DCRC Club Meeting Friday, December 17, 2004 8 pm Program: Holiday Pizza Party and Gift Ex-change. Please bring your appetite and a small gift to share." Raffle, Ryan ARF donated by Doug’s Hobby

AMA CHARTER CLUB NO. 329 VOLUME 50 NUMBER 12 DECEMBER 2004

Page 2 District of Columbia Radio Control Club December 2004

TABLE OF CONTENTS FINAL FLYING DAYS OF 2004 PG 2 CLUB MEETING MINUTES PG 3 LEFT HAND PG 4 BOARD MEETING MINUTES PG 5 TENSOR 4D PG 6 GOOD NEWS/CALENDAR PG 7 BACK

On the Cover:

Andy Finizio boost his jet time with his Composite ARF Euro-sport.

Photo by Andy Kane

Did you know that any airplane brought in to the model shop will receive 3 free raffle tickets. Bring in your models each month for your free tick-ets, and to share ideas.

PRESIDENT: Walt Gallaugher V.P.: Kevin Jackson County Liaison: Jim McDaniel

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Scott Davies 301-770-9150 Mike Dooley 301-843-8818 Andy Finizio 301-983-8557 Walt Gallaugher 301-253-4074 Allan Hoffman 301-845-8485 Kevin Jackson 301-963-6091 Jim McDaniel 301-916-0366 Mike Peizer 301-589-8299 Nir Schweizer 301-972-2248 TREASURER: Scott Davies MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Andy Kane 305 Natick Court Silver Spring, MD 20905-5875 RECORDING SECRETARY: Mike Peizer SHOW TEAM MANAGER: Jim McDaniel & Allan Hoffman NEWSLETTER EDITOR: Andy Kane 301-236-9222 dcrceditor@aol.com MEETING PROGRAM COORDINATOR: Kevin Jackson The DC/RC Newsletter is published monthly by the District of Columbia Radio Control Inc. Deadline for submit-ting materials for publication is the last Friday of each month. Any part of the newsletter may be reproduced for non-profit purposes unless otherwise noted. Please credit the Newsletter and Author if named. Articles may not reflect the opinion of the club, but that of the author.

Visit us on the web: www.dc-rc.org

Final Flying Days of 2004 By Andy Kane

Sunday December 5, 2004, The sun was out, the winds were down, the temp was in the High 50’s and we just had to go flying. Today we found, Mel Swerdloff, David Fepelstein, Dave McQueeney, Fred Nielsen, Charlie Calvert, Ray Mor-ton, Jim and Joseph McDaniel, Doug Harper, David Harris,, and Many others out to enjoy one of the last flying days in 2004 We decided at the last minute to make lunch for the guys and just kept it real simple, beans and franks, and that was all it takes to make our field one of the best flying sites in the coun-try.

See you at the December Club Meeting Gift Exchange. Friday Dec. 17, 8 pm

David Fepelstein and his new J-3

David in the foreground and Louie in the background both assembling their airplane stands, Ironwood and Foam

