Club News

I will try and post news and information here as often as possible. If you happen to come across something newsworthy, please shoot me a message by clicking here.

February 11, 2011. Congratulations and thank you to Paul Van Kley and Bob Hill for taking leadership roles within the club. Paul is the new Club President and Bob is the Vice-President.

January 31, 2011. Guys - I saw an ad for this in this month's Model Airplane News. I must admit I was intrigued by the claims. I haven't heard anything from the AMA regarding this device, but I am sure they will have to have an opinion. This could be just the device for beginner pilots or those of us looking for a little more "protection" on our models. The device is named "Ruby"; the details are found here.

January 23, 2011. The new club leadership for 2011 is as follows. Our club charter calls for a board of directors made up of 6 club members plus the past club president (totaling 7). The bylaws state that this board conducts the business of the club. The new board members are:

James Bicos, Paul Van Kley, David Eames, Norman Stump, Martyn Roberts, Bob Hill and Bill Russell

Based on the bylaws, the officers of the club are designated from the pool of Directors. Thus far, Martyn Roberts and Norman Stump have volunteered for Treasurer (Martyn) and Secretary (Norman) respectively. This leaves the positions of President and Vice President open. Those 2 positions will be filled by 2 individuals on the board and will be announced once that process has taken place.

Membership payments mailed to Darryl will be processed, however they should start going to Norman (Member Services) now. The 2011 membership application reflects the proper address.

October 15, 2010. A great video link from Don regarding one of the most recognized fighters in the world, the P-51. This is a 30 minute video tribute to the plane and the brave men who flew them. The video has great resolution and should be watched in "Full Screen", to do so click on the box with the arrow coming out of it in the lower right corner of the video presentation. Thanks Don!

October 12, 2010. A couple of weeks have gone by since the Smack Down event. Like last year, it was a success. Like last year, we had approximately 26 pilots from all around the region. The highlight of the year was the Indy 700, where nine 700 sized helicopters entered the bowl at the same time and flew some serious 3D for such a crowded space. Not a single incident during that event. There was also a night fly, but it was bitter cold that night so it was sparsely attended. David posted images of the event here. There are a couple of videos posted below. Thanks to all that attended and/or assisted. A big thanks to the members for allowing us to host this event for the second year. Next year promises to be even bigger.

October 12, 2010. The Club's annual Float Fly was held on the same weekend as the Helicopter Smackdown event, so we had plenty of club members flying over the last weekend in September. Below is one of the videos captured of Dave and Jim formation flying at the event.

October 12, 2010. Below is a nice video that Paul captured from his T-34 out at the field. You definitely get a sense of all the new construction that the airport has done out there. See all the new Tarmac space just on the other side of the hill? You can also see where the new road leads as well. Nice job, Paul!

August 29, 2010. The solar panel system is installed and ready for use... the way this works is the solar panels convert to sun's energy into DC current which maintains a constant charge on an 85amp hour marine deep cycle battery. There is wiring from the 12 volt battery to a master on/off switch. In the on position the battery will supply a dual current of 12 volt power to a total of four banana type plugs. The purpose of this is to plug your CHARGER into one of the banana plugs and this uses the 12 volt power source to power your charger.

DO NOT PLUG YOUR BATTERY DIRECTLY INTO THE BANANA PLUG! YOU CAN ONLY PLUG YOUR CHARGER INTO THESE PLUGS.

The wiring is rated for up to 15 amps... please do not exceed this! Doing so can and will damage our entire setup. If there is ever a problem with the system please contact David Smith first.

There are also a set of speakers and a small amplifier which can be plugged into one of the banana plugs. If you have an ipod or music on your cell phone you can listen to music while at the field as well.

Please try and remember to turn the master switch in the OFF position when you are finished using the charge station. If you do forget don't worry, it will not harm the system. The system will automatically stop charging the battery when it reaches 14.5 volts. There is a LED read out on the system that will show the current voltage of the battery. The LED is found on the shelf with the battery, high up at the roofline. If the battery is ever below 11.6 volts please do not use the charge station. Give it time to charge back up or we could damage the battery.

