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Do we have a quorum for the meeting? We need at least 11 of our 106 members? Yes with 27 members present. The meeting was called to order at 1900. The present membership stands at 106.

Everyone receive the February newsletter? No, Al Duffy did not. The newsletter downloads nicely from the web. Everyone who has a computer seems to now be able to get the newsletter. If not then please get in touch with Chris Branam 303-750-7277 to update/change email or snail mail. The motion was carried.

The checking account now stands at $        . The motion was approved and carried.

Gloria and Eugene Benedict were present and joined the club.

"No aircraft ever took and held ground"

U.S. Marine Corps Manual

1. We really need speakers for the upcoming meetings. If you have anything to show and tell, please put it on the sign up sheet or contact Denny.

2. Committees. The following people have singed up for the following committees:

—Maintenance: Marv Sanders, Jim Lewis, Adam Bryant, Tom Hanselin, & Mario Accardi

—Social: None

—Flying Safety: None

—Contest: Walt Stroessner & Tom Hanselin

—Publicity & Publications: Chris Branam & George Kerr

Please help out where you can. We need more committee members.

3. Tractor. The tractor has not been functioning properly, therefore, the field was not plowed after the recent snow. Drive traction is not getting to the rear wheels. Marv is investigating the cause.

4. We still have the jackets, t-shirts and ball caps for sale. See Bob Bergin to purchase your club wears.

1. Walt Stroessners job has changed and he will not be able to continue devoting enough time to the club as Vice President. He resigned this month. We will miss Walt on the Board, but wish him well in his increased job responsibilities. Tom Hanselin has volunteered to serve out Walt’s remaining term. The Board elected Tom at the February meeting. Congrats and thank you Tom!!
2. Lease Renewal: The lease is up as of 1 March 01. The Land Board has discovered that there is an outhouse at our site. The have directed the club to pay up to $700 for an environmental firm of their choice to inspect the outhouse and recommend what needs to be done to remove it. In addition they have directed that we get a portable toilet for the site. A portable toilet has been purchased and effective immediately, the outhouse is closed. The Land Board has put out lease renewal on hold until the outhouse issue is resolved. They are still asking for a one year security deposit as well as $10,000 of our funds for land reclamation.
3. Alternate site: We have discovered an alternate site for the club. It is approximately 7 miles east and 2 miles north of or existing site. It is private property where it looks as if we could get a 10 year lease. The owner is not willing to sell. Marvin showed a scale drawing of the 15 acre site. A motion was made and carried to pursue the new site. The runway lengths were discussed as well.
4. Board Recommendation: It is the recommendation of the board that the Club proceed with a new one year lease with the Land Board, after mitigation of the outhouse issue. Then make every effort to enter into a lease on the private land, with the flying field moved to the new site by the time the Land Board lease ex-pires.
5. Colorado Hobbies.com has linked to our web site. Colorado Hobbies is a listing of all club sites, hobby shops, events, etc. with links to the appropriate sites.
6. Chris Branam suggested that on the monthly gift certificates be reserved for a guest speaker (to include show and tell) at future meetings, to entice members to give talks. A motion was made and carried.
7. Marv has been sending out e-mails announcing when the field has been ready for flights. Marv suggests that several people volunteer to call members who do not have e-mail. Marv had a few volunteers at the meeting, any more?

Remember the deadline is 1 week following the meeting. Submissions for Prop Wash, classifieds or Wing Tips can be made via email or telephone to Linehand@aol.com or 303-750-7277. If you have submitted an item to the classifieds I will run it until it sells or you tell me to remove it.

Membership in Mile Hi R/C Club offers a wonderful opportunity to learn more about model aviation. With practically no effort on your part other than attending a meeting, you can sit and watch a presentation by a knowledgeable speaker and also, you get to participate in a raffle with some good prizes.

Even if you don’t want to come to meetings, membership gets you this copy of the newsletter you are reading. Which contains information on up coming meetings, events and with this lease issue, the future of our club’s flying site.

But your club membership also offers an opportunity to get a lot more out of your membership than you can not possibly get by being passive. It offers the opportunity for you to become an active member and give something of yourself (time, effort, knowledge, etc.) to benefit other as well as yourself.

People frequently point the 80/20 rule, found in many aspects of life. For example, 20% of the people in our club do 80% of the work, while the remaining 80% of the people collectively do 20% or less of the work.

The flip side of this is the active 20% doing the work are getting 80% of the pleasure out of the club and the passive 80% get only 20% of the pleasure.

I encourage you to think about this. Is there something you do to help the club beside paying your dues every year and showing up to fly?

With the move to the new site on the horizon the need for volunteers is going to be at an all time high. The field as we know it now will have to be completely torn down and moved to the new site with the exception of the asphalt and concrete. That means a lot of weekends that would be spent flying will need to be spent working to make the move happen without the usual 20% doing the 80% of the work. The new field is only going to be as good as we make it and without a full head on assault it’s just not going to happen. So, when the need arises, we need to take pride in ourselves and our field and pitch in.

