March 2006 March 2006

Club President

Jef f Anderson

Club Vice President

Paul Douds

Club Secretary

Jul ian Pugh

Club Treasurer

Bi l l S immons

Editor: Paul Jacobs Paul@mertes .com

The Fox Valley Aero Club

AMA Charter 252 AMA Charter 252

An Illinois not-for-profit corporation

Members gather for a group photo at the dome. These electric flyers keep their skills sharp all winter and will be ready for Spring when it arrives.

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President’s Message By Jeff Anderson

Things are shaping up for the summer! We have accomplished so much this year al-ready! Current projects in progress: • The full page AMA ad (above) for our “BIG 3” events this summer. • The article on “Building the FVAC field” submitted to AMA this week! • DOC cleaning up the big garbage pile! • Projects to look at the existing DOC shed for repair and for us to use. • Committee looking into a new “Control Tower Building” with storage and kitchen area to serve food , impound , nice lookout etc… • Membership committee working on membership cards with your picture , FVAC logo AMA # etc • NEW Field Chairman’s have several projects planned for the Spring to make our field even better! Thanks to our city relations team , the City of St. Charles will be involved in all our club events …starting with our Kids Fly June 10th Thanks to all that are involved in our club!!

Look for this Ad in your AMA Magazine

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Secretary’s Report By Julian Pugh

Minutes of the February 9, 2006 Meeting President Jeff Anderson started the meeting at 7:30 PM by having those persons bringing planes show them to the club. Persons bringing ‘Show and Tell’ items were: Ken Morecraft John Fischer Bill Simmons Alan Galle Julian Pugh Dave Brustle Steve Baker Bill Scherer Dominic Saverino By vote of the members John Fischer was awarded the Hobbytown $25.00 Gift Certificate for the best plane. Johns’ plane was a beautiful Curtis P-40 Warhawk. John again demonstrated his Master Modeler abilities with this outstandingly de-tailed ship. Good work John and congratulations. Secretary Julian Pugh requested the minutes as published in the January newsletter be approved. A motion was presented and members approved the minutes. Treasurer Bill Simmons presented the Treasurers report to the club. It was approved by vote of the members. He re-ported a balance of $8,000.00 in the club treasury, after payment of two outstanding Field Lottery Balls. Two balls were drawn from the field raffle jar. Steve Baker then presented the Fox Valley Aero Club Board of Directors ‘Top Gun’ Award for 2005 to President Jeff Anderson to reflect the outstanding job he did in leading the club through difficult times. His accomplishments included bringing the new field to reality and holding outstanding events (Giant Scale, 3-D, Windy City Jets). Thanks Jeff, we all appreciates your great abilities and work. Cindy McFarland was introduced to the club as a new board member. Cindy is the manager of Al’ Hobby Shop in Elm-hurst and has a lot of experience and a long history in R/C Airplanes and Helicopters. Thanks Cindy and welcome to the Fox Valley Aero Club Board of Directors. By action of the board Cheryl Bohler has been named Associate Field Chairman to assist Field Chairman Greg Bohler in his duties. The Bohlers’ contribute a tremendous amount of work and enthusiasm to the club. Thanks to the Bohlers! Greg reported on the progress in garbage removal at the field and will set up a work party in the spring to manage rut re-pair and field fertilization. Fun Fly Chairman will have a meeting at his house February 27, 2006 to plan this years Fun Fly Events. All interested parties should attend. Government Relations Chairman Dominic Saverino report on a meeting to be held with John Milner to go over our 2996 Action Plan. President Anderson reported on an article to be in the next issue of R/C Flyer regarding Sam Faircloth’s biplane. This article was put together by Darryl Hedges. Darryl also updated the club on progress in putting together an article regard-ing the building of our new field for the AMA magazine. Thanks for the great work Darryl. Membership Chairman Jason Walsh reported on the membership renewal program. We now have 162 members who have renewed. We lost 25-30 members from last year. This is a normal rate of attrition, according to Jason. Jason re-minded the club that Fox Valley Aero Club members must be a current member of the AMA and we must have your AMA Number on file. If we don’t have your AMA Number, give Jason a call and give it to him. John Fischer discussed the new ‘Pilot Qualification Program’ now being considered by the board. The point of this pro-gram is to make us all better and safer R/C pilots. In a nutshell, different levels of ability (Novice, Advanced, Expert, In-structor, etc.) will be set up with a list of flying requirements being associated with each level. Pilots will qualify for the levels by demonstrating their ability to do the requirements of each level. Points will be awarded for the annual Member Participation Auction held at years end. This is an exciting program and we should all look forward to it. Jeff Anderson reviewed the Member Participation Points and Auction. Julian Pugh will be keeping track of the members participation in various events. Julian will be using a great program donated to the club by member Bob Mosinski to keep track of the points. Thanks Bob! Event Chairpersons will be responsible for providing Julian with participation lists for their events. Don’t forget this. It is important to our members. Attendance sheets will be available at each meeting. Please initial by your name so you can get credit for participating. President Anderson adjourned the meeting 9:51 P.M.

