THE WEAK SIGNAL January 2017 Toledo Weak Signals Radio Control Club, Inc. Toledo, OH Charter No. 521

President: Scott Bauerschmidt 734-625-8196 [email protected] Vice President: Tom Strohscher 419-693-5691 [email protected] Recording Secretary: Mark Scheuer 419-705-6976 [email protected] Treasurer: Randy Peebles 419-517-3590 [email protected] Membership: Steve Guerrero 734-847-0020 [email protected] Trustees: Frank Nation 734-731-9694 [email protected] Kermit Buck 734-678-7152 [email protected] Newsletter: Tom Strohscher 419-693-5691 [email protected] Newsletter Submissions: [email protected]

Website: http://www.toledoshow.com http://www.toledoweaksignals.com

Club Field: 734-856-6865 Weather Vox: 734-854-1055

From the President Hello everyone I hope everyone had a great holiday and will have a great upcoming New Year. Sounds like 36 degrees and low wind for a New Year’s Day fly at the field. Hopefully we have a lot of people show up to say they were able to fly on the first day of 2017. I would like to remind everyone to spread the word about our club swap shop at the activity meeting on the 26th of January. I will open the meeting hall at 6:00pm for setup we will take roll call at 7:00 pm and begin the swap shop, if need be I will stay later than 8 if the traffic or the fun dictates. My hopes for this activity meeting is that we will have a great turnout from our club, if you have something you want to sell or get rid of it this could be your chance. So please take the time to bring out your stuff I am also hoping that we can bring this back to being a yearly tradition for our club. That we as club member’s look forward to, also we will do nothing as far as club business on this day other than take roll call, this day is for us, to mingle talk, share ideas and sell stuff. Please consider coming out and help us make it a success. In other business the board met on 12/14/16 and agreed on a 5 man safety committee our current committee members are as follows. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Roger Holley (Safety Office) Ron Wyatt Mark Scheuer Ron Kuyoth TBD

Just to communicate the safety committee’s function for starters will be to asses and improve our clubs safety field rules, moving us closer to matching the AMA safety rules if not mirror them as an AMA sanctioned club. They will also be required to present FPV and Heli safety rules to the board. They will put together their findings for our board to review and update our current club rules. As a secondary function the committee will help assess field safety to keep all of us safe. Remember they will be there to guide us not to enforce if you choose not to obey standard safety rule you endanger your fellow club member. The safety committee will also be added to our meeting agenda and will be expected to communicate and discuss safety mishaps with the club members. With a year behind us full of mishaps we need to remember one phrase. “Safety is when nothing happens”.

We also discussed reducing fun-fly’s due to poor turnout. There will be 2 contests this year. One will be a regular points contest. The other being added to the club picnic as individual events with individual event winners. So for instance the club picnic is usually and will continue to be an open fly but during the picnic we will host fun fly type events. Maybe an inverted fly so if you’re good at inverted flying or just like the fun you can sign up just for that event. First, second and third place will receive gift certificates for that event. There will be multiple events during the day. We hope this will help increase participation at the club picnic. The picnic will be moved sooner in the year. This will be our club fly in slash picnic. And my promise to you is that it will be worth showing up to this year! Everyone remember that Tom Kroggel hosts indoor flying in the building behind his shop. If you get a chance make sure you check it out. This only survives based on participation. It’s also a great way to hone your flying skills over the winter! In closing hopefully everyone is well into their winter build projects. Share your progress by sending pictures and a description to Tom Strohscher ([email protected]) so he can get them in the newsletter. Don’t forget to bring neat stuff to show and tell. And remember March 23rd our activity meeting will be a model show with judging and prizes. Our next Club meeting is at 7PM at the American legion on JAN 12th Our net board meeting will be JAN 14th And our clubs Swap Shop doors will open at 6:00pm on JAN 26th Thank you, Your President Scott Bauerschmidt

On the Work Bench Eric Gibson is working on a Matt Chapman Eagle 580. It has a 53 inch wingspan and will be powered by a OS .46. He’s looking forward to this spring.

