Pomona Valley Model Airplane Club

Its been a while since an update has been made here on the website, but each month the club is updated at our Monthly club meeting which takes place on the second Tuesday of every month. So we thought it best to inform everyone on our website of what transpired at the latest club meeting  

Here is a breif recap of the June 2017 meeting.  

Club Membership is at 315 as of June with 23 members in attendance for June.   

• Chuck talked about the field inspection that competed by the County of San Bernardino and overall it  went well. and breifly touched on the Property tax bill.   
• Chuck reminded all members that they should be careful and watch for snakes.  A couple have been spotted in the area so be on alert. 
• Chuck spoke about people shooting guns near the field and about vandalism at the field.  Everyone should be on the lookout and report anything suspiscious. 
• Chuck reported that a new contract has been signed with the City of Chino for the Club meetings building.
• We gave away 9 cash prizes totalling $250 , and Greg Stockdale won the big $75 prize and Joni won the $36 50/50 Prize. 
• John Maxwell brought in his new ME 262 from Motion RC, and talked about how great it flies...(update...John Crashed this ME262 at the field a couple weeks ago, insisst it was not pilot error.)
• Randy Wilbur Brought in some Plastic models he bought from the Hobby People Close out and talked about how great they are for  researchning scale details for RC planes.   

The PVMAC will be holding a Classic Pttern event taking place on saturday, October 7th.  There will be an optional date of Sunday October 8th if it rains Saturday. This event is only $20 to enter and is a great way to get into the sport.  We will plan on a 4 round contest 

A pancake breakfast and hamburger/hotdog lunch will be served.  

A classic Pattern contest brings back competition of the 1970's and 1980's. Many of the participants will even fly with airplanes, radios and engines of the era - although this does not help with the scores.
Almost any 40 - 60 size airplane glow or electric is allowed to fly in the Pre-Novice and Novice classes. Advanced and Expert classes, we like to see an airplane more of the era. There are a couple ARF's that you can buy today, the most popular is probably the Tower Kaos 60 and 40. We are looking for a style of flying, one maneuver at a time as indicated on the "call card". Can you fly a straight line? Can you roll? How about a loop - or 3 loops. Classic Pattern Association (www.classicpatternassociation.com) is a site you might want to look at.  There is a membership fee of $15.00 a year but membership is not required to join our event. The site will also have the "call cards" as well as a written description of the maneuvers.

Give Classic Pattern a try!
You probably already have an airplane you can enter.

Note: The 400 foot altitude restriction is in place. Fire Extinguisher required in your pit area.

You will be asked to spot for the next pilot after your round - a lookout for full-scale aircraft.

Field closed to open flying. AMA sanction received.

There is no New information on the  FAA front.   Chuck talked to the tower, and they said that they did receive 2 calls from pilots asking permission to fly.  The Tower cannot tell them they cannot fly, they can only advise them.   The tower advised them that they were too close and should not fly there.   Chuck asked the tower to forward them to the PVMAC, and we will encourage them to join the club.

Steve Gamble has Stepped down from the board.  The Club would like to thank Steve not only for for his help and support as a board member for the last 2.5 years, but also  for his help and contuned support over the years.  As long as I've been a member, Steve has alwasy been there lending a hand at the club events by manning the grill, setting up or tearing down and assisting at club meetings.

 John Maxwell was coerced asked  by the board to Join the board in his place, and John Accepted, thank you John for stepping up.

Jim Stout, another board member is moving to Texas in the next month.  He is employed with Toyota, which is moving from Irvine to Plano Texas.

We currently have 345 members, we received 2 new members  that were kids, 16 and under which is great.

The Barbwire fence is going to be fixed in lieu of fixing the potholes in the road.  The Road will eventually be fixed, but the fence is the priority at the moment.  

Cal state Fullerton is coming down to the club to fly their experimental airplane on May 11^th.   The Professor is a member of the AMA and FAA.  

