THE FIELDBOX June 2003

Intro Club Officers Safety Notes President’s Corner Field Notes Donation lookout BS From the Hangar Building & Repair Tips Bag of Balsa of the Month Next Club Meeting Links

Intro Congratulations to Justin Hardin for coming up with the winning name for the West Tennessee RC Flyers Newsletter. If you have any ideas, articles, or stories for the newsletter, please email me, or call me to get it submitted. grippm@bellsouth.net Club Officers The elected officers for WTRC for 2003 are: President: Tim Treneff Vice-President: Jeff Layman Secretary: Mike Grippin Treasurer: Anthony Harden Safety Officer: Dave Huff Field Marshall: Jeff Cowan Rants & Raves from the Safety Officer Howdy! My name's David Huff and I'm your safety officer. I retired from a career in auto parts. In the parts business, to be successful, you have to be an observer. You have to be able to detach from the moment and see the overall picture. I've been observing for over twenty years. As the safety officer, I'm the observer that'll have to talk to the people who break the rules of safety. But enough about me...  I’ll be setting up this column to speak on actual rules from the AMA, JEA and our own WTRCF charter, as well as common sense items. I am committed to make this a positive column and not a gripe forum. We are all here to have fun and we don't really have that many rules so it should be easy, right??        Subject this month is: Children at the field.        Kids are great. Kids are our future. I love 'em! Kids can also be something else; they can be a "wild card".  As parents, our child's safety is our first priority. To keep them safe, we must be able to control them. This can be a difficult thing to do. With summer practically here, we're sure to see an increase in the number of children at the field.        How do we control our kids? Children of club members should already know about the dangers of being on the business side of the rope. The children of guests and spectators, however, may not know about being on the pit side of the rope. The guests of club members should be informed by their hosts of the dangers to watch for. Spectators are another problem. I will try to talk to all of them, but we need to be aware that these kids may not know what they're running up against. We all know what kind of damage a spinning prop can do, spectators and their kids probably will not. Be aware of this and ask these spectators to respect the rules of safety, or, find me and I'll be happy to talk to them but, we will all have to keep an eye out for all the "wild cards".        Any time any of our membership observes anything unsafe, you, the observer should take action to correct it, and pass the info along to me. All members are considered as assistant Safety Officers. Please feel free to discuss any safety issue with me; I'm here to help.        Fly hard, fly safe, have fun!              Sheriff Dave ;-) President’s Corner Memorial Day marks the completion of the 2^nd full year WTRC operation at the JEA facility. In two years we have built a first class facility and assets to maintain it. We will continue to improve each year as our budget and elbow effort allows. Thanks to all of you who donate your time, materials and cash. Let’s especially thank those who mow the grass and those (many of the same) who work so diligently training the newcomers to the hobby. And to all you ACTIVE fliers out there, I salute you. It’s all of you folks who make a club work and fun to participate in. I forgot to mention food. Those who missed the last meeting missed some of the best barbecue you ever taste. Thanks to David, who not only supplied the food and the grill, but was the master chef as well! Tim Field Notes Well, due to the bad weather we experienced in May, we were delayed in getting fertilizer down. I finally got the Ammonia Nitrate applied on 5/26, and of course no rain right away to soak it in. We should see it greening up pretty well in the next week or two. We need to send out special thanks this month to Jimmy Gibson, Roger Bivens, David Broach, David Riddenhour (and his wife) Jeff Layman and myself, for the work done on Saturday, 6/1. We buried the water line along the fence line, ran some new connections for the water, and added a spigot for the shed. It was a very long hard day, but you’ll note the improvements and how they will help us. Speaking of watering, it takes pretty much a full week to get 1 inch of water across the whole field. There is a quasi-official watering schedule, so I’m asking for your help to make sure we stick to it. Since we can’t run a lot of sprinklers at one time, the field gets watered piecemeal, and the sprinklers pretty much run 24 hours a day, just in different areas. If you go out to fly, firstly, pay attention to what might look like wet ground, and avoid driving your vehicles on it. Second, if the hoses are out on the runway and those sprinklers on, we don’t mind you turning them off while your flying, BUT, before you leave, make sure you put them back where they were, and turn them back on again. If the areas where the sprinklers were on look over soaked, please feel free to move them to another spot. It’s quite an effort to keep the grass in great shape, and your help is appreciated. As for that “quasi-official” watering schedule, it’s not set in stone, but here is what I try to stick to: Sunday evening—Last person to leave should turn on all 12 spike sprinklers that are attached to the fence between the pit and flight line. Run over night. Monday morning—Attach the hoses, and run 6 sprinklers 75 feet out on the runway. These should run all day. Monday evening—Run out the other 6 sprinklers, 75 feet out. Tuesday morning—Pull 6 of the hoses to the back of the pit area. Tuesday evening—Pull the other 6 sprinklers to the back of the pit area. Wednesday through Friday—Where possible, extra hoses to be added and sprinklers put out on the runway 125 feet out to soak the outer part of the runway, and to catch any dry areas. Also, at different points, we should have sprinklers running on the south parking area and on the hill towards the shed. This schedule gets modified as needed to accomplish the mowing, but this gives you a general idea on the effort it takes to get water down. BS From the Hangar In case you don’t know, Discount hobbies is finally moved. 68 Ridgecrest Drive. New phone number is 731-660-4448. The shop looks really good, more room, and easier to get around in. Building & Repair Tips Filling gaps…Ever do a repair where you end up with a small gap between pieces of wood? Some folks waste money by going for the thick CA or some other glue to fill the gap. Here’s a neat little trick. Save sawdust from your sanding, or go to your house dryer and pull out some lint from the trap. Fill that gap with either the sawdust, or some lint, then hit it with some thin CA. Make sure to keep your nose out of the way because as it cures, it will really smell up the place. But, once dry, that fill will be hard as concrete, so fill carefully, you will have trouble sanding it out. Donation lookout No newsletter would be complete without some form of begging going on. This section will be used to alert the membership of any items or materials that would be nice to have, or needed, but we can’t really afford at this point. We have a pretty diverse group of folks in the club, and you may have knowledge of something that we could use that could be gotten free, or low costs. Right now, here are a few items we’re looking for: Gravel Shelves for the shed Bermuda grass seed Bag of Balsa of the Month Well, no one submitted any stories for this section this month, so I’ll try to recall the ones that may have happened, or make something up…We didn’t have any losses during the month of May that I’m aware of. Jimmy Gibson built a SPAD that he beat to death, but other than that the only problems we saw were stripped landing gear, a few lost wheels during flight, and of course the standard deadsticks. Next Club Meeting Next meeting will be Saturday June 14 at 2 pm, at the field. Please plan on attending, you need to be aware of what’s going on in the club. Links Here are some links to some pretty helpful websites: West Tennessee R/C flyers   rc planes remote control airplanes r/c r-c flying aircraft wtrcf – RCUniverse - The Ultimate RC Forum! - Buy, Sell, Trade and Discuss RC Airplanes, RC Helicopters, RC Cars, Boats, Engines, Radios, Park Flyers and more plus RC Classifieds R/C Battery Clinic Academy of Model Aeronautics