2017 Show Information 2017 Expo Door Security The 2017 Expo at Seagate Centre will be April 7, 8, and 9. All Regular, Associate and Prospective members are required to work at the Expo. Newer members, if you have not requested or been assigned to be on any other committee detail, you will be required to work on door security. Please let me know as soon as possible but no later than March 4, 2017. The earlier you notify me of your preferred dates and times, the better chance you have of getting your request. I would prefer if you would email your information. The information I need is all of the times that you are available to work and the times that you cannot work. Everyone will be working four shifts. If you have any special request or preference let me know and I will try to honor your request. If you do ask for a special request I will also need other options if I cannot fill your first preference. Also, let me know if want the same schedule that you had last year. Please realize I will do my best to give everyone the shifts they want but it is not always possible and I will try to come as close as I can, that is why I need the total times you are available to work. Please do not request all back to back shifts if possible. This makes it harder to accommodate other member’s requests. The following will be the 2017 shift schedule. It is the same as last year. Friday - April, 7th Saturday – April 8th Sunday - April 9th 6:30 AM to 8:45 AM 6:30 AM to 8:45 AM 6:30 AM to 8:45 AM 8:45 AM to11:00 AM 8:45 AM to11:00 AM 8:45 AM to11:00 AM 11:00 AM to 1:15 PM 11:00 AM to 1:15 PM 11:00 AM to 1:15 PM 1:15 PM to 3:30 PM 1:15 PM to 3:30 PM 1:15 PM to 3:30 PM (close) 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM (close) 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM (close) You can email, mail or call with your information. My email is [email protected], address is 1220 Eleanor Ave., Toledo, OH 43612, and phone is (419) 478-5788. My preference is email, please. Emailing me will insure that I have your correct email address. I will email the schedule to you about two weeks prior to the Expo.

2017 THURSDAY EXPO EXHIBITOR SET UP It really saves the club money on hired door guards if club members volunteer for door security for the Thursday Exhibitor th Set Up. The date for the exhibitor set up is Thursday, April 6 . The set up time is from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM. The Friday, Saturday and Sunday door guards cannot shift to Thursday. There are not enough members working door security on Fri., Sat. and Sun. to allow any shifting to Thursday. What is needed are members willing to work extra on Thursday to save the club money so we do not need to have Rent-A-Guards. The hours worked on Thursday will not replace the hours you are needed at your regular weekend assignment. This door security is simpler than the weekend assignments since there are no tickets or hand stamps, only Exhibitors and club members. II have two shifts; 7:45 AM to 2:00 PM and 2:00 PM to 8:15 PM. There will be relief for lunch and breaks. Chairs will also be provided at each door. Thursday parking details will be available as they become available. Replacing the Rent-A-Guards will only work if we can have enough members to work all day. I will need members for both shifts or we will still need Rent-A-Guards, which defeats the purpose. If I can get 28 members to work on Thursday then there can be two guards at each door and the two guards can relieve each other as necessary. Volunteering for Thursday is open to all regular, associate, perspective and life members. Even if you have assignments for Friday, Saturday or Sunday you are still welcome to volunteer to work on Thursday. I will need to know if you can help on Thursday by March 4, 2017. This above-and-beyond volunteering for Thursdays has been greatly appreciated. One of the reasons we have such a wonderful Club and flying field is members like you. Thank you so much! Let's continue to work together to make this a great show! Mike Vorbau, Expo Security Chairman

At the Field st

You could not have asked for a better day for January 1 . It was sunny which warmed the spirits and the air to 40 degrees. The lack of any wind made flying quite nice. Steve Guerrero showed up with an electric powered Radian sailplane. Ron Wyatt of course had a sailplane winch out before the sun came up. He also got out his Koas. Tom Strohscher dusted off a Midwest Starduster. We flew airplanes for a while then when inside to eat the delicious chili Ron made for lunch.

UPDATE… I got a report that Rick Letterman showed up in the afternoon. He flew his Ugly Stick and a new EFlight P-47. Ron let my secret out. I had the first crash of the year. Slow down if you hear control surface flutter. Tom

Club History

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R/C Homewreckers, Part 52

So we just held the 1975 edition of the Weak Signals Annual Conference which was 42 years ago and which don’t seem possible as it really seems like yesterday. So I guess time does pass quickly or is fleeting or whatever they say about it. I do know this though….when I look in the archives, all I see is dark hair but attend a meeting these days and what color do you see??? Below are a couple examples from the era...

Buddy Ruder watches Gus Bilmaier clown with a highly amused Dave Carpenter.

Steve Warren says… ”Blonde”…”look at the Blonde!”

