February 2008
Mike Hainen

February got started with Kim and Mark Hamlyn making a trip to the Owosso Swap Meet to sell some airplanes and engines.
They even sold an engine for Dave Johnson and he has turned that into a new Futaba 7C FASST radio system. Futaba has just released this radio in the past few months and the prices using Tower Hobbies coupons have really come down.

The heli group is having and arms race as everyone is dumping their older helis and radios and upgrading to the latest and greatest stuff. A few of the airplane guys are doing the same, especially the jump to 2.4ghz equipment. The days for the frequency clip are numbered. In a few years we will only have to police the flight line for current AMA card/membership and not have to do double duty of verifying use of the proper frequency pin. If you have been using the excuse, "I got hit" or "I have a glitch", you better start looking
for a new bunch of crash excuses as those will be pretty lame excuses in a few years.

A nice highlight for the month was having our February monthly meeting at the USCG Traverse City air station. Thanks to Rich Schultz and Steve Horacek for arranging this and providing the refreshments. You can read about the meeting highlights over in the ROTORHEAD FOLDER for now. Enjoy Rich and Steve this spring as we lose them this summer and will have to find a new pair of coasties to join us for more flying adventures.

February's last indoor session was another success with about as many airplanes as helicopters and few unusual type aircraft. Also this session was more family oriented.
The Vanwingen family, Jamie, his wife Jennifer, son Thomas and daughter Samantha Ann arrived early with a flock of flying machines. Samantha Ann was there celebrating her 2nd birthday. Thomas came sporting a cool red beanie hat with propeller on top and he explained to me how it would rotate in the wind when he was walking. A true rotorhead in the making. You can see him flying his little Air hog helicopter in the attached pictures. Jennifer received a flying lesson from her hubby, and she is now dragonfly qualified and can fly it all over the gym. Jamie continues to fly his airplanes, dragonfly, and blade CX helicopter.

Keeping with the family theme, Steve & Steve Stedronsky from the BARCS club drove up for some socializing and got some airtime in on their Venom heli, tricky little devil of a helicopter. Surprise, surprise, Dan McClaren and wife Jeannie with a daughter and son-in-law in tow arrived to share some bleacher chat time with everyone. Dan could be seen pacing the sidelines of the basketball court snagging airtime on many different aircraft.

The PARK ZONE boys were out in force with their little CESSNA 206 planes, Jim Eggert, Scotty Anderson, Jamie Vanwingen and Ben Rufli showed up with the newest addition to that little line of aircraft, a taildraggin' little CITABRIA. When they are all up there, they are quite a flock of vultures quietly circling for an unsuspecting helicopter to harrass. I know this for a fact as I was flying one of my T-rex 540's and got absolutely no respect as they flew over, under and around me and drove me from the sky before my carbon blades did some serious airplane munching. One of them did make the mistake of flying directly under my rotorwash and got knocked from the sky like a thunderbolt from God. but the pilot did manage to save the plane and fly away. Jeff Devincent and son, Mike were again present to exercise the Mini-Titan and Trex helicopters that they fly. Rich Schultz finished the fine tuning of a new T-rex 450 for heli friend, Bill Oliver. Rich also had his sweet T-rex in the air. Steve Horacek, see pictures, was present with his little red & white foam flying disk, a tiny bi-plane and his T-rex. Dick Jerue, and true indoor pilot continued to work on and master the blue-foam biplane he has been flying for the past year. Scotty Anderson showed up with the most hi-tech 3d biplane we have seen to date, Carbon rods everywhere and one hot motor. And this this is good sized and light as a feather.

We taxied, trimmed and tuned and I finally got a flight with several figure 8's in, but easy on the controls and stay off the throttle, the plane is a rocket yet can fly so slow. A guy could spend several years mastering that little aircraft.
Enjoy the pictures and we have 2 more indoor flying sessions in March, March 8th and March 29th. Don't forget, March is renew you membership month and make sure you have paid up your AMA membership for 2008.
That is all the news I have for February.















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March 2008
Mike Hainen

Snow, still white and lots of it, get in all the snow-mobiling you can. Ice still thick enough to fish, discount
lift tickets and spring skiing. Spring is in the air, are you home getting ready to change the wardrobe,
prep the garden and yard junk. Only 5 weeks until April 15th, are you doing taxes? Is your house full
of college kids on spring break? Are you getting ready for a springbreak trip? With all these options, it is tough to decide weather to score honey-do points, work on winter project, or go indoor flying. Solution, multi-tasking is the only way. Do it all.