Dave McQueeney's Latest P-51

David getting some time on Andy’s Jet

Joseph and Jim McDaniel, exercising the J-3, even had some smoke

December 2004 District of Columbia Radio Control Club Page 3 been a very good year, thanks to the flight instructors and ground support people who showed up every week. Membership & Newsletter: Andy Kane is in Florida flying, so he asked Jim to give his report. Membership renewals are going strong. Old Business: Don Gray wanted to readdress the gate pro-cedure during the managed hunt. Jim went over the proce-dure again. On hunt days we go in and close the gate be-hind us, but don’t lock it. The idea is to keep the general public out, only during hunt days, by closing the gate, but not locking it. Fred Nielsen said last Sunday two people came out to the field and started flying combat at the end of the runway. They can’t fly the pattern and it can be very distracting as well as dangerous. Nir said he is thinking of designating the last ten minutes of every hour for combat and everyone else watches while they fly. Of course, this would apply only when members are waiting to fly combat. Combat partici-pants usually only fly for ten minutes at a time. Jim said there are certain safety issues concerning mid-air collisions and the raining down of debris that have to be addressed, as well. Don Gray asked about the shed being broken into. Jim said we are hoping it was an isolated incident. New Business: Maynard Hill is pleased to report the AMA has hired a new executive director, Don Corranda. Mr. Cor-randa has a very impressive resume and is highly qualified for the position, according to Maynard. Raffle: The raffle prize for tonight is a Ryobi 9” Band Saw. Tom Sawyers, one of our newest members, won it. Program: Maynard Hill gave a presentation on electrostatic stabilization. There is an electric charge in the atmosphere under most conditions, which can be used to remotely deter-mine the attitude of an aircraft in the roll and yaw axes. May-nard and his colleagues discovered this long ago when he worked at the Applied Physics Lab. He recounted his experi-ences developing electrostatic stabilization for military use. It didn’t amount to much because when you really need it, like in weather, it won’t work. Only Maynard Hill could take a topic like electrostatic stabilization and turn it into an interest-ing and humorous presentation. Model Shop: Roy Day showed a scale Cessna 195, of his own design, done from a three view. It’s electric powered and built very light with an all up weight of 4.25 lbs. A brush-less motor and 10 cells power it. It has lots of power. Now that it’s trimmed out it flies well. The wing loading is 15oz/sq ft. Dan Mintz brought in a Zagi flying wing with a Speed 400 motor 8 cells. He modified it to make it easier to hand launch. Flight duration is about six minutes. He has fun with it out at the field, and can make it do a roll. Al Diaz showed a Regal Eagle ducted fan trainer. The kit consists of a small box with pieces of plastic and a video. The pusher version is longer in the nose than the tractor ver-sion. It is not a fast airplane even though it looks fast. It can fly very slowly, and is extremely stable. Al’s wife helped out with some of the fine detail work. Joseph McDaniel showed an E-Flite Tribute. It’s powered by an Axi 370 brushless motor, and is equipped with Hitec servos and speed controller. It does all kinds of aerobatics. The motor mount was modified to be a bit more robust. Car-

Club Meeting MinutesClub Meeting Minutes

Jim McDaniel called the meeting to order at 8:02 PM. President Walt Gallaugher was un-avoidably detained and will be arriving later in the evening. Guests: Julian Cottrell is a friend and neighbor of Maynard Hill and accompanied him to the meeting tonight. New Members: Tom Sawyers moved down here from the Frederick area, where he was a member of the Frederick R/C club. Jim opened the meeting with a few announcements. The Board meeting was held the Wednesday before the regular meeting, because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Nir Schweizer was officially appointed to the sound and safety position. The meeting room has been secured for another year. The Astronomy Club has been in touch with Park and Planning and has been asked to submit a letter of intent. Once the letter of intent has been submitted, Park and Plan-ning will consult with DRCR and make a decision about using the field for nighttime celestial observation. The managed deer hunt has been progressing as planned. The latest hunt at the field was held today. Don Gray asked about the telephone number to call if a plane goes down in the woods and you want to retrieve it without getting shot. Jim gave the number to Don. Next, Jim introduced Ron Bozzonetti, who wanted to make a small presentation to a member. Ron took the floor and said there is a person who shows up at the field always prepared. He never does anything half way. Through no fault of his own he crashed a plane, and he did an amazingly thorough job of it. Ron presented Don Sassaman with a So-ciety of Aircraft Demolishers patch. Awards & Field Improvement: Allan Hoffman was unable to attend due to a death in the family, so Jim gave his report. Before Jim gave the report, on behalf of the members he ex-pressed our concern for Allan and his family and said our thoughts are with them. Tim Miller and Don Gray have painted the helicopter shel-ter. They matched the green of the other structures perfectly. Recently, Allan was asked if the other shelter down at the south end of the field would be painted. After some discus-sion it was determined that the shelter will be painted before the weather turns hot, next year. Community/PR& County Liaison: Jim reported that AMA and RCV have entered into an agreement to supply RCV en-gines, for evaluation, to clubs who are interested. Jim took a poll to see if someone might be interested in checking out an engine from RCV. Webmaster: Kevin Jackson said he needs photos for the web site. If you have any please send them to Kevin and he will likely update the site with them. Sound & Safety: Nir Schweizer introduced himself to the members present. He was born and raised in Israel. He is employed as a full-scale pilot, and his schedule allows him to fly at the field quite a lot. That’s why he was given the sound and safety position. He won’t be at the general meetings very often because he is usually flying for his job on Fridays. Flight Instruction: Michael Peizer reported that tomorrow is the last flight instruction session of the year. All in all, it has