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Treasurers Report By Bill Simmons

A couple of events happened this last month that gave me something to write about. Recently Jeff and I went over to Lee’s house to help Carol with selling Lees RC stuff. Paul Douds and Bob Walker went there a few days earlier to offer the same type of assistance. Lee was a good man and had many friends in our club. When I see how some of his friends came together to help out his wife I realize how important it is to have and maintain these relationships. We all share a common interest in flying and we all joined Fox Valley Aero to fly and be around other people who love to fly. Today I got a call from Steve Baker who told me about a person in Naper-ville who just lost her husband. (He was just 41 years old and had cancer. I say “Just” because I am 43 and still into my first childhood) He had several RC related items that she now needs to get rid of. Her husband was not part of any club and did not share his interest in flying with any of his friends. She went to the local hobby shop to see how she could sell them. The hobby store, probably Hobby Town but I am not sure, gave her Steve’s name be-cause of our upcoming swap meet. Steve met with her once already and he and I are planning to go over to her house soon to try and help her out. She doesn’t know either of us and she has no idea of what her late husbands stuff is worth. We will probably be selling her husbands stuff at our upcoming swap meet. I hope she feels that we will try and get what it is worth for her but how is she going to know. Why am I telling this story? I think there are a few lessons here that we all need to take note of. 1. It doesn’t matter how old you are (a kid of 41 years or someone perhaps a little older) you need to make sure that your family understands how much your hobby items are worth. 2. Where would this woman go if there were no more hobby shops? Support the stores that support us. 3. Wouldn’t you sleep better if your surviving spouse (the women always out-last us) could go to friends in an organized club like Fox Valley Aero vs. strangers (after all, who is stranger than Steve Baker and I).

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Treasurers Report By Bill Simmons

4. I look at every member of Fox Valley Aero as a friend. I thank God that I am not the Naperville guy who missed out on the friendships he could have had by joining a club. I also thank Got that I am more like Lee who was a part of the greatest club out there, Fox Valley Aero. Paul Douds told me about a store in Aurora off route 31 south of Indian Trail called Harbor Freight tools (http://www.harborfreight.com).

I was recently near there with my wife and went in. They sell reconditioned tools and machines as well as “B” quality hammers, screw drivers, and drill bits. (Made in China stuff). There were many items in that store that were ideal for my work room. They had a box of drill bits that had every size from micro to half inch. A very complete set for $60. I bought a box of screw drivers for $5 that had 10 dif-ferent sizes, mostly small with rubber handles. The kit also included a re-placeable tip screwdriver that had a magnet that extended to pick up dropped pieces. They are having a sidewalk sale coming up. Check this place out. While walking thru the Jewel with the wife, (she doesn’t let me go there alone) I came across a toy section. They had a doll there that was perfect for larger scale airplanes for $2.50. The doll was cut off at the bust and had combs clips and stuff that the child could use on it. It was light weight and fashioned similar to the Williams Brothers pilots available. At $2.50 there is no excuse not to have a pilot in your plane. Soon I will be off to Florida Jets with Jeff, Dominic, and Tim from Wina-mac. We will be having a lot of fun and promoting our club for Windy City Jets. We are looking to get a group together to go to Toledo this year. Let me know if you are interested in coming along.

