Flying High With Electric Power! The Ampeer ON-LINE! May 2002 The Club Newsletter of the Electric Flyers Only, Inc AMA Charter 2354 Walled Lake, MI, USA Editor: Ken Myers Fly the Future - Fly Electric!

President:	Vice-President:	Secretary/Treasurer:
Ken Myers	Richard Utkan	Debbie McNeely
1911 Bradshaw Ct.	240 Cabinet	4733 Crows Nest Ct.
Walled Lake, MI 48390	Milford, MI 48381	Brighton, MI 48116
(248) 669-8124	(248) 685-1705	810.220.2297
Board of Directors:	Board of Directors:	Ampeer Editor
Jim McNeely	Jeff Hauser	Ken Myers
4733 Crows Nest Ct.	18200 Rosetta	1911 Bradshaw Ct.
Brighton, MI 48116	Eastpointe, MI 48021	Walled Lake, MI 48390
(810) 220-2297	(810) 772-2499	(248) 669-8124
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The Next Meeting: Date: Saturday, May 18 Place: Camp Dearborn, Milford, MI Time: 10:00 A.M.

What's In This Issue?
Royal Gull	TRIAD ELECTRIC WEEKEND 2001	Consolidated PBY-2	Miss 2 On Floats
THE BASICS OF FLOAT FLYING	Upcoming Mid-America Electric Flies 2002	Upcoming Events	Send Ken email

