K-FACTOR
February 2021 Volume 50 Issue 2
Official Publication of the National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics
Mike Harrison readies his Alchemy PRO as Bryan Hebert holds tight at the LARKS contest in Louisiana last year. ~Photo by: Rich Whitlow
January 2021 K-Factor | 1
In This Issue:
2 | K-Factor January 2021
NSRCA Bylaw Amendment
3
F3P Indoor
4
NSRCA Officers
5
Member Article
8
District News Contact Us
9
NSRCA Application
19
18
NSRCA Bylaws
Notice of Proposed Amendment to the NSRCA Bylaws The NSRCA Board of Directors has approved the following proposed amendment to the NSRCA Bylaws. This amendment will be presented to the NSRCA membership for ratification. Article X, Section 1 specifies that “Intended amendments to these bylaws shall be made known, at any time, to the membership via available media.This notice should have provision made for the membership to vote on such amendment. A majority vote of those responding shall be sufficient for passage or non-passage of proposed amendments...”. Voting by the membership for ratification shall be conducted in March, 2021. Please watch for details on the NSRCA web site and in the March KFactor. To be added to ARTICLE X as: Amendment I - NSRCA District Vice President Duties a. District Vice President duties will be as follows: • Promote pattern whenever and however possible • Represent the district at NSRCA board meetings • Identify AVP candidates for appointment by the NSCRA as needed. • Write monthly k-factor article • Coordinate district contest schedule • Update district members on late-breaking pattern/NSRCA news via email or other electronic media • Maintain and update district web site/Facebook page • Administer district championship • Attend as many contests as possible • Engage with members expressing ideas or grievances, and present such to the BoD as appropriate. • Identify district members to serve on committees as needed.
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F3P Indoor
F3P Indoor Aerobatics by Sal Piu The USA F3P / AFM team trials event is currently scheduled for May 8th at the Sparta Dome in Crowne, Indiana from 12 PM to 8 PM local time. No additional info is currently available as I write this article. When additional news does come out, I’ll post in on the Event News page within the Indoor RC Aerobatics section of the NSRCA web site. Covid-19 continues to impact local indoor flying sites, at least for me. I hear some other areas have indoor flying opportunities, which is always a good thing! Enjoy it! For those that don’t have an indoor flying site, there is hope that someday the Covid issue has to be resolved in order for society to resume some kind of normal operations, including indoor RC flying. In the meantime, this may be a great opportunity to review the F3P rules and get yourself certified as an F3P judge! The benefit of being a certified F3P judge is that you will learn specific reasons why pilots loose
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points in a contest, and can make you a pilot a better aerobatic competitor in the process of learning the F3P rules.
NSRCA Officers
Hear from Your NSRCA Officers President
Charlie Barrera 2627 Silver Shadow | Conroe, TX. 77304 936.404.0063 charliebarrera@consolidated.net Hello again, everyone. It’s the middle of January as I write this article, and it has become cold here in Southeast Texas. I’ve managed to get in a few practice days in spite of this, but it can be uncomfortable. I can only imagine the cold in some of our northern states of the USA. I know that many modelers remain inside, building or completing projects. The Executive Officer elections were held in December, 2020 and the votes have been tallied. I wanted to thank those of you who took the time to vote. Your 2021-2022 Executive officers are Charlie Barrera, President, Heedo Yun, Secretary, and John Decker, Treasurer. The Vice President position is open, however, and we are hoping that someone will volunteer to fill the position. Thank you for your vote. On another topic concerning the NSRCA, please read the notice of a proposed amendment to the NSRCA Bylaws that is included in this issue of the KFactor. The Board of Directors has determined that District VP Duties are not specified in our Bylaws. Although implied, actual responsibilities of the DVP are not spelled out. Because of this, the BoD has proposed Amendment 1 to the NSRCA Bylaws.