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Field Maintenance Report By Greg & Cheryl Bohler, Chairpersons

If you were at the February club meeting you heard Jeff announce that Greg & Cheryl Bohler have been asked to take over as Field Chairman and Associate Field Chairman for our club. We were honored and disturbed at the same time. We were honored to be asked to take on this responsibility and the confidence that this showed us the Board had in us. We were disturbed because it also meant writing a monthly column for the newsletter (not our forte).

There are a lot of grand plans and ideas being discussed about major projects and future plans for our field. As of now, that is exactly what they are...discussion. For that reason I am going to avoid addressing these issues and present a list of ordinary tasks that we should work on in order to pre-pare for the upcoming season.

1) Steve Baker is making arrangements to get a tractor and smooth out the ruts on the north side of the field. When this is done we will need to do a little hand work and seeding.

2) 2) We need to seal our bleachers to protect the new wood.

3) We would like to rebuild 4 of the tables in the pit area so all the tables have the larger tops and are uniform.

4) We need to clean and paint all of the garbage cans at the field.

5) In March we would like to fertilize the field. Over seeding may be done later.

Currently we are starting to collect prices on port-a-potties and we are trying to determine the feasi-bility of having a small dumpster at the field that could be picked up on a regular basis.

If anybody has the ambition to spearhead any of these projects, please contact me. Remember, be-fore you say "somebody needs to do something" EVERYBODY CAN BE SOMEBODY!

This seems to be getting an unusual amount of press coverage for a sim-ple event. I didn’t know that lawyers had a season on them?

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Regular Monthly meeting on February 9, 2006

Bill Simmons shows what an electric YAK looks like new.

Allan Galle explains why there is a prop on his F-14

Julian Pugh describes the as-sembly of his Goldberg Tiger II

Ken Morecraft describes the finer points of his CL215

Another standing room only crowd at the monthly meeting.

Dave Brustle and his 1/4 scale Gee-Bee project in the bones.

Tom Spate hoists his very heavy and unique Rat Racer.

Steve Baker shows his Sig Something Extra he won at the Christmas party.

Bill Scherer with his wingless Sig Rascal.

Dominic describes his maiden flight through the clouds.

John Fisher explains some de-tails on his fabulous P-40.

President Jeff accepts the “Top Gun “ award from Steve Baker for 2005.

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Robart is searching for some assemblers. Generally, the best assemblers we have found have some experi-ence in the hobby. We are looking for either part time or full time persons. If you or any other mod-eler you know is in-t e r e s t e d , please con-tact us as this would be a great way to find quality people and for some of the FVAC members to work in an atmosphere

t h a t t h e y m a y greatly enjoy.

630-584-7616 www.robart.com

Left: View of the Control Tower at the Winamac Club. It is attached to a pavil-ion similar to FVAC’s and houses the kitchen as well as their frequency con-trol room during contests. There is addi-tional room for storage of equipment. The red window panels are removed during events. Wouldn’t one of these look good just west of our pavilion fac-ing South?

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Here is the April 2006 article from FlyRC magazine written by FVAC’s Darryl Hedges and Dr. Sam Faircloth. Congratulations to both for the ex-cellent work and the great publicity for the club.

