Club Activities

Fun news from Wilmington

Wed, 8 Feb 2012 20:40:49 -0500

During the 2011 season we were contacted by Jimmy Jordan of Wilmington, NC. He was interested in visiting and having his grandson, Matthew, see more free flight action in person. After visiting one of our Fun-Fly events, they both joined CAFFA. More recently, we got the good news of Matthew’s results in a science competition. I’ll let Jimmy tell the story...

“Remember the Wilmington gang? Well granddaddy has to brag a little bit.

Matthew's science project was the demonstration of Bernoulli's Principle and how an airplane flies. He built two Peck ROGs (cheap, quick to build, and fly well) as nearly alike as possible, per the plan and instructions. One wing was built with the flat ribs (no airfoil) option and the other was built with the curved ribs (air foil) option as provided in the kit.

He flew both models 10 flights each late one afternoon, in very still air, at a soccer field near home. Each flight was made ROG from a card table with the same (as nearly as possible)number of turns in the rubber and timed with a stop watch. Each model was very consistent in its flight times, varying only a few seconds from shortest to longest. The flat plate wing averaged 12 seconds and the air foil wing averaged 18 seconds. Longer flights could have been attained with more turns because both models were still making a climbing circle when the motor ran down, but that was not the purpose of test.

The flight data, photos, and written report were submitted as his science project. Granddaddy was listed as photographer and technical adviser. As the attached photos show, he won three ribbons including first place for the fourth grade at his school. The county competition is next. Need less to say, I am very proud and he is very excited.

We hope to see you and the CAFFA gang again soon.

Best regards, Jimmy Jordan and Matthew”

Dave Rees passes

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:22:09 -0400

We received the sad news that Dave Rees passed away this week. Dave had battled with Parkinson’s Disease for some time, but still managed to visit and fly at some of the contests over the past year or two. Dave was an expert designer, builder, and flyer of all types of model airplanes, but especially scale free-flight. He was a founding member of the Kudzu Squadron of the Flying Aces here in NC. Please keep Marie, his wife, and the rest of his family and friends in your prayers during this time.

Fall fun-fly cancelled

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:45:30 -0400

Just a quick update that the Fun-Fly has been cancelled due to the forecasted winds more than rain, but both are expected to be a problem. Don’t forget the October 15th Fall Contest!

Fall Contest Scheduled

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:39:34 -0400

First, we’ve tentatively scheduled a Fall Contest on October 15th, pending confirmation we can use the field (should be no problem). Make plans to attend! See the link below for the flyer of events.

Fall_Contest_2011_Flyer.pdf

Looks like this year was a good year for participation in the Charles Grant Memorial Cloud Tramp Postal event. Donald Qualls, John Diebolt and his wife Shaye, were able to participate by flying their Cloud Tramps at the exact same time as the rest of the world (August 6 at 12:00 noon in the USA). That’s what’s known as some organized fun!

Link to the Cloud Tramp home page:
http://www.mikedparker.karoo.net/

Couple of YouTube videos of the east coast participants. Listen to that wind!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWf8YT22fyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPFHgCK4y8

Fun-Fly Cancelled

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 06:48:19 -0400

After some discussion, we've decided to cancel this Saturday's Fun-Fly due to the very high forecasted temperatures. WRAL has it at 102 and other sources 96 and 99 degrees. Heat index values higher than that. Another club in the area just notified of their event cancellation for the same reason. We'll get word out as soon as we can secure the next date for a Fun-Fly. We are most likely going to have a Fall Contest as well. Enjoy the cool temps indoors and stick some balsa together!

Now for some good news! Congratulations to our own John Diebolt and Kit Bays who won 1st Place Rubber ROW and 3rd Place AMA ROW at the Nats, respectively! Excellent!