The President's Corner

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July holiday. I know I did. I took a week and a half off and went to Minnesota to visit my parents. I took several electric airplanes along to fly and got a couple of good days of flying in. Much of the rest of the time the wind was blowing too hard or the mosquitoes were too bad. I also took the Rascal and some tools but didn't get a chance to work on it at all.

The CMA Fun Fly was held July 13th. There were three events and gift certificates were awarded for first, second and third places. Tom Gorman took first place in the spot landing with 4 feet 2 inches. Marion Payne took first in the doughnut drop with 18 feet. As usual I wasn't much competition in the doughnut drop event. This was the best of two attempts. My first doughnut blew out of the cup (I guess I cut my cup down a little too much). My second attempt landed about 180 feet away after I dumped it because I didn't think I could make another pass without losing it again. There was a 30 second climb/glide event in which the pilot is given 30 seconds to climb and then had to kill the engine and glide as long as possible before landing. I took first in this event with 3 min 58 sec using the Eagle 63 and the new Royal .46 engine. This engine sure has a lot of power and can sustain a near vertical climb attached to my Eagle. The next CMA fun fly is scheduled for August 24th and there will be more events and prizes.

There were several CMA members and many familiar faces from the Cedar Rapids area at the Sig Fun Fly. The fun fly at Dave Wilson's the following weekend had a very good turnout. Along with EAA members that were there for a breakfast there were some members present from the Skyhawks and other local clubs. I didn't have anything to take for the Sig fun fly, but took a bunch of planes to Dave's and got quite a bit of flying in. The day of Dave's fun fly it was pretty windy and I was a bit worried at first, but after I got a flight in on the Sweet Stik the worry faded and I had a lot of fun. Near the end of the day when one group of people left in their full scale airplane (Dave has a full scale as well as a model runway), they did a low pass right down the model runway between me and the airplane I was flying. Sort of reminiscent of flying at Doc Sherman's field for those of you who remember that.

The $50 airplane is complete and has about a dozen flights on it or so. It seems to fly well. I put a Tower .46 engine on it that I had lying around instead of the Royal .46 that I originally planned. The Tower engine has a very tinny sound to it because of the thin muffler but it pulls the airplane around nicely. Final weight on the plane was 5.09 lb. I'll have it at the fun fly. The Rascal has its reinforcement added under the wing and a new speed controller and I'll bring that to the fun fly too if the wind isn't blowing too hard. The Wonder is close to being finished but probably won't be done in time for the fun fly.

Mark Woytassek and I have been working on drop boxes to test drop some radios that Rockwell Collins is designing. These are small, single or two channel radios that run on solar power and rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries that will be dropped over Afghanistan. As of now, we have done two test drops from my Eagle 63 with a piece of wood with a parachute attached and a mock-up of the actual radio. The real radios should be available soon. When we get the real radios and test drop them from an R/C airplane we are going to get some pictures and try to get something published in the Rockwell Collins Today and/or the Rockwell Collins website to get some publicity for the club.

Steve Plantenberg

CMA President


Notes from the Webguy

I can't say webmaster because that would mean I know all there is to building web sites. We've had a heck of a time getting newsletters published, so this month we're doing a combo August/September Flightline (sort of - news, but not a lot of pizazz). The news is even a bit old, since if you're reading this, you'll see that the fun flies have happened, and the CMA is all out of fun for the year. The kids are in school, and we're all back to work.

Note that beginning NEXT MONTH - OCTOBER - the return of the BUILD SESSIONS. They start second Thursday of the month, run from 6:00 until 9:00 PM, and happen in the Main Plant Cafeteria. Crist promises no more doping of airplanes in the room, so it's safe to come on down and either build, kibitz, or just plain tell us all those flying stories you're dying to get off your chest.

The OCTOBER MEETING is the meeting where the DREADED NOMINATION period for next year's officers open. I'm sure we're all itching to know who will lead us into the future for 2003. And I believe that also means that it is time to start thinking about re-upping for next year, and parting with that crisp twenty dollar bill.

Speaking of DUES. Has anyone seen the recent issue of Model Aviation, and what will be happening to not only your 2003 AMA dues, but to the AMA fees for clubs in general?

Individual AMA dues (OPEN) go up $10 from $48 to $58. Senior Citizens also get whacked for an additional $10 - up to $48 from $38.00

Club Charter Fees go from $20 to $30 next year, the Additional Insured (read that as Larry Martinson's Sod Farm) certificate will cost us $60, instead of the usual $20. If we want special wording, it will be $80, instead of $20. Check the entire new dues/fee structure out on page 154 of the October 2003 issue of Model Aviation. Oh, and if I remember, this is the year we are supposed to send AMA a copy of the club by-laws......Hope those guys on the Executive Council know what they are doing!!! If this isn't enough, I've heard rumblings (unconfirmed), that Rockwell is thinking about even less sponsorship $$$ to their clubs for FY'03.

Other happenings...I took a week off the first part of August and the family loaded up the Truckster and headed East, to Dayton, Ohio and the United States Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. What a museum. If you haven't been there, GO! On the way back home, we stopped in Muncie, Indiana, and scoped out the AMA museum. Can't say a whole lot about Muncie, but the museum is great.

Dayton is planning a huge bash next year to commemorate the Centennial of Powered Flight. Big doin's. I think we're going back for that. Oh, while there, we also got to see one of the two remaining original Wright Flyers. If you love airplanes - Dayton is the place to go.

Gregg Lind and Tom Gorman successfully launched Timmy the Parachutist. From what I hear, there are pictures. I also heard that the first two jumps were successful, but on number three, Timmy ended up losing both legs. Hope it wasn't too messy.

Rumor has it that our membership will be up next year. Let's hope so.

There's a CLUB DINNER with Larry Martinson (our field owner) to show our appreciation. Crist Rigotti emailed the details to most members last week. I don't have the particulars in front of me, so I'll see what I can to do get them on the web page.

Lesseee----what else? Oh, if you need HATS, or POLO shirts with the CMA club logo on them - see Gregg Lind. He can arrange it for a reasonable price.

Iowa State and their UAV project. I haven't heard a peep from them since last Spring, right before school ended. Their website disappeared about a month ago. I'll see what happened, and post the info when I find out.

That should do it for now...will try to get this published on a more current and periodic basis. Newsletters are hard to keep going when no one cares to submit info, but they are about the only way to keep a club going.

Dave Shema


2002 CMA OFFICERS
President: Steve Plantenberg

(319) 295-9625

scplante@rockwellcollins.com

Vice President: Mark Woytassek

(319) 295-4332

mawoytas@rockwellcollins.com

Sec/Treas: Larry Kerns

(319) 295-7157

lwkerns@rockwellcollins.com

WebGuy David Shema

(319) 295-9543

dkshema@rockwellcollins.com

dkshema@mchsi.com

Field Marshal: MarkWoytassek..............295-9543

Safety Officer: Crist Rigotti.....................295-0612

WebPage: Dave Shema....................295-9543

First Flights of New Airplanes -- Mark Woytassek

First Flights of New Helicopters -- Crist Rigotti/Dave Shema

Flight Instructor---- Steve Plantenberg

Instructors in Training - Jamie Johnson

CMA VOICE BULLETIN BOARD - 295-8888