Field Report for Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 28-29, 2012:

Headed over to the airfield around 11:00 AM or so, and met Ed Vincent who was already there with his Green Stick flying it. Bill Worthen and his wife stopped by en route to the lodge to say howdy and to visit for a bit also. Next thing I know Dennis Sporing and Marlowe Cassetti showed up, and Marlowe brought out his LT-40 and got it going to fly. In the meanwhile I was getting my Big-Stick .40 readied and noticed the throttle idle setting kept changing from a low to a fast idle....one time when the stick was pulled all the way down it would have a low idle, but the next time it may have a faster idle. It wasn't as dead-on consistent as it normally is, which caught my attention, so after only one flight, I started looking into the problem more closely. It appears that the throttle servo could be showing signs of failing, but I haven't exactly pinpointed the problem to that just yet.

  In the meantime, Dennis Sporing ran back to his house and got his trainer Kadet Senorita, which by the way, I think is a fantastic looking job that he has done getting it ready to fly now, and he started prepping it to fly. At that time I had to leave to take care of other errands around town, and was unable to return later on in time to do any more flying Saturday. (Note the picture below, Ed took it up for a test flight)

 Also, as I was leaving Cloyce Mann showed up with his large MOOSE OF A BIRD STINKER..... <I still chuckle every time i read that description...hahahaha>,  but I was unable to stick around any longer to visit.
Dr. Tim Brown and his son Grant arrived to fly. Grant had a slow stick (see picture) which had some technical difficulties.
Tim put on a great demonstration of flying his Saito powered Spitfire. He is still giving the water tank a wide berth.






(Pictures and captions courtesy of Marlowe Cassetti.)

Sunday I awoke to overcast grey skies and strong breezes, varying between 15-28 mph at that time, and just kept an eye on the weather observation site at the field. No flying today but I got bored, and decided to head on over to the field and do some maintenance instead. Some of the starting tables were in bad need of some needed attention, so I worked on them until I used up both of my cordless drill batteries. A bit more work on a couple of tables and they should be about ready for some washing and paint when it warms up some later on.

Next thing up was removal of the old fabric on the ground, that used to be the club's Helicopter Pad. That fabric  is terribly brittle and dried out, and is no longer serviceable, so I removed it and hauled it away. There is one smaller segment of fabric that was still intact nailed down somewhat securely still, so I was able to put some more nails in it to try to help it stay down a bit longer, but, we will need to invest in something to replace the Heli-pad with before this year is out, it looks like to me.

Does anyone know where that fabric came from originally, and if so, is there a chance of getting any more of it, for use on our club's Heli-pad again?

Thanks everyone for all of the assistance and maintenance being caught up again,
Mark J. Sullivan