MESSAGE FROM THE TRIAD LEADERSHIP TEAM

Happy New Year to all! I can’t believe how lucky we have been to have had such nice flying weather so late in the season! I can’t help but believe that it will be building weather soon, though.

The annual dinner is all set for this Saturday, January 20^th and should be a great time. We have ironed out the final details for the new name badges-there may be some ready to be handed out at the dinner.

We have decided to wait until the majority of the rainy season has passed to get the new Tuff Shed for the field. It would just be a pain to try to store it and then find a semi-dry day to put it up. Early April seems likely.

That’s all for now. See ya at the dinner and the next meeting which will be February 20^th at the Veterans Memorial Building at 7:30 p.m.

This month’s newsletter is shorter than normal due to busy post-holiday schedules for everyone. We have now finished one full year with our new Newsletter. We welcome any suggestions and comments regarding the Newsletter, its content or format. The Newsletter is about to be published monthly on the website and by e-mail to members. We will discuss the details of making the change, but this will allow us to publish more quickly, give us the ability to add color photos and it will save the Club approximately $100-125 per month. We prepare the Newsletter during the week following the Board Meeting each month and mail it out before the next regular club meeting. We encourage everyone to submit articles or inserts for the Newsletter. This makes it more reflective of the club and its members and gives us all a stake in its content. Think about sending in any short article on Tips and How-To subjects, experiences you may have had at the field, suggestions for building, explanations (or excuses) for your latest crash and what you learned from it, upcoming events of general interest, suggestions for the operation of the Club or any other item that interests you. Keep in mind that with the new point system, any member who submits an item for the Newsletter receives credit toward the next year’s dues. If you will submit an article in Microsoft Word format, it can be e-mailed to me at gchild@investorstrust.com and I will edit it and polish it up for you. It’s fun to be involved, so send in your articles for the Newsletter.

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The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM by chairman Rob Jensen. We had 24 members present.

Treasurer Dale Chiaroni gave his monthly report to the membership which was followed by a report by the secretary.

It was brought to our attention that fellow member Larry Frank has had to drop off the board as well as curtail his modeling activities due to severe illness. He is at home and doing well at this time.

Dino House gave us an update on his progress with the new badges for 2001. He will have some samples ready for us at the next board meeting.

In keeping with our new agenda, we finished up business quickly and got on to the good stuff. First, we had a drawing for the door prize which was a J-3 Cub kit. This was won by new member Joe Olsen. Then we got on to the raffle. We had so many prizes that almost everyone went home with something. By the way, one of the prizes was cash.

Show and Tell was next on the schedule. Steve Cole brought his new electric Speed 400 Pylon Racer. Now Robby will have someone to race. They are small but man are they fast. Close to 100 miles an hour. He also showed us his belt drive Byron P-51 power unit that he plans to update with a new powerplant. Those Byron kits flew real well.

Next, we got a demonstration on fiberglass mold making by Robby. It’s not hard to do. Just time consuming and you have to like to sand and polish a lot.

The answer to the name-the-plane contest--------the B-29, called the TU-4 by the Russians.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 PM.

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BOARD MEETING JANUARY 2001

Dale Chiaroni was kind enough to again host the meeting at his home.

Dino House brought some sample badges for us. They all looked great, but we had to decide on the best looking one. We gave Dino the OK to start having them engraved and, with a little luck, most of them will be ready to hand out at the annual dinner. Those members not attending will get them in the mail when their dues are paid for 2001. Dino is to be commended for the time and effort he put into researching and obtaining these items.

Our club applications are being updated and will be available soon.

Jeff Costa is making up some nice certificates for people who have soloed. Jeff will be our Emcee at the annual dinner and I think he has some neat tricks up his sleeve to keep things interesting. Rob will be handing out awards to a few lucky people who earned them.

A couple of dates to remember---------Saturday April 28 opening day BBQ

Sunday June 3 fun fly and BBQ

Next board meeting----February 7 at Larry Childs house

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by Will Sievert and Tom Minger

Model Doctor #60

The Model Doctor occasionally puts his brain in neutral by simply stealing ideas from others. The following was inspired by the PCC newsletter.

When you car corners poorly, you start looking at suspension or tire/wheel adjustments. When your airplane turns poorly, you may need to look at control adjustments.

Many aircraft designs require a setup called "aileron differential," to help the airplane turn better. The basic idea here is that the aileron moving in the up direction travels farther than the opposite side aileron moving in the down direction. For example, the Goldberg Cub specifies 3/8ths-inch upward deflection and only 1/4-inch downward deflection.

The effect of the Goldberg Cub specification is that the downward moving aileron adds lift to one side of the airplane (along with a small amount of drag), causing the airplane to roll toward the side with less lift, but it will also yaw away from the roll direction because of the drag induced by the aileron deflection.

On the other side of the wing, the upward-moving aileron reduces lift on that side for added roll effect, and also creates drag.

The notion of having increased upward movement is to create more drag on that side of the airplane to offset the drag on the downward deflecting side, which creates an overall effect of the airplane yawing into the direction of the roll. This helps the airplane turn into the direction of the roll.

This combination of roll and yaw will result in very smooth turns, once you get the amount of differential figured out. Of course, the differential can be applied in the other direction, depending on the result you are trying to achieve. You may want to use differential to eliminate any yaw when rolling the airplane.