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Fox Valley Aero Club and

AL’s Hobby Shop Presents

$10.00 Entry Fee in advance

$15.00 Day of Combat

Registration: 8:30 AM Flying Starts: 9:30 AM

JUNE 4th 2006 at FVAC FIELD Cash and/or Prizes

RULES Engine size is limited to a maximum size of .60 No open exhausts, any type of aircraft is acceptable Maximum of six planes in the air per round Five minute matches One point for each second of air time For a maximum of 300 pts 300 points per cut awarded to flier making cut 2 points for every foot of streamer left 60 points max awarded 10 pts Spot Landing BACK UP PLANES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED For Further Information Contact: Alan Galle at 630-697-8464 1280Lance Lane, Carol Stream, IL. 60188 Must be an AMA member to compete

Directions: I88 west to Orchard to Randall rd north to route 38 west to 1/2 mile west of Peck Road on Route 38 on the south side of the road. St. Charles, IL AMA Sanction #06-0310 CD - Alan Galle Email: ajgalle@comcast.net

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Fun Fly Report by Allan Galle, Chairman

FUTURE FUN FLY EVENTS • May 13, 2006 First Fun Fly • June 3, 2006 Fun Fly • July 8, 2006 Fun Fly • August 12, 2006 Fun Fly • September 16, 2006 Fun Fly • October 14, 2006 Fun Fly • November 11, 2006 Last Fun Fly

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Membership News By Jason Walsh

I want to thank everyone who sent in their dues and renewed for the upcoming year. I be-lieve this year will be exciting and I'm glad you are along for the ride. We are currently working on membership cards. Tentatively there are 3 designs to choose from: an airplane, a helicopter, and a jet. You are free to choose whatever design you would like, but we would prefer if you chose the design that best represents what you do most in the hobby. These cards will be beneficial in many ways. They will contain information such as AMA card and number, membership sticker, photo, turbine waiver, frequencies used, and name. How they will work is this. The cards will come with a small clear envelope. On one side your membership card will be visible, and on the opposite side your AMA card will be kept (membership stickers will continue to be placed on your AMA card). At the field this little packet will be what is necessary in order to get your frequency pin. These cards will make it much easier for everyone to identify everyone else with (helpful to those members who aren’t out as much or new people), make it safer because now we can verify AMA membership, turbine waivers, and frequency and they are just plain cool. Todd Barrett worked up the designs and I think they are really nice. We will make an announcement at the next meeting about these cards. We will photo-graph you at the general meetings and once it gets nice out, at the field. You should have your card shortly thereafter. In other news, a few of you still have not sent me your AMA number information. This is a serious matter so please send me your information. I am currently filling out AMA paper-work that shows who is and isn’t a member of this club, and AMA membership is a REQUIRE-MENT to be a member here. To put it bluntly: unfortunately I will have to mark you down as a non member if I do not have your AMA number. This is serious business folks, we will lose our sanctioning if we do not follow the rules. If you have heard from me you need to send me this info. If you have not heard from me, there are no problems. In the meantime have fun (and send me your AMA number).

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Safety Corner By Karl Griesbaum

630-584-7616 www.robart.com

There are no safety problems at the field this time of year but I thought you would enjoy a little computer aviation humor. Think Spring!!!

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Instructors Corner By Dan Compton

On the right we have Dan ex-plaining to Jim Hagner the essen-tials of pylon racing...look famil-iar Jim? Anyway, Dan says the weather will improve next month and training flights will resume.

630-904-9983 www.planesplus.com

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Telephone: 630-832-4908 P.O.Box 449, 121 Addison Ave., Elmhurst, IL 60126

We are one block west of York Road and two and one half blocks south of North Ave. (Route 64) in the City Center of Elmhurst

Monday: 12:00 to 8:00 P.M. Tuesday through Friday: 10:00 A.M. to 8: 00 P.M.

Saturday: 9:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Sunday: 12:00 to 5:00 P.M.

Best Buy Shopping Plaza (Route 59) 4338 East New York Street #10

Aurora, IL 60540

630- 375-1230

Main Street Commons 3627 East Main St.

St. Charles, IL 60174 630-587-1256

23 Huntington Lane Wheeling, IL 60090

847-537-8669

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Paul Jacobs 1010 Bankfield Ct. Naperville, IL 60540

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