Amendments to the NSRCA Bylaws must be voted on by the membership for ratification. The notice for the proposed amendment is posted in this issue of the KFactor and will also be posted on the NSRCA web site.Voting will be conducted in March, 2021, with results posted in April, 2021. Please review this proposed change. I have some very good news to pass on to our membership. Jon Dieringer has volunteered to be the 2021 NATS Event Director. He has been approved by the NSRCA Board of Directors and the AMA. He is an AMA Contest Director and has organized and run many pattern contests in his district, D4. His work is just beginning. As you might expect, a national event this size requires time, dedication, and many of our members will be asked to volunteer for the event. If you are interested in volunteering, you may email me, or your respective District Vice President. Please join me in congratulating Jon for his selection as the 2021 NATS ED. The FAA has just issued their final rule on Remote ID. The rule was released on December 28, 2020. I quote from the AMA web site: “There are three ways to comply with the new rule: 1. Standard Remote ID • Broadcast equipment must be built into your Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) by the manufacturer. • Your UAS is required to have a radio frequency spectrum to broadcast your location, altitude, identification, emergency status, etc. to both your UAS and control station. • Your UAS must be designed to not take off if it is not broadcasting a signal. • All UAS manufactured to fly in the National Airspace System (NAS) need to meet standards and have certification of the Standard Remote ID requirements. 2. Broadcast Modules • If your UAS is older (nonstandard), a broadcast module option is available. • Your module will send the same signal as Standard Remote ID, except for emergency status and control station
information. The information that will be broadcasted is your UAS takeoff location and your altitude. Your module will also need to signal if your UAS is not working properly. • The FAA anticipates these modules to cost approximately $20 to $50. • These modules are only permitted for visual-line-of-sight operations. 3. FAA-Recognized Identification Area (FRIA) • FRIAs are valid for 48 months and can be renewed and changed. • FRIAs require that the flying site be under the umbrella of a community-based organization or educational institution. • Only visual-line-of-sight operations are permitted at FRIAs.” The AMA successfully lobbied the FAA for rules that would not adversely affect our model airplane hobby. Over 53,000 comments were made to the FAA concerning the Notice of Proposed Rule Making, NPRM, during their open comment period. Our hobbyists successfully submitted comments as to how inappropriate the rule could be on our hobby. We, as a Community Based Organization (CBO), follow rules and guidelines for safe flight of our models. It is my belief that the FAA rule is intended for those that do not understand the importance of safe flight of models, particularly, those that are flown out of line of sight. I will expand on the three ways to comply with the FAA rule. Standard Remote ID – This addresses manufacturer of drones/models that will have broadcast equipment built into them. The manufacturer must incorporate a UAS module that gives location, altitude, emergency status, etc., for both the UAS and the control station. This rule will fully take effect after September 1, 2023. Manufacturers will begin complying with this after February 28, 2021. This means that if you buy a drone/model after February of this year, it may have the module incorporated by the manufacturer. Notice that this also applies to the broadcast station, i.e., the transmitter. Compliance with this will not be required
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NSRCA Officers by manufacturers until September 2023. Most likely, this rule will not affect our style of flying. Broadcast Modules – These will be tiny modules, about the size of a postage stamp, that will be affixed to your model. They will be available for purchase, for a price of about $20-$50. The module will send the same signal as the standard remote ID. It is intended for only line of sight flying. A modeler must purchase a module and install it in his model if he flies in a nonFRIA area. This applies to those modelers that fly from their personal flying fields, such as their property, back yard, school yard, or pastures, etc. FAA-Recognized Identification Area (FRIA) – This will most likely apply to our flying. Clubs throughout the USA must gain recognition from the FAA, as a CBO flying site. Only visual line of site flying is allowed. Once registered, the club maintains this status for 48 months. The registration is renewable. If flying in a FRIA, UAS modules and/or models built [by manufacturers] with broadcast modules, are not required for compliance, as long as the model is flown in the FRIA. We continue to fly as we always have, observing AMA safety regulations. The AMA scored a major victory for our CBO. Many early requirements that the FAA wanted have been eliminated or mitigated. These include: “Broadcast only, no internet required; Paid monthly subscription requirement removed; FRIAS can be requested or changed indefinitely; Individual registration, operator registers only once; pathway for special events to deviate from Remote ID Rules; 400 foot limit removed; cost decreased by 60%; and finally build percentage removed and “home build” was added with no requirement to meet manufacturer certification standards for recreational or educational use.” I believe that as we go forward with our hobby and technology advances, we will continue to enjoy our hobby as we always have. Until next time… Fly straight; keep your radiuses constant and stay in the box. Charlie Barrera…OUT!
