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Palouse Ridge Runners R/C
Newsletter
Pullman Ridge Runner Moscow
============================== May 2003 ==============================
Next
Meeting:
The May club meeting will be at the Jack-in-the-Box in Moscow at 7pm on Tuesday, May 6.
WSU
AIAA Club
By Don Hart
One Sunday early in April I met Les Grammer and three members of the WSU AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) Club at the Colfax airport. This was to be the first flight of a plane designed for the national competition AIAA competition in Kansas.
The WSU plane was very interesting. About a 7-foot wingspan and a fuselage Les described as a pregnant guppy with wings. It was electric powered and was designed to carry a five pound payload. After much futzing around, tweaking the nose wheel linkage so it would track straight, and adjusting the channel mixing settings on the transmitter, it was ready for its test flight.
(See the attached picture)
The picture was taken at the Colfax airport just before the test flight. As you can see, the plane was not quite complete, with a bare wood fuselage (not a problem with electric power). Construction used typical model building techniques using balsa and spruce with Monokote covered built-up wings.
I was the test pilot. The takeoff was very good for a 12-pound plane on electric power. It had a left turn that I couldn't trim out from the transmitter. I was just starting a right turn back to the runway when it went into a spiral dive and impacted just the other side of Airport Road. My guess at the time was that it either stalled or it got out of range and went into fail-safe mode - full right turn and full up elevator (required by the competition rules). The radio system had been on for a long time by the time the test flight began. The range check was reasonable, but I the extra load from servos in flight may have been too much for the receiver pack. The wings appeared to be fairly undamaged, but the fuselage was many, many small pieces. The radio gear and power system survived. The WSU team had a very short time in which to re-build, but they did reach a major milestone of the competition with a photo of the plane in flight.
Here’s a note I received from Zak Valentine (club president) about the WSU AIAA club experience at the competition.
Hi
Don,
The
competition went very well. We finished 14th out of 35 schools. We
built a new fuselage and fiberglass wings with full length ailerons in 1
week! We had to finish up the payload release at the competition.
When testing the new airframe, we found that the receiver battery used on the
first plane had a bad connector causing an intermittent connection, and
possibly the reason why the first one crashed. The competition was rainy
the first day and windy the next. We flew on the windy day, and the plane
took off in about 70 ft with the payload and flew the course flawlessly in 4
minutes. The second flight was great until the pilot released the payload
on the side of the runway, disqualifying that flight. On the final
flight, the pilot had trouble getting the plane down and ended up collapsing
the nose gear on landing. We still got a score for the flight, but may
have been able to do better had the landing gear been a bit more
springier. We're definitely going again next year, and we hope to bring
our own pilot! We took about 200 photos or so. I'll send some your way
once we get them developed and digitized. Thank you so much for testing
our plane, we were much better off crashing it before the competition, and as a
result we've learned a lot. See you later.
-Zak
More information is on their club website at www.aiaa.wsu.edu
By Don Hart
The April meeting was held at the Jack-in-the-Box in Moscow.
Attending:
(no list, but there was a great turnout!)
Mel
Colvin and Larry Bobisud said they had problems with the newsletter sent as an
html attachment to an e-mail. Others
had no problem. If you have problems, let me know and I’ll re-send the
newsletter as text in the body of an e-mail.
Joe
Bolden has contacted the owner of the Moscow landfill site. The owner says it
would cost $25 thousand for an access road. A bit out our league! Joe will
continue to pursue this, but it’s not looking good for now.
Dave
Walker has contacts with the Moscow Parks and Recreation Department. Our Parks
and Rec sponsored events such as the classes where Joe and Mel are teaching
model building to kids, and the buddy-box fly-in sessions, may be helpful in
getting a flying field at the new park going in on the south side of Moscow.
Dave will continue efforts along these lines.
Many
thanks to John for making his field available to the club. John was able to borrow a power roller from
a neighbor. He rolled the field twice about ten days apart following rainy
periods. The field is smoooooth and the grass is mowed. John also serviced the
club riding mower – thanks John! Mel is the official “Field Manager”, keeping
the field mowed and watered while John is busy with farming activities. We will
have a work party to set up the watering system some time in May.
Bruce
Bumgarner and Les Grammer set up five tables displaying R/C gliders at the
model railroad swap meet the Sunday after our club mall show. This was an information-only presentation.
They answered many questions from the attendees and passed out lots of R/C
literature. Next year we should have a larger presence with more types of
models and more information about the Palouse Ridge Runners club, such as where
and when we meet and fly, and information about other R/C clubs in the area.
Admission to the swap meet is $3 at the door. Tables for those wishing to sell
items are $5 each. The management of
the swap meet would like to expand the swap meet to other hobbies, including
R/C modeling.
The
Chuck Schuring Memorial Fun Fly is scheduled for Saturday, June 7. This
will be an open flying session with emphasis on flying the planes from Chuck
Schuring’s collection sold to club members at the December club meeting. Some “low
impact” competition is planned also.
There
were three visitors to the meeting: Byron Stevenson (a former PRR member
returned to the Palouse area from Spokane), Ron Rae, and Bobby (didn’t get his
last name). Bobby is from Tensed. He flies helicopters and competes in Q500
racing.