Safety Comes First-2007/12

112 MODEL AVIATION
Safety Comes First Dave Gee | [email protected]
A couple of Dave’s pet peeves
Also included in this column:
• Club impound, frequency
control, and 2.4 GHz radio
systems
• Update on the “royalty”
situation
• The case for pinning hinges
A wooden pin through the elevator hinge makes it much stronger than glue alone. This is
a trick from the good, old days!
The opposite of safety: a room full of Cub Scouts armed with
hand-launch gliders. A model-flight demo session culminates in
this mass launch.
Ralph Gee (Dave’s dad), with an FF Indoor Bostonian Rubber
model, is a great craftsman and mentor.
PET PEEVES? Yeah, I’ve got some.
Topping the list lately is the spam E-mail I
get about various modeling products or
Web sites. Some unscrupulous promoters
apparently use a program that collects Email
addresses from online aeromodeling
sources for the purpose of sending
unsolicited junk E-mail.
Some are from overseas companies that
need to hire proofreaders. Other spammers
are local, and when I contact them they
sometimes claim to know nothing about
their own underhanded marketing scams. I
have several E-mail addresses that have
been hit after I used them to post online.
No product is worth spamming people,
and I will not patronize or publicize a
company with such a low standard of
ethics. What if their merchandise is as bad
as their manners?
Make no mistake; I welcome legitimate
contacts about safety-related items, and
even mass mailings if they are from a
source where I have signed up for bulletins
and such. MA readers know that such
messages often end up with a free plug for
a good product in this column! These
companies work aboveboard, and I am
happy to write about them since many of us
are interested in the latest neato stuff.
Another pet peeve is that my readers are
so much wiser and more experienced than I
am. This gets rubbed in on a regular basis,
most recently in response to Bill Biglow’s
request for advice about frequency control
at his local field, which now has 2.4 GHz
radios as well as standard, old-fashioned
frequencies. I received some thoughtful
responses.
Scott Rhoades is the newsletter editor
for the Holly Cloud Hoppers (which I think
is a great name for a model club!). He
wrote:
“We use the take-a-pin method and have
a generous impound area at the frequency
board. The rule has been that all
transmitters at the field must be impounded
when not in use.
“To remove a transmitter from impound
the corresponding frequency pin must be
attached to the transmitter, then a club
membership card must be placed in the
matching slot. When done flying you put
the transmitter back in the impound,
remove your membership card and replace
the pin in the board.
“Before flying season ever started it was
unanimously decided that 2.4 GHz (or any
new frequency) would not be exempt from
this procedure and 2.4 GHz pins would be
added to the frequency board. As for the
number of pins we made available, we have
four pilot stations so we added four pins.
“Our bylaws have not changed because
the wording still applies. We just informed
the membership that 2.4 GHz is not exempt
from frequency control and impounding.
“This still allows us to see if a member
is in good standing by checking that they
have the current year’s membership card
when they pull a pin. We may change as
this new technology becomes the rule
instead of the exception at our field, but in
the mean time we still have continuity in
our frequency management system.
“Our system was not always this good.
For years we used what could be called the
add-a-pin method, where a flyer adds a
marker of some sort to indicate what
frequency they are using. Under this system
we experienced many frequency mishaps.
“About four years ago we switched to
the take-a-pin method and those mishaps
virtually disappeared. Our members have
been very diligent with frequency control.
The virtue of this system is the ability for
all members to look at a transmitter that’s
not in the impound and instantly see if it
has that bright yellow tag and conforming
with frequency control.
“I’ve witnessed several instances where
a modeler was politely reminded by
another; they needed to ‘get the pin.’
Couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how
many crashes were averted because another
set of eyes recognized a problem and acted.
“By requiring all systems to follow the
same guidelines of frequency control, we
keep the continuity. We don’t want a flyer
getting accustomed to not pulling a pin
because he’s using a ‘non-controlled
system’ then go get his 72 MHz plane and
forget he needs to conform to frequency
control.
“This very scenario just happened to a
fellow on one of the Internet message
boards. He lost his 30% plane because
another flyer that had been flying on 2.4
switched planes!”
It sounds like Scott’s club has the
situation well in hand. The Sky Squires R/C
Model Airplane Club (another great name!)
decided on a different approach that seems
to work well for its members. Club
President Darrell W. Honey wrote:
“When the Spektrum systems arrived on
the scene our Club Safety Officer Mr. Jim
Tucker immediately constructed another
pin board and placed it beside our regular
board on the wall of our shelter. This new
smaller board has letters instead of
numbers.
