An Official Publication of Genesee Valley Aero Modelers, Ltd. www.gvam.org Editor: Max Sez February 2011 Glenn Crocker 21 Highview Trail Pittsford, NY 14534 Balsa Dust NEXT MEETING DATE: Thursday February 10, 2011 LOCATION: East Bloomfield Town Hall TIME: 7:30 p.m. It's been an interesting winter so far. We haven't had a lot of snow at any one time but it's been here almost continuously all winter. It reminds me of living up in Potsdam while I was in college. Congratulations again to Charlie on his award. I can't think of anyone who deserves it more and thanks to all those who made it happen for him. On to the important stuff. I told you awhile ago I am restoring a De Havilland Gypsy Moth that Dick Parshall built several years ago. I uncovered the wings and tail and straightened out the warps. I am now building a new fuselage and splicing it to the old tail. You can see the progress from the pictures below. My biggest engineering challenge is the folding wings that Dick put in originally. Dick used a modified version from a magazine article back in the 70's. I'm trying to make it closer to the full-scale folding wings. I hope to have the whole plane built and ready to cover for the April meeting so come and see what I came up with. Keep working on your winter project and we'll see it in April. Max Balsa Dust* - A collection of refuse possibly containing turkey droppings, and other bits and pieces, possibly retrogressive to your alleged mind.
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!! (I thought I would include this again so those members of this era could appreciate it and those not of this era could see what they missed) First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X- boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms...we HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS! HAPPY NEW YEAR! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. - 2 -
You Might Be an RC Modeler If!! From the Imperial RC Club Newsletter You can land your plane even after you discover you are standing on a fire ant bed. You spend more money for a pair of sunglasses than for a lawn mower. You use your field box to crank your lawn tractor. Your kids borrow rubber bands from you.. You think R/C flying should be an Olympic event. You put DU-BRO wheels on your TV tray. You wear goggles and a silk scarf around your neck driving to the field. Your wife's card table has glue and fuel stains on it. The weather is too bad to rake the leaves but you can go flying You got more "toys" for Christmas than your kids did. You look for the servo linkage and antenna wire on every airplane in a movie. You have at least ten T- shirts with airplanes on them. You carry a chain saw with you to the flying field so you can retrieve your plane or clear for a landing approach. Your wife frowns at you at the family cookout when you carve the Thanksgiving turkey with an Exacto knife. 2011 Dues are due It s that time of year again. The club dues are due. Adults $45.00 Full time Collage students $1.00 Please mail your dues to Glenn Crocker 21 Highview Trail Pittsford, N/Y. 14534 At The Field There is snow on the ground and for those of you who have not retreated to Florida this must be building and indoor flying season. Oh by the way if you saw the clean workshop in Charlie s building area in the last news letter, he confirms my suspicions that he can t find a darn thing. Max stated in a past Max Sez column that you get a lot of satisfaction when you take a set of plans and a stack of balsa and create a plane. He is right! I have been assembling one of the ARFs I bought at Tom s (Performance Hobbys) annual ARF sale while the glue was drying on my P47. Although the planes are better built, lighter and better decorated than I could build, the feeling of accomplishment is not the same. Joe the pizza king says he will have his wounded models repaired for the up coming flying season. He says he may make a run at the Spitfire he has been working on the past few years. If the Spitfire statement was a few years ago we could have said: Yeah right which century are you talking about. Who knows, if we said there was a years supply of pizza in it, Sicilian of course, the Spitfire would probably be done next week and have skies for snow flying. The Titusville Terror aka Tom Brown sends greetings from sunny Florida where he is enjoying the weather. The days are a balmy 40 to 50 degrees and the nights are in the 20s. There is just no pleasing some people! Remember if you do fly be alert for the snow snakes this time of year. Junior (19 yrs or younger) $1.00-3 -
The Helicopter contingent at the Dec indoor fly at Livonia. More Helicopters. We had a photo of a three helicopter formation but they looked like dots. A serious Jack and I believe Eric getting ready to fly. I think this is Eric s plane fighting with the ceiling. Max s electric. The gym was just big enough for the plane. It did fly well. Of course the pilot had nothing to do with it. Eric is showing us how stressful indoor flying can be. I don t know how long it took him to trim the plane so he could stand that way when it flew. - 4 -
Max and I getting our picture taken at the Sky Rovers fun fly. Unfortunately we ended up on the cutting room floor. A nice T-6 on a fly by at the Sky Rovers fun fly. My razorback taking off. Max took a nice photo. Max getting the RV4 ready for a flight. This one is for Skyraider lovers (Greg). Unfortunately something happened during the first flight and the plane was re-kitted. This is the traditional February remembering what it was like at the lake photo. - 5 -