Triad Leadership: Rob Jensen 544-2827 Board Members:
Steve Cole 838-6315
Larry Childs 794-8487 Dino House 894-7878
Secretary: Larry Miller 577-0496 Website Co-ordinators:
Treasurer: Dale Chiaroni 585-0476 Mike Beito 408-379-6929
Newsletter: Gary Child 579-2325 Richard Lange 571-1367
Events Coordinator: Larry Frank 546-875

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This year has been an interesting year to say the least. Three of us formed the Triad and used it to help spread the load of running the club. Overall the results were good, not that there isn’t room for improvement.

The club will vote on keeping the triad system or going back to the President/Vise-president system at the October meeting before nominations are started. Based on this vote, nominations for elections will be held. Elections will be held at the November meeting. It is important for every member to attend these meetings. On Election night there will be good door prizes!

We are looking for new people to be involved in the management of the club. Several of the officers are stepping down (they have done their time and paid their dues!) and we will need replacements for them. Just because you may be a new member to the Club, do not hesitate to step forward to help in running the Club. There will be plenty of help and resources available to assist in the transition. So please attend the meetings and give your support to the Club. See you there.

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A group of about 12 of us made our annual trip to Reno for the National Championship Air Races this past weekend only to have them cancelled due the cowardly acts of a small group of fanatics. Most of us arrived Friday morning and attended a memorial service at Stead Airport for those who had fallen in the wake of the attacks. As of that time the races were still on. Later that day the announcement was made that there would be no races this year. We still made the best of our trip and went to the local electric flying site and flew Razor races/combat till we could laugh no harder.

Saturday morning we went out to Stead again and had a chance to purchase souveniers and get up close to the planes and pilots. I had a chance to chat with Tom Dwelle, pilot of Critical Mass Sea Fury and Skip Holm, pilot of Dago Red P-51 individually for a few minutes and that definately was the highlight of my trip!

The Reno Air Racing Association lost a substantial amount of money. The say they will be back next year. I for one will be too.

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By Larry Miller

The meeting was called to order by Larry Childs at 7:33 p.m. There were 17 members and 3 guests present. Dale Chiaroni gave the report on the club funds, and we are still doing fine.

Upcoming events were discussed, and Sunday, October 7th was selected for the Neil Taylor Memorial Family Fun Fly. This is an event for club members and their families only, with free food, entry, and prizes! Rob Jensen will be the CD. If you would like to help out in any way, please call him at 585-3170.

We gave away the door prize and raffled off the rest of the loot and then it was time for show and tell. Larry C. brought his Bob Parkinson Regal Eagle jet. This is a standoff scale F-15 that was designed to be simple to operate and capable of flying from grass fields. He has it all built and is getting ready to 'glass it. He showed us the fan installation and how simple a plane it really was, especially with the omission of the retracts.

The meeting was adjourned and we retired to the parking lot to watch Rob Jensen fly his tiny BeBe' Jodel park flyer model.

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By Tom Newelsky

As this is being written, the many members who traveled to Reno recently, were disappointed by the lack of races. Apparently, the cancellation was last minute and this confused the pilgrims.

During the past month, I have noted a marked reduction in the flying activities at the field, when I was present. On Saturday, the 25^th of August, the weather was great, as usual, but few members were present.

We did have a visitor from the largest R/C club of Toronto, Canada. He was surprised to see us flying planes and heli’s at the same time. They don’t permit that at his field, for what he described as "safety reasons."

Roland DeConti brought his new Great Planes Cessna ARF, with an O.S. 46 engine. This is a really nice looking stand-off scale model, and Roland did a great job of putting it together, with some help from Robbie Jensen, at Red’s Hangar One. The plane didn’t fly, however, due to some engine reliability problems.

Phil Heidt flew his Stinger. For those who may not be familiar with this small missile, it is electric, and goes more than 100 mph. In the past, the plane had been a handful, so Phil reduced some of the throws. Unfortunately, he reduced the elevator throw a leeeetle too much. As the power was reduced, the elevator control was insufficient to keep the plane from hitting a tree, down the hill on the North side of the field. Bottom Line: R.I.P. Stinger. Phil says he has another speed demon to fly, anyway.

Loren made his usual appearance with his Raptor and his X-Cell Heli’s. On one of his flights, some hardware loosened in the tail rotor, causing serious handling problems. Loren was forced to perform and auto-rotation to get the heli back on the ground. The landing was a little bumpy, but the heli was undamaged.

The same cannot be said for Steve Cole’s X-Cell which suffered major damage on Saturday, September 1^st. During that afternoon, Steve was performing an auto-rotation. Unfortunately, Steve forgot to pull the throttle hold switch. As the Heli approached the tarmac, the engine RPM’s suddenly came up, causing the heli to torque to one side. This resulted in a main rotor strike, followed by heli parts flying in all directions. I was standing at least 60 feet away, and a half a main rotor came to rest at my feet.

On the same day, my Xtra-Easy trainer and the Fun-Fly Plane of Tom Haddorf experienced a "meeting in the sky." Tom’s plane was unhurt, but my wingtip had three clean propeller slices. What made the incident even more exciting, was that my daughter, Erin was flying my plane at the time, (on a buddy-box). Surprisingly, both planes were landed safely, and are again back in the air.

Also that day, Ryan Muehlbauer was Buddy-Boxing another trainer, with a junior member at the controls. They were practicing landing approaches, and on one of these, control was lost. The plane struck the fence in front of the pilots, cartwheeled down the fence, and ripped the landing gear, and part of the bottom of the fuse off. Plastic Screws, anyone? And what would we do without that fence?......how many shins have been saved?

I noticed that Larry Childs’ quarter scale Sig Extra also has metal screws, but Larry says that plastic screws are for wimps. Rugged Individualism.....that’s what makes our Country so great.

Well that’s it for this month. Lets all turn out for the Neil Taylor event on October 7^th. It will surely be a lot of fun.

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Join us for a day of low-key fun flying competition and good company. There will be prizes, raffles, and something special for the ladies.

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Officers 2004:

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Wine Country Flyers
P.O. Box 4198
Santa Rosa, CA. 95402