Dave Whitaker chats with a teammate on Betkey’s “Flying Circus”

Roy Hinger Chief of Security chats with Co-Director Don Belote

One historic note we missed occurred in late 75 that we felt is worthy of going back to whereas Rick Lederman and a couple other members would offer a motion at a meeting allowing the consumption of alcoholic beverages at meetings and this particular motion was always defeated yet appeared before the membership for a very long extended period of time, probably or at least more than a year and it was always voted down however…….In January 76 it was offered once more by Lederman, seconded by Phil Fuller and to show you what the word ‘persistence’ means….it PASSED!!! Finally the members said yes, so if you come to a meeting at the Legion and feel like maybe having a beer, thank Lederman. I know this writer is one who appreciates a cold one on occasion. In the spring the club discussed the possibility of purchasing fuel in bulk form for a better per-gallon price than what the hobby stores require and this idea was widely supported so Bob Hisey volunteered to look into purchasing the ingredients and mixing our own or some other cost savings idea. At the following meeting, Bob reported he had made contact with Frank Palloby of Nitrotane who agreed to supply his fuel for $4.00 per gallon in one bulk purchase so the members could purchase whatever amount they wished but had to pay the club Treasurer by a certain date and then the fuel would be delivered at the conference so you had to pay plus make arrangements to pick-up your order. So a little bit of work involved but for 4 bucks a gallon?? What the hey?? (Note: The purchase total on this venture was 185 gallons involving 41 members!!!) The Conference was now a full 3 day show and having an adequate work force was discussed as the last thing we needed was not having enough staff although enthusiasm was very high. Yet those in charge were covering all possibilities so the subject was discussed with those in charge indicating a minimum of 9 hours per member and evidently this was going to be tracked because they indicated a list with hours worked by each member was going to be published and those not working the afore-mentioned 9 hours were to be referred to the Board Of Directors!!! Our old friend Bob Knisely was Club Secretary through this period of time and Bob would on occasion, insert something he felt was funny into the club minutes and following are a few of Bob’s gems… 1.He called his old next door friend “Orville” and reported that “Orville ran his car battery dead while re-charging his gear”, 2. He tattled on Paul Schmitz stating he “did it again for the 3rd time….hooked up his ailerons backwards” 3. It seems Al Betkey couldn’t get his B-25 motors to start and spent considerable time looking into the reasons before he finally discovered water makes a lousy fuel and 4. Another “Orville” story whereas John removed his bifocals while flying and immediately lost his airplane! He did say though that it was almost all re-built!! Bob’s sense of humor might have been different from yours yet he got a big kick out of these kinds of tales and relished telling them……………….. Stay tuned for more……Wayne Yeager

Pilot Profile Name: Tom Strohscher Occupation: Libbey Glass Design Engineer

NEW Pilot Profile! We’ll try to get one each month.

When did you join the Weak Signals? 7/10/2008 Are you a member of other RC Clubs? No When and how did you get started? When I was a kid I think I built a model of some sort every week. Many were airplanes. My brother and I would come up with ingenious way of destroying them. I remember my Dad taking me to the show in the 70s. It was the coolest thing to see everything guys were building. In 1990 I built my first RC airplane, a Great Planes PT40 trainer. It tried flying it a few times but crashed every time. (Ask me to see the original video sometime.) The PT40 was shelved for 17 years. In 2007 my buddy talked me into repairing it. He got an airplane from his father in law and we helped each other crash and learn. I have some great stories from the fun we had back them. Did you have any mentors when you got started? No, it was the build, fly, crash, & repeat process. I did randomly ask questions to club members. Scott, Bruce and Roger have been great helping me with 3D aerobatics. What do you enjoy most about the hobby? I like building and trying new things. Having a good laugh and relaxing at the field is great too. It’s a place to just get away for a bit. What type of aircraft do you fly? Spot Planes, (Glow Fuel, Gasoline, and Electric) How many airplanes are in your hanger? 8 5 Flyable (AJ Laser, EF Yak, Lazy Tiger, Proud Bird, Smoothie, Foamie) 3 Projects (Howard DGA-6, Super Sportster, Corsair) What is/was your favorite aircraft? The Hog Bipe from Sig. I built 2 of these identical. Neither survived but I have another kit. What keeps your interest in the hobby? All the different aspects of this hobby, creativity and the things I haven’t tried yet. Do you participate in club contests or sanctioned competition? I enjoy the club fun fly contests and have recently joined club pylon racing. I would like to give IMAC a try but never seem to dedicate the time to practicing. Do you have a favorite pastime besides RC? I’ve had other hobbies like wood working and writing computer programs but RC airplanes has become a focus for the past 8 years.

Membership Anniversaries 5 Years

Joined in

John Huebner

2012

Dan Allen Scott Horgan David Holzscheiter

15 Years

20 Years

40 Years

Arthur Hamm 10 Years

Joined in

Clark Teal

2007

Tim Kuyoth

2002

Chris Skolmowski

Joined in

Scott Harter

Joined in

Dave Carpenter

1977

Scott Bauerschmidt Rob Bienenstein

Joe Jesky

1997

Kenneth Sands Mathew Krochmalny

Joined in

50 Years

Joined in

Joe Vislay

1967 55 Years

Joined in 1962

Bud Tanner