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Vice President
Position Open
Secretary
incidence angles and CG location, how to judge and perform a snap roll, how the air density changes due to weather conditions and its effect on pattern flying, what it takes to win in competitions, and other topics. With some time leftover, I was able to fly my giant airplane, the Carden Extra 40%. Lastly, over the New Year’s break, I set my pattern goals for 2021. They are (1) upgrade my piloting skill and airplane trimming skill required for the Advanced and Masters class pattern flying, (2) achieve certain quantities of practice flights as well as attendance at local pattern contests, (3) attend, if possible, the World Championship and the NATS in July, and (4) select and buy a new airplane in preparation for hopefully moving up to the Masters class in 2022. Recharged and goal oriented, I feel as prepared as I can be for the new pattern season ahead. I would like to also congratulate the 2020 District Champions. The winners are listed below, and they will be awarded free NSRCA shirts with their names embroidered on them. Please note that not all districts were able to select champions in 2020 due to the effects of COVID-19. 2020 District 2 Champions: Sportsman Liam Oneal Intermediate Mike Kelley Advanced Greg Craft Masters Braxton Dudley FAI Don Szczur
Heedo Yun 4610 Willow Pond Ct. \ Sugar Land, Tx 77479 281.512.9163 | Heedo.Yun@gmail.com Hello, I hope that everyone is off to a great start of 2021! During the off-pattern season pilots typically take a break from practicing to spending time building and repairing their airplanes in preparation for the next season. This off-pattern season, I spent some time rebuilding the landing gear support of my Etude; it is now crackfree and secure. I also confirmed and adjusted the control throws of all control surfaces, zeroed the electronic trims by adjusting the mechanical links, and replaced the receiver battery with a new one. Furthermore, I read up on airplane trimming tips, how to measure and adjust
2020 District 3 Champions: Intermediate Mike Picou Advanced Larry Kauffman Masters John Wolfe FAI Joe Walker 2020 District 4 Champions: Sportsman Scott Campbell Intermediate George Gordon Advanced Jeff Reighard Masters Matthew Finley FAI Greyson Pritchett 2020 District 5 Champions: Sportsman Mark J Robert Advanced Randy Burnette Masters Evan Krause FAI Vince Bortone
NSRCA Officers 2020 District 6 Champions: Sportsman John Blum Intermediate Bill Bancroft Advanced Michael Johncock Masters Don Ramsey FAI Mark Hunt
It is the National Society of Radio Control Aerobatics.A society of people like yourself all contributing to the sport with their time, resources, and PASSION. If you are serious about flying precision aerobatics, NSRCA membership is your way to give back to the sport.
Congratulations again on a job well done! I wish you all an enjoyable winter season in good health as we continue to navigate through the global pandemic together. Cheers, Heedo Yun, Secretary
Treasurer
Your dues are important to the health of our sport. If you have not renewed yet, please go to our website www.nsrca.us and click JOIN NOW.
John Decker 2878 Carrera Ct | League City, TX 77573 281-627-9474 | johndecker@sbcglobal.net The financial health of the NSRCA is on solid ground. For 2020 we achieved a $2,000 positive cash flow and ended the year with over $30,000 of reserves in the bank. The 2021 budget was presented to the Board of Directors at the January meeting and approved. Following is this year’s budget:
So why should I join the NSRCA? NSRCA members are people just like yourself that love to fly precision aerobatic planes. Like any worthwhile endeavor it takes focus, energy, and passion to succeed in this sport. As a pilot, you spend hours learning sequences, tuning your plane, or learning how to fly the “perfect” spin entry. You pack up and head to a contest ready to compete head-to-head with fellow pilots. It is great so far but think about it… what is going on behind the scenes that allows this competition?
