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Esher & District Model Flying Club

President: Dave Ward Esq
Vice Presidents:. J.S. Barker Esq. Terry Kitson

COMMITTEE

Tony Major: Chairman	Fred Clarke: Secretary	Dave Hodges: Treasurer
Tony Fuller: Vice Chairman		Geoff Ward: Safety Officer
Keith England: P.R.O. keith.england at virgin.net	Click Here for January's Newsletter	Alan Dobson: Social & Membership Secretary Bigdobo at aol.com

June 2006

Editor's Notes

Just a quick newsletter again and MONTHS late - for which I do apologise; pressure of work coupled with major redecoration at home has made it difficult to fit in anything else this year. The decorating is finally finished so it looks like I might have a bit of time to finish the Mosquito at last!

Downside Flying Field

As most of you may now be aware, the field next to the one we use has been earmarked for a new M25 services. There are still a few objections to be overcome before building starts but it does look like we will need to look for a new winter field for next year. I’ll try and keep everyone informed of developments but, as ever, if you come across a promising filed let the committee know.

Tony's Patter

Cold Start - From Jan until March it was bitterly cold on Saturdays, but in spite of that there has still been a regular number of 'enthusiasts' getting in quite a lot of flying. Thank goodness we have Andrea, as she has cooked a BBQ almost every week, sometimes for just 5 or 6 frozen objects who turned up and flew. Three cheers for A. !!!

Entertainment (sometimes unfortunate for the pilot) occurred - of note Dave R landing his Cherokee on its first flight in the top of one of the trees at the end of the field. However, within a couple of weeks, he was back chasing Fred's Cherokee again with another one!

Kit managed to get his SE5A (that Ken gave him) into the air, losing a wheel just as it left the ground, and with Dobo at the controls it cavorted around the sky, badly out of trim and eventually Al managed a good arrival on one wheel at the barrier netting and finally last week Dobo did a full bore landing on the strip with his Mustang stopping in about 3 feet with little damage - how did he do that?

Flying Fields - We will go back to Merstham on Saturday 8^th July. Would volunteers to help cut the grass please contact me beforehand.

Safety - The Committee have agreed that while any non-certified pilot is flying there must be a certificated pilot at the flight line in case help is needed and to keep a watchful eye on aircraft passing, landing or taking off Certificated pilots please all do your bit.

Please also remember that flying fast along the runway (beatups) can be very dangerous if you get a glitch. Please make sure you are just off of the far side of the runway if beating up the runway.

Club Nights - On 2^nd Wednesday we fly electric at Nescot and other Wednesdays during the summer evenings many members are going to the Downs (up to 8pm), but remember that you must join the Epsom Downs MFC to fly and you must comply with their rules.

Club Fly-in and BBQ - This has been arranged for Sunday 2^nd July at the Clubhouse field (Nescot). Cost is £2 per flying member and £3 for the BBQ (cheers Andrea). Gates open at 10:30am. Flying from about 11am - 5pm. 6 models max. in the air at any one time (max of 4 i.c.s.) Please keep the noise down and perhaps we will be able to make it an annual event. The Fitzwilliam Novices Competition will be held whilst eligible pilots fly.

Club Fuel - I am holding several galls. of 5% Nm and am getting more in shortly of 5% Nm, 2% Castor, 16% ML70, 77% Methanol. Please contact me when required.

Competitions - A timed event successfully took place on Easter Saturday 15 April for the RoseBowl.

The event was to take a time out of a hat and fly for that time with one loop included. Pilots just had to keep flying and declare “Start” and “Stop” when they thought they had flown for the correct time; this made it easy enough for all to have a go!

The competition was well supported with some very good results: Les was only 2.6 seconds from his allotted time with Mark just 1 second behind him, however Geoff and Keith were both within 1 second of their times and within 1/10 second of each other - A dead heat was declared. A fly-off was finally completed a couple of weeks ago to give the final scores as:

1^st Keith England
2^nd Geoff Ward
3^rd Les Frost
4^th Mark Stonard

Keep 'em flying guys! - TM

Invisible Trees

It must be very demoralising to one of our newer members to see an experienced pilot fly straight into the trees on approach with a brand new aeroplane on its first day out as has happened more than once.

Why does it happen, at Downside the trees are actually lower than the runway there really isn't any good reason for pilots to be so low that the hit them.

The clue is in the first sentence, "brand new aeroplane"; new aeroplanes, dogfighting or scary aerobatics, beginners flying on their own: all these things result in an adrenaline rush and that results in tunnel vision. The pilot doesn’t even see the trees until the 'plane comes to an abrupt halt!

Fred gets on Mark's tail in a classic dogfight

The other problem - particularly if inexperienced - is focussing fixedly on the 'plane; you can't judge the distance between two objects if you don't focus on both objects, you see the trees but you don't see how far they are and descend straight into them.

It all comes down to care and common sense:

Force yourself to focus on the trees, back to your 'plane , on to the trees, etc on approach - do a deliberately high circuit and practice this.
Try not to motor in to landing - its airspeed not power that stops a 'plane falling out of the sky. Get yourself a tickover that is as slow as can be reliably held and throttle right back from a higher approach. A steep glideslope not only improves tree clearance but helps prevent overshooting as well!
Unless you are after out and out speed try usinga bigger lower pitch prop. A 12x6 for example will give much more drag at tickover then an 11x8 allowing a steeper glideslope and better take off acceleration.
Even if you are sure you are this side of trees try to fly through a gap until you are sure you are passing the end of the runway - there is a good chance you are now clear of the trees.
If sunny, look for the planes shadow on the ground that is a good clue where you are and it gets you to focus away from the 'plane .
If you have done anything that has built up adrenaline - mucked up an aerobatic manoeuvre, or a landing, etc, try to fly gently around while you calm down and then be extra careful about focussing on your surroundings.

Mark’s Harvard Beating up the Strip

Keith

Tony's Smallest Twin still gives a great Performance

Dave Ward's Amphibian Really Should be Called "Puddle Jumper" - this is the highest it actually got!

Text Box: The beauty of electric – Geoff Ward’s TSR2 could so easily be the real thing in this shot
The beauty of electric - Geoff Ward's TSR2 could so easily be the real thing in this shot

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