July 2001 Newsletter "Airmail"

Well, we have met the end of one road, and found the beginning of another! As of the beginning of July, the entire field at UCR was blocked of by barricades, mostly to keep cars from going across the field. Work crews began filling and leveling the field with fresh dirt, turning it into a multi-purpose athletic field, (make that a soccer field). With that, it effectively finishes our tenure at UCR and a great flying field is now gone.

Meanwhile, we now have control of our new field at the Mead Valley Landfill, and I can say to all of you, it is OUR field now! We do have a padlock of our own on the gate, this being a standard Master padlock with a yellow edge trim along the bottom. I will give keys to all current members of the club upon request or maybe even stuck to this newsletter. I am calling for all members to join me for our first official club meeting at the new field, this Sunday, July 15, 9:00am. I issued a map in the last newsletter to the site, and hopefully I remembered to make one in this newsletter as well. So, please look to be at the new field from now on, and welcome to the new home of the Inland Soaring Society!

And now that you have your official invitation to be at the new field, bring along some shovels or hoe so we can clear some weeds. If you have room inside a truck, bring along a pallet so we can drag the field.

Now, with this in mind, it does NOT mean we should give up looking for a new field. There are always new places to fly from, some of which can be very much closer to the city. Maybe even within the city! So, don't stop looking for new places to fly. And don't come up to me and tell me about it… go over there yourself and find out everything you can about the field. You might even find out who holds the property rights to the field and ask them about using the place for a flying field. Remember, you are covered by a recognized organization, the AMA, for insurance of up to 2 million dollars in liability, plus property protection of another 1 million. That normally opens up a lot of doors. Speaking of AMA insurance, all of our ISS members MUST have AMA membership to fly from the new field. So, be ready to whip it out this weekend. As for finding a new field, it's up to each one of YOU to find it. Like I said, don't come up to me and tell me…I already got a field. It's your turn!

Now, a couple of things that is new to us for the new field. First, you have to have AMA, and any guests you bring out must also have AMA membership. Don't be afraid to ask and have them show you. Remember to lock the gate as you arrive and as you leave. If you forget, and somebody finds out, we're out of this field! This is County land and so please respect it as such. Pick up your litter and take it with you. There is no water out there, so bring plenty with you. There is no restroom out there, and not many trees. There is no flying from the top of the landfill mound. I'm working on that, but for now, don't go up there. You can slope from the bottom, and have fun doing so. Electric models are allowed…no problem! And feel free to ask intruders to leave, but don't push the issue if they resist. Use your head, and then use your cell phone to call the Sheriff's Dept. They will remove the dirty little bastards! Just keep common sense in mind when at our new digs.

Other club news? Well, we have a treasury with a positive balance so far. We had a club contest last month. Hey, that's a good way to start the next section!

Well, last month, we had two months of contests in one. We lost the April event due to bad weather, then we lost May to the construction, and so we made up for May and also did June. The event was 3 rounds of add-em-up to make 21 minutes for the May event. The third flight of May was also the first flight for the June event, which was two more flights for a total time of 15 minutes, including the May 3rd round flight. This wasn't the bad thing about it. The bad thing was that you had to declare how long each flight would be before you launched! That made a lot of pilots think about what they could do in the air. Some paid a very heavy price for a mistake in timing.

In the May event, George Gomez captured a win against Gary Rainsbarger in the Sportsman division. George had enough points to take 4th in Expert. In 2-meter, Vince Botkin got the win, followed by Robert Glass in second. In Open Expert, Mike Lee got a victory, with Vince Botkin right on his tail along with Ron Faulkenham in third.

Now remember, the third round scores became the first round scores for the June event. Manny Gomez had to fly a seriously long third round in May, making his first round for June so long, that his next two flights were less than a minute each! With such a simple task, all he had to do was get some good landings…and he did! Manny won in Open Expert class! Steve Garland got second place, with Bob Glass in third. In the 2-meter class, Vince Botkin repeated his performance, as Bob Glass just didn't get any cooperation from his model. And in Sportsman class, Gary turned the tables, as he beat George Gomez for the win.

This next month, I forgot who was going to run it, but we will have an event at the new field, and this should be interesting. New place, new air conditions, and new landing zones. Be there!

The latest episode of the SC-2 circuit was held at the SWSA field in West Covina. Bob Glass, Ron Faulkenham, Steve Garland, George and Manny Gomez all were in attendance. It was my understanding that the air was a bit on the tough side, and I don't doubt it. The ISS scores didn't look all that good. Manny Gomez did the best, with his flights in RES class. None of our pilots managed to get into a trophy position. One of our pilots also suffered major damage to his plane. Bob Glass engaged the winch retrieve line on the launch, bringing the plane down and crunching the wings. I did not hear if the model was repairable or not. With that event, the 4th of the season, there are 3 more events left to go, and I have a rundown of the top scoring pilots on the circuit in this newsletter. With one toss-out in the mix, ISS pilots Mike Lee and Manny Gomez remain in scoring position. If all 7 events are flown, the best 5 will count, allowing a pilot to discount his worst two events. As a club, the ISS is still in a position to get a good finish, right now in 4th place. I believe our next event will be in August at the Thousand Oaks site. It should be a good place for us to make up some valuable points. Come out and join us for a good team effort!