On a final note. Another great pilot, husband, and father has been sent to be with his Lord. Jim Thompson was a driving force in D6 for many decades and his cheerful demeanor will be missed by many. Fly high Jim and thank you for watching over us forever more. Always Land Wheels Down, John Decker
Who organizes this stuff? Who sets the standards so that all events operate on the same level playing field? Who helps write and maintain the rules we all fly by? Who develops the judging certifications and study materials? Who actually writes, refines, and publishes the sequences you so diligently practice?
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Member Article
Pie for Breakfast by Scott McNickle {Editor’s Note – This article was written by Scott McNickle and appeared in the February 2017 issue of the KFactor. Please, enjoy!} Many, if not most of us in D4 have reached the age where it’s important to pay attention to our health. Among other things this means paying attention to what we eat.
home and falling asleep on the couch at 8:00. I needed the vacations I took and eventually I just needed to get away from the job. We don’t want to let our Pattern ‘job’ get like that. Did it ever occur to you that some of the great guys who have left the Pattern ranks did so because they turned their fun into an irksome job?
Some of us, like Mrs. Kane’s husband, have received wakeup calls and the rest of us need to hear the alarm. Our days of living on deep-fried bacon-wrapped cheese smothered in gravy with half a cheesecake for desert are over. We need to start feeding ourselves like grownups.
Practice and contest flying are a kind of joyful stress that makes us feel alive, but too much of it can burn us out. Everyone has their own limits (I think Brenner’s is about 1.25 billion flights a year) but when that limit is reached things go bad in a hurry.
But.
We all need some sort of model airplane version of pie for breakfast.
Sometimes you just gotta have pie for breakfast. There’s a meme that pops up on my Facebook page every few weeks that says something like, “The purpose of life is not to arrive at the grave a well-preserved corpse, but rather to skid in sideways with your hair on fire, fist bumping the Grim Reaper and thinking ‘That was a hell of a ride!’”
Now, I used to have a job, one that had me walking around throwing my hands in the air and yelling at raccoons on my drive
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Maintain your sense of perspective. Wild Bill’s lovely and (excessively) patient wife Leslie once asked him “Who dies if you don’t win this contest? Remind me how much money you win if you do.” Remind yourself that if you’ve reached the age of 40 and you aren’t Andrew Jesky you ain’t never gonna be no Andrew Jesky. A tiny, tiny percentage of us are world class, the rest are in it for fun and personal fulfillment. So…work hard. Practice, practice, practice. Pick the brain of any pilot who will answer your questions. Buy the best equipment you can afford and keep it in top shape. Never give up. But every once in a while, have pie for breakfast.
We need to remember that life isn’t forever and a certain amount of misbehaving makes it good. There’s an old saying that I just made up that goes “Moderation in all things, including shenanigans.” I think it’s important to include some pleasure in whatever time we have left. It’s important to keep our hobby fun. As Pattern flyers we probably work as hard at our fun as anyone in model aviation. Lots and lots of hours of practice, being critical of ourselves, asking others to criticize us. Hours spent getting airplanes right, doing maintenance, thinking about how to get better, flying when we don’t really feel like it. If we’re not careful it can turn into a job.
Give yourself permission to be a rookie at something. Give yourself permission to finish last. Give yourself the gift of not being an expert at what you’re doing. Learn from someone who is.
Wild Bill having some pie for breakfast
What to do? Step out of your comfort zone every once in a while. Fly a glider (electric gliders are great), a clunky sport plane, an Old Timer. Does your club have contests you don’t usually participate in? Enter a glider contest, or a club pylon race or a fun fly made up of silly events. Try combat. Fly a rubber model, or some control line. I don’t think I’ve seen three grown men giggle more than the time we flew 3-up U Control Goodyear racing.
