Genesee Valley Aero Modelers

Can someone tell me where April went? It seems like just yesterday I was writing for the April newsletter and now here comes May. I was starting to get the feeling I was not going to get to fly again this month but today (Tuesday the 24^th), turned out to be a great day so off to the field I went. When I arrived at the field I was met by a pleasant surprise. Not only was I able to drive into the Pit area, the field was freshly mowed and looked great. I’m sure this was thanks to Glenn, Charlie and crew. I guess we have no more field related excuses not to fly so I’ll see you all at the field.

On a personal note, I’ve started another project. It’s a speed 400 electric plane I picked up at the WRAM’s show in February. It’s a laser cut kit that was modified from a 1/2A design. It’s my first laser cut kit and it’s definitely better than die crunched. For power, I’ll be using a direct drive speed 400 motor with a Jeti 18 speed controller and an 8 cell 600mah battery pack. This is the setup I used 2 years ago on my first electric and it worked well then. I’ll let you know how it works this time.

On the local club events calendar is the Honeoye Float Fly at Sandy Bottom Park May 18^th and 19^th. This annual event is sponsored by the Canandaigua Sky Chiefs and is a lot of fun. Come on down and bring a seaplane or just come and watch. In Brockport on the 1^st and 2^nd of June is the Ray Edmunds Memorial Air Show & Fun Fly. It’s at Northampton Park. For more information call Paul Weigand at 716-621-8524. It’s for any RC model aircraft, with open flying from 10AM to 5PM and is sponsored by the RC Club of Rochester.

One final quote to remember, "takeoffs are optional, landings are not."

Happy landings,

Max

Maybe the British got it right. They just give their military (and civilian, too) aircraft a name (like Spitfire) and let it go at that. If there are major modifications, then they will put a number behind the name of the plane, like Spitfire 9. This is a simple, easy to remember system, which also tends to allow citizens to sort of identify with their aircraft.

But not so here in the colonies. We Americans seem to require more, like some sort of designation to go along with the name. The word "Scorpion" just isn't enough- it has to be the F-89 Scorpion. "Stratojet" could not be enough; it had to be the B-47 Stratojet. Oh, yes, adding the designation does give you more information; in the case of the Scorpion, we can then know that this plane is a fighter, and was the 89th fighter bought by the Air Force. Likewise, a B-47 was the 47th bomber bought by the USAF.

Unfortunately, the Navy did not use the same system. Until the services were forced to adopt the same designation system in the 1960's, the Navy had a completely different way to designate their aircraft, which was very confusing for those who were not too familiar with the military way of doing things! The Navy designations started much like the Air Force system, in that the first letter described the type of aircraft, i.e. "F" for fighter, "C" for cargo, and so on. It was the rest of the designation that was so different. The number following the aircraft type letter was the number of aircraft of that type the Navy had bought from the MANUFACTURER. And then the next digit was a letter denoting the manufacturer of that aircraft.

So for instance, the F6F Hellcat was a fighter, and was the 6th fighter that the Navy had bought from the manufacturer, Grumman. The letter "F" denoted Grumman. Likewise, the letter "B" denoted Boeing- so an F2B was the 2nd fighter that the Navy had bought from Boeing. A P2V was the second Patrol plane the Navy had acquired from Lockheed, denoted by the "V". For the first plane of any type, the number was just omitted. Thus, the first fighter aircraft, then, is far simpler and more logical than what we saw in the past. But where's the obtained from North American ("J") was simply designated the FJ "Fury". The Douglas Skyraider was the first Attack plane bought from Douglas ("D"), and was therefore designated the AD.

Thoroughly confused? Oh, this can get to be fun. Let's take the 4th fighter the Navy had from various manufacturers. The F4B was a Boeing biplane.

Now, wasn't that fun? Let's do another. The Navy called their bombers "attack" planes, the type designation being "A". For the third one bought from various manufacturers, we have: The A3D Skywarrior, a twin engine jet from Douglas, and the A3J Vigilante, a supersonic bomber from North American. But there were also torpedo bombers- these got a "T" for the first letter. The famous Avenger of WW2 fame was the first of its type bought from Grumman, and was therefore designated the TBF. Interestingly, the TBM was the same aircraft, manufactured by General Motors during the war!