Chuck will be meeting with Chino PD this week to discuss some riot control training that they want to do on the property with CS gas.

Board member Larry Marsh was hit with Ugly Stick….  Ted Novak’s Plane , the Ugly stick crash landed in the pits 2 feet away from Larry,  hit His table, which took the wings off, and stopped short of the truck buy just a couple feet.

3 minutes later…  Steve Berman almost crashed his plane into Larry also,  missed him by just a few feet.     Larry said to never turn your back to the runway, and keep your eyes and ears open,  you never know what might come your way.  

George Pollards brought in his Top Flight   Piper Arrow II,   They had 2 versions, one with a stabilator and one with a T Tail. The tail control is all internal and very challenging to build.    The landing gear are scale for that specific kit made by Robart.  He added the cockpit kit, with carpet, upholstery, gauges and throttle.   It has an 81” wingspan.  It was planked and glassed by Steve Berman. It weighs 18 lbs, it has 9 servos on a JR system.   It doesn’t come with lighting, so that was added. It has a Saito 91 4 stroke which sounded underpowered to some, but George said this design flies off the wing, so never over power it and it will fly very scale.

Mark Hibbert brought in a Global ARF Sky raider that he is doing a complete remodeling of-, that is he removed the film, added retracts, then added more details with exhaust pipes, Magnum 70.  He flared the tail to be more scale using with floral foam and lightweight spackle.  He also added missiles and bombs, with styrene. He relocated the tail wheel.  Added air deflectors, radio gear, and he still adding more details.  It weighs 6.5 lbs.  He will cover it in coverite, lightweight primer and a camo water based paint, with a polyurethane finish.  He has 6 months of building to do before it’s done.  

The following won some cash…
George Pollard Won $50
Larry Marsh won $15
Greg Stockdale $15
Jim Stout Won $25
Jim Silver won $25
Larry Rain Won $25
Charles Snear won $75
Tom Marcure won $15
Joe Aguino won $25
John Rossen won $15

Chuck started the meeting
Membership is about 340 members.

We recently lost Terry Strunk and Wallace Henrie, both PVMAC members, Fellow RC Pilots, avid modelers and great well respected guys. (Photo of Wallace Henry with his VQ P-39 Below, Right)

There was an email floating around that said 2 fields had ben visited by the feds, and fines were issued, and one field was closed. Chuck talked to one of the presidents of the club, and he reports that the pilots were issued warnings, but not fines and the field was not closed.

Chuck asked that each member please be registered as a pilot with the FAA, and asked that each member make sure that others are registered at the field. He is afraid that if the feds show up and we have a bunch of pilots not registered, that they could shut us down. There was some discussion over if they have the right to close a field, but were not sure we want to be the first to find out.

Chuck talked about a club he visited in Florida. Where you had to open the gate by disconnect and reconnect electrical wires, which are used to keep out the gatorsand wild boars away from the field.

Chuck Contacted the AMA again to see if they had re-considered their membership new imposing membership year round policy, but they were not getting back to him.
There was a great deal of discussion around this new policy and how the files would police the member at the field.
There were discussions about using solar powered card readers to solve the problem of policing the field and making sure that each member was current.

Another idea was brought for to use Different colored badges for those that renew with the AMA mid year, thus we would only have to check those folks every time they fly. Those numbers would be a lot less. Everyone else would be business as usual.

The contract for the field with the city and army core of engineers has not been renewed yet by the city.

Larry Marsh talked about Weed spraying, which was done last in March and in April they did a touch up.
Road Flags have been replaced, 1300 ft worth.

For Show and Tell

Paul Smith brought in his Lady Alice P-51 by VQ models. That balanced out perfectly. He found that the rudder pushrod was sliding. It is 7lbs total with
It does like to ground loop, but it flies very well for a warbird.