Districts
District News start to fail. I found one with my current Olympus 1400 model on one of the ailerons. Lightly flexing the aileron out of hinge-plane, and shining a light from the back side are good techniques to enunciate if a portion of the hinge has begun to fail.
D1 |Salvatore Piu spiurc@comcast.net
It is always better to catch an item on a model showing signs of failure, rather than having to diagnose pieces of a model after it crashed as to why it crashed! I do not recommend attempting to fix only the failed portion of an all-foam-full-length hinge. Cut the entire hinge, separate the entire control surface, and use your favorite trusted hinge and glue method in several places along the control surface as if it was a new installation!
CT•ME•MA•NH•NJ•NY•PA•RI•VT
D1 starts 2021’s with a semi-cold start! Local temperatures on January 1st were somewhat bearable to some folks, making it a fair day for many pilots to get a flight or two in, including myself with a sport foamy plane. With winter weather set it, now is a good time to do a thorough review of each model. My winter check list now includes checking hinges on all control surfaces. I usually do not have problems with pinned hinges, nor with full-composite hinges on full 2M pattern ships. However, I have encountered several foamy models with full-length integrated foam hinges that
Due to the Covid-19 situation still in progress, I have set up a virtual on-line video meeting for D1’s annual meeting on February 20th, 4PM EST. It would be nice to see everyone with D1 area attend! I plan to run a judging seminar in a similar manor, most likely in March while weather is still generally in winter-non-flyable mode. Other than the judging seminar, D1’s tentative contest schedule for 2021 has essentially not changed since the January 2021 k-factor D1 article was written. We’ll have to monitor this situation as Covid-19 could adversely impact some of the earlyseason-planned events. Maneuver complete, Sal Piu
D2 | Tim Pritchett 740 Baldwin Orchard Drive Inman, SC 29349| tjpritchett@aol.com DC•DE•MD•NC•SC•VA
We’ll be short again this month. I haven’t heard from many but can tell you that ‘inside sources’ confirm that our sequences for 2022/23 are well underway, and have apart from some jots and tittles, the maneuvers are in place. NO early disclosures though…only test pilots have seen them or flown them, so look for some membership input soon. Our schedule is set, as mentioned next month. However an unfortunate consequence of ongoing COVID-19 concern is that we may loose our judging clinic venue on March 20th. Virginia has shut down large groups and non-essential functions for the foreseeable future. If this situation persists, we’ll switch to a virtual (Zoom) meeting, and open it up to a much larger audience. Although I really enjoy the in person opening of our season, a virtual get together has the potential to reach a lot more people, so I’ll keep you posted on our Facebook group. Weather is hit or miss, so I haven’t heard of much flying or practice. I’ve enjoyed a new Avanti jet for a few weeks, which hopefully will provide some better reaction times at a higher speed. However, flying the Pandora through masters at 27mph is hard to overcome! I’m surprised I haven’t turned it into foam-corn yet. Having retracts again for the first time in 5 years is pretty neat, and reminiscent of pattern days gone by. Hope to see you in March, but if not, Let’s set our sights on Aynor (still love that
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Districts There was speculation about how to sanitize scoring controllers between judges, how a caller could communicate with his pilot from ten feet away and whether it was safe for a caller to carry his pilot’s plane out to the runway.
name!) in April. Groove Smooth!
I finally decided that the outdoor nature of our contests made them reasonably safe and I came out of my bubble.
Photo courtesy of Bijan Jason Salehi
D4 | Scott McNickle P.O. Box 163 | Mt. Pleasant, OH 43939 nelson_jett@comcast.net | 740.769.7882 IN•KY•MI•OH•WV
D3 | Position Open AL•FL•GA•MS•PR•TN
No Article Submitted
Sad to say the tragic events of the D4 Champs/Team Trials weekend reminded me that avoiding one disease doesn’t guarantee immortality.
Saved by Our Hobbies
Sharing time with my flying friends literally saved me.
