District X Report - 2005/04
Arizona / California / Hawai'i / Guam / Nevada / Utah
Contact
Richard Hanson Vice President
PO Box 3312 Scottsdale, AZ 85271 Voice/Fax: (888) 899-3548 E-mail: [email protected] District X Web site: www.ama10.org
Associate Vice Presidents
- Darwin Barrie — Scottsdale, AZ (480) 946-8955
- Don Goeschl — Lancaster, CA (661) 940-6066
- Don Guilhur — Santee, CA (619) 449-8397
- Marc Karpowich — Logan, UT (435) 752-3639
- Dave Pinjuv — Las Vegas, NV (702) 656-1772
Frequency Coordinators
- Eloy Marez — Santa Ana, CA (714) 540-4935
(See last month's column for additional AVPs and Coordinators.)
In-Flight Incident — Frank Murray
From Frank Murray comes a report about a most unusual incident.
Greetings from what is now the frozen northlands of Nevada. I’m a member and the safety officer of the Sierra Sagebrush Flyers, an AMA-sanctioned club in Gardnerville, Nevada. I have a most unusual tale to tell of an in-flight incident that occurred last fall.
I was flying my Tower Hobbies .60-size Uproar, powered with an O.S. .91. This airplane has been flown many times with a .60 and the .91. On the incident flight, I was doing a "split S" at roughly half throttle when I experienced a phenomenon known as "flutter." The entire tail section disintegrated and separated from the airplane at approximately 100 feet above ground level. The photo shows a few pieces of the tail feathers that floated down.
The airplane somehow recovered to level flight—albeit inverted. Had I rolled the airplane upright, it most likely would have tucked and the rest would have been history. I regained control of the aircraft and flew it inverted a while using power to control pitch.
A fellow club member, Bob Heitkamp, offered to help and made the landing. Bob is a much better stick-and-rudder man. Amazingly, he managed to land the Uproar on the runway.
The damage to the Uproar was confined to the lost tail feathers, a few scrapes on the top of the wingtips, and the glow plug was worn off on the inverted landing. The engine mount was also broken beyond further use and a bit of the top wing Monokote was split. Other than that it survived to fly another day—a flight to remember!
West Valley Helicopter Club — Scott Toomey
Scott Toomey ([email protected]), president of the West Valley Helicopter Club, sent in the following update on the status of the club in Peoria, Arizona.
We formed our club in September 2003 with only three members. Now in 2005, we are at 11 members and almost 17 helicopters. We fly mainly Thunder Tiger Raptor 30s and 50s, but we do have one Excel gasser. We filmed a commercial for the "Big Boys and their Toys" show in 2004 and got the chance to see Jason Krause fly.
Unfortunately, we just lost our field in Peoria. (The club photo was taken the day we vacated the flying site.) Nevertheless, we do have a sector of State Trust Land in the works. It’s roughly 1,000 acres and is on the northeast corner of Bell Road and El Mirage, in Sun City, Arizona.
On behalf of the members of the West Valley Helicopter Club, I’d like to invite everyone to come out and join us, learn to fly, or just watch and enjoy the day. We’re planning a fun-fly as soon as our use permit for the new site arrives.
Fly safe.
Orange Coast RC Club Christmas Party (December 12, 2004)
December 12, 2004: Santa came early this year and was spotted at the Orange Coast RC Club’s (OCRCC) annual Christmas party. Santa’s helper, Betty Bliss, helped pass out goodies to all the good little and not-so-little OCRCC boys and girls. Larry Wolfe and John Elliot were two of the more than 60 OCRCC members who enjoyed the marvelous Christmas meal, thanks in large part to the efforts and hard work of Joni Whitsitt.
Club president Fred Brown and his wife Jackie were gracious hosts for the annual OCRCC get-together. Later in the evening Fred presented District X Vice President Rich Hanson with the annual Harry Apoian Memorial Award for his contributions to the hobby. It was the "Year of the Chicken." An OCRCC tradition of passing on a chicken during the gift exchange at the annual Christmas party has now grown from one to nine chickens.
Till next time... Keep 'em safe and keep 'em fly'n.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