August 24, 2010. David was at the field today and the construction crew was out there working on the ditch. He talked to the foreman and heard directly from him that they are putting in the cement tubes in the ditch. They will also fill in the rest of the ditch with the dirt from the "mountain" just to our north. This means that we won't have that obstruction there much longer. They felt like they would be done within a month.

August 22, 2010. The field clean-up event was a success. I was so busy that I never took a single picture; bad for a website, good for the club field. A thanks to all those in attendance that helped out: Bill Russell, Marty Russell, David Smith, Sarah Smith, Evan Smith, David Eames, Shirley Eames, Norman Stump, Martyn Roberts, Al Lerman, Aaron Glaser, Var Brynildssen, Yngvar Brynildssen, David Gulliver, Jim McKee and Darryl Barr. Thanks to all of you that brought food and drink to the event.

As for our "list" of to-do's, we made a healthy dent in most of them.

Finish painting the shelter - I'd say we are 99% done here and could call it finished. We had to purchase more paint and it appears they don't match perfectly. I'm not going to lose sleep over it, but if someone wants to repaint some of the patches, there's extra paint in the barn. This was a lot of work. We spent most of our manpower painting.

Remove all the junk from behind the shelter and the barn - All the junk has been arranged for removal. There will be an effort later this week to remove from the premises to the junkyard.

Trim the weeds around the shelter/fences - Done.

Move the freq board into the shelter - Done

Put up the solar panel - The framework was added for the battery in the shelter. Also, the team added a really nice charging station and benches inside the shelter before we painted, so the shelter received a nice upgrade as a result of the work for the solar panel. The panel itself was not mounted, but we anticipate getting that done soon.

Put up new wind sock - The windsock was brought out, but needs a special mounting setup. David is going to work on that. We did, however, mount an American Flag on the NorthWest corner of the shelter. Looks very nice! The jury is still out on how sturdy it will be. We may have to resort to the flagpole that we fashioned for the Heli Smackdown last year.

Establish north end flight boundary flag - Not even attempted, very little flying was done.

August 22, 2010.   Some news from the 4th Annual Fly-in/Open House & Fundraiser at the Indy Executive Airport for Downs Syndrome. As has become tradition, the club participated in this event by having a static display and buddy box flying at the field. Unfortunately, the winds were high and rain persisted on and off all morning so the RC flying was grounded. There were approximately 5,000 people in attendance, and the guys represented the club in stellar fashion. Present at the event were Bill Russell, Mack Blackburn, Larry Greene, Ed Ortgiesen and Darryl Barr. We had many kids and parents visit our area of the tarmac throughout the morning. Everyone was very inquisitive and many discussed coming by the field when the weather was better to experience the thrill of Radio Control. Below are a few pictures of the event.





I was also fortunate enough to video that Huey in action. I have it posted to our YouTube Channel and can be seen below:

August 22, 2010. I learned over the weekend that the construction at the airport is to account for the additional 100 executive jets that the airport expects to house for the 2012 Super Bowl. They are adding additional tarmac space to the south and that's what you saw represented in the picture in the news item on 8/16.

August 16, 2010. Guys --- here's a quick overview of what I believe is going on out at the field. Click on the included picture to see an enlarged view of what I am referring to here. As I explained in the meeting minutes, there is a second "Crater" on the other side of the large mound of dirt just to our North. I labeled the mound a "mountain" on the drawing. To the North-East of the new crater, is what appears to be some now hangars that are being built (just a guess as to what this structure actually is). From our vantage point on the field, the new hangars are to the East of the big cement factory. You cannot actually see the new foundation from our field, however. Given the generally accepted flight pattern (represented by the yellow box), I don't believe we are going to have any problems with those structures, however it is something to keep in mind when you are flying. This Sunday's clean-up session gives everyone an excellent opportunity to see this construction when there's no air activity. Come check it out.

