It has been discussed and decided by the current 2012 PVMAC Board of Directors that in 2013 all PVMAC members flying at either Norton or Prado will be required to have an A, B And C rated fire extinguisher in their pit area. We will start policing this in January. This is something that many other local flying fields have been doing for several years now.   It is already in our rules package that the club highly recommends having one with you.

Why the new Rule?  We all need to do our part to protect our flying fields.  We are flying on leased land,  and all it takes is one mishap for them to decide not to renew our lease.  We must do everything in our power to keep our fields open.  Fires have already claimed a couple of flying fields last year, and we dont want this to happen to our Club.

And if that unfortunate accident should occur,  make sure to grab your extinguisher and run out to the crash site to ensure that it has not sparked a fire.  This is not the time to stand around and do a play-by-play, as there will be plenty of time for this after the peices have been gatherd and the risk of fire has been removed.  

Home Depot sells an A, B And C Rated Recreational Fire Extinguisher for $20, and I'm told that Cost-co might have a deal on 2 of them.  You may considder a Class D Fire extinguisher if your heavily invested in Lipo technology, however they are expensive.  That being said, though the  Class A,B,C extinguisher would be ineffective at extinguishing a lipo fire, it would be effective at extinguishing any secondary fires that might occur as a result of the lipo fire, such as adjacent dry grasses or the fuslage remains. 

Fire Extinguisher Standards 

If you happen to own or know of a friend that owns one of those nifty new Ipads or Droid tablets, Check out this month’s issue of www.rcpilot.com

This month’s issue has some great articles on many PVMAC members. The front cover and article on Dr. Ken Wagner, Marty Nelson and his P51 Tuskegee Airmen Red tail, Frank Martinez, Bob Mabli, Vinny Russo, Kyle Goodwine and myself.

There is also a great article and photos of your PVMAC Prado Airpark. 

Rumor has it that within the next couple issues they will be having an article on your clubs Vice President Chuck Pozanac. The article will include photos of Chucks business of manufacturing and rebuilding wood Stearman wings.

Check it out.

Thanks, Phil Goodwine

The FAA Modernization and Reform Act received final congressional approval today as it passed the Senate today with a 75-20 vote.  The bill switches air traffic controllers from Radar to GPS, and opens up the U.S. skies to unmanned drone flights within 4 years.  Modelers and the AMA were concerned that a new bill would impose new restrictions and regulations on model aircraft.  However, with the effort of the AMA and its members, the bill includes provisions that protect model aviation and as such, there are no new restrictions on modelers.  This is Great News!   The Bill is expected to be signed into law by President Obama shortly.  You can read the press release from the AMA here.

John Reid,  Model Airplane News' West Coast Editor and fellow PVMAC member, has posted a really nice article on his blog on the Model Airplane News site about the  Red Tails, to coincide with the recent release of the Movie, The Red Tails.  At the end of the posting, John dedicates some time to italking about our own Marty Nelson and his very special P-51.  In addition, John posted an video interview  late last year, which I missed, but I've linked to it below in case you missed it too.

Link to Tuskegee Airmen Blog Post on Model Airplane News

Link to John Reid's video Interview with  Marty Nelson
 

Photo is credited to John Reid and Model Airplane News

On Tuesday,December 13th, the PVMAC held its December club meeting at the Chino Community Center, and we had a great turn out, matching last years turn out of 75 PVMAC members, showing up to eat pizza and cast their vote for the 2012 board member.  With a record mebership year having 504 members in 2011,  the 75 members in attendance Tuesday night was more than the requred 10% quarum.  Your PVMAC 2012 board members are Roy Barringer, Tom Marcure, Larry Marsh, Charlie Mitchell, Steve Parola, Chuck Pozanac, Paul Smith, Jim Stout and Phil Goodwine.  

In addition to electing the board members, we  heard several great presentations by members who were trying to get a last minute presentation in for the year end drawing.  Every year, at the last meeting, The PVMAC holds a yearly drawing for a $350 and a $250 Visa gift card.  For each presentation that you make during the year, you receive 1 ticket into the drawing.   Greg Stockdale had the record this year with 7 presentations thus 7 tickets into the drawing; unfortunately he did not win.  Roy Barringer proved you only need one ticket to win, and took home the $350 prize.  2012 promises to be another great year, and the newly elected board members wasted no time,  getting right to work on making the final preperations for the first event of 2012, the  Prado Booth at the AMA Expo on January 6th-8th.

Big Jolt has been over for almost 2 weeks now, and were just getting around to assembling all the material.   The event was a  BIG Success dispite the 108 degree heat.  We had almost 70 Registered pilots, this year, with many coming from as far away as Arizona.  This year we added a night flying competition, which we had many competitors, as well as spectators turn out for the dazzling night time flying light show.  We also had the speed run, though this year was not as fast as last year due to the heat and wind, but it was sill very fast , with top speeds approaching 190Mph.   Check out the Speed Trials Result Document Here.

We have posted some photos from the event so be sure to check the PVMAC photo gallery, and  John Reid from Model Airplane News posted some videos on ModelAirplaneNews.com

The PVMAC would like to give a BIG THANK YOU! to all of the 2011 Big Jolt Sponsors, who helped make this event such a great success. Like everyone else, these businesses are also having more difficult times these days, but they stepped up to the plate to make some significant donations to make our event a success.   Be sure to show your appriciation by purchasing their products,  which will allow them to stay in business during these difficult times.

Big Jolt 2011 Gold Sponsors
Big Jolt Silver Sponsors: Big Jolt Medallian Sponsors: