check out the A-123 forum on RCU for more info.  Froemco has come up with a new single switch that has a readout of how many mah you have used out of your pack.  This is a great product to use with the A-123 batteries due to their extremely flat discharge curve.  It was also brought up that many people are running dual batteries on the radio gear.  You can either “Y” into the battery terminal on your receiver or you can plug into any open terminal on your receiver.  Make sure you are using the same voltage of battery and preferable same mah pack.  Many people are going to 6-volt packs with the new servos today you can operate them and the receiver on 6-volts.  If you lose a cell in the pack there is a good chance you will still be able to land the plane.

On the mowing there are currently 19-21 volunteers to mow.  Please let Denny O. know if you are interested in mowing.  Please don’t think that the schedule is full.  Harold P. complained about the fact the field hadn’t been mowed properly last week.  It was brought to everyone’s attention that the person responsible on that day ran into some personal problems.  Please notify Denny O. or find someone to fill in for you if you have something come up and you are scheduled to mow.  Harold was also concerned that it seemed like there were too few members signed up for mowing and that a few of them were doing most of it.  Denny O. mentioned that he had just taken everyone he had to date and scheduled the mowing out until October.  It was also brought up that there are currently 2 people scheduled to mow on the same date.  It only takes one person.  You should communicate between the two of you who is going to do it unless you require assistance for some reason.  It was suggested to Denny that rather than fill up the entire schedule for the year with the same people only schedule the same people for a month or so, that way people will not think its full.  It was reminded to everyone that this is a new system and will take some time to get it going and perfected.  Overall most thought it was better than last year. 

If the key to the tractor isn’t in the tractor look in the little shed next door.  It is supposed to be under the can on the left in the little shed along with the key to the tractor shed. 

Show and tell:  Tim Linton brought in his beautiful Gee-Bee.  It was powered by a YS-91 four stroke.  It is a Canadian kit he built last year.  Nathan S. brought in his new OMP- Yak ARF.  It cost him roughly $200 and was simple to assemble.  He intends on powering it with a YS 110 four stroke or a 1.20 2-stroke.  Thad B. brought in one wing panel from his Aeroworks Edge 540 50cc kit he built this winter.  This was the wing panel he gave the demonstration on glassing on.  The wing had primer and the base white coat only on it.

The next meeting will be a Saturday June 14^th  at noon at the field.  Bring something to show and tell and of course fly.

Meeting was adjourned.

Thanks

Respectfully submitted

Thad Bessinger Secretary

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