Fun-Fly Spot Landing

Mark Sullivan covered a lot of stuff that happened today, so I'll just cover the spot landing stuff plus add some photos,

Guys waiting for the wind to cooperate and the rest of the club to show up

Jim Aultman also waiting for things to get started

Bobby was the first to start the spot landing competition with his 3D profile  electric

Cloyce next tried his hand with his Twist 40

Mark & his Super Decathalon Citabria

The overall winner ...with the target line. Mark nailed the competition with the closest to the line

Father & Son team Ed & Ryan Vincent at the fight line

Ed was flying his new Spitfire ... I caught it just above touchdown

Cloyce brought out his large gas powered Edge 260. What an impressive plane.

And the Competition results were:

Electric Division:

1. Jim Aultman    38"
2. Bobby            47"

Fueled Division:

1. Mark Sullivan    21"
2. Kenny               63"
3. Cloyce Mann   125"
4. Marlowe          154"

And there you have it. A good time was had by all.

Saturday May 11th, 2013 Fun-Fly

I barely arrived at the air field just before the scheduled 10:00 AM MST start time for the monthly Fun-Fly event this morning,and already there were several club members in attendance and getting in lots of good flights all morning long.
 I went around talking to and learning lots of good information from numerous members throughout the entire day's event today. I and several others assisted Cloyce Mann in getting his Edge 260 up and going strong, and got to enjoy watching him put that fast 3D plane through its paces over several different flights.
 Our newest pilot in the club, Jim Aultman, even got in several flights with his Hobbistar Trainer plane today even with the intermittent gusty wind conditons we had today and he did very nicely again too.
 Ed Vincent got in some really good flights on his new "Spitfire" warbird today, and it sure looks great both in the air and on the flight line too.
Several club members participated in the "Spot Landing" competition event held today during the Fun-Fly and there were lots of very close landings all day long, as well as a few attempts that fell short of the spot also. I don't know the results of the great times of this event yet, but I am positive that our CD, Marlowe Cassetti will post those results very soon for all of us to see how we fared for the day.
 I suffered a not-so-good day as I soon discovered that in my haste to get out of the rain and winds yesterday after flying my SIG 4 Star 60, that it appears that I may have inadvertently left the LiFe 1800 mAh flight battery switch turned on the plane while it was stored in the trailer, and the LiFe battery discharged itself to a low voltage condition. I am now unable to salvage that flight battery, as it would not even accept any type of a charge mode, discharge mode nor even a balance mode charge any longer. A very expensive lesson learned there in this case.
 I then got out my 1/4 scale RC Guys Super Decathalon Citabria, and with other fellow club members helping me assemble it, we had it ready for a nice flight in no time at all. I am truly thankful and I sincererly appreciate everyone's help with this task also.
 I then took off and went flying around for a bit, and then called Kenny McMullen up to the flight line with me to learn more about "Coordinated Rudder Turns" and "Coordinated Rudder and Aileron Rolls" both, and how they compare while doing them. Apparently while doing those parts of the flight, or possibly while looping out wide to the North to set up for landings and touch and go's, I may have inadvertently let the plane drift too far North and got too close to the full scale runway area, and the airport manager came over to let us know about it. I took full responsibility for my errors and assured the airport manager that I will be extremely conscientous of my planes whereabouts to a much greater degree from now on, so there isn't a safety concern on anyone's part. I also plan on writing and presenting a formal written letter of apology to them and spelling out my intentions of not letting that happen again, as much as humanly possible.
 After quite a long and spirited discussion among several club members as to how to attempt to prevent this situation from happening ever again, I got my Citabria refueled and readied for another flight to see what the perspective views are of it while flying out near and over the fuel storage tanks to our North. Cloyce Mann and Bobby Bellino drove over near that area in line with the fuel storage tanks as I was flying overhead and they observed my flight from that perspective. I also had Dennis Sporing standing right next to me at the flight line, where he could also keep a good visual reference on the distance and perspective distance judging while I was flying. Several other pilots were also in the pits observing every part of this flight too, and they also were able to see things themselves, and let us all know what they saw too.
 A large scale plane of this size we discovered is relatively easy to fly both out and/or up at that distance away and further North than the tanks, where the possibility of a runway over-flight condition could possibly happen with a plane of this size or even a smaller 40 or 60 size airplane too, but with a much greater degree of difficulty with those smaller planes of course.

 The lessons I humbly learned today were thus:

 Stay in closer than my farthest "comfort zone" of flying distance away, so as to avoid another incident in the future with a plane of this larger size.
 And also stay in close with the smaller aircraft also, just in case there may be a problem with it getting out too far away also, even though it is much less likely to happen that way I feel.
And finally, if a person is flying at a distance greater than the fuel storage tanks then please by all means inform that pilot of the safety concerns held by everyone involved immediately while they are flying, so that they can correct any percieved safety concerns right away.

"SAFETY FIRST" no matter the situation is what is needed on everyones part, both at our field and at the airport too.

Thanks to everyone for the great times and Fun Flying today.