Royal Gull From: From Rich Flinchbaugh, 7 Avon La., South Dennis, MA 02660 Phone: 508-398-0296      I’ve had good success with the Royal Gull this past summer. I finally finished it. It takes off the water and flies very realistically. It is a shame not to have more modelers building and flying this great flying boat!      Plans are available for the 66" version like mine from: Jack Parry, 7 Spyglass Drive, Aiken, SC 29803-5942 - Phone: 803-643-7509      I’d be willing to assist anyone who is interested, in order to get more of these great models flying. Specs for the Piaggio P-136-L2 "Royal Gull": Wing Span: 66 in. Wing area: 650 sq.in. Wt.: 8 lb. (128 oz.) Motors: 2x Astro 15 Direct Props: 8x6 3-blade Cells: 20x Sanyo 2000 Flight Level 10 KM Return to "What's In This Issue?" TRIAD ELECTRIC WEEKEND 2001 From: Dr. Colin McKinley, 4003 Pondexter Ave., Winston Salem, NC 27101 Nat Shepard - Clancy Lady Bug - MTM Humming Bird, 8 110 mAh cells - 8.5 oz.      (Thought I’d whet your appetite for this year’s upcoming meet. KM)      May 5 and 6, 2001 the Winston Salem R/C club and the Riverside Aero Modelers of King, NC hosted a two day electric fun fly for the third year. There has been an electric fun fly on the first weekend in May for six years now without a single rain day. Because there are only six electric modelers in the total membership of over 100 between the two clubs, using each club field for only one day doesn’t close a field to wet power for an entire weekend.      Over 50 contestants from SC, VA, PA. GA ,and NY had two days of flying to start the 2001 season. Most contestants traveled more than 100 miles to the contest. There were more than 100 models on the field on Saturday.      On Saturday, everyone seemed to have some sort of park flyer to use in the calm warm air. Dave Hogve added two extra wings to a Pico Stick to make it a really slow flyer and got the CD award for his effort. In contrast, another builder had a SOKOL with an Astro 01 with ten cells that was flying over 100 mph. The most popular model was the ZAGI in many forms and colors. We got one demonstration run of Wingo racing in and it looks like a good fun fly or club event.      Sunday weather was not suitable for Wingo flying or racing but we’ll try again next year.      Sunday was cool and breezy, so some out of town builder decided to go home early. There were still a lot of flights made and the performance of the Pico Twin Stars was very impressive. A fan jet Citation with a couple of extra cells was also in the air without problems.      Both days featured a motor run precision duration event. This is designed so that anyone can compete. There is a mass launch [popular for the spectators] and all contestants have a two minute motor run. The powerful models can gain altitude quickly and the have to cruise for the rest of the two minutes while the low powered models are climbing. At two minutes everyone stops their motor and the goal is to fly for 8 minutes. A point per second is deducted for every second over or under the 8 minute goal. Only one stop watch is required and an observer calls out landing times. Dave Chunning - deBolt Cub, Astro 05 w/311 gearbox, 12x8 prop, 64 oz.      Sunday, the winning model was a DeBolt Cub with a can motor [a 50 year old design] followed by a Sig Cadet. The winner had a perfect time and second place was over by 2 seconds. Every one was on their feet as the two finalist dived for the finish and neither model was damaged on landing. Almost as soon as the event was over the wind picked up to 15 to 20 mph and the fun fly was over.      We had two new entrants who were spectators other years. The modelers from the Virginia Beach area are now going to hold an Electric Fun Fly based on their experience at the Triad Electric Weekend, so the South East now has two electric contests for the summer. Planning is already under way for next years contest in Winston Salem The majority of people just want to fly and have only a few events. The thing that most impresses non electric flyers is the number of models that one person will bring to a fun fly and the wind that most electric pilot’s will fly in.       There were still many Wingos at the meet, but a lot of flyers who had Wingos last year seem to have moved up to something with more performance. It seems as if the Wingo is the model that gets many novices into electric flight and the Zagi is the model that attracts more experienced builders to electric flight. Woody Blanchard - Dare kit Jenny - Speed 280 - 7 350 mAh cells - 13 oz. Return to "What's In This Issue?" Consolidated PBY-2 From: David Hipperson E-mail: ritzi@corplink.com.au P.O. Box 161, Mount Evelyn, Victoria, Australia 3796 Dear Ken,      Thought you might like this picture of my Consolidated PBY-2. I’m only sorry it’s spoiled by this hairy aeromodeler.      The "Easy Built" kit was bought for me several years ago by my wife Jan. When I finally started on it earlier this year I discovered that the words easy built had nothing to do with this model. Still I persisted and you see the result. From the outset I decided to keep the weight within manageable bounds and I based my limits on the Multiplex Twin Star I’d been flying which is a similar size. Power comes from 7 X 1700 Sanyo SCR’s running through two direct drive 7.2 volt Speed 400’s fitted with Graupner 6 inch semi-scale props from their Ju 52 kit. Control is by Hitec radio and an RC Line 35 amp ESC. There are two 9-gram servos on the ailerons plus 18-gram units on elevator and rudder. Construction is very conventional using balsa and ply with the odd bit of blue loam thrown in. The fuselage is silver car paint over dope and tissue but wings and tail are silver and yellow Pro-film. Markings are all either hand cut from film or hand painted. The vac moulded bits were tossed in the scrap bin (unusable) and cowls were from rolled 0.4mm ply with blue foam fronts and thin styrene sheet louvers. Struts are K&S streamline alloy.      She flies easily from a gentle hand launch and after climb out, full throttle is just too much. Best looking speed is at about one third throttle when mixed rudder aileron is the most suitable control. Flight is in the powered sailplane class and I’m sure someone on their first aileron model could fly it. I'm in the process of building a bigger version for a couple of locally produced motor/gearbox units.      (The following are also from David. KM) Australian produced kit “Electro Flash” - 12 cells - 64 oz. - fully aerobatic. Ballistic “Skyhawk” 120 MPH 10-cell Plettenberg motor - all fibreglass - designed and built locally. 480 Powered Tucano - very fast & aerobatic Semi-scale Parasol - 540 powered Return to "What's In This Issue?" Miss 2 On Floats From Rich Flinchbaugh, 7 Avon La., South Dennis, MA 02660 Phone: 508-398-0296      My Miss 2 on scale EDO foam floats is a fine flyer. The photo was taken in upper New York state on the way to the Voltairs meet.      The plane is powered by and Astro Flight brushless 020. It takes off in about 15 feet and flies very well for about ten minutes. It can be flown in quite a limited airspace. Return to "What's In This Issue?" THE BASICS OF FLOAT FLYING by Ironsides (David Summers) [with contributions from Skip Pothier, John Hawkins, Gord Schindler, Bill Johnson and Walter Lawrence]      I ran across the original article in the AMA National Newsletter for Newsletter editors. I contacted Ironsides, and he has given me permission to reprint it here. If you are reading this in the HTML version of the Ampeer, the links will take you to the “original”, so that you may have all of the photos and the updates that may occur. First we have a few interesting words from David about his club and several useful links that you might enjoy. KM Notes on Float Flying From: David Summers ironsidz@look.ca Ken:      You might also want to add another link to FLIGHT LINE where we have lots of photos of land and water-based RC models. http://communities.msn.ca/FlightLine/homepage      There are two directories for the Port Perry Float Flyers (PPFF 2001 and 2002). This is the only club in Canada (that we know of) that is dedicated strictly to flying off water. We fly float planes, flying boats and helicopters. Flying helicopters off water calls up some interesting variables: webhome.idirect.com/%7eironsidz/helifloats.htm      The "Ironsides" web site can now be found at: webhome.idirect.com/~ironsidz/index.html      This original article, "The Basics of Float Flying" can be found at: webhome.idirect.com/~ironsidz/floats.htm      Note: you will be leaving this site to read this article online. Return to "What's In This Issue?" Upcoming Mid-America Electric Flies 2002      As I write this on April 20, 2002, July 13 &14 are the dates for the 2002 Mid-Am. The field is still scheduled to be the Midwest R/C Society field on 5 Mi. Rd. in Northville Twp, near Plymouth, MI. The informational and map fliers have been posted to the EFO site; members.aol.com/kmyersefo      Only NiCads and NiMH will be allowed to be used in the All up/Last downs. That is really the only change over previous years.      Please check the EFO site frequently for any possible changes. Information will be posted on the homepage, should there be any change in plans. For up-to-date info, send me an email, kmyersefo@aol.com or give me a call at 248.669.8124 Return to "What's In This Issue?" To Reach Ken Myers, you can land mail to the address at the top of the page. My E-mail address is: KMyersEFO@aol.com EFO WEBsite: http://members.aol.com/KMyersEFO/