Page 4 District of Columbia Radio Control Club December 2004

What to do with your left hand while you’re flying

By BOB KARASCIEWICZ Students typically do little with their left hands while learning to fly. Most of the throt-tle control is of the on/off type—on for take-off and flying and off for landing. I’d like to tell you why you should use both controls on the stick. Let’s start with a fun maneuver that uses both rudder and throttle. I call it the “tail wag.” Start with a nice, high and straight line (as all maneuvers are started) parallel to the runway. Have the throttle set to about half. As you go past yourself (the center), smoothly raise the throttle to full and let the airplane gain speed until it gets to full speed. Now it’s past you and going fast. Pull up to vertical and go straight up. As soon as your airplane is going straight up, start moving the rudder stick side to side. Take roughly a second to do this; don’t stop until the airplane slows down and almost stops. At this point, push down elevator and resume level flight. Don’t forget to lower the throttle to approximately half and make your turn back. Did you see the tail wag? Wasn’t that cool? Do it again. Each pass do the same thing and have fun. Now you are making the air-plane do what you want! You’re using the rudder and it’s a ball. Let’s try something a little more complicated. If you practice these things, using the rudder will be just like using the ailerons. You’ll be doing it automatically. The flat turn Flat turn? How does an airplane turn flat? Everyone knows an airplane has to bank to turn. My instructor told me that when I was just starting out! Relax and everything will be all right. Since you are using the rud-der, you can do more things with that beauti-ful trainer. Let’s try one. First establish a nice high and straight line parallel to the runway. As I said before, most maneuvers start that way. Have the throttle set to approximately half again. Just before the airplane gets to the center (right in front of you), raise the throttle to full. The airplane will gain speed. As the airplane gets to the center and is going fast, slowly go to roughly half rudder (this stick movement should take about a full second). Use the rudder to turn the airplane away from the runway. If you’re going from left to right, give left rudder. If it’s going from right to left, give right rudder. As you input the rudder, the airplane will start to do two things: roll and yaw (turn). At this point you will give opposite aileron to prevent the bank (roll). If you gave right rud-der, give left aileron. If you gave left rudder, give right aileron. Move the aileron stick enough to keep the wings level. Depending on the wind, you will adjust the roll correction by adding or removing aileron input.

Students do little with their left hands

while learning to fly. I’d like to tell you

why you should use both controls on the stick.

To reiterate: If you’re going left to right at full throttle, give approximately half left rud-der, and as the airplane starts to bank, use right aileron to keep the wings level. The air-plane will be turning but not banking. You will only see the yaw. On aerobatic airplanes, when you give rudder, the airplane will do little or no banking. This rolling as you give rudder is called roll coupling, and it has a lot to do with the amount of dihedral in the wing. This is not an aerodynamics column so I will not go into why. Hey, my airplane is turning without banking and I don’t know what to do next? Sorry, student! Let’s get you out of the flat turn. When you have turned enough, just let the sticks (meaning both the rudder and aileron) go back to neutral. Please don’t just let go of the sticks. That “boing” drives me crazy, not to mention it will quickly wear out your transmit-ter as it will reduce the accuracy of your stick input. Practice this stuff and while you are prac-ticing using the rudder don’t forget to have fun. There is one danger you may run into while doing flat turns. After doing a 90° flat turn, you will no doubt want to do more. That is, you’ll want to complete a flat circle. They are really great and very impressive. Do them, but beware. The flat turn is a high drag maneuver. After all, you are forcing the air-plane to go sort of sidewise. This causes more drag and speed goes down, causing less lift. Also, there is even less lift because of the sidewise airflow over the wing. Less lift means you could run out of lift. Running out of lift means a stall. Now don’t start worrying. You are nice and high, remember. If you do stall, release the rudder and aileron and re-turn them to neutral, maintain full throttle and point the nose down a bit. As you gain speed, give a little up elevator and you will have full control as before. In all, it’s no big deal. Stalling is part of flying. Actually, there is no need to even go that far. With today’s trainers you could do full rudder flat turns and multiple circles before you’d ever get into trouble. Okay, now let’s get to the really interesting stuff. We’re going to combine all you have just learned and do an amazing maneuver that you’ve seen and admired ever since you started coming to the field. The stall turn You know what to do. That’s right, high, straight, half throttle and parallel to the run-way. As you pass the center of the field, you will go to full throttle and maintain heading at a high rate of speed. When you come to the

