THE MASTHEAD PLANE

The Dufaux 4 was the first plane produced in Switzerland, by her first pilot, Armand Dufaux.  In August of 1910 he successfully crossed Lake Geneva with it.  The plane is a sort of a cross between the Levevasseur Antoinette and the Cody biplane.  The triangular fuselage and distinctive tail are right from the Levevasseur handbook, along with the 50 h.p. Antoinette V-8 engine, but the biplane configuration with floating ailerons between the wings is closer to the Cody design.  At only two-thirds the wingspan of the Antoinette, this plane is actually longer (31 feet) than its span (28 feet).

               For the modeler the challenges are fairly obvious.  The landing gear track is narrow, and that forward skid is just asking to be broken (right, Arden?).  The entire body is open framework, no where to hide the radio and servos.  The long tail and short nose moments mean balancing this plane will require some lead in the nose, never a good thing for early designs!  On the other hand, it has only one engine, and no retracts, flaps, or bomb drops.

MEETING CHANGE

Please note that we are meeting again at the Redford Community Center at 7 p.m., the season for field meetings is over.

PROPWASH

VOL XXX, No. 8               August, 2007

Arden McConnell                  president                       313-274-3185

Mike Cuba                               vice-president               734-522-7638

Tim Kirsten                             secretary                        313-565-6093

Terry Kozlowski                     treasurer                        734-354-1928

Dennis Gazdecki                     safety                             734-442-3402

Bobby Harmon                       field                                313-541-4204

Al Zerber                                 membership                   734-427-4872

Kathy Kendzior                      at-large                           313-274-1402

Ray Piper                                 at-large                           313-532-7286

Mike Cuba                               editor                              734-522-7638

Charlie Thomas                      swap shop                     313-565-2973

Bob Mayhew                        archivist                         313-291-6855

Stephanie Thomas              webmaster                   313-565-2973

website      http://detroitaeromodelers.org

RAFFLE WINNERS

               Charles Henry and Leon Ryktarsky won the two door prizes donated by Nankin Hardware & Hobby, and Frank Hanson won the three channel radio we raffled off at the August meeting.  It was decided that the prizes in the future should be gift certificates to Nankin.

MEMBERSHIP

               Membership chairman Al Zerber reports that we have ninety-six members in the club as of the August meeting.  Welcom new members Jeffery Hall, William Gillespie, Rick Gabrowski, and Darrell Bell!

PROPWASH ON THE WEB

               The PropWash is now available on the Web at detroitaeromodelers.org.  If you wish to stop your paper copy of the newsletter, please contact Mike Cuba at 734-522-7638 or 734-812-0102.

PLAQUES

               The club voted to have plaques made in recognition of the generous donations made by Jack Shelby and Earl Jagger.

MEDIA UPDATE

Ken Burns is making a documentary about World War Two.  As part of the PBS presentation of this show, they recently filmed an interview of Alexander Jefferson, and got footage of Al Zerber flying a P-51 model.   Watch for the show!

AUGUST FLY-IN AND AIRSHOW

               We had magnificent weather for the August Fly-In, beautiful blue skies, light winds, and juts enough clouds on Sunday morning to ease the eyestrain of pilots flying a second day in a row!

               Here are some numbers.  We had thirty-one pilots fly a total of fifty-seven different airframes for a total of ninety-five flights over the two day run of the show.  Of the fifty-seven airframes, eleven were electrics, seventeen gas, twenty-seven glow engines, one jet turbine, and one rocket.  We had thirty-seven scale airframes out there, nine biplanes, one helicopter, and three multi-engined planes.

               World War One was represented by a Taube, a Fokker Dr-1 and a Sopwith Pup.  World War Two was represented by eleven planes, a B-24, a Corsair, a P-47, five P-51’s, two PT-17’s and a Zero.

               Half the flights were flown by just eight pilots:  Al Zerber (12), Charlie Thomas (7), Vince Blasky and Mike Cuba (6 each), Jim Repp (5), and John Lane, Andy Pesonen, and Roger Wilfong (4 each).  The complete sortie list is printed out in this issue.

               Here are some of the highlights, more or less in the order in which they occurred.  Vince Blasky opened the show with his 1/3^rd scale Stearman PT-17 in Red Baron Pizza colors, and two American flags attached to the struts.  Mark Immonen had some excitement when the left aileron servo failed on his scratch-built Sequel, but he was able to bring it in with very minor damage.  Al Zerber hit the first hover of the show with his U-Can-Do-3D 90.  

               Roger Wilfong flew his rocket plane twice.  This is the same as the rocket-powered glider hanging from the ceiling of Rider’s hobby shop.  I always thought that was a scratch-built!  Watching Roger’s plane lift off reminded me that not all rocket motors are created equal.  This one must have gone back for seconds!

