Hood's Up Flyers - Burnaby Lake

Winter time is here but we are not giving up. Snow has covered our field but we still keep flying. In this edition of the newsletter you'll find some photos and videos of our bravest flyers (check the end of this Newsletter" Fun Stuff").

Geoff Dryer's winter Slow Stick

If you want to know who this is go and check video page.

This time around there were not a lot of submissions for the Newsletter but Dave Scoular who is in the Spot Light this month will compensate for that with his long life story. Quite a read so go ahead. Also I'll try each month to present a Flight Simulator package considering that winter is great time for improving our flying skills just staring at our computer screens. However our thumbs and our brains get exercised never the less. In this issue I'll point out the FMS free RC flight simulator and provide the necessary download links and information.

If you want to help creation of this newslatter each month please send us few lines, photos videos, etc. regarding our hoby and club activities.
Send emails to admin@hoods-up.com
Here is few ideas for topics that all members can share information on:

* field events and interesting stories from that month
* information about events and competitions (local and world events)
* comments/reviews and information about new RC aircraft models appearing on the market
* info and reviews on new RC equipment. If you got any new equipment
that you want to recommend drop few lines of text about it
* describe your favorite flight move to club members or reveal a cool trick that you do in
your flight routine. Share some flight wisdom with club members
* tips on assembling, modeling, matching components for RC aircraft
* photographs and video footage. Check latest videos on Hood's Up
* got anything for sale???? Let us know, we will let everyone know.

In an attempt to better acquaint club members with one another, we decided to put one member under the spot light each month. Here you will learn more about the faces you see at the field very often. How many times has it happened to you that you know a face but you don't know the name of the person at the field? We may help each other if we just get to know each other better.

So this month the Spot Light has landed on Dave Scoular.
Just look at the photo below and you'll recognize him right away. If you ever had any trouble at the field and needed assistance, Dave would be always around to help. You need glue, he's got it, you need to solder something, he's got it, need a prop so you can keep flying, he's got it, need a ladder - your plane ended up on the tree, he's got it ........ I can keep on going, so ......... let's hear it from Mr Dave Scoular.

1. (Hoods-Up RastaFly) Dave, you are probably the most frequent flyer in our club. I guess it would be a good idea to tell us few things about your self, like what do you do, etc….?

(Dave Scoular) What do I do. I grew up in Richmond in my family’s shoe store. I learned sales and how to repair shoes by the age of 10. My father was also a band leader and I grew up in a musical family. By the end of high school I had my own band and made half of my income from music. My father also liked inventing things and it must of rubbed off on me because I was always inventing or modifying things. The best room in the house was the tool room. I remember getting a new tricycle for Christmas when I was 4 or 5 years old. There was over a foot of snow on the ground and while the rest of my family was having breakfast I snuck downstairs into the tool room and cut big notches in the front tire with a hack saw. After breakfast I showed my dad how I had made snow tires for my new tricycle. I took it out in the snow to show him how it worked. Later in the morning I cut up coat hangers to make crude snow chains. My very patient father had to get a new tire about a week later.

On my 12th birthday I got my first Cox 049 Texan control line airplane. I couldn’t wait to take it to a park and flew it in the back yard. I had to fly it under the clothes line and over a tree in the back yard. I remember it getting caught on the clothes line cutting the control lines and flying into the neighbor’s house. Next I got it caught in the tree. It went around about 30 times before the lines got so short it caught the tree. My family just about died laughing. By the end of the morning I could fly under the clothesline and over the tree.

I later joined the Van. Gas Model Club and flew in control line and free flight contests. Girls and cars took up most of my time by my late teens and I put models to rest for about 30 odd years. I walked into Phil’s Hobby Hut in Richmond in the spring of 2004 and was surprised by how far the hobby had come in 30 + years. I bought a trainer plane called a Ventura and went to a park and flew it around for a couple of batteries until I put it in a tree. (Trees like to eat beginners airplanes) I went to a couple of hobby shops and was told about the Burnaby club. I was surprised at how powerful the new electric motors were and how good the pilots were in the Hoods Up flying Club. I must give a lot of credit to Neil and his father Mike for giving me a lot of help in the beginning. Thanks guys! Unfortunately some of the older members often heckled me from behind the fence for breaking the flying rules but Neil and Mike always took the time to explain the rules and help me out. I think some of the older members have forgot what it was like when they were learning. You might have noticed that I always have time for beginners. If we do not embrace beginners our hobby will die a slow death. It is so much fun to see someone get the flying bug and grow at the field.

2. (HU) Anything you think we should know about you. As I mentioned you are frequently on the field. What makes you fly so often We all got infected with RC hobby somehow. How did this happen to you?