I’m writing the first lines of this month’s column on the last day of the awful year of 2020.
When the season ended we all had a long winter staring us in the face. What to do?
It’s been terribly hard for all of us, not just for the fact that there’s a bad disease going around, but for what’s been taken from us in response to the disease, and the relentless insistence on nearly immediately negating any piece of good news that comes along. Sometimes it feels like one of those old black and white monster movies where the creature feeds off fear and creates it with a wide variety of tricks. As I write we’re pretty close to ten months into “Two weeks to flatten the curve.” I’ve been up and down through it all and right now I’m pretty down, so this column is by way of giving myself a talking to, with you all sitting in. I missed two of the first three contests this year solely out of fear. That was a time when neighbors were reporting neighbors for going out to run more than once in a day, a time when we were told to leave our mail outside for a day or two, to leave our groceries in the car for a while before we brought them in. We were reminded that anyone walking past you could literally kill you, and cautioned that a jogger could be dragging a 20-foot bubble of death along with him.
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The contest season helped me put things into perspective and looking into some actual data regarding the pandemic let me relax a little.
Well, I’ve had a little Vanquish practice plane that I’ve been using for several years to learn new sequences and generally horse around with, and it was getting shabby. Covering coming loose, some trim problems I couldn’t dial out, a cowling and wheel pants that were so cracked and crushed they looked like the bag they came in…so I went to work fixing it. New wheel pants, new wheels, lots of fiberglass reinforcements inside the cowl, all the old paint sanded off and re done, and most importantly all the covering taken off and re done in my customary scheme. I discovered that the trim problems were coming from an elevator with some broken glue joints (or maybe never glued in the first place) and that the intricate covering scheme was monstrously heavy. So now I have a better than new play plane.
Districts of his real life band play, and details showing many of his interests. Bob shares his charming layout on Facebook and YouTube (with some on-track videos lately!) and has brightened the days of many besides himself by not keeping it hidden.
straightened out. As musicians they’re all as far ahead of me as Andrew Jesky is as a Pattern pilot, but as with Andrew they are ever helpful and patient. In an earlier column titled “Pie and Whisky” I wrote that substitutes can’t long make up for missing what you really need, but it turns out that some substitutes are worthy in and of themselves. Sometimes you just have to accept them for their own goodness. I am beginning to wonder how people without skills to build, or play, or create in some way even survive these times.
Basement Empire - Photo: Bob Haglock Refreshed
Derek Emmett didn’t get to fly near as much as he wanted to this year due to pandemic-related restrictions. It would have been easy for him to curse and whine and mope (well, maybe he did a little of that) but instead he put his talents to work on something useful for ‘after’. He built a beautiful, cleverly designed setup stand. Legs angled for stability, nicely padded airplane cradle, clever recess to hold parts and the ability to fold into a compact package. All in lovely cherry.
One of the nice things about a flying field is that it doesn’t always have to be used for flying. It can also be used for playing music! This year several of us spent nearly as much time playing guitars at the field as we did flying. I would get there early, get my practice flights in and then absorb some guitar knowledge from my friend Gordon Nagy. Gordie is and excellent guitarist, a competent luthier and a good teacher. Like many of my Pattern teachers he knows not to tell me everything I’m doing wrong at once and is skilled enough to save a song that’s going wrong. Bob Haglock joined us sometimes, too, as well as Rick Cilles, who’s hoping to return to Pattern once he gets some eye problems
We will come through this no matter how hard some push despair. We will learn to once again accept the realities of life and death. We will celebrate with handshakes and hugs again. From Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams”: “(this train) Dreams will not be thwarted (this train) Faith will be rewarded” Keep the faith All aboard
Fine Field Furniture | Photo: Derek Emmett
My buddy Bob Haglock, who has flown a Pattern contest or two, turned lemons into lemonade by using his stay at home time to work on his model railroad. It takes up a big chunk of his basement…the part that doesn’t house his guitars, dobros, steel guitars and recording equipment, and is done in the style of the ultimate toy train display. It has towns named after his grandsons, a concert venue where models
Flying?
