Safety Comes First
Dave Gee | [email protected]
Inflatable flying field?
There is good news at last for those of us who don't have a spacious flying field nearby.
Phil Flayter is an RC pilot who also owns a "Jolly Bounce" company. He designs and makes those big, air-filled structures that kids love to jump on. Phil turned his talents to the flying-field crisis. After some false starts that almost deflated his plans, he has leaked the news of a true revolution in real estate.
Imagine that you live in a congested urban neighborhood. Streets and buildings leave no space to fly models. Now a pickup truck arrives and unloads a large roll of rubberized fabric. Plug in the big fan and start blowing the thing up. As it unfolds, you can see printed plastic turf inside.
Soon there is 600 feet of inflated flying field, complete with taxiways and a pit area! As long as the fan is plugged in, you have a model airport, and I'm not just blowing hot air.
Of course there are some differences from a conventional "dirt" field. If a hobby knife falls out of your toolbox, the blow-up field will make a giant "ttthhhppppttt" sound and deflate around you.
Phil is working on a deluxe model with a run-up bench and inflatable toilet. He asked me to wish you all a happy April Fools' Day.
Also included in this column:
- New RC helicopter training manual
- Neat stuff at AMA Expo 2011
- Robin Hambley gets a write-up
Photo skills, soldering jigs and Expo finds
Something that is no joke is my lack of photographic skill. I apologize for the poor visual composition in the three pictures this month, but the items in them are exciting—even if my camera technique is not.
The AMA Expo 2011 in Ontario, California, was a great success, and I found plenty of safety-related stuff to share. First is the dynamic action shot of two soldering fixtures. If you've ever struggled simultaneously with a hot iron, tangled wires, and a connector pin that dives for the floor whenever you get ready to hit it with solder, these gadgets are for you.
The Jigs Up holds your RC bullet connectors in place so you can make nice solder joints. Not bad! You can use it for almost any type of connector. Think of all the burned fingers that will be saved and all the solder-joint failures that will never happen because of this gizmo.
IRCHA pit-crew training manual
The next photo shows the International Radio Controlled Helicopter Association (IRCHA) booth with a smiling Craig Bradley proudly displaying a little booklet. Big deal? Yeah, it is!
Craig told me that Dave Millner (IRCHA president) and Charles Anderson (IRCHA vice president) wrote a Pit Crew Training Manual to fill an information gap in the model helicopter world. It is an RC helicopter flight manual that answers questions you want to ask but don't out of fear of looking ignorant. I saw sections covering rotary-wing theory, terms and jargon, setting up a helicopter, and a guide to safely pitting and flying a rotary-winged flying machine.
This handy little volume will be available on the IRCHA website. The authors did a great service by putting all of this information in one place.
Lipo Safe Roll battery bag
Also pictured is Bruce Sund of the Common Sense RC booth. He showed me the company's clever new battery-charging bag called the Lipo Safe Roll.
It has eight separate compartments to hold battery packs as they charge or cycle. It is made from a material that will contain any disasters that occur during the process. When flying is finished, the Lipo Safe Roll folds into a small package or it can be used to hold batteries during transport and storage.
Reports of problems with Li-Poly batteries have become much less frequent. That's good news! I suspect this is partly because we are gaining experience with the batteries and special chargers, and also because fire-resistant charging containers are more commonly in use. Please consider getting some type of containment for your packs. Don't tempt fate!
Expo build: Herr Taylorcraft
I usually spend some time at the AMA Expo building a model from start to finish in my club's booth. The Black Sheep Squadron is a general-interest group in which members fly all types of model aircraft, but at the Expo we mainly display and demonstrate indoor free-flight airplanes.
A friend suggested that I try a foamie build with rectangular outlines and a glue gun for speedy construction. Ick! There are rows of foam models in the exhibition hall, and although I realize that this is a big segment of our hobby right now, speedy ARF work is not what I wanted to show.