Randy Wilbur brought in his SBD with the pneumatic retracts in and the bomb glued in. But he realized that once he glued the bomb in, he could not get to the screws that secure the servo for the center wing flap is at. He figured out how to work around it with a special latch cover. He had to do some lathe work to get the prop spinner to work with the engine he has. (Photo of Randy at bottom)

John Maxwell brought in his older, but never flown Yak 55 By BH models that he won at an auction at a club. It has a OS 160 pumper, that was built by Steve and Lonny at hobby club USA. It has full digital servos with a glow ignition system. John plans on flying at the Scale Master qualifier at Gilman Springs. It came with a plastic spinner that was replaced with a true turn spinner.
Yak 55 Update: The airplane flew great on it maiden on May 2nd , and John was doing loops and rolls before the flight was over.

Philip Passmore won $15 Larry Marsh won $75
Daniel Miller won $25
Carlos won $25
Bill sheets won $15
Larry Pall won $15
Paul Smith won $50
Joseph won $25
Ted Novak won $15
Steve Bloom Won $25

The Southern California Scale Masters Qualifier this year was hosted by  the Gilman Springs RC Flying Club.  There were 5 PVMAC members in attendance doing their best to demonstrate their flying skills to the judges and qualify for the US Scale Masters 2016 Championships.   Two PVMAC Members, who both recently joined The PVMAC did extremely well. Carl Lindou (Photo-Right) took 1st place in the ProAm Sportsman class,  with his yellow J3 Cub with a 12' wingspan and a DLA 58cc engine.  Eddie Ayala (Photo-Left) also did will and took seconds with his CAP 232, that is modelled after a Matt Chapmans Airplane that he took Bronze in the world Aerobatic Championships and led the US team to a Silver Medal in 1998.  They both qualified to move on to the US Scale Masters 2016 Championships that are being held at the Woodland- Davis RC Field, in Davis, California this September 28-October 2nd.  If you see them at the field, be sure to welcome them to the club and congradulate them on their performance at the 2016 Socal Scale Master qualifier. 

John Maxwell, Randy Wilber and Tom Callahan also competed in the ProAm Sport Class, and although they did well, it was not enough to take the 3rd spot in the class.

The Pro-am sportsman class and even the Pro-am Pro class for that matter is a great level to start competing at, because they allow ARFs and there is no requirement to build the model from scratch,  and no expecation or requirement  to detail it at all, or modify it it any way. In fact it doesn't even have to be expensive or large either.   Several competitors were using inexpensive foamie airplanes to compelte, incuding the Dynam Hellcat flown by John Maxwell, as well as a foam BF110, and a small foam dehavilland beaver were in the mix and all did quite well.   For the documentation portion, you are only required to bring a photo showing there is a real airplane that your plane is modeled after, to get the full 5 points for that part of the competition.   At the higher levels of competion, you do compete on the scale look, fine details and building of the aircraft, and must provide extensive documentation, in additoon to the flying portion of the competion.  

The other reason this is a great place to start competing at is because your competing  with some basic flying manuvers your probably already familiar with and are probably already doing, such as an aileron roll, chandelle, procedure turn and loop. These are scale aircraft doing scale manuvers.   You are judged on precision, placement, and realism of 10 manuvers, 3 of which are  required;  takeoff, the figure 8 and landing.  You choose 7 other scale manuvers that you feel comfortable with and are considderd scale manuvers for the particular aircraft your flying.  Some manuvers sound quite easy, but can be quite difficult, especially in the wind.  Even a manuver as simple as a fly past at 10-20' keeping the airplane straight and parallel to the runway, ensuring wings are level throughout, and the elevation consistant throughout the entire pass proves to be difficult to execute perfectly, especially in 10mph wind.   But that is what the competition is about, and its fun, and challenging.  Flying in front of judges can be intimidating at first to say the least, however they put my mind at east right from the start, and gave me plenty of pointers before and after each flight. And the other competitors were also helpful in guiding us newbies through the process so by the end of the 1st day we were much more comfortable.    You can download the rules here. 