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12 | K-Factor January 2021
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Districts May 15-16 Gulf Coast Pattern Championship - Lake Charles, LA June 5-6 JETERO, Huffman, TX June 19-20 Colorado Pattern Challenge – Arvada, CO June 26-27 Texas City R/C Pattern Classic – Texas City, TX
D5 | Vicente Bortone
D6 |Justin Wells
July 20-24 Aerobatic Nationals, Muncie IN
vincebrc@gmail.com
20811 Surrey Creek Ct. | Katy, TX 77450 832-356-6408 | justin@jtwells.com
Aug 28-29 LAMA - Dacono,CO ** PENDING
IL•IA•KS•MN•MO•NE•ND•SD•WI
This time of the year I like to provide the tentative contest schedule for the district. I usually share it my best half to make sure I reserve the weekend early so surprises tend to be minimized. We are lucky that many pilots and their clubs are willing to CD and sponsor these activities for many years. Please let them know when you have the oportunity. Here the TENTATIVE District 5 schedule below: I go ahead and make hotel reservations very early during winter time. Sometimes there are special activities in the area and hotels could be very busy. It is very easy to cancell a hotel reservation if we cannot attend but it is usually more difficult to make a reservation in the last minute.
AR•CO•LA•NM•OK•TX
Our contest season is shaping up for 2021. Below you will find the current schedule of contests pending a few clubs that haven’t confirmed yet. You can keep track of changes and or new additions on d6pattern.com which is also a smartphone app available in all the app stores. D6 2021 Contest Dates April 17-18 Texas Republic Classic – Georgetown, TX May 1-2 Space City – Katy, TX
Sept 11-12 Ft. Bend RC – Rosenberg, TX Oct 2-3 College Station, TX
**
PENDING
Oct 16-17 Cajun NATS – Crowly, LA) Jim Thompson – It’s with great sadness that I inform you of the passing of Jim Thompson. For several decades Jim was an active D6 member from Baton Rouge Louisiana. Many pilots got their start in pattern and encouragement from him. Jim was always a wealth of knowledge and information, as well as a big promoter of Pattern. I purchased my first 2 meter plane from Jim and with his kind and patient assistance he helped me get it going. You will be missed my friend, and thank you for all you did for our community. ‘Till Next Time, Justin
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Districts a wonderful and fun venue for this event, and my hope is that being in Las Vegas, it will attract people from other parts of our district besides California which has been where the majority of D7 Championship participation has come from in previous years. A COVID Project: Not a plane, but for the planes. Courtesy of Derek Emmett
D7 - Dan Lipton nsrcad7dvp@gmail.com AZ•CA•HI•NV•UT
Hello District 7 The 2021 Contests season is upon us, with the first event this month. What I like to call the “D7 Winter special”, the two back to back weekends in Arizona soon! Hopefully it will be possible for many of you to attend and do so safely. The registration for these two events is live on the NSRCA D7 schedule page. (https://
nsrca.us/index.php/d7-contestschedule/2021), and as things become more solid, you will see the other events appear there as well.
In what I think is an exciting development, with the help of Chip and Jon (also suggested to me by Larry), I have decided to move forward with planning the District Championship at the Bill Bennett field / Las Vegas Radio Control Club, in October. Given how things ended up last year, I think making the 2021 be an opportunity not just to have a great contest, but do so in great resort destination, where in perhaps more of our family may be excited to join us. I think this will provide
Our friend Derek here in NorCal decided to apply his fine craftsmanship to a new aspect of the hobby. He built a beautiful folding stand, suitable for working on planes at home as well as at the field. As many of you may have seen on Facebook: Hello Gang, here we go with a project that all my pattern friends can relate to. What do you build when you don’t have a plane to build? Well, in my case, that was a much needed field flight stand! Truth be told I’ve been really struggling with all the impacts in our day to day life from Covid. The new normal is not a normal I want for any of us. However, I’m so blessed to have a job, a super supportive partner that just gets me, and a creative mind. With that said this mind can get in a ditch quick in times like this, so I threw a wrench in that thinking, thus giving myself something constructive to do. I love Cherry wood, in fact my whole kitchen is covered in it. So for the flight stand material I was thinking the cherry would be a great medium to work with. Next thing I knew I was buying cherry boards to glue and clamp, so that I’d have planks to work from. When I first started with the flight stand idea there was a part of me that just wanted to get it done. However, that rushing through thinking was taking all the fun out of what I was trying to create. Thankfully, I was able to take a step back, actually, several steps back, which allowed me to have fun with this creation. I ended up with a piece of
furniture that I’m very happy with!
