April 2016 Club Meeting Recap

Chuck started the meeting
Membership is about 340 members.

We recently lost Terry Strunk and Wallace Henrie, both PVMAC members, Fellow RC Pilots, avid modelers and great well respected guys. (Photo of Wallace Henry with his VQ P-39 Below, Right)

There was an email floating around that said 2 fields had ben visited by the feds, and fines were issued, and one field was closed. Chuck talked to one of the presidents of the club, and he reports that the pilots were issued warnings, but not fines and the field was not closed.

Chuck asked that each member please be registered as a pilot with the FAA, and asked that each member make sure that others are registered at the field. He is afraid that if the feds show up and we have a bunch of pilots not registered, that they could shut us down. There was some discussion over if they have the right to close a field, but were not sure we want to be the first to find out.

Chuck talked about a club he visited in Florida. Where you had to open the gate by disconnect and reconnect electrical wires, which are used to keep out the gatorsand wild boars away from the field.

Chuck Contacted the AMA again to see if they had re-considered their membership new imposing membership year round policy, but they were not getting back to him.
There was a great deal of discussion around this new policy and how the files would police the member at the field.
There were discussions about using solar powered card readers to solve the problem of policing the field and making sure that each member was current.

Another idea was brought for to use Different colored badges for those that renew with the AMA mid year, thus we would only have to check those folks every time they fly. Those numbers would be a lot less. Everyone else would be business as usual.

The contract for the field with the city and army core of engineers has not been renewed yet by the city.

Larry Marsh talked about Weed spraying, which was done last in March and in April they did a touch up.
Road Flags have been replaced, 1300 ft worth.

For Show and Tell

Paul Smith brought in his Lady Alice P-51 by VQ models. That balanced out perfectly. He found that the rudder pushrod was sliding. It is 7lbs total with
It does like to ground loop, but it flies very well for a warbird.

Randy Wilbur brought in his SBD with the pneumatic retracts in and the bomb glued in. But he realized that once he glued the bomb in, he could not get to the screws that secure the servo for the center wing flap is at. He figured out how to work around it with a special latch cover. He had to do some lathe work to get the prop spinner to work with the engine he has. (Photo of Randy at bottom)

John Maxwell brought in his older, but never flown Yak 55 By BH models that he won at an auction at a club. It has a OS 160 pumper, that was built by Steve and Lonny at hobby club USA. It has full digital servos with a glow ignition system. John plans on flying at the Scale Master qualifier at Gilman Springs. It came with a plastic spinner that was replaced with a true turn spinner.
Yak 55 Update: The airplane flew great on it maiden on May 2nd , and John was doing loops and rolls before the flight was over.

Philip Passmore won $15 Larry Marsh won $75
Daniel Miller won $25
Carlos won $25
Bill sheets won $15
Larry Pall won $15
Paul Smith won $50
Joseph won $25
Ted Novak won $15
Steve Bloom Won $25