It was great of Gilman Springs RC Club to host this years qualifier, and from the sound of it,  future qualifiers will be hosted there.   If you have never been to Gilman Springs RC club, it is a fantastic place to fly, only about 50-55 minutes deive from the PVMAC Field near Hemet, and will soon be getting better.   They have a great facility with un-obstructed flying, Covered Pit area, Electricity at each station for your chargers,  an a clubhouse that features a flushing toilet and running water.   The only down-side to the field is the runway, which is badly in need of repair.  There were a few mishaps and damaged aircraft due to the runway.  But the president of the club, Mike Stone,  assured everyone that next year the runway will be as good as new.  This years Socal Scalemaster Qualifier generated enough money, that they will be donating about $500 to the Gilman Springs RC club that will go towards resurfacing the runway.   

 Needless to say, we all had a great time, and I know I'll definately be doing it again, and I hope to see more of our members participating at competitions and fly-ins. 

I appologize for this article being posted so late.  Life gets in the way sometimes.   

Chuck Pozonac started the meeting with some repeating of the February meeting due to low attendance at the meeting

Membership is about 330 members

Chuck reported the sad news that we lost Wally Henry, a member Passed away a couple weeks ago and the club sent flowers to the services.

Check went on to talk about being courteous at the field.   If you want to do a maiden flight on a busy weekend, you should walk the line and be sure to let everyone know your intentions.  That being said, you cant expect everyone to hold up while you  try to adjust your airplane.   But if everyone tries to stay clear of you and is aware of what your doing, its much better for everyone.  

The Board looked at getting electricity out there, and it is going to cost $30,000 to place a Transformer

Chuck said in March that The Club will not be a traffic cop and ensure your registration with the FAA.  This was up to the individual and The Club will only validate AMA.  However view is changing in light of some new information revealed in the April Meeting…see the April meeting Notes for updates.

Your certificate of registration should be on your person when you fly.  You can stick it to your badge. And there very few stipulations on how you label your plane, except to place the label where it can be seen without the aid of tools.  So if you have a magnetic hatch, it could be placed in there.  Chuck places his label on the bottom of the plane, and I have been placing mine underneath the horizontal stabilizer using a small clear return address label I printed at home.

The FAA has registered 300,000+ "pilots" who fly "Drones" ,  there are only 180,000 AMA members.

Chuck also spoke with the tower at Chino airport, and informed them that he  has asked the club members to Comply and register with the FAA, just so they are aware.

Weeds are sprayed at the cost of $2800, and they should be dying soon.   We’re getting cleaned up for the summer.   They are also going to be fixing a whole at the start of the runway.   If you land short …look out.

There was a fence broken at the field lying on the side.   Ted Novak fixed the fence, but tried to get some help while it was being fixed, and was not able to comply.

There is a new huge problem looming due to some changes the AMA intends to make next year regarding registration.

AMA has decided that that they will allow members to renew their memberships date to date, not for the calendar year. This means that if new pilot wants to he can Join the AMA in April of this year, and his membership will expire in April of Next year, not on December 31^st of this year as it currently does.   We have been told this is to bring in more revenue for the AMA, because many pilots wait and get a half-year pro-rated membership, because they cant fly in the winter months in some states because of the snow and cold.  

Here is the crux of the issue is how to police who is current with the AMA at the field. We can certainly send out automated renewal notices, and we can certainly print out lists of members who are current AMA members. But If you have a 2016 Club badge good until December, and your AMA expires in June, it wont be easy to look down the line at the field and see who is current with the AMA without looking them up in our roster or checking their AMA membership card/number each day.

Currently at the field we can easily look down the line and see the badges on the pilot and know that each person wearing this years "yellow" colored badge is current with AMA and Club membership until December 31^st of that year. We then only have to check the pilots not wearing a badge which hopefully might be only 1 or 2 a day. 