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Districts
Thanks for sharing this journey in wood with us, Derek! — That’s all I have for February. Happy Landings Dan.
D8 | John Bentley 480.349.0303 j.bentley@usa.net AK•ID•MT•OR•WA•WY
Happy New Year from D8 Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2021
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Districts 2020 was a tough year on our district contests. We only were able to have 2 contests, Mololla and Redmond ,OR. We have developed a 2021 contest schedule that will include one additional contest as well and moving the District Championship to Redmond, OR which is a more centralized location for the district. 2021 proposed D8 schedule
non-essential is operating remotely or via on-line sales or is closed. At least our local hobby store has been able to operate with curb side pickup. I see from the various facebook group postings there are a number of folks with new airplanes under construction for the coming season. Check them out.
Canada | Paul Brine 25 Robertson St. | Fergus Ontario N1M3P7 519.787.5144 | pbrine@uoguelph.ca Red designates date changes from historic dates
We have made to it February. This will be a short report as once again there is not much to report. There are currently no flying activities to report on at this time as the weather is limiting outdoor activity and COVID restrictions have closed indoor venues. The normal winter activities such as club meetings have gone virtual and events like swap meets are being postponed. I expect to see many of the postponed swap meets reincarnated as outdoor events later in the spring or early summer. Planning for the contest season has begun with a couple of events establishing tentative dates. I have not heard of any others and I expect many clubs and organizers are waiting to see what happens with restrictions on outdoor events. As I hear of confirmed dates I will list them here. Check the MAAC website, F3A Canada facebook group and the F3A Canada website for the latest information on event listings.
Mololla, OR 2020
As of the middle of January we are once again in a state of emergency until at least early February and the provincial government declared an state of emergency for 28 days effective immediately and issued a stay at home order effective January 14th . People are to stay home and only go out for groceries, medical needs or banking. Indoor social gatherings are prohibited and outdoor gatherings are limited to a maximum of 5. In Ontario all only essential business are operating. Once again hobby stores did not make the cut. Anything classed as
In my shop I have a number different size sanding bars that were sold by Great Planes which I usually keep loaded with 150 grit sandpaper. A few weeks ago I needed to change the paper on one the bars as it was getting worn out and torn. Out of convenience up until now I have used the rolls of self adhesive sandpaper marketed by Great Planes as they were cut to the right width and available at the local hobby store. Although I was sure I still had at least part of a roll it was nowhere to be found. Either I had used the last of it or it has disappeared in the ongoing maelstrom of my ongoing and seemingly never ending rebuild and reorganization of my shop. Unfortunately, the Great Planes sandpaper rolls are no longer available at the local hobby store. I then headed off to the local hardware store thinking that they would have an equivalent. Nothing. Apparently supply chains are disrupted due to COVID. I was able to locate an alternative when surfing the Lee Valley Tools website (https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca). They sell pressure sensitive sandpaper rolls. These are 2 1/2 inches wide and 30 feet long and are available in 80, 120, 150, 180 and 220 grit. These are available in the stores and from their website. The rolls are made by Klingpor so they may be available from other woodworking supply stores as well. While on the website or in one of their stores have a look around as they stock lots useful tools and supplies for woodworking, modeling and gardening. That’s all for now. Stay safe. Flight complete. Paul
January 2021 K-Factor | 17
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