place where you would normally turn around you will instead give full up. Go up straight, vertically, and at full throttle. After you have gone a few airplane lengths and your air-plane has slowed down, lower the throttle to roughly one-third (keep it well above idle). As your airplane slows, give full rudder and after about a second, enough opposite ai-leron to keep the aircraft from rolling. If you catch it just right, your airplane will turn flat within its own wingspan. Now you will be heading straight down. Release the rudder and aileron, raise the throttle to about half, and when you have gained some speed, return to level flight by giving up ele-vator. One of the things that can go wrong is the aircraft flops over on its back or front. Recovery is the same. Most likely you were going too slow before giving the rudder. In-put the rudder control sooner or don’t throttle down as much. If you still can’t catch this maneuver, you may want to talk to your in-structor about increasing the throw of the rudder. Many trainers have very little rudder throw. You may not catch the stall turn with a first try. Try it again! Don’t be afraid to go back to one of your instructors and ask for help. This can be a little tricky. You will be able to do this within a couple of tries. If you are using a second airplane for this maneuver, you will probably have less roll coupling with the use of the rudder so be moderate with the use of the aileron correc-tions. At my club, we invite all soloed pilots to keep coming on training nights. There is plenty to learn after you solo. After all, we (as do most clubs) only require the most ru-dimentary maneuvers and takeoff and land-ing to solo. Most of your learning will take place after you solo. from Ramblings Roxbury Area Model Airplane Club Michael Ramsey, editor Flanders NJ

December 2004 District of Columbia Radio Control Club Page 5

The meeting was convened at 7:15 p.m. at the home of Kevin Jackson. In attendance were Kevin Jackson, Andy Finizio, Scott Davies, Walt Gallagher, Allan Hoffman, Jim McDaniel, and Nir Schweizer. Walt Gallaugher took the meeting minutes in Mike Piezer’s absence. Jim McDaniel reported that he had contacted the Depart-ment of Recreation to arrange for another year of free rental of the county counsel building auditorium. DCRC appreciates being able to use this facility for our meetings at no charge. The board agreed we should do the holiday pizza party and gift exchange again this year at the December general meeting. Scott will look up the receipt from last year’s party to see how many pizzas we need to order for this year. In addi-tion to the pizza and gift exchange, we will try to arrange for a slide show of some of the club events from this year. Kevin Jackson will complete the annual review of the club books before this month’s general meeting. The board reviewed open action items. Jim reported he hasn’t heard anything more from the National Capital As-tronomer Club’s request to use the field. Jim said they have agreed to notify DCRC first if the County shows a willingness to allow them to use the field. Andy Kane will update the side bar in the newsletter to reflect the change in the board of di-rectors and show team. Allan reported he is still working on getting the old metal container removed from the field. This will most likely happen once the ground is hard enough to support the weight of the truck. Allan also reported the T1-11 board on the helicopter sun shelter was painted and it looks good. Many thanks to the club member(s) who did the paint-ing. The board reviewed once again the pros and cons of password protecting the newsletters on the DCRC website. The board agreed that the newsletter should be reserved for the enjoyment of DCRC members. Current year newsletters will be password protected after the first of the year. Previous year newsletters will be viewable so that visitors to our site can get a better feel for our club activities. The board also agreed that our webmaster, Kevin Jack-son, should go ahead and rehost our DCRC website on a an-other provider’s server that offers more file space and better security services. Meeting adjourned.

Board Meeting MinutesBoard Meeting Minutes By Walt Gallaugher

Flutter!!*&4##!? By Mark Weiss

Sooner or later, this word and its effects become the topic of the day so let’s talk about flutter BEFORE it destroys your airplane. Flutter is the oscillation of the control surface (normally the ailer-ons). The aileron starts oscillating up and down as the air traveling over its surface moves it back and forth. It may start as a dull buzz and can easily end up with the aileron flying off the wing within a few seconds. So what creates the opportunity for flutter to occur? Here are the possible choices: 1. Your airplane is overpowered and the construction of the wing

and tail are insufficient to keep the aileron centered due to the very high speed flow of air over and under the surfaces.

2. The servo attached to the surface is not strong enough to hold the aileron at neutral.

3. The control rod coming out of the servo output arm is too far from the center of the servo thereby reducing any leverage.

4. The control rod is too thin and flexible. 5. The control rod is installed too close to the surface of the aileron,

again eliminating the leverage that should exist. 6. The hinging is loose and weak with too much gap from the TE of

the wing. 7. The hinge gap is not sealed. 8. The aileron is not balanced. 9. The servo output arm and or control horn are too flimsy for your

application. 10. Etc, I am sure there are more. Now, what can be done to eliminate the potential for flutter. Just look

at the list and do the opposite! Here is what I believe are the main culprits.

1. Position your control rod in the closest hole to the center of the servo control arm as possible. This provides greatest leverage and servo strength.

