Next meeting: Tuesday the 18^th of March 2003. Time: 7:30 P.m.

Vice President: Red Jensen (707) 585-3170

Secretary: Larry Miller (707) 577-0496

Treasurer: Tom Haddorff (707) 526-7058

Member @ Large John Reade (707) 545-9831

A WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS

New members this month include:
Bob and Alec Sherrill, a father son team

FIELD HAPPENINGS

Submitted by Phil Leech

One of the more interesting planes to show up at the field this past month has been Tom Haddorff’s "Pheasant". Tom scratch built the "pheasant" with the idea that it would be about the same size as a real pheasant. The wing is more or less conventional balsa ribs, spars, etc covered with silkspan but Tom added some wooden feathers at the wing tips. The plane has some real "tailfeathers" that Tom brought back from a recent hunting trip. He fitted some servos for basic control to the plane and then mounted on top of his Kadet trainer that had a release mechanism to launch the pheasant from altitude. Unfortunately, the pheasant didn’t fly/glide very well and has gone to Model Heaven. Don’t know if Doug Boucher plans to have a category for this years’ Fly-in for "Most Unusual Airplane" but Tom’s "Pheasant" would sure qualify. Maybe Tom will pursue his project to improve the aerodynamics a little bit.

Dale Chiaroni brought his resurrected Midwest Models North American T-6 to the field recently. Dale originally built the model about 10 years ago and had dusted the plane off and added a new radio as well as making repairs from a crash a decade ago. The model was painted yellow with stars and bars and was equipped with eight servos and retracts. After a squirrelly taxi and takeoff the model went aileron crazy and did some amazing aerobatics before making the final plunge into the "Jungle" at the north end of the runway. I joined Dale in the search for the plane among much fresh spring Poison Oak. Dale reminded me to "keep a lookout for snakes, Phil, I never feel comfortable down here you know". Oh, great! We finally located the plane in the top of an ancient Oak tree. Dale commented, " I ain’t going to try to climb that one, are you?" "Well, I guess not", I replied. Later, in the relative civilization of our astro-turfed field Jeff Kowell arrived. Turns out that Jeff climbs trees for a living and after calling for his climbing boots to be delivered to the field he successfully recovered the T-6. Trouble is that there wasn’t enough left of the T-6 for Dale to want to stay with it. This story isn’t over yet because this T-6 ain’t dead yet!

And Art Sutter came to the field with yet another new plane. This time it is a Great Planes Ryan ST or is it an STA? Art doesn’t know and he doesn’t care either because it is a great looking plane and it flies great! Powered with a new Saito 100 and test flown by Steve Cole, Art flew the new bird ‘til he and his dad (how old is your dad Art?) had to leave for lunch.

General Meeting Minutes

The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM by President Steve Cole with 18 members present.

The door prize, a gallon of fuel, was won by Phil Leech.

For "New Members and Guests" Bob and Alec Sherrill, a father/son team, were introduced. They have been training at the field and we know we will see much more of them this season. Welcome to the Club!

TREASURERS REPORT

Tom Haddorff had just returned from vacation hunting pheasant in South Dakota and he told us that we currently have 73 renewed members but that he picked up the mail today and he has 12 more to process bringing us to 85.

OLD BUSINESS

Sid Maxwell wondered if there should be a name for the Newsletter. Actually the traditional name of the Newsletter has been "The Wine Country Flier" but the recent copies haven’t included the name on the masthead. Something for the Newsletter editors to work out?

Gil DeLagnes gave us a report on the status of the Float Site on East Side Road. Apparently the County now owns the site having purchased it from Hansen Aggregates. Chuck Green is the guy that has the best insight to what has happened but Chuck won’t be back from a winter in Arizona until April or so. Gil and Jeff Costa have both had conversations with people at the County it seems that we are to be able to use the site until further notice but the access at the main gate is murky because they have changed the lock. Guess we’ll have to wait for Chuck’s return for more info.

NEW BUSINESS

There was no New Business introduced.

NAME THE PLANE CONTEST

There wasn’t a specific plane for this month but Robbie had asked, "What is the name of the first person to be killed in an aircraft accident and who was the pilot?" The answer was a Lt. Selfridge who was the victim with Orville Wright at the controls of an early Wright Flyer at Ft Meyers, VA in 1908. We had three participants with the correct answer; Kevin Riecke, Phil Leech and Tom Haddorff. The draw was won by Tom Haddorff who received a paper airplane book?

THE RAFFLE

The half cash ($48) was won by Gary Child….didn’t he win last month too?

Other winners were Syd Maxwell for a Battery Cycler and J.T. Williams for two electric flyers. Lou Winnard was the final winner for a pair of "Z" bend pliers.

Gary Child has been selecting the prizes each month and he has come up with some good ones.

SHOW AND TELL

Kevin Riecke brought a TopFlite FW 109 D9 "Dora" that he has been building for over 2 years. The plane is fitted with a YS 91 and Century Jet retracts. Kevin has had an interest in WW II planes for a long time and has followed the history of JG 26 and its many pilots. He has visited crash sites in Europe and brought with him remains of a BMW engine that once powered a FW 190. It looks like this is the season to fly his FW 190 and we’ll try to keep you posted because Kevin is just about ready to commit the plane to flight!