The two services also differed in how they added modifications in the design to the designations. An Air Force modification to the P-51, for instance, would show up as a letter added to the initial designation, like P-51B. A Navy modification would usually be added as a dash, then a number, like F8U-2.

Alas, everything changed though, in about 1960. Designations for Air Force and Navy planes would be the same, and later most of the numbering systems were "sort of" reset to zero. Many of the Navy planes in the inventory were able to keep a recognizable number; the F8U Crusader, for instance, simply became the F-8; the A4D Skyhawk then was just an A-4. There had to be some changes, though. We've already noted two A3's; these were both in the inventory at the time of the designation changes. The A3D Skywarrior kept the A-3 designation, the A3J Vigilante became the A-5. Any differences between Air Force and Navy versions of the same plane were taken care of in the modification letter. An A-7D was the USAF version of the Corsair 2, an A-7E was a Navy version.

The present system for numbering our military romance- the oddities? Where did all the "pursuit" planes go? And just what kind of plane drops torpedoes?

As Max has disclosed, the field is in good shape. Charlie has rolled the field at least once. We had to give the field a haircut out of self preservation. It was growing so fast after the hot stretch we would have had to bale it.

If you want to drive down after a wet stretch you may want to check to ensure it has not gotten too soft.

We have had some good flying so far this year. As I was leaving on Sunday, Tim Donahue was taking his new J3 Cub out for its maiden flight. I will have to check with him to see how it went. Lou Eltscher even took time out of his busy retiree and world traveling schedule to get in a couple of flights.

The mower is reassembled and ready for action. Charlie has checked and blessed the tractor and the shelters will be up within a week. We are ready for 2002 flying season.

Don’t forget Thursday evenings are club night and we will be starting our Tuesday evening training nights on the 14^th of May. We also have moved the boat from Charlie’s to Canadice Lake so float flying can get under way.

Enjoy yourself, fly safe and watch out for the plane eating trees and ( Walt).

May 18-19 Chiefs float Fly. Sandy Bottom Park at the Northern of Honeoye Lake.

May 25-26-27 Chiefs Camp & Fly. Canandaigua NY.

May 25-26 Annual OVM Float Fly. Fulton NY. Registration fee $5.00.

June 1-2 Ray Edmunds Memorial Air Show. North Hampton Park, Brockport.

July 27-28 Warbird Scale Classic. Selkirk NY at South Albany Airport.

Aug.4 GVAM Family Picnic. GVAM Field.

Aug 25 Interclub Picnic. GVAM field.

Ed talked on the foam wing video about needing gloves to work with CyA and he not being able to use latex gloves because of an allergy.

One thing that works really well and is really inexpensive is to use cheap plastic sandwich bags to cover your hands. They work well and are thin enough that you can feel the heat of the glue as it sets. This works really well when you are applying glass cloth with CyA, as you can hold the cloth to the balsa and feel when the glue sets. It lets you use very little CyA to put down the cloth and saves quite a bit of weight.

Your glow plug temperature range is too cold when:

Your glow plug temperature range is too hot when:

These are several cures to these problems. We suggest using a fuel with less nitro methane content, using a larger size propeller or using a colder plug than the one currently in use. For example if an Enya Number 3 plug gives you these problems in your engines, switch to a Number 4 plug.

Model glow plug engines are extremely dependent upon the type and quality of the glow plug used. Enya glow plugs use a platinum alloy coil, which uses a thick diameter wire for long life. The thicker wire coil also eliminates the need for an "idle bar" as found on other brands of glow plugs; idle bars tend to reduce top speed slightly, to achieve a more stable idle speed. Enya's glow plug design insures both good top end speed and stable idle speed.

Enya glow plugs also have a thicker battery contact at the tip of the plug for greeter heat dissipation and better electrical contact. Altech Marketing presently stocks glow plug battery cords specifically for Enya glow plugs, which are standard equipment with Enya four-cycle engines. Other glow plug cords usable with Enya glow plugs are available from several other manufacturers.