So, ask yourself, am I a Giver or am I a Taker

This is the first in a series of articles about R/C helicopters to be written by a rotating (sorry for the pun) group of members from the Colorado Rotor-Heads. You’ve probably seen us from time to time at your club meetings and the flying field. We are often the guys hovering around in a distant corner of the field, or perhaps joining the airplane guys in the pattern. If you haven’t already been inclined to introduce yourself to a helicopter pilot, I hope this series of articles will pique your curiosity.

If you look at the number of radio controlled airplane pilots in Colorado, I suspect the number easily exceeds a thousand. Helicopter pilots, on the other hand, are fairly scarce. Along the Front Range, there may be a hundred or so, with perhaps half that number being "active" in the hobby. The result of this low count is that most clubs only have a few active helicopter pilots. When you take into account our busy lives, with work, family, and our many other obligations, knowledgeable heli-pilots can be scarce indeed. With this in mind, the Colorado Rotor-Heads will be offering a series of articles for your club newsletter with the intent of sharing our knowledge and experience with you. Hopefully, you will find them interesting, and perhaps a bit more personal that the magazine articles written for mass consumption. Our membership includes people ranging from novice pilots just learning the basics of building and hovering, to nationally recognized contest pilots, experts in scale construction, and the popular "3D" style of flying. With this range of interest and experience, we hope that you’ll find this series of articles worthwhile.

The Colorado Rotor-Heads is a group of R/C helicopter pilots based in Denver, with members all along Colorado's Front Range. Our members belong to many of the Front Range clubs from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. As a result, you may see our members at many of the local club fields and even the occasional cul-de-sac. If you would like to learn more about the Colorado Rotor-Heads, or R/C helicopters in general, please visit our web site at www.coloradorotorheads.com.

If you have been flying at the field between snow storms there are a few people who you need to thank. They are Tom Hanselin, Dave Tiech and Marv Sanders. They have been using their personal snow blowers to clear the runways of the white stuff while the tractor has been down. Thanks guys!!

I know there is not a lot happening out at the field and with my inability to fly at the present moment I need some of you that frequent the field more than I to be my ears and eyes. If you know of something or have seen anything, a maiden, a mishap, safety violations (no names please) etc. please let me know. I can be reached online at Linehand@aol.com or by phone at 303-750-7277.

I was on hand to watch Denny re-maiden Tom’s beautiful Citabrea after an unfortunate mishap. It flew great and even with the mixture set rich for the cold it was a fast little plane.

Wing span: Upper 72" Lower 64" Length 58" Height to top wing 22"

Covered with Dark Red 21st Century Fabric. Has been flown with a Moki

1.8 but would be perfect for a small to medium gas engine (G23- G38)

Extras: 2 Servos in top wing with extension cables, flying wire rigging

$450. Contact Jim McGee at (303) 699-3346.

120 sized MAUI (see picture below)

Designed by Larry Falsetto Built by Rich

Wings and stab sheeted Fuselage ready for finish sanding Clear canopy

Glass cowl Wing tube Every thing needed to finish. $500.00 Call Al Robnett

303.627.7092

Sorry I missed the February meeting, especially since it was such an important one. It will be very difficult to move to a new field, but better we control our destiny in a controlled move than have the State push us off at the end of a lease and have to move in a panic.

Rocco Mariani, who owns Aero Works, has consented to give a talk at the March meeting. His talk will be on setting your plane up to fly true and a little on model airplane design. I am sure many of you are flying planes that have never been set up correctly, so come to the meeting and find out how to improve your planes performance.

The Platte Valley RC'ers club in Mitchell Nebraska is having a tailgate swap meet and fun fly on June 2. Flyers will be available at the March monthly meeting. Sounds like a fun event. If you can't make the March meeting and want a flyer, give me a call.

Happy flying! Denny

Boeing, William Edward (1881-1956), American founder of the aircraft manufacturer The Boeing Company. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Boeing studied at Yale University’s Sheffield Scientific School but did not obtain a degree. In 1903 he moved to Seattle, Washington, and followed in his father’s footsteps, making a small fortune in the lumber business. In 1910, after taking an interest in airplanes, Boeing attended the first American air show, held in Los Angeles, California. He took his first airplane flight in 1915. In 1916 Boeing and a friend developed the B&W seaplane. Later that year they formed the Pacific Aero Products Company to manufacture airplanes. The company changed its name to the Boeing Airplane Company in 1917. Boeing served as the company’s president and later as chairman of its board of directors. Thanks Walt for the submission

There is a fire/explosion hazard that not many of us think about. That hazard is wood dust, that’s right wood dust. Wood dust, like those piles of balsa dust that we all tend to make, is also extremely explosive. A balsa stick or balsa dust in a pile burns… right? Well, when that pile of dust id floating around in the air it can burn so rapidly that an explosion occurs. If there is enough wood dust suspended in the air, an explosion powerful enough to damage your home or even kill someone could occur. This is a pretty sobering thought when you consider how many folks routinely reach for a cigarette during their sanding operations. An electric sander really adds to the problem by rapidly filling the air in your shop with wood dust. A shop-vac with its nozzle located near the sanding belt or disc can draw this dust away before it becomes airborne. Yes, this is an extra step and extra noise, but it is also an extra safety. That shop-vac combined with other housekeeping tools can be used to make your balsa dust factory a healthier and safer place to work.