2. Position your control rod in the furthest hole in the control arm from the surface as possible. Again, this provides the greatest amount of leverage.

3. Keep the control rod as short and rigid as possible. Never use all threaded rods as they are weak. Never place excessive bends in the control rod as this adds weak spots in the rod.

4. Make sure all pieces in the linkage are heavy duty for your needs. I believe 4/40 should be a minimum on all aircrafts.

5. Choose a high quality servo that can hold the control service in the desired position.

6. Keep the hinge gap as slight as possible and use a sufficient number of quality hinges.

7. Using your covering material or a tape designed for this purpose, completely seal all gaps on the control surfaces.

8. There are many articles available regarding the static balancing of control surfaces. Refer to these and balance the control sur-faces whenever possible. Some surfaces are dynamically bal-anced by their very design.

9. Use motor sizes that are recommended by the manufacturer. Ex-tra speed places extra stress on your airframes. If you want to go real fast, build a Quickee or a jet.

If you can easily wiggle any control surface of your plane when your radio is turned on, you are on the road leading to flutter and destruction of your plane. I hope these comments have been helpful and you will never experience the devastating and dangerous ef-fects of control surface flutter. Written by Mark Weiss for Giantscaleplanes.com

Page 6 District of Columbia Radio Control Club December 2004

December 3 Fri Managed Deer Hunt 4-5 War birds over Sarasota, FL 5 NASA Rocket Launch 10 Fri Managed Deer Hunt 17 DCRC Club Meeting 25 Christmas Day 31 Fri Managed Deer Hunt 2005 January 8 Sat. Managed Deer Hunt 17 Martin Luther King Day 21 DCRC Club Meeting Scott Davies 22 NVRC Snow Fly, Arcola, VA 26 DCRC Board Meeting Scott Davies 28 Fri Managed Deer Hunt February March 3-6 JR Challenge Punta Gorda FL

If you have an event you want listed here please let me know Dcrcedi-

tor@aol.com

Check me out on the web: http://members.aol.com/akane92802/DCRCEvents.html

For Sale • Old Craftsman metal lathe model

101.07301 • 59" span Albatros DVa, completed.

This airplane was first place in sport scale at the Toledo show about 10 years ago.

• 72" span Aeronca C3, completed. • 67" span 1 1/2 strutter. Airframe is

95% completed. Reasonable offers accepted, I have no room left in my shop.

The side force generators (SFG) are simply vertically oriented wings that allow the airplane to better fly on its side (commonly referred to as knife-edge flight) in a similar fashion to how an airplane flies using its wings. This additional side area has a much higher aspect ratio than the fuselage, thus al-lowing it to generate lift at low angles of sideslip. From a pilot's point of view, this means that less rudder deflection is required in rolling maneuvers, and knife-edge flight is slow and easy to control. Aerobatic models without SFG have to either fly very fast or at large sideslip angles to produce enough lift to balance the airplane's weight. They also rely heavily on the propeller's ver-tical thrust component to hold the air-plane With the SFG, one can fly in knife-edge at very low sideslip angles at speeds comparable to the standard configurations at very high sideslip an-gles. The lower sideslip angles also reduce the roll and pitch coupling, which makes the airplane easier to control. Apart from simple knife-edge flight, an airplane equipped with SFG can now do virtually everything on its side that it does with the wing. Knife-edge loops are much easier, because the SFG can generate enough force to where the pilot knows that he can con-trol the exit altitude, whereas on the typical configuration, you must point the thrust upward or cheat by rolling slightly just to complete a knife-edge loop in a reasonable radius. Basically, with the SFG's precision, knife-edge flight is possible. Imagine that every time you wanted to fly your model plane, you would be greeted with perfect weather condi-tions-absolutely no wind, comfortable temperatures, low humidity, and avail-able light twenty-four hours a day. "Utopia?" you might ask. No, just your

local gymnasium, arena or golf dome! Welcome to the wonder-ful world of indoor electric flight. Breakthroughs in battery technology, the use of strong, thin, high-density foams, small powerful radio components, and the continuing evolution of small, high-torque electric mo-tors have literally made the sky (or in this case, the ceiling) the limit. The latest aircraft designs allow a pilot to perform an entire