Chuck spent 30 minutes with Lawance Tougas, our District X AMA Vice president,   to express the problems with this, and he is sympathetic, but offered up no solutions.

Chuck also spoke with AMA legal as well as  Laura Knowlton who runs the AMA show and runs the Denver club, but was not able to convince them of the issue.  

At our field there was an unofficial FAA visit by a person claiming to be from the FAA, showing FAA credentials. The person was apparently asking questions about registration to some of the members.   He had an ID, and he was there observing the field.   He had a generic California plates vehicle, and he said he lives in chino hills but works out of an Arizona office.

Tom Marcure has renewed the our AMA Gold leader club and charter with the AMA.

Joni Whitsitt made an announcement about the RCX with is this Saturday and Sunday.  

Scale master qualifier is April 23 and 24^th in Gilman Springs.

Tom Marcure talked about a documentary on Netflix where called the first air war, where they discuss the evolution of Airplanes during the first world war, and talk to people who are build airplanes in the exact same way they did back then.   You can also find it on youtube.

Loni  Morrison. brought in the sequence 1.20 by great planes.  Everyone who is flying AMA Pattern, is now flying electric. No YS gas engines like the days of old.   Most planes are composite, but this one is a balsa built up,  He had trouble with the cowling and the Tail.  It Weighs 11 Lbs.  Runs on 6s 5000mah battery and 100 amp ESC.  Flies nice and straight.     

Randy showed and talked about his progress on the Dauntless by VQ models which he equipped  with a DLE 30.   He had to cut a whole in FW to fit the engine,  and realized the wood was not so good, so he reinforced it.   He had a muffler from a Moki that will fit nicely.     The tail feathers come off for transportation.   He is going to a competition up north.   The wing is 3 piece and will transport nicely.   He is going to cut the cockpit open so that it slides back.   It comes with a nice scale rear gunner section.  

Paul smith brought in his Lady Alice made by VQ models sold at hobby people. He is going to make it a gas model.   It has some nice covering.   The pilot came loose, so he had to re-glue.  He went with fixed gear for now, and they make it easy to pull that out with screws when your ready for retracts.   They give you all the hardware, but some of the screws are just not long enough.  The cut outs for servos are for small servos not full sized.    He was able to get it on sale at a reasonable price.  He has a OS 55AX in it.

Mark Hibbert brought in a beautiful plane called a Pete /n/ Paul House of Balsa (shown At top & with a close up of cowling detail below. He received the plane in a box, with about 50 pieces.     This particular one was originally intended  model build for the catalog, and not intended to fly.  He added ailerons, painted it. With water base paint, added lettering and coated it with urethane.   It’s been good for a couple years.  It has a OS 40 4stroke.   The details were all included.  It took about out 4 months to put together.   It has not flown yet.   

Lonnie Morrison won the 50/50 drawing.  

We also had 3 new members attend the meeting.

PVMAC President Chuck Pozanac wished everyone Happy New Year at the first meeting of 2016.

Membership count is at 310 members an climbing.  Chuck estimated that because we lost the Norton flying field last year, We probably wont see as many members renew as last year, but we are doing pretty well so far.

Chuck thanked all the members that volunteered at the AMA booth.  Chuck mentioned that there was noticeably extra security this year .   Everything went smooth.  Ticket sales for the opportunity drawing were down this year, we only sold a little over 4000 tickets.  There were some speculations on why sales were down, but at the end of the day, the club did not loose any money. The Ticket sales covered the cost of the booth, electricity and  items purchased for the raffle so all is well.

All prizes were picked up and delivered at the show and this was a first.  Usually, we have to haul things back and locate winners.   We signed up 3 new members at the show. A Special thanks to Phil and Kyle Goodwine and Jim and Tom  for making the booth look good

The Dogs are back in February and March.  Chuck asked that if you notice that the outhouses are full after one of their weekend events, please let the club know so we can take care of it.

