AN OUTSIDER LOOKING IN

Dear Wine Country Flyers:

I have always been interested in remote control airplanes. Building and flying r/c airplanes is a way for me to escape my everyday life and get away for a few hours. My father, Gary Child, saw my enjoyment in the hobby and he also wanted to get in the sport with me. I do not live with my dad. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah with my mother but I visit my father whenever I can.

This letter is being written to say thanks to Wine Country Flyers and everyone associated with them. I rarely get to fly in Utah, so whenever I am in Santa Rosa with my dad, we always make it up to the field as much as we can. Everyone that I have met that belongs to Wine Country Flyers has been so kind to me and they treat me like a member of the Club. Rob Jensen taught me how to fly my first time ever at the field. He did not have to teach me, but he took time out of his day instead of flying himself to teach me. Robbie and Steve Cole have both been very helpful answering questions that I have concerning the sport. Steve Jensen was talking to me one day about profile planes and offered to give me a set of his old plans. These people did not have to do any of this, but were very generous and kind. Another person that I appreciate is Jeff Costa. He is one of the funniest and friendliest guys in the Club. One of my best memories with Jeff so far is having him invite my dad and me to the float pond and we were able to see his Sea Master fly (and to see Jeff swim).

I am very satisfied with the Club and the way that it is turning out. The improvements that the Club is always making are helping so much. I wish the best for the Club and everyone involved in the sport of remote control flying.

P.S.—This message goes out to "Red." How’s your swamp buggy coming along? Mine turned out awesome! I am so glad that I finished it. There were a lot of trials that I had to overcome in making it run properly, but I finished it and it runs great! It slides into its turns, skips and glides on top of the water, and is just an all-out blast to "fly." Good luck to your swamp buggy, your store and have fun flying.

You have a great Club,

Jon Child

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By Tom Nowelsky

I’m sorry to report that this column will be a little sparse. I just wasn’t able to get to the field as often as I would have liked. I’m sure that many amazing events transpired since the last report, but few of them were witnessed by this reporter, and fewer still were related by the participants and/or witnesses.

I do know that, on Sunday, August 12^th, early arrivals found the field in "zero/zero" conditions. That is zero ceiling and zero visibility. Perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit, but Kevin Riecke, who was the first into the air, reported that upon takeoff, the plane soon disappeared into the fog. It was a matter of simply waiting for it to lose altitude in order to regain control. Sounds rather scary to me.

I, myself managed to damage my current Tiger 2. I was low and slow on a south to north approach. The winds were gusty and across the runway (as usual), and the plane stalled at low altitude. The wind got under the wing and it cart-wheeled just short of the runway. Damage included a gear on the throttle servo, broken firewall, broken wing hold-down plates, and the tongue at the leading edge of the wing was sheared off. Repairs are currently underway.

Leo Shvarzberg experienced one of those "I shoulda stayed in bed" days recently. During the preflight of his Ultimate Biplane, one of the pull/pull cables on the rudder fell off. Larry Childs had his 12v soldering iron handy, so the cable was quickly repaired, the OS .91 was fired up and away Leo went into the air. Part way through the flight, however something did not seem quite right, and upon completing a low pass, it became clear that the right aileron was simply fluttering in the breeze.

Fortunately, the plane was controllable with only one aileron, and a successful landing was accomplished. Inspection revealed that a screw in the wing had come loose and right aileron control was gone. Coincidentally, further inspection found that the muffler had also come loose. One screw was gone, and the muffler was just hanging onto the engine by the other screw. Far be it from me to suggest that Leo had a screw loose. He described the whole incident as a "comedy of errors."

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AUGUST 11 - FAMILY GATHERING

About thirty people (members and their families), were present at my place on August 11 for some good food and some fellowship. Larry Childs marinated a bunch of tri-tip roasts and also grilled some prawns. People brought side dishes and deserts, including a great strawberry shortcake, provided by Doug Boucher and his bride.

A few members brought park flyers, but decided that the many trees in the area, combined with a breezy afternoon, precluded any flights. Too bad.

Some of the families enjoyed the swimming pool, and many just relaxed and had a few beers. All in all, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

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By Larry Miller

The meeting was called to order by Larry Childs. Larry called everyone's attention to the fact that there were refreshments available at the back of the room. There were 31 members present.

There was no treasurer's report as the Treasurer called in sick.

New members and guests were introduced.

The first order of business was the drawing of the door prize. This was a Simple Series kit made by Ace and was won by Steve Cole.

Gary Child reported that the E-mailing of the newsletter was working well even though a few bugs still exist. If you experience any problems in receiving your copy, contact Gary immediately to remedy the situation.

Chuck Green donated a OS Max .10 engine for the raffle.

Tom Nowelsky issued a reminder of the upcoming social event at his home. Chuck Green gave a report on the happenings at the float flying pond. Some work needs to be done there so a work party was set up, headed up by Chuck.

Larry issued a reminder of the smoking ban at the field. This is by order of the County. There are cigarette butts littering the ground up there, an obvious indication that this rule is not being followed. If you insist on smoking, do it in your vehicle and do not throw your butts on the ground, please.

A report was given on the Ukiah Fun Fly held several weeks ago. A number of our members attended and some won some prizes. They also won a prize for the club with the most members attending. There were more Wine Country Flyers there than Ukiah Propbusters.