July 20, 2010. Guys --- I must admit that your webmaster has really fallen over this year and not maintained this site. Feel free to replace me during the next round of officer elections!! Anyway, here is some recent news worth sharing:

The club has a new lawn mower. Our tried and true yellow machine finally met her demise. Not precisely sure the ultimate culprit, but there's no arguing she's a "gonner" now. Bill found us a sweet deal last week on a new tractor ($250), and he's already used it out at the field (no surprise I am sure)!! Initial reports are this is a nicer machine than we had and it cuts much better. When you see the new mover out there, you now know the rest of the story. Thanks Bill for making that happen. BTW, we are trying to sell the carcass of the old mower to recoup some costs, so I'll let you know how that goes in the future.

The field remains in great shape! The construction crews have kept out of our space and we've had clear runways all year. They have gotten close to us from time to time, but based on current plans, they will remain north of us and preserve our runway. That's great news.

Now that the shelter is done, the next project is to install the solar panel for battery charging at the field. David Smith and Chris Fulton are likely going to install this in the next few weeks. I don't have all the details, but will keep you all posted. The plan is to acquire a deep cycle battery for charging and install that in the rafters of the shelter. No word on if that battery has been acquired at this time. Again, anyone with information on this, please send me a note.

The club has a brand new trainer plane. Bill has outfitted the plane with radio/engine/servos. We anticipate having some additional training opportunities from the 4th of July Lebanon parade.

Please remember to use your membership card when out at the field. Everyone in the club should have a card. If you are flying, regardless of frequency, you should have your card on the board. This board is not only our freq board, but our authorized flyers board too. If you're on 2.4 Ghz, please place your card on the left side of the board. This way, we will know who is flying and who is a guest. Guests, MUST be accompanied by the hosting member. Also, please remember ANYONE flying MUST have current AMA membership. I have received word that some recent quests might be flying without AMA. This cannot be tolerated, and using the board will help control the situation. Guests must clip their AMA cards to the board when flying at the field. Thanks for your cooperation guys!

April 14, 2010. There's been some great flying weather over the past week or so … I hope everyone has been able to take advantage of the awesome Spring weather Mother Nature has provided. I shot some video over the weekend of one of our newer members to the Club, Jeff Nelson and posted it below. I hope you all enjoy.

April 14, 2010. The shelter wood has been ordered and should be in over the course of the next week. The plan is to begin the build on Friday April 23 in the afternoon/evening. The first step will be to get the post holes dug and the posts erected. This step requires the most precision as we need to make sure everything is square and solid. Once the posts are in, the rest of the structure should go up fairly easily. We anticipate that the remainder of the weekend will be dedicated to finishing the structure. Anyone willing to volunteer their time is encouraged to contact one of the club officers. Thanks!

January 4, 2010. Great Planes Model Manufacturing is hosting "E-Fest" -- an indoor electric-flying festival where participating pilots stretch their skills to the limit...and spectators shake off the winter doldrums by watching edge-of-your-seat indoor aerobatics. E-Fest will be held at the University of Illinois Armory Track & Field Facility in Champaign, Illinois on January 30 and 31. With its 100-foot ceiling and vast open space, the Armory offers an ideal stage for hot R/C flying during cold winter days. Both days of E-Fest allow several hours for open flying. Other times are reserved for slow flyers, jets, helis, 3-D, combat, and sponsored demos. Saturday's fun concludes with "Black-Out Nite Flying"...when the Armory fills with music and flying LEDs. Don't miss this winter's Big Event in R/C flying. For complete information about E-Fest -- admission and registration details, schedules, lodging, maps and more -- visit the festival web site here.

Note -- I have archived all old news onto a separate page so we don't constantly load old images onto the main news page. If you want to locate any news article prior to 2010, you can find that information here or you can perform a google search of the site in the frame to the left.