“I have the new Futaba 2.4GHz FASST
system which I consider to be my best RC
purchase of all time. When I arrive at the
field I simply fasten my AMA card to the
new board (any letter), make sure there is
room in the sky for me and start flying.
“The 27MHz planes are usually smaller
models and we either make time for them
or they wait for a lull in the action. So far
we all get along and have not had any
problems.”
In contrast to the preceding I have an
update on a matter in which we are not
getting along and we are having problems.
Scale-model enthusiasts may be aware
of Lockheed’s and Cessna’s (parent
company Textron) legal actions to demand
royalties for the use of their aircraft designs
by model-airplane kit makers. This has
resulted in new kits being canceled or
discontinued because the payments would
make the products economically unfeasible
in a hobby industry in which profits are
modest at best.
Apparently a law firm has contracted
with Textron to dust off some historically
unenforced copyright rules and extend them
to aircraft that have been long out of
production or that the government
originally paid for with tax dollars. Until
recently most aviation firms regarded
models of their products as desirable free
advertising and goodwill builders. They
gave various levels of encouragement to
anyone who would make or market such
models.
Now the situation is different, and
lawyers are looking harshly at our miniature
flying machines. Their arguments ring
hollow to me and many other AMA
members, who have begun a campaign of
letters and Internet postings against this
royalty scam.
I have heard from a bunch of readers
who tell of a similar program against
model-railroad suppliers that buckled and
paid steep fees for using certain logos on
their products. Evidently some sort of
settlement was eventually made on more
sensible terms, thanks to one stubborn
business owner who was willing to respond
in court. Common sense was on the side of
the railfans, and a jury would quite possibly
have agreed.
I have made my feelings known to the
aircraft companies and I encourage you to
do likewise. Their position would make
them look bad to their customers and the
public if word got out that they were
persecuting model-airplane hobbyists this
way after benefiting from aeromodeling
for so many years.
I found that the train hobbyists have a
powerful propaganda organization, and
their literature uses the slogan “World’s
Greatest Hobby.” I urge the AMA
leadership to immediately lay claim to the
phrase “World’s Second Greatest Hobby”
before it is too late. Without swift action
we could find ourselves somewhere down
the list behind ice sculpting and amateur
dentistry.
Jim Newman E-mailed me about “hinge
pinning,” which he worries may be going
out of fashion. He wrote:
“After making properly sized hinge
slots, each hinge should be ‘pinned’ by
drilling through the trailing edge spar and
through each hinge blade, then gluing and
driving in tight fitting, small diameter
dowels or toothpicks.
“Am I the only one who still carries on
this practice? My regular flat hinges have
two such dowels pinning each blade. I
will not take the risk of hinges separating
from control surfaces nor flying surfaces
because the glue joint failed while in
flight. I want a reliable mechanical
fastening in addition to the glue.
“I hide the toothpicks under the ironon
by first covering the trailing edge spar
and leading edge of the control surface
with a narrow strip of covering film. Then
I insert the toothpicks until they are flush,
after which the balance of the film can be
applied over the fastenings. Of course, if
you are painting the model there is no
problem with hiding the dowels.
“The wisdom of pinning was really
brought home when I retired a molded
foam model, then attempted to retrieve
useful small parts such as hinges. It was
quite a battle to pare away glue and foam
from around the toothpicks and pins. It
really proved that there was no way that
hinges would separate from the wings or
tail without first destroying the whole
model.”
Jim has a point, although my models
never seem to live long enough to have
parts salvaged peacefully at home. More
often the hinges are recovered after a
sudden and unplanned event at the field
that renders the model permanently
unserviceable.
Using dowels or wire to double-secure
a plastic hinge is an old CL trick from the
days when such models first started
getting really wrung out. Then, as now,
slipping hinges could turn crisp
aerobatics into spring plowing, so it pays
to make ’em extra strong.
Certain construction methods and
materials do not allow pinning, but if you
have the option I advise you to add the
extra piece. If this idea is new to you,
look at the photograph of a pinned hinge
and the simple tools it requires. Sand it
flush with the surface and you’re
finished.
No, I do not usually work on an
elegant velvet surface such as the one
shown. Would you believe I was wearing
my tuxedo at the workbench that
evening? Didn’t think so.
Don’t forget that in addition to E-mail I
encourage actual paper letters like those
written in days of yore. Send ’em to me at
Box 7081, Van Nuys CA 91409, and
please include near-miss stories, safetyrelated
photos, and topic suggestions. MA