Next up was the raffle, the first drawing being the 50/50. Joe Kagan was the lucky winner of a tidy sum of cash. Chuck Green won a MDS engine, Tom Nowelsky took home the OS .10, plus many more goodies were handed out to other winners.

Show and Tell was next on the agenda with Larry Childs presenting his Regal Eagle Jet. This aircraft is capable of flying off our field so everyone is looking forward to seeing this one take to the air in the near future.

Reminder: We will be attending the Pacific Coast Air Museum air show with a display of some of our scale models and talking to the public about our hobby. Be sure to come on out (August 18 & 19) and support a wonderful cause and visit our booth.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 PM.

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AUGUST 8, 2001

The upcoming PCAM display was discussed. Plans are coming along great. We have plenty of volunteers to man the booth and we have some real nice scale aircraft and helicopters promised for display.

Tom Nowelsky again reminded people of the upcoming social event at his home.

It was brought up, voted on, and approved to donate $250 to the Pacific Coast Air Museum.

There being no more business to discuss, we adjourned to the parking lot to watch Rob fly his latest park flyer.

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 Tentative Schedule of Events For The Year

August 18-19: Pacific Coast Air Museum Air Show.

September Annual Neil Taylor picnic and fun fly. This is a family event. Free BBQ for club members.

There are also several unscheduled events planned such as social events and pylon racing. The dates for these will be announced when plans are finalized.

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It wasn't really a party but we all had a good time July 28 at the pond. Eight of us gathered at 8:30 to lay the R.R. ties to make steps from the road down to shore, primarily to protect the irrigation system but also to prevent getting hurt carrying airplanes and equipment down the steep bank.

We were done by 11:30 so Jeff Costa, Bill Jones and myself decided to fly. I had my 9 foot Super Cub which takes 45 min. to assemble only to find out I had a failed aileron servo. Jeff had been having trouble keeping his engine running so he got lots of practice with "dead stick" landing, about the third time he ended up in the bushes with some minor damage so called it quits. Bill Jones still put on a good show so everybody enjoyed the flying.

I sure want to thank all who showed up for the hard work they did!! Gil Delagnes, Tom Nowelsky, Bob Film; Jeff Costa; Bill Jones, Joe Olson and Phil Leach. Come on guys lets put some floats on as old hangar queen and go fly.

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THE CIVILIAN

I graduated from high school in the spring of ‘43 as WW II in Europe was beginning to look better but the Pacific Area was still looking grim. My buddy and I joined the Marine Corps and since I had a note on my application about a hobby building model planes I talked my way into aviation from boot camp.

Some training at Memphis Naval Air Station and a stint at Cherry Point said I was ready for the Pacific. I was assigned to VMF 115, MAG 12 [ V=heavier than air, M=marine, F= fighter, squadron 115] The CO was Maj Joe Foss [Joe’s Jokers ] a leading Ace with 26 kills, the majority flying the F4F Grumman.

The squadron now had the new F4U Corsairs built by Chance-Vought. We were deployed at Zamboango, an advanced fighter base in northern Mindanao, Philippine Is. The strip had just been secured by the local guerrilla forces so our resources were limited and our fuel was stored in 50 gal. barrels. A problem had developed with R 2800 radial engines that was peculiar to the island based Corsairs. The engines would intermittently run rough and miss-fire to the point some missions had to be aborted. Maj. Foss asked for help so Pratt&Whitney, a division of Ford Motor Co. sent a technical advisor, a civilian!!

The advisor arrived in a Naval Officers uniform with no insignia or rank. Contaminated fuel was a prime suspect but was soon eliminated. The advisor asked to fly a few missions but he had less than ten hrs. in a Corsair so the CO was reluctant but acceded to his wishes. The next suspect was the ignition system but we had been changing spark plugs by the crates. On one occasion an ignition harness was pulled and there was the problem, small minute cracks allowing the hot humid air and moisture into the harness. Repairs were made and we were at full force again.

After some thirty missions all who came in contact with the civilian had learned to respect his flying ability. We had two models of the Corsair, the F4U and the FG1 built by General Motors, it had a 8 gal. water tank used for take-off or short burst of power. Just move a lever on the throttle quadrant out of the way and a switch would actuate the water pump. The civilian wanted to demonstrate the extra load capability for the FG1 so he had a 2000 lb. bomb hung on the belly rack and a 1000 lb bomb under each wing, an unheard of load for the Corsair. Early morning Sept 13,1944 the whole squadron watched as this civilian lined up on the runway, checked the mags and started his roll. It was more like he pulled the gear from under the plane than a take-off, two white streams of tip vortex curled back a hundred yards as ground effect kept him flying. We all knew if just one of those 36 spark plugs missed a beat he would never clear the palm trees but he made it Maj. Foss and four other Corsairs followed with there 2000 lb. loads all headed for Wotji Is. a Japanese held air field. That strip was never used again. There are no official records of these activities but a search of Gen. Joe Foss’s autobiography at the Arizona Central Library reveals what the news people had to keep secret. The 42 year old civilians name was Charles Augustus Lindbergh.

Next time;,C.A.L. engages the Japanese Air Defense

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Officers 2004:

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Wine Country Flyers
P.O. Box 4198
Santa Rosa, CA. 95402