Unless you use a servo for each aileron, along with a computer radio to achieve differential electronically, you will have to build in aileron differential mechanically.

There are at least two ways to get the job done. The first method is to offset the pushrod attachments to the servo output arm or wheel. Typically, you mount the servo in the airplane and attach the pushrods to the servo output wheel such that the pushrods are at the midpoint of the wheel. That is to say, if you drew a line from the attachment point of one of the pushrods over to the other pushrod, that line would pass directly over the output wheel attachment screw.

That arrangement will result in exactly equal pushrod movement in both directions; i.e. the same amount of up and down.

To get differential, move both pushrod attachment points equally around the wheel toward one another such that a line drawn between the two attachment points would fall either above or below the wheel attachment screw.

The direction and amount you offset the pushrod attachment points depend on the effect you are trying to get and the configuration of your airplane. Keep in mind the example with the Cub when thinking about whether or not you want more up than down aileron.

The second method to achieve differential is by offsetting the control horn or torque rod attached to the aileron itself.

If you looked straight onto the end of the aileron with the horn or torque rod attached, and that control horn or torque rod is exactly perpendicular to the aileron cross section, then equal fore and aft movements of the pushrod attached to the control horn will cause equal up and down movement of the aileron.

However, if you were to cant the control horn either forward or aft as opposed to a perpendicular installation, then equal fore and aft movement of the attached pushrod will not result in equal up and down movement of the aileron.

Again, the direction and amount of the cant are dependent on the effect you are trying to achieve.

Try messing around with this effect. You may turn a dog into a pretty good flier. By the way, this identical approach works with elevator set up.

Ever had an airplane that requires more down than up elevator to respond the same, whether upright or inverted? Differential elevator will fix this such that your transmitter sticks won't know there is a difference.

from Salinas Area Modelers Richard Woodcock, Editor PO Box 6351 Salinas CA 93912-6351

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by George Lumpkins

Most of an airplane's strength comes from the structure of the aircraft, for example, the ribs, main spars, formers, and sheeting on the wings and fuselage. However, what if this is not enough for your application?

When adding more structure to the inside will not solve your problems, maybe you should consider glassing the outside of your airplane. Glassing should be done to surfaces, not to bridge gaps like between ribs on a wing. Glassing consists of epoxy lathered onto fiberglass cloth.

The glassing I am referring to in this article is fiberglass cloth of any lightweight density and finishing epoxy of any make. Do not use regular epoxy as it is impossible to sand without balling or gumming up the sandpaper.

Epoxy glassing is a great way to add strength to all of the areas it is applied to. First you should place the glassing cloth over the area you intend to glass and cut it to shape with one to two inches to spare at all comers. This is just in case you don't place the cloth exactly the way you want it.

Next, mix up the epoxy resins for glassing. I mixed one-third hardener with one-third resin, and the last third with 91% pure rubbing alcohol. Pour some of the mixed resin onto to the area intended for glassing, and use a rubber squeegee to move it evenly around the whole surface. The wood will appear as if it is wet, but there should not be standing pools of epoxy.

Next place the fiberglass cloth onto the area where the resin is. Pour the remaining resin on until all of the white areas of the cloth have taken on a wet appearance. Allow this to dry for 10 hours or so before sanding or painting.

For anyone who has attempted to glass an airplane, you will quickly discover that you will get wrinkles or bubbles. If you try to push them out, the fabric tends to stretch and just makes matters worse.

When I glass anything, I use the flexible rubber squeegees. These work wonders for gently sliding the wrinkles to the sides.

Another suggestion, one that I use, is to take a Windex bottle (after using its contents and cleaning it) and fill it with rubbing alcohol. This will allow you to spray the alcohol onto your work evenly and it will delay the epoxy from curing immediately and thin it out a little.

After you're finished, you can use lightweight spackling putty to keep the weight down and fill in the small indentations left in the weaves of the cloth.

This is my two cents from my experiences from glassing on kits for strength. I personally have used all the techniques mentioned in this article.

from NOTAM Bayou City Flyers, 21215 Park Bluff Dr., Katy TX 77450

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TRY THIS OUT

by Joe Podraza

If you're a scratch-builder and have never tried to iron on balsa, you should.

I don't remember the article, or in what magazine it was in, but I did try it out on a small model with tight curves in the fuselage and it worked well. No clamps or pins or holding the balsa down while the glue dries.

I now use it to plank the leading and trailing edges of my foam wings as well as the cap strips. So far, I haven't had any of the planking let go.

Using contact cement is okay, but once the planking is set in place, there is no moving it. With this method, you can take your time to line it up and hold it down while you iron it on.

I remember the article said it was an old-time cabinetmaker's way of laminating the top ply on. All that's needed is Elmer's glue or any glue that says it's aliphatic resin, a way to squeegee it on really thin on both sides that are to be joined, and an old iron that you can pick up at any thrift store.

Allow time for the glue to dry, then line up the planking and iron away. On the really sharp bends, I wet the outside of the balsa and the steam lets it bend without cracking.

If you don't believe the holding bond, just iron on a sheet of 1/16-inch balsa onto a piece of foam and try to rip it off. When it comes off, the foam will come with it. Once it's on, more heat will not loosen it. Just remember to put the glue on really thin. I use a rubber squeegee, and be sure to let it dry before you iron it on.

from Flypaper, Lake County Illinois Radio Control Club, Joe Podrapa.. Editor

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