(DS) I fly so often because it is so much fun. I have raced almost everything in life, boats, cars, planes, motorcycle, bicycles, even unicycles. As the saying goes, “Life is my apple”. I had led a charmed life and all was good! In 1996 my mother suddenly died of a stroke in four days and I was suddenly the main caregiver for my father who was in the beginning stages of dementia. I watched my father die over the next 5 years and I was very depressed after that. I was in a funk and not a happy person. I didn’t know it at the time but flying became my salvation. You might say I was reborn, “I saw the light” so to speak. I think most people are the most happy when they are learning new things and meeting good people, like when you go on holidays. When I was flying or building my mind wasn’t thinking poor me, boo hoo! I must thank every member in our club for creating this wonderful atmosphere at the field. Our club is like a big extended family and you never know what is going to happen next. Have you ever noticed how some of our member and the public come down just to watch the show? It is never boring and always entertaining! I have learned so much about flying, building, electricity and people through this club. Thankyou one and all! ................ continues

I just love gadgets! Airplanes are the ultimate gadget. Boats and cars can only go left and right but airplanes are three dimensional. As the saying goes “The Skies the Limit”. No other subject is as complicated as flying. I love a challenge and this is certainly a challenge. When I raced cars or bikes or boats you always had to embrace the technology. One could often get away with cutting corners and still be in the race but this is not true in flying. You have to observe all the principles of flying or you are going to crash. “All planes crash” is a saying that is all too true. When you are in a car or a boat you use all your senses to guide you but when you fly model airplanes you have to interpret everything through your eyes. This requires much more concentration that when you are sitting in a vehicle or boat. I have given my transmitter to real pilots and they always remark how much harder it is to fly a model than when you are in a plane. This is without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever done. What fun!

3. (HU) Is this hobby more just playing and having good time for you or you have some aspirations to compete or whatnot?

(DS) After a year and three quarters back in the hobby I am still trying to figure how far I can go in the hobby myself. I am still trying to figure out the finer points of flying. Jeff F. gave me a book called Stick and Rudder which is apparently the bible of flying. For a long time I was quite happy to bank and crank as they say and never used my rudder. Now I am discovering the joys of the rudder, the slide slip and the landing. Every plane is different and no two planes are the same. Even two exact planes of the same type fly differently in the air. Trust me I know having replaced six mini Funtanas and five Banchees. Everyone is a little different. If you don’t take chances you don’t learn. I am slowly figuring out the art of 3D flying. I have set myself a goal of learning how to fly a stunt routine by the summer. I don’t know if I will make it but that is my goal.

(DS) A year and three quarters this time around. I flew control line and free flight when I was a teenager.

5. (HU) OK tell us honestly how many Banchees and Mini Funtanas did you crash?

(DS) I don’t know exactly how many I have crashed because I have repaired some of them three or four times. I think I have bought six mini Funtana’s and five Banchee’s. I still have one of each in the box. My work shop looks like a auto wrecking yard. I have a stack of wings and tail feathers.

If I could give any advice from a rookie, don’t fool around on your first battery. Ninety percent of my crashes happen on the first battery before I have warmed up. Second, John M. has often told me to stop fooling around and concentrate on specific maneuvers. I tease him and say I am just a baby and I will get around to it, however he is right! I could learn a lot faster if I would be more disciplined.

6. (HU) What makes you decide that plane is not reparable and you pull a new one out? I mean, anything can be repared, don’t you get attached to the Banchee that served you the longest???

(DS) I usually depends how fast I want to fly again. If it is faster to assemble one than repair one I will often buy another one. I always have a spare one ready to go now, just in case. At the moment I have five wings and two extra fuselages. As a rookie I used to think the mini Funtana was the perfect airplane. It could do everything. Then I read an article which said the Banchee flew like a big plane and penetrated the wind. I have always had trouble landing the mini Funtana in the wind. When I flew the Banchee I could not believe how nice and smooth it flew. It was like it was on rails. I remember doing landing after landing when I first flew it. It is so much fun to bring it in and slowly flare it until it has full up elevator just as it touches the ground. At that moment it is probably only doing 10 or 12 kt.

7. (HU) You told me once you had some mishap with LiPo batteries. Do you care to give us some wisdom regarding the issue?

(DS) I didn’t follow the instructions to the letter and my Astro charger over charged a battery and it caught fire in my work shop. Thank god I had it inside a fire proof container and I didn’t burn the house down. I only use my Astro chargers to charge large batteries now. There is a retro fit part you can put in your charger now to make it better and safer. Always read the instructions and keep your batteries in a fire proof container!