Nicad batteries, for the most part, are one of the most dependable components of the radio system. However, internal problems with the Nicad batteries may develop from lack of, or improper use.

When your model sits for weeks or months– it self-discharges, at times to a point too low for the cells to fully recover. Another problem is when you fly one or two tanks then recharge the cells for another 15 hours, bringing your battery to an overcharge state.

The answer to this problem is a "charger/cycler". We’ll start with the Hobbico Accu-Cycle Plus. The Accu-Cycle Plus comes with an external 110V AC power adapter. Also available, is an optional DC power converter for operation when AC power is not available.

The Accu-Cycle Plus is an high performance digital battery charger/ conditioner / analyzer designed for Nicd radio control transmitter and receiver packs and single cell batteries. Accu-Cycle Plus offer two completely separate analyzers in one package. It can independently peak charge, discharge, or cycle receiver and/or transmitter batteries at the same time. Accu-Cycle Plus provides valuable information about the condition of each battery through two easy to read LCD displays. The display includes battery voltage, charge time, discharge time, and discharge capacity.

The Accu-Cycle Plus is user friendly, within minutes you are in complete control of you battery maintenance. The Accu-Cycle Plus uses standard banana jacks for easy connection to charge leads. You can make your own by cutting the wires on an old charger and connection them to the banana plugs, or you can purchase a ready to use lead set from Hobbico. If you’re not into wiring and electronics, I recommend the made up lead sets.

Accu-Cycle Plus utilizes the "-deltaV" method for detecting peak charge. Using this method, the cycler monitors battery voltage during charge, noting when the maximum battery voltage occurs and then terminates the fast charge.

Once a Nicd battery has reached peak charge, or maximum total voltage, the voltage will then begin to decrease if left in the charge mode. The "-deltaV" method of detecting peak charge is accomplished when the system notes when this decrease in voltage occurs and terminates peak charge when the voltage per cell decreases by 32mV. If a condition exists such as a defective battery pack, Accu-Cycle Plus has two safety features which will terminate the fast charge. They are: If the voltage of the battery reaches the equivalent of 1.74V PER CELL, fast charge will terminate. Also, if after 120 minutes, peak charge has not been detected, fast charge will terminate.

Accu-Cycle Plus provides two peak charge rate selections, 500 and 1000mA for quick charging transmitter and receiver batteries. As mentioned, using the "-deltaV" to detect when a battery’s voltage has reached peak charge, the Accu-Cycle Plus automatically switches down to trickle charge after peak has been detected, so your batteries always receive a full charge.

Accu-Cycle Plus provides two discharge rate selections, 250 and 750mA for both the transmitter and receiver batteries. Accu-Cycle Plus automatically terminates discharge mode when your battery voltage drops to a predetermined value. After discharge is complete, Accu-Cycle Plus will automatically switch back to peak charge mode, again charging your batteries so they are ready for use.

All of your battery discharge data will remain on the display after discharge is complete for you convenience. Accu-Cycle Plus provides two options for cycling your batteries. You can set the cycler to perform just one complete cycle, as is normally done when evaluating regularly used batteries. Or you can choose to use the Deep-Conditioning "Triple Cycle" feature, whereby the unit will automatically cycle your batteries 3 times in succession, displaying on screen data from the last cycle. This is helpful for reviving old batteries or breaking in new ones, as they can sometimes require multiple cycles to increase storage capacity to come back up to safe operating condition. Cycling Nicd batteries at least once a month can help them achieve their maximum rated capacity and life span.

The next board meeting will be held at Jim Lewis’s house on 12 Mar 01 at 1900 hours. It is open to all that want to attend.

The next regular meeting will be held at the Aurora Public Library on Hampton Circle on 14 Mar 2001 at 1900 hours.

The $20 gift certificate from Action Hobbies was won by Jim Lewis. (again!)

The $20 gift certificate from Blue Yonder was won by Bill Robinson.

The $20 gift certificate from Colpar Hobbies was won by Mike Wilson.

The gallon of fuel from Blue Yonder was won by Paul Noveshansky.

Thank you to Blue Yonder, Colpar and Action for the donated items

The meeting adjourned at about 2010 hours.

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Last changed: 07/05/2009

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