District XI - 2015/06
Raffle at the North West Model Hobby Expo
Now for the rest of the story, as radio broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say. At the District XI meeting at the North West Model Hobby Expo, a Spektrum DX9 was raffled off to the attending members. The winner was Colton Siebol of the Yakima Valley Aeromodelers in Washington. He plans to put this radio to good use this summer!
Club visit — Control Line (CL)
This month I was inspired by my early days in aeromodeling—which started in the late 1950s—to look into Control Line (CL) and Free Flight (FF). I visited the Northwest Skyraiders club meeting at the Denny’s restaurant in Kent, Washington.
The Skyraiders fly at the south end of the Auburn Municipal Airport. Michael Potter, the club president, extended the invitation to me while at the 2015 Northwest Aviation Conference & Trade Show. To my surprise, I recognized several members from other clubs, and secretary/treasurer Peter Ferguson was an International Miniature Aerobatic Club (IMAC) flying buddy from 20 years ago. It was nice to run into old friends. Stop by other clubs’ fields and meetings to see who’s there and what they are up to. I’m looking forward to getting to the Skyraiders flying site to check out the CL flying.
Free Flight (FF) memories
From CL, I moved into the FF side of modeling. This is where I first learned about the four forces that work on airplanes in flight:
- Thrust
- Drag
- Lift
- Gravity
It was the balance of these—with the help of the fifth force, my paper route money—that kept my models flying.
Willamette Modelers indoor meet
The Willamette Modelers Club held its last indoor FF meet of the season on March 28–29, 2015, at the South Albany High School gym in Oregon. Bob Stalick was the contest director, with assistance from Willamette President Glen Grell and many volunteer timers.
Classes flown included:
- Peanut and Pistachio Scale
- Ornithopters
- Pennyplanes
- MiniStick
- Bostonian
- A-6
The challenge of indoor FF is great, but its reward is also great. The A-6 event was designed as an entry class for lightweight duration flying; the minimum weight is 1.2 grams for a 30-square-inch wing.
Closing
Fill the fuel tanks, charge the batteries, and wind up the rubber motors because it’s flying season again! Let’s make it a good one. See you at the flying field.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
