District News

D1 |Salvatore Piu spiurc@comcast.net

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 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.

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!

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.

name!) in April. Groove Smooth!

Photo courtesy of Bijan Jason Salehi

D3 | Position Open

AL•FL•GA•MS•PR•TN

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D4 | Scott McNickle P.O. Box 163 | Mt. Pleasant, OH 43939 nelson_jett@comcast.net | 740.769.7882

IN•KY•MI•OH•WV

Saved by Our Hobbies

I’m writing the first lines of this month’s column on the last day of the awful year of 2020.

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. 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.

I finally decided that the outdoor nature of our contests made them reasonably safe and I came out of my bubble.

The contest season helped me put things into perspective and looking into some actual data regarding the pandemic let me relax a little.

Sad to say the tragic events of the D4 Champs/Team Trials weekend reminded me that avoiding one disease doesn’t guarantee immortality.

Sharing time with my flying friends literally saved me.

When the season ended we all had a long winter staring us in the face. What to do?

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.

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.

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 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.

Basement Empire - Photo: Bob Haglock

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 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.

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

D5 | Vicente Bortone vincebrc@gmail.com

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.

D6 |Justin Wells 20811 Surrey Creek Ct. | Katy, TX 77450 832-356-6408 | justin@jtwells.com

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

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

July 20-24

Aerobatic Nationals, Muncie IN

Aug 28-29

LAMA - Dacono,CO ** PENDING

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

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 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

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!

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

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

Red designates date changes from historic dates

Mololla, OR 2020

Canada | Paul Brine 25 Robertson St. | Fergus Ontario N1M3P7 519.787.5144 | pbrine@uoguelph.ca

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.

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 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.

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