(DS) I want to work on my stunting show and put it to music by this summer. I also want to build a Martin Mars and have it drop water like the real thing. I don’t know if you have heard but they are up for sale and I would love to take a group of club members over to see them before something happens. The B.C. government should buy them because they will save us money in the long run. There is no better water bomber in the world than a Martin Mars. They can drop more water on a fire than any other plane in the world. I remember when we had the Burns Bog fire in Delta and all the local fire departments together were losing the battle against the fire. After three days the government finally brought in the two Martin Mars and they were done by noon. They were making circuits from Mud Bay to the fire every 15 minutes. No other plane can refill and bomb a fire faster with that kind of impact than the mighty Martin Mars.

(DS) Do you think I am crazy! I have watched all the crashes. I am amazed at how much patience some of our members have. I have watched with great fascination how even the good heli pilots crash all too often. They can’t fly a circuit, they are always in the way and they just go up and down. They are very dangerous and you can’t concentrate when one is hovering near you. They are very unpredictable! I think the hobby companies invented them to drain our wallets. I have also seen members flying skills go down when they started flying helicopters. I don’t see much fun here. I think you have to be a masochist to fly one!!!!!!!!!

10. (HU) Do you have anything else to say? If not say something politically incorrect (Elis was too nice last month)

This RTF park flyer seems to be a very good value for the money. Everything required for assembly and powering this nice aircraft comes in the box. It is also supposedly very a durable model.
It is powered with 400 geared brushless inrunner motor and it uses 11x4.7 prop. It ships with 18amp ESC. The battery compartment would take smaller lipo 3S about 1300 mAh in size (Thunder power size fits nicely).

Check out the WEB page
http://www.powerlinehobbies.com/
............ go to Electric Airplanes and scroll down to find YAK 54 Extreme. It comes in 2 color schemes, the suggested price is $179.99 USD

Hello guys,
Nobody submitted any new projects this month so I decided to tell you few things about my night flyers that you've seen last month in action.

I must admit that I was looking for a simple solution to night flying. I wasn't much into electronics and circuits so I decided not to go with LED diodes, resistors and all the rest. I bought a set of those though but I'll leave it for later date when I brush off my grammar school knowledge of electronics.

Anyways Nenad (another Hoods up flyer) brought this Computer glowing wire to my attention. It's purpose is to make a computer with a transparent cover look "fancy". It is actually a wire that takes 110 V AC from a small power inverter included in the package. This transformer in original design hooks to computer's 12v output socket (for all hardware devices, hard, drives, CD's).

(you should be able to find this wire in most computer stores. In case you don't find one try NCIX in 5068-B Kingsway, Burnaby, BC. V5H 2E7, Phone: 604-451-8682, http://www.ncix.com
Logisys EL06RD is shown on the photo. There are also green, blue and white colors available.

Considering that we fly a lot with at least 3LiPo cells the votage is good enough to give power to this small device. The power consumtion is very, very small less than 5 mAh so you can fly normaly without having to add an extra battery. The only downfall is that power inverter is about the weight of a mid size digital servo so some weight and COG consideration is at play when placing this unit in your aircraft.

The photo above shows typical connection. Power inverter's input is soldered to make a parallel connection to ESC power socket and LiPO Battery power socket. This way battery feeds power to both ESC and power inverter. Note that two glow wires can be connected to 110V AC output.

Hooking the glow wire to transformer and placing it on the aircraft should be done with care. This wire does emit electromagnetic field so you don't want to place it near the receiver antena.

However I managed to find a happy place for this wire on my T-REX heli. I just traced the contures of the heli with this wire. My receiver and antena aresitting at the side of the heli so I never experienced interference.

Placing the wire on my Bipe foamy was little trickier but I found a good solution just using good old trial and error approach.

In use this system is very cool. You can fly in pitch black conditions but my suggestion is not to go further than the field area. Two reasons. One being that with increased distance the intensity of the glow drops so orientation could become an issue and second is that you may crash in which case you want to stay on the field and not wonder off to woods area.

On my heli I also added 2 LED lights working with small battery. These leds are actually for bicycle rim to be mounted on so when the wheel spins they are lit. These LED's work on motion so it's OK since planes and helis move a lot.
Check the videos on the video page. T-Rex night flight

Winter time is great for RC Flight simulators. If you decide to treat yourself with RC simulator for Christmas I suggest you get either Reflex XTR or Real Flight G3 (more about these later).
However Santa can bring something to put under your Christmas tree for free.

It is FMS free flight simulator.

Follow this link to download FMS software.
Follow this link to download SmartPropo drivers (you will need this to interface with your radio)

To install Free FMS simulator and use it with your own radio follow these instructions.

1. Install the fms2alpha85.exe file. Just run this EXE file. This will most likely create a folder c:\Program Files\FMS on your computer unless you change the default paths for installation of the program.