Gil Delagnes brought his Astro Hog powered by a K&B 61. Gil built the plane in 1992 and he has documented over 342 flights. He figures that he has run almost 22 gallons of fuel through that 61! The plane is fitted with Goldberg floats and Gil has flown the plane from a boat. He told us that the CG needs to be parallel with the "step" on the floats.

Syd Maxwell brought a combat plane called a "FunBat". The plane has a 37" wingspan, is powered by a .15 Magnum engine and the kit only cost $25. Anyone interested in

Combat? Syd would sure like someone to fly combat with. Must be a lot of fun.

REFRESHMENTS

The first order of business was a call from the president for a report from the various committees. The field maintenance chairman reported that the field was in great shape and nothing was needed to be done at this time. John issued a reminder for everyone to please pick up any trash you might see laying around. A work party will be scheduled for later in the spring just before our first event of the year unless one is needed sooner.

Rob is working on getting a new frequency board since ours is pretty well worn out.

The newsletter and website committee reported that things are coming along nicely. Stevo stated that he needed a little more help from the previous website manager but he was learning quickly. This is no easy job. He also reported that the newsletter was going fine but he sure could use some input from the members in the form of articles to publish and also pictures.

The events committee, with the help of the board, set up specific dates for the upcoming events for the year. These will be published soon. Also, a $200 deposit was made to Cattleman's for this years Christmas party.

The budget and finance committee chairman reported that he needs the event directors to submit to him their proposed budgets for their particular events so that he can plan for the year. He also reported that he is working on getting the by-laws printed up so a copy can be mailed to all members.

The secretary reported that he has received the 2003 charter packet from the AMA and will be working on getting that filled out and mailed back as soon as possible.

There being no more business, the meeting was adjourned at 9 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Larry Miller, Secretary WCF

The following is a list of guys that are currently in flight training and haven’t soloed yet.

Let us know if we missed anybody.

Lou Winnard

Ollie Burns

Stuart Dobbie

Bilal Maqsoud

Alec Sherrill

Robert Sherrill

Show us your work space. I’ve been thinking about building a page on the WCF site to showcase our workspaces. It don’t have to be tidy and neat, just share with us man. You might get a good idea from someone else. Include yourself in the pic if you can.

That’s all I got this month so check out the pics.

First we have an entry from Kevin Riecke. He tells us a little about it.

"This is my finished Top Flite FW-190D9. The project took 2 years of on again off again building. The plane is scaled after W.Nr. 210972 piloted by Fw. Gerhard Muller-Berneck of 5/jg 26 (II Gruppe) 5 may 1945 based in Lister Norway. The plane was surrendered intact to American forces at the end of

Wow Kevin Sprecken Ze Dutch?, nice job!

Check out Doug Boucher’s Edge 540T #2 from Aeroworks . Doug says,
"Under advice from those who know, I have installed a YS 91 4 cycle. This engine has much more power and turns a 14X10 propeller. Flies as good as the first Edge with much better vertical performance."

Nice ride Doug!

Who is this guy? Oh wait, that’s little old me, sTevo. This is the Venus 40 I wrote about a few months back. It has turned out to be a great flying plane and I am really having a ball with it. I had Mike Cingari and Rob Jensen fly it and they both had good things to say about it. It was pretty cool watching them put it through it’s real potential. I am working on my aerobatics and it is nice to finally have a plane to do them with. The only trouble I am having is trying to get the engine dialed in (O.S. 46fx) but other than that it is a cool little plane. My first ARF and I don’t’ think it will be my last. I still like to build them but when I don’t have the time this is the way to go.

I do apologize for the pictures being so small but this is to keep the total size of the newsletter as small as possible for those who receive this in the email version. Like I mentioned earlier, these and many more pics will make it to the website as soon as I can make the time.

Unfortunately the file is getting a little bigger than usual so I have to stop here with the pictures. We want to thank all who sent in pics and really appreciate the help. Thanks to Kevin and Doug for their submissions. Steve Cole sent some great pics also but It is difficult to keep the newsletter at a manageable size

when we include more than two or three pictures, but if they don’t

make it here they will next time and be published on the web which is pretty cool too as then the whole world can see em.

That’s it from me. Y’all have a good one and happy landings. Keep those emails coming in.

STevo

Timely Tips

Submitted by Sid Maxwell

think it's a mess. get a bottle of "debonder ", put a little on a paper towel and rub the glue right off. wipe it clean and you're brand new again.

Then if there is glue all over your fingers and it won't wash off don't wait for it to wear off. get a "pumice stone" from your hobby shop or the hardware store and you can wash

and rub it right off with soap and water in seconds.

Submitted by Sid Maxwell

How would you like to fly some combat without too much expense?

If you use a 1/12 size fun bat, battle floyd, wild thing, zaggi or build your own from scratch, it can be done.

I displayed a fun bat at the February meeting.

The plane kit sells for $25 . add 3 micro servos, a 1/2 roll of covering , a 15 size engine and you are ready

to fly........add a streamer and you are ready for combat.

We could have some combat contest during the year flying 4 or 5 rounds in each contest. five minutes rounds

scoring points as you go thru each round with the winner receiving a plaque or trophy. or if you want to

fly for the fun of it, that's ok too. The fun really begins when you have 5 or 6 combat planes in each round.

so if you want to join the fun let me know.

You can reach me at :

sid maxwell

584 racquet club circle

rohnert park,ca. 94928

(707)584-4428

(530)832-4548