I'm a stodgy old-timer, and my hobby enjoyment comes from building model airplanes from balsa wood and then flying them. I chose a Herr kit of a Taylorcraft monoplane with an 18-inch wingspan. Yes, it has laser-cut pieces, but who wants to cut out all those little notches anyway?
I use CA glue and accelerator (in a needle-drip bottle), so it was no trick to complete the airplane during a busy Expo weekend. A glue stick attaches the tissue as well as old-fashioned dope ever did, but without the odor.
Herr produces a fine, complete kit with top-notch materials and clear documentation. Against all odds (considering my moderate skill level), the little cabin model flew "off the board" Sunday afternoon, with a stable flight across the room and a gentle landing.
A disquieting percentage of Expo attendees have never seen balsa sticks glued together into the form of an aircraft, and I mean to encourage the practice. Some people say, "I don't have the patience for that." I respond that it requires no patience and that the process itself is relaxing and enjoyable—similar to doing a crossword puzzle or knitting. I am often mildly disappointed when the construction of a model is complete.
There are always some wags who come around hoping to see the safety columnist get cut with his razor blade or poked with a pin. This year I obliged them by thoroughly gluing myself to the half-finished fuselage while chatting with onlookers. Anything to please the crowd.
This foam thing may be a passing fad, as were RC and electric power. One day we might be back to making and flying model airplanes as nature intended.
If you disagree with me or have better information on any subject, please contact me via e-mail or paper letter. Close-call stories make great training aids for other modelers, and I can keep the culprits' names confidential if preferred.
My favorite instructor: Robin Hambley
I had a chat with my pal Kurt Young. He suggested a little write-up called "My Favorite Instructor." Kurt reminisced about his longtime friend, Robin Hambley.
Robin owns a small family hobby shop in Glendale, California. The two met in 1984, when Kurt stopped by the shop with his 13-year-old son. Robin sold them a pair of radios and agreed to include flight instruction in the deal. This began a lifelong friendship between the two men.
A full-scale pilot and aircraft owner, Kurt is no dummy, and he knew that he would need proper training to operate a model airplane. Robin turned out to be a fine choice of instructor because of his experience and patience.
The 13-year-old soloed in six weeks, but Kurt took closer to six months. He noted that Robin used to threaten to cut his throttle when he shied away from landing! Robin eventually molded Kurt into a competent and cautious RC pilot, comfortable with right- and left-hand patterns, tricycle gear, and tail-draggers, with the ability to handle in-flight emergencies as well as safely pit his aircraft.
An instructor such as Robin is a great asset for our hobby. Not everyone has the patience and talent to give such thorough flight training. There is no shortage of RC pilots who are still developing, but as for fully capable and well-trained fliers, the more the better!
Robin is the kind of pilot who is asked to perform first flights on new and repaired models. If the machine is flawed, he can usually get it back on the ground safely. Kurt said that he once saw Robin accidentally fly (and land) an airplane with reversed ailerons, proving that even an expert can skip a step in the preflight inspection.
Kurt had many great RC adventure stories that he and Robin have shared throughout the years, including float-flying from Lake Havasu, Arizona, and visiting distant fields on road trips to try a different runway.
My favorite tale was one that Kurt said took place a few years ago. He and Robin were standing together as Kurt flew his trusty old Kadet Senior. The moon had risen and was low in the eastern sky. Robin said, "Go ahead and loop it," and Kurt did. With Robin's help, he looped the moon! NASA, eat your heart out.
Sources
- Dave Gee
Box 7081 Van Nuys, CA 91409
- Herr Engineering
(800) 247-5008 www.iflyherr.com
- International Radio Controlled Helicopter Association
- Common Sense RC
(866) 405-8811 www.CommonSenseRC.com
- The Jigs Up
- Needle-cap bottles: A2Z Corp
(877) 754-7465 www.a2zcorp.us/store
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