2. Once you installed FMS you need to extract the content of SmartPropoPlus_2.2.0_Package.zip file to the root of the FMS installation. If you didn't change the default installation path you just need to extract these files to: c:\Program Files\FMS

3. When you're done with this you are pretty much done with computer installation part. What you need to have now is the Radio Controller. You should be able to use your own radio that you use for flying real RC models but you need to have a cable and radio that has a Trainer Cable connector.

4. Look at the image below. This is JR 6102XP radio that has trainer cable port.

5. The cable is using the same connector that is used for Walkmen or computer microphones. NOTE that it HAS TO BE MONO connector. You can buy such cables in RadioShack.

6. The only thing left is to connect radio to the MIC INPUT connector on your computer using this cable (described above). A NOTE FOR FUTABA USERS. You guys will need to do some soldering since your trainer connector is different,. JR radio users can just get a simple RadioShack cable and connect their radio to computer MIC IN port.

8. Start FMS and go to CONTROLS > ANALOG control. Pick Joystick Interface and click on Mapping/Calibration button

The settings below worked with my JR6102 but you will have to experiment and see how you need to assign channels. Some of the channels need to be reversed so note that you can use “Inv” to put check mark to reverse the “servo travel” (hehehe, just like with real RC models). I suggest that you put check mark to “Exp” field if you want to get smooth controls.

10. If your input signal on your MIC port is too strong just lower it using control Panel where you usually set sound settings.

That’s that enjoy FMS.
Visit the FMS page to collect more models. I'll post my collection next month..

The club executive is preparing set of rules and recommendations that we will let you know about as soon as they are available. Meanwhile PLEASE use common sense and follow these general rules:
* Never fly over the cricket pitch if cricket players are using it.
  In genereal never fly over people on the field.
* Make sure your aircraft is always in front of you. In other words never go behind the flight line.
  Do not ever attempt any maneuvers that will get your aircraft behind the flight line.
* If you see three pilots on the flight line and you intend to be the fourth one,
  make sure you have a spotter with you.
  This way you can focus on the aircraft and do "your thing" while the spotter makes sure
  that other air traffic will not be in your way. It's like having a private butler, hehehehhe
* If there are five pilots on the flight line make sure you WAIT until one of them lands.
  Remember there can be only 5 pilots on the flight line.
* If you are flying a helicopter make sure you are located at the upwind end of the field.
  This means you will be first or the last guy on the flight line depending on the wind direction
* If you are flying a helicopter consider your flight style and adjust it to the given situation.
  If you are not flying the circuit (like planes) but rather performing some 3D moves, make sure you
  are on the far end of the field and that all other pilots are aware where you are and what you are doing.
* If you are flying a 3D plane follow the same rules applicable to helicopters
* NEVER turn your radio ON unless you make sure your frequency is free.
  Go to the board, put your pin on the board, and turn your radio ON.
  After your flight take the pin off the board and turn OFF your radio.
* DON'T DO ANYTHING ON THE FIELD THAT YOU WOULD'T LIKE
  ANYONE ELSE TO DO WHILE YOU ARE FLYING

These are our official, (scheduled) allotted times. No one else may use the fields during these times other than flyers and your executive worked hard to get these days for you, make sure that they’re used!!!

Wednesdays: the whole day until Dark
Saturdays: the whole day until Dark
Sundays: the whole day until Dark

Monday, Tuesday, Thirsday and Friday are casual times.

This usually works on "first come first served" basis. If no one is using the field, we should be able to use it as long as we put the signs up and take them down once we are done. If lawn mower man is working on the field go and talk to him. They are usually fine with either taking a break (they like to sit and watch us fly) or quickly finishing that side of the field.

If anyone wishes to place anything on the agenda please email me directly at
richard@mrazek.net with the subject line of AGM Agenda.

Richard Mrazek
President

Best Regard's
Richard J. Mrazek

Email - Richard@RCModels.ca
Email - Richard@Mrazek.net
Telephone - 604 805 0002
Toll Free - 1 877 66 PACIFIC

Geoff Dryer flyes low his slow stick with floats. Works well on snow too.

Click on the image to view Mystery Winter Night Flyer, you know who this is, right?

Click on image - Jeff having a blast with his Edge540 with skids. It just won't land nicely.

Click on image. Again Jeff with his Banchee. This thing works really well on snow.

Here is something sent to me a while ago by Mr. Yeung Wai Ting David.

He collected a bunch of images of planes and helis paint jobs, real aircraft and models.
To see the whole collection click here to download 20 images ZIPped into one 8MB zip file

Here are some great links for some great and crazu videos, all related to flying
MUST SEE Crazy Paraglider with skies,
WATCH OUT Plane hits the flyer on the flight line,
RC CRASHES We all love crashes if they don't happen to us