Mark J. Sullivan

Starpoint Donation

 Fremont Radio Control Flying Club donates to Starpoint 

ErinDavidson | May 7, 2013

Canon City Shopper 

The Fremont Radio Control Flying Club recently presented a $100 donation to Starpoint Adult Services at a Fun-Fly held at the club’s flying field located at the Fremont County Airport. Pictured at the event are members of the flying club with Starpoint representatives John P., Cheryl R., Roxanne P. (Salida) and staff member Anna Louge.   

Club President Ed Vincent presents the check to Starpoint Foundation Director Ron Hinkle, who said “This donation is another excellent example of a local organization contributing to the welfare of another non profit in the county.”  The R/C flying club is proud to “give back” to the community in appreciation for community support. The club has been in existence for more than 30 years and has members throughout southern Colorado. For more information go online to www.fcrcc.blogspot.com.

Some Sunday flying notes....

Ed Vincent's F4U Corsair during the taxi testing today.

  I recieved a phone call from Ed Vincent here at the house this morning, Sunday, May 5th, 2013 asking if I would be showing up to fly. I let Ed know I'd be there about 10AM or so, and then got my gear ready to head to the field then.

 Upon arriving I was able to be in attendance to witness Jim Aultmans successful first solo RC flight and several other flights he flew later that day too.

 Ken Conway was there also preparing his SIG Kadet Senior RC plane to start his buddy box training with Ed Vincent as his very well qualified instructor, and they were going over his plane and equipment readying it for flight on the buddy box system.

 Soon afterwards Terry Davis showed up with his Hangar 9 Pulse 60 plane and put on his usual fantastic and fast performance with it until he had some suspect glitching going on while flying, so he decided to bring it right in for a nice landing even though he had killed the engine and dead sticked it in.

 I decided I needed to get busy and get something put together to fly so out came the SIG 4 Star 60 and I got in something like 3 flights or so on it today also. I did some stall turns and vertical stalls with it along with several rolls and loops of different kinds, all in the name of learning this planes flight tendencies. It performed very nicely for me and gave me a lot of confidence in how well it was running as well as flying too.

 Ken and Ed got in numerous flights on the buddy box system together today also and it appeared to me while observing the flying they did that Ken was doing very smooth and good with his first flights on his plane today. They stayed up so long on one flight that Ed ended up doing a dead stick landing with the plane when it ran out of fuel. Come to find out upon further discovery that Ken's timer in his coat pocket somehow got turned off during the flight and did not alert them of how long they had been up flying. No damages or concerns at all for the dead stick landing for Ed to accomplish due to his great skill and experience, and the great flying tendencies of that SIG trainer plane too.

Marlowe Cassetti showed up with a brand new "Dras-Stick" 40 or 60 sized nitro plane to maiden today and after the usual pre flight checks and range checks and fueling he took off with it on its maiden flight. It turned out to be horribly out of trim and Marlowe struggled with it the entire short time it was flying trying to get it trimmed out, but had to ditch it out in the field. A small amount of damage was suffered to the upper wing mounting block area, but it appears to be a very easy repair that he is going to do. That plane is very pretty and looks to be a well designed plane too. Marlowe then got out his small electric Ultra-Stick and attempted to fly it too, but for some reason it went down also. I didn't find out what the situation was for that one however, but by all appearances it did not appear to be damaged either.

Ed Vincent got in quite a bit of "taxi-testing" attempts on his F4U Corsair war bird and it proved to be a very difficult plane to handle on the ground, as is typical of lots of warbirds. We also discovered that the set screw had backed out on his tail wheel and he did not have full travel throws on it, which added to the difficult ground handling problems that Ed was experiencing with this plane today. That is the purpose of the "taxi-testing" portion that he did today to uncover any possible problems prior to flying this plane for it's maiden flight. It seems that the repairs and adjustments will be very minor things to attend to on Ed's warbird and I look forward to seeing it flying a lot in the very near future too. Ed also flew the SIG Kadet Seniorita that he purchased at the club's swap meet recently.

I have a few pictures of Ken getting his SIG Kadet Senior ready for the buddy box flying that he and Ed accomplished today and will post them here now, as well as some pictures of Ed Vincent's Corsair warbird taxiing around learning about this plane too.

Enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them and being at the field with some very good pilots and friends today.

Ken and Ed.

Getting started.

Tweaking and tuning the SIG Kadet Senior.

Ed's F4U Corsair warbird.

 A very nice looking warbird here.

The clubs newest RC pilot

Sunday, May 5th, 2013.

This posting is courtesy of our club President Ed Vincent who is having some difficulty posting and asked me to post this.

Congratulations to our newest R/C pilot Jim Aultman. Excellent touch & go's and
the same for his landing. Jim displayed excellent control in the air during
his solo flight. He went on to make 2 additional great flights. Then on his
3rd solo flight of the day his engine died and suffered some very minor nose wheel  damage with
the dead stick landing. All in all a great day for our newest R/C pilot.
Thanks,
Ed Vincent



 I was fortunate enough to be there at the field and got to witness a flawless solo flight being performed by a very competent new RC pilot Jim Aultman. Quite an impressive and astounding performance all day long with his flying too I would like to add.