Chuck  talked about a person who he met that is involved with wounded warrior, who wanted to know if the club would like to be involved in helping Veterans learn to fly RC. The Board thought this would be worthwhile and we should be involved in any way we can.  

Chuck opened up conversation about the FAA's Mandatory Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) registration. There was heavy discussion regarding this topic during the meeting, with alot of information and opinions being shared. I wont share any of the opinions here, just the facts. 
Through the 21^st of January, Registration is $5, and the cost will be reimbursed at a later time.  (The FAA are using the credit card charge as Identity verification).  You will also need a valid email address and a physical address.

Though the AMA first informed everyone to hold off in registering, By the end of the AMA show, they sent out an email to its members informing everyone that they need to register.   The Board wants to make it clear that they recommend you go thought the UAS Regisration process to avoid any government fines or criminal prosecution.  

You must register as a pilot of a UAS if you fly anything (Fixed Wing, Helicopters, Multi-Rotors, Powered or otherwise, and even if you fly control Line and your aircraft Weighs more than 0.55 lbs. (250 g) and less than 55 lbs. (25 kg). Unmanned Aircraft weighing more than 55 lbs. cannot use this registration process and must register using the Aircraft Registry process.  If your aircraft weighs More than 55lbs, you cannot use the UAS registration process and must register using the Aircraft Registry process.  Your registration is valid for three years. Once you receive a registration number, you can use it on all of your unmanned aircraft if they meet the online registration criteria. You must mark the registration number on all aircraft you own, in a place that can be seen without using tools.  Which means you can put the number in a battery compartment as long as you don’t need tools to see it.  

Click here to Go to the FAA registration Site Now

Loni brought in the Hangar 9 Inverza 62 ARF, which he said was perfect as entry level IMAC competition.  He recommended that for flying IMAC You take what ever the airplane instructions recommend for low rates, and go down from there for IMAC.   The planes are usually setup for 3d which is not appropriate for IMAC.  He Powered it with a 60 size DA motor.  2 servos on elevator, 1 rudder and 2 on ailerons. All Up weight is 24lbs.  He alo said This is about the smallest planes you would want to compete with IMAC, any smaller and you cannot see it. It has an 88" wingspan. 

Cal Orr brought in a vintage plane called the So Long.   He said  the airplane was named either because the tail is longer than usual, or because when you released it for flight, you would have to wave “So Long” .  It was originally a guided free flight plane which you would have rudder control only and would have been originally powered by a .049 engine. This one however has been converted to electric. It has only 2 servos, rudder and elevator.   He can get about 4 minutes of flight at full throttle, but with good throttle management, you can fly for much longer, and it does glide very well.

You can read more about what Cal Orr is up to with his Vintage Aircraft, 2.4 Ghz Kraft Radios, Reed Emulators and much more at http://www.calorr.com 

Randy Wilbur brought in a Ledgend models Dauntless Douglas which is a made by VQ Models from Jb-Hobbies.  It was brand new in the box; his wife bought it for him at the AMA Show for his birthday.  It is the  80” version, not the one that is carried by Hobby people.   It will have a 30cc engine.   He plans on flying it in a Scale Master qualifier in June, so he will need to re-configure the servos for the tail, so that those are hidden.  Randy said that the dauntless was well known for the Battle of Midway and was retired before the end of the war.  This model is designed for electric or gas.    

Joni Brought in an Evolution Engine 15gx Gas engine from Horizon Hobbies she won at the AMA show from the club drawing. 

The Board Voted Chuck Pozanac is President, Larry Marsh as Vice president, Ted Novack as secretary, Bill Sheets treasurer.

There was a 50/50 drawing and lots of money given away for just showing up.  

Want to be part of the fun, Join us on February 9^th  for the next PVMAC Club Meeting at the Chino Community Building 5443 "B" Street Chino, CA 91710 from 7pm-9pm.   We will be discussing all the clubs activities, swapping stories, and exchanging ideas, sharing aircraft, and of course giving away more money.   You don’t want  to miss it.