Well, as you all know, we have not had a Turkey of the Month Award since last year, when I so graciously sacrificed some 18 planes to the gods of lift, (or the gravity gods), in order to satisfy their whims. And, to tell you truth, I don't consider the wing destruction by Bob Glass to be a turkey type thing. He wasn't goofing off, showing off, proving his manhood, or even hot-dogging the model. He simply got tangled in the retriever line. So, I would like to give Bob a more fitting award, one that I call the Tough Luck Award. And that was really tough luck that hit Bob. Obviously, Bob was getting darn good with that plane, and he was proving that by his placements in the SC-2 events. So, to Bob, I'm really sorry to hear about your Victory model getting tangled in the retriever line, and making a smoking hole in the ground. That was some really tough luck!

Now if you want to hear about some turkey stuff, I do have one for you. Yup, it's me again! At the International Hand Launch Glider Competition, I went on the field with the primary bird and my back-up. Turned on the radio, and gave the bird a toss. Well, up was down and right was left, and the plane smacked the ground, leaving a smoking hole in the ground. Problem? Stupid dope head me did not bother to check which model program was up on the transmitter, and so when you fly program 1 on aircraft 2, the result is normally pretty poor. However, we did get a good laugh from this, mostly for me being such a turkey, and we proceeded to fly the back-up ship from then on. For that stupid feat of magic, I give myself, once again, the coveted Turkey of the Month Award!

Also, I do have my candidate for the Ass-Handers award. I'm talking about a pilot who in our last club contest simply blew everyone away in the June event. Go to the score sheet right now and take a look. This guy put some points on the field and just handed everyone their ass on a platter! The pilot is Manny Gomez, and he simply wasted the Open Expert class, giving him the opportunity to give the Open Experts the Ass-Handers award for July. Yes, he certainly handed us our own ass's for the June event. If you are one of the Open class guys, how does it feel to have a 15-year-old hand you your own ass? I'm pretty proud of the guy, myself!

Okay, as I write this part of the newsletter, I have just come back from making the first flights from our new field in Mead Valley. The set-up of the land is such that the most practical direction to launch is from North to the South. However, the landing approach is not so great. If you are landing going the same direction as you launch, you can't make a long, straight approach to the field. The landfill mound is in the way. Most of the approaches I did during my visit came from the east side of the mound to the field, and this is a rather narrow space to make an approach from. Now, for the most part, this is not going to be a problem for most everyone. But, in a contest situation, such as the SC-2 event, when we will have multiple numbers of planes making the approach to landing, this may be a problem. Until we clear some of the weeds, I see that we are going to have learning to do about our landing approaches to the field. So, hopefully, you now have some idea of why we need to be at the field this July 15 for the meeting. Like I said earlier, bring some shovels or hoe, and if you can bring a pallet with some rope, that will help a lot too.

I will tell you that I finally found a situation where having a short stubby antenna doesn't work very well. Manny Gomez and I have been hitting the HLG circuit and found that with 5 or more other planes on the field in close quarters to us, the short antenna is not as effective as a standard whip antenna. We found we were getting glitches even when the plane was fairly close to us. I switched back to a standard whip antenna on my Hitec Focus 5-X and the glitching stopped. Now, if I use my Futaba 8-UAP, it doesn't matter at all. Will I switch back to a standard whip antenna? No, except for when I fly HLG. Just thought I'd pass that info on to you all.

Okay, so this is the end of the line for this month. Did I insult anyone? Nope, just me. Did I make fun of anyone? Nope, just me. Hmmm, did I take a poke at anyone? Nope, just me. Geez, I must be getting dull and cheesy, because I used to do all that and get away with it! That's what happens when the club has some derelict guy write the newsletter. Geez, I used to be an equal opportunity insult thrower. And then this rag was at least useful for lining the bottom of the birdcage. Okay, so, I'll make up for it next month. I'll get back to telling Vince he sucks, Steve bites, Ron is a basket case, Manny can kick everyone's ass, George has gotten better by a bunch, Gary is having too much dopey fun with a 2 channel electric, Bob Glass is looking for a set of wings to blow up, Bill does great loops on launch unintentionally, … Did I leave anyone out? Stay tuned next month for more junk. And move forward with me! Look for more fields, and more members. This is YOUR club!

Mike Lee