Mark Immonen came back with his clipped wing Cub to show us he hasn’t forgotten any of his trademark airshow moves.  John Lane and Jim Repp tried a little formation flying with their Chipmunk and Laser, both powered by a G-62 gas engine.  Charlie Thomas made some extremely low passes with his big P-51.  If he’d had his wheels down, it would have been a touch and go at speed!  Andy Pesonen entertained the crowds, along with a fine acting job by Kathy Kendzior, flying the Toro lawn mower.

Roger Wilfong flew the smallest IMAA legal plane at the meet, a Bumblebee in quarter scale.  That works out to a two-foot wingspan for this electric scale biplane!  Dick Gallagher put on a very scale flight with his Curtiss P6-E biplane.  Cleveland Johnson got the bugs out of his power system and got the Skymaster twin-engined plane in the air.  It has an OS 70 in the front, and an OS 80 in the rear.  Apparently Cleveland had been having trouble getting ground clearance for the props!

Conrad Hasa, in one of two heavy-damage incidents, totaled his Michigan Maniac.  I’m not sure why it went in.  Don Allen gave the only helicopter demonstrations of the meet.  Although Jerry Willim did not fly, he got to see his Ryan ST-A in the air several times with guest pilots, and it seemed like everyone was lining up to fly Dick Gallagher’s Curtiss Hawk P6-E.  Andy Pesonen flew Jack Fitch’s B-24, the “Strawberry Bitch”.  It wouldn’t be an air show without hearing those four engines thrumming along in unison!

Eric Weinzak gave us a great show with his Yak 54, powered by a 3W106 gas engine.  Among the moves I recognized were harriers, torque rolls, inverted flat spins, and a harrier rolling circle!  Sunday we got four P-51’s in the air at the same time.  It was a high casualty flight, though. Vince Blasky’s twenty-year old model lost directional control, and Vince wisely decided to get it on the ground in a hurry at the northwest corner of the field for a total airframe loss.  Al Zerber caught the landing gear on his big P-51 and nosed over for minor damage.  Tom Bacsani did the same with his electric P-51.  Only Charlie Thomas and his P-51 arrived unscathed.  I did hear a great quote: “It was a perfect landing, six inches too low!”.

Mike Cuba and Nick Kyriacou tried to do some formation flying with their electric Ultra Sticks, one a mini and the other a 25.  According to Mike, he never saw Nick’s plane once they were in the air!  Tim Smith achieved a first at the field.  His Boomerang was the first gas turbine powered plane to successfully fly from our field!  He did have a small problem with turbulent thrust from the engine at low rpm, and managed to scorch off the covering on the stab and elevator, along with toasting the elevator pushrod.  Fortunately, the damage occurred after he landed!

               Many thanks to the endless stream of volunteers, from planning to getting food handler certification, from setup to impound, from safety inspection to flight line management, from food sales and cooking to the 50/50 raffle, from the announcer to the CD, and anyone else I left out.  Everyone pitched in, no one griped, and the result was a superb show!  Thanks, Andy and Vince, for pushing to get us back in the air show business!  Let’s do it again some time, eh?

RETIREMENT HOME SHOW

               As part of the aftermath of the successful show at the Windwood Retirement Home, Tim Kirsten was awarded the rank of DAM Fool  Pilot, for successfully flying his Soarstar in the teeth of a gale, in a constricted airspace, simply to entertain the residents of the home.  Congratulations, Tim!

INVENTORY

               One of the concerns that arose as part of our air show this year was uncertainty as to the location and existence of DAM property.  We need an inventory list of things like tents, fence poles, fencing, field striping equipment, durable goods from the food tent, etc.  We also need to decide how and where to store these items.  A committee was set up to generate an inventory list, headed by Stan Spiewak, with Tom McNulty, Tim Kirsten and Jim Thomas serving on the committee.  Thank you, gentlemen!

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL

HOBBY SHOPS!

NANKIN HARDWARE & HOBBY

35101 Ford Rd.   734-722-5700

RIDER'S HOBBY SHOP OF LIVONIA

30991 Five Mile Rd.          734-425-9720

RIDER’S HOBBY SHOP OF TAYLOR

22789 Northline                734-287-7405

ELECTRODYNAMICS

31091 Schoolcraft             734-422-5420

PROP SHOP

23326 Van Dyke 810-757-7160

JOE'S HOBBY CENTER

Grand River & Drake Rd   248-477-6266

AIR MUSEUM DONATION

               Last month the club offered a motion to donate $500 to the Tuskegee Airman’s Museum being built at the Coleman A. Young Airport (formerly City Airport).  After lengthy discussion, including a comment by Alex Jefferson that the amount was excessive for such a small club, the motion was defeated.  Later in the meeting, under new business, a similar motion was offered to donate $250 to the museum.  This motion passed.

PROPWASH

31425 Myrna, Livonia, Mi. 48154

Club meeting at the Redford Community Center

8/19       August fun fly                         5 p.m.

9/11       business meeting                                  7 p.m.

9/15-16 Flying Pilgrims Air Show     10 a.m.

9/16       fun fly                                       5 p.m.