Here are some pictures with Ed and Jim from after Jim's successful solo RC flight. I think the ear to ear smiling grin says it all.
Thanks,
Mark J. Sullivan

Now if he can just get his knees to stop knocking!!!.....HA!

Interesting Day at the Field

Interesting day at the field today. After rebuilding the vertical tailfin, and several other repairs on the Denver Nuggets Stinger, I again tried a test flight...way tail heavy and after a couple of minutes of hair raising flight was able to get the thing down intact. Dennis was there for that crazy flight. After a few flights on my Tiger 60, Ed and Jim came by Jim had steering problems with his trainer, and did not fly. Ed was going to do an engine run-up, and taxi test on hid F4U Corsair, but had fuel problems. I let Ed fly my Tiger 60, and after a few minutes of flight, he said that the aileron stick was sticking when he went to full left. I told him that I had not had that problem before. Then he said that he lost all aileron. He throttled back and realized that he had rudder, elevator, and throttle, but little or no aileron. After a couple of minutes of nearly out of control flight, he was able to land safely on the runway using only rudder and elevator! Wow what a great effort. I thought that plane was going down. Hats off to Ed for that feat. After he got it down, I looked at the transmitter, and where the stick screws into the gimbal, it had broken into 4 pieces causing the aileron not to work...never saw that one before. All in all it was amazing to bring home both airplanes intact. What a day!

As promised....Bill Worthen enjoying a flight....

I was a very fortunate man to be able to witness this great event and I am truly sorry that I was unable to get ahold of everyone ahead of time to join us though however, since it was all done at the very last minute.

Nick Bellino called me last Saturday, April 27th, 2013 in the late afternoon, and asked if I would try to contact Bill Worthen to see about scheduling a flight for him in Nick's RV-8 airplane that afternoon. I got ahold of Bill right away at his home on the telephone, and was able to set it up to have his dear wife Joan drive him out to the Fremont County Airport where Nick hangars his planes at, and then I called Nick right back to let him know that they would be on their way to the airport shortly.Nick and myself both arrived at the hangar roughly the same time and got his RV-8 out to prep for the flight. In the meantime while assisting Nick with his plane, I saw that Cloyce Mann was across the way at the RC club flying,  so I called to let him know about Bill's upcoming flight. He loaded up and headed right over to the hangar to enjoy the time with all of us, and in the meantime Rhett Sharp returned a phone call from earlier that morning when I had called to talk to him about another matter, so I told him what we were about to do, and to see about joining us on a last minute spur of the moment kind of a schedule, and both he and John Dison arrived at the field not long after Nick and Bill were taxiing back in from his flight.

Nick was visiting with Bill and told Bill to let him know where they were going to go for the flight and Bill got that all-too-well known mischievous gleam in his eyes and told Nick "How's about St. Louis?".We all got a great big chuckle out of that one and then of course Bill decides that he'd like to go fly around by the Pueblo Reservoir, which Nick then let Bill know that that was doable, and it would take them about 8 minutes of flight time to arrive over the reservoir after take-off. That kind of puts air travel in a different perspective now doesn't it?

Helping Bill into the plane was Nick, Cloyce and myself, and all of us helping to get things situated for Bill. As they taxiied out for the flight, Joan, Cloyce and myself could listen in on Nicks air traffic receiver radio in the hangar for any air traffic around the area of the airport, and we also got to listen in as Nick and another local pilot were flying around over the lake, in their own planes, while they discussed the fishing prospects down below them on the water with each other over their radios.

Prior to everyone else's arrival I had mentioned to Nick that Bill spoke often of how much he truly enjoyed going up flying with Nick in the past, and also how he fondly recalled how thrilled he was to enjoy the low altitude and high speed pass just off of the runway at the airport, so during this flight after they flew back from the Pueblo and Pueblo West area, Nick came barreling down the airfield area full throttle, low and fast down the field for Bill to enjoy. Especially for me that was a great thing to be able to see them doing that too.

Bill was grinning ear to ear with a HUGE smile and shaky legs after taxiing back to the hangar and climbing out of the plane, and we all got to visit with him and Joan for a good while afterwards.

Once Bill and Joan left to head back home to rest up some, John Dison got to go up flying with Nick that same evening also. Nick put that sport plane through it's paces in a very nice and quick manner with John on board, and I could almost see the giant smile on John's face while they were several thousand feet up zooming around the sky from my vantage point on the ground at the hangar.

I want to take this time to sincerely thank Nick Bellino, on behalf of all of the other Fremont County Radio Control Club members in giving Bill Worthen Sr. that wonderful flight, that he was able to enjoy so very much.

As I had promised several days earlier, here are some pictures for everyone to enjoy viewing of that most wonderful day that I truly enjoyed being a small part of, and I will cherish this fun time forever.

Flight prep.

Getting situated.

Time to load up!!!

 This is my personal favorite picture of all of them!

Nick Bellino and Cloyce Mann during final preparations.

About ready to taxi out for the flight.

Nice full flaps shot here.

Back at the hangar safe and sound!

Cloyce Mann and Joan Worthen in the hangar watching Bill Worthen and Nick Bellino taxiing back after the great flight .

Taxiing back in after the flight was over.