3D schedule inside a gymnasium. Ultra light scale, ducted fan jets and multi-engine aircraft are also taking to the air in this "inside" atmosphere. Another attraction with these types of models is the cost. Kits for basic air-frames usually cost between $30 and $60, and many even include the motor and propeller. Add a speed control, bat-tery and a basic radio, and you are in the air for less than $200. HobbyZone® and ParkZone™ also offers complete aircraft, including radio and batteries, that can fly in the larger indoor facilities for less that $100. Indoor flying is a real bonus for fly-ers living in the cold northern climates. Until recently, wintertime flying could be somewhat of a hassle. It was coats, gloves, hats and hand warmers. Now, many clubs are offering opportunities for weekly fly-ins at local school or rec center gymnasiums. Not only is it great for some quality flying time with your buddies, it keeps those thumbs dialed in for when spring gets here. I can as-sure you that there is nothing more fun than stepping into a warm building on a cold, snowy winter's evening and flying a model aircraft. Large indoor flying events are also coming of age. These shows definitely take the swap-meet theme to the next level. Vendors and manufacturers not only sell product out of their booths, but also give actual flying demonstrations. Shows such as the JR Indoor Electric Festival (www.jriefestival.com) offer the unique opportunity to buy-and-fly with-out leaving the building. I believe there is no better time than the present to be involved in RC flying. Technology and miniaturization have given us the opportunity to enjoy our hobby in comfort twelve months a year, regardless of conditions. Like I said, the sky (or ceiling) is the limit!

Designer George Hicks Explains Tensor 4D Technology Written by: George Hicks

AMA 2005 Election Results President

Dave Brown 15,090 Dave Mathewson 7,925

Bill Oberdieck 3,066 District I

Andy Argenio 890 Don Krafft 748

District V Tony Stillman 2,038 Judi Dunlap 1,275 Manny Sousa 898

District IX Mark Smith 866

tions, the dolly shown in the next photo evolved. The addition of a rate gyro was added to minimize yawing during takeoff. The final picture shows the model sitting

on the dolly waiting to taxi out for takeoff. See you at the field next year.

Wishing each of you happy and safe holi-days!

December 2004 District of Columbia Radio Control Club Page 7

with this past year. Randy’s Stik has an OS46AX up front and is using a Hi-tec Flash 5X radio.

The second picture captures Chi Lin posing with his Kyosho Flip 3D. Chi has had a lot of fun this past year learning to hover, but says he is still trying to mastering the art torque roll-ing. Chi’s Flip is using a Magnum .91 4stroke, w/pump) and a Futaba Super 7 radio.

Jim Blanchfield is shown in the next photo holding his Sureflite Spitfire. The model, constructed mainly of Sty-rofoam, has a wingspan of 49” and a takeoff weigh of 4.3 lbs. It is equipped with a Mega 22/45/3e brushless motor using a Phoenix 45 ESC (Electronic Speed Control) from Castle Creations. With a battery pack consisting of 12 GP3300 NiMH cells, and turning an APCe 13x6.5 prop, the maximum static current draw is 33 Amps at 7,200 RPM. Average flight duration is 6 to 8 min-utes.

Since the model has no land-ing gear, initial flights were made via hand launching. However, the model’s weight and low-wing design, made this type of takeoff rather risky. Therefore, an alternative method was necessary. A bungee-powered catapult was first tried but had several negatives. A fall-away dolly was considered to be more suitable; but turned out to be very diffi-cult to control. After several modifica-

THE GOOD

STUFF BY DON GRAY

It’s hard to believe that 2004 is quickly coming to an end. And unless you are planning to head south for the winter, the number of good-weather flying days will be decreasing as well. However, those of you who have one of the modern flight simulators, can keep right on flying in the comfort of your home without missing a beat (sounds like a sales pitch for either MRC’s Reflex XTR or GP’s G3 up-grade).

Now for some at-the-field show and tell. The first photo this month shows Randy Smith with his 40-size Ultra Stik. Randy joined DCRC about a year ago so that he could at-tend our Saturday training sessions. He became certified last spring, and although a member of the Frederick club, he plans on remaining a DCRC member because he enjoys the great group of guys he has met and flown

My quick trip to FLA, Andy Herold CA extra 330 and Marlin Husted 3w PA-18

Andy Kane 305 Natick Court SILVER SPRING MD 20905-5875

FIRST CLASS MAIL

Doug's Hobby Shop 2935 Crain Hwy.

Waldorf, MD 20601

(301)843-7774

Call and ask about their monthly specials for DCRC Club Members.

DCRC Club Meeting Friday, December 17,

2004 8 pm

Program: Holiday Pizza Party and Gift

Exchange. Please bring your appetite and a small gift to share."