Well today was session #5 of the indoor flying fun up at Leelanau Sands. I arrived and within minutes a half dozen
vehicles arrived as we waited for the doors to open. At first attendance appeared to be light with but pilots, friends and observers drifted in to enjoy the day. Tony Lahead, myself, Mike Devincent, Nick Harwood made up the TREX 450 gang. Scot Anderson, Stan Hyman, Jim Eggart, Ben Rufli, Jamie Vanwingen made up the Park Zone airplane squadron. The "Blue Max" Dick Jerue has mastered the blue foam biplane. The Vanwingen family was all present and flying their fleet of electric wonders, dragonfly, foamy twinjet, Airhog heli,Blade CX and the Park Zone Cessna 206. New guys Chris Pina flying a Blade CP and Eugene Simionescu with a brand new Blade 400 heli were also present to get some adjusting and setup help and to start taking those first awkward heli steps, skidding and sliding around trying to teach the left and right hands what the left and right sticks do. New prospect Mike Torello drove up with Nick and will be joining TRAMPS flying planes and helis while studying hard at Great Lakes Maritime Academy.

Scot Anderson was so excited when Nick Harwood showed up he ran home and got his hot new 3D biplane. Nick did a little trimming with Scot's bi-plane and began having lots of rolling, flipping, hovering and having fun with the neat little biplane. See the attached pictures.

Last session I recounted how I was ganged-up on by the Park Zone squadron of little Cessna and Citabra airplanes flying around, above and under my TREX helicopter. We all survived that round. Today, new Park Zonie Stanley Hyman joined ranks with a pretty new white and yellow Citabra and he was really enjoying his move the wonderful world of pleasant indoor flying and spread spektrum freedom. Well just like Ikarus flying too near
the sun, Stanley decide he wanted to have an up close and personal look at Tony Lawhead's Trex 450 sporting carbon blades. Let's just say, a pair of carbon blades turning 2500 rpms trumps a foam and plastic Park Zone airplane everytime. Tony sliced Stan's tail off like a Benihana cook
slicing the tail off a shrimp. Oh well, Stan has the catalogue of Park Zone parts at Trains & Things and the little bird will fly again. Speaking of hobby shops, Jim Oviatt and wife drove up to witness the happenings at the Strongheart Center Indoor flying session. Jim has been selling lots of helis this winter and sending his customers up to get help from our group. Hope the seeds get planted and we see more pilots this flying season.
All in all it was a good day and got even better when 7 of us adjourned to Sutton's Bay to the Village Inn for a nice lunch and the telling of lies and tales.

Don't forget we will be taking an extra week off, so the next and last indoor flying session of the year will be March 29th. Final score for today Airplanes 1, helicopters 2. Stan lost his butt/tail, Nick tried to land his Trex 450 very fast on a vertical brick wall like Jason Krause. Didn't work. And my night Trex 450 tried to do a 180 steep turn flying low along the floor and the blade tips of my carbon blades nicked the floor breaking the plastic blade grips and plastic swash plate. The blades survived without a mark and I just have been waiting to install my complete new metal head assembly, now I have a reason.

Just in case you have a severe case of heli spring fever, Chris Zolen wants to fire up the fire ring and fireplace at his Heli Haven in Kalkaska on the Saturday before Easter. Sort of a Snow/Slush/Mud season kick off, just depends on the temperature. He says Lars will plow a path into the clubhouse and clear out an area big enough to get the helis into the sky. Sounds like a good reason to bundle up, drink hot liquids, bury brown bottles in the snow and make yellow spots next to trees. Time to get the field box in shape, charge the ni-starters, burn up the old fuel and see what works and what doesn't. After all Toledo Show is 2 weeks after that April 4,5,6 and you can drive down and get all new stuff if yours is junk.

Get those projects done and get ready. Have you seen those H&R Block ads, "I got people", well I am here to tell you, "I have people" and good helibuds, Tony Lawhead, Dave Johnson and Chris Zolen have been helping me get my gaggle of helis built and ready for this coming season. Thanks guys. The wrenching sessions are good fun and a great places to learn. Find some airplane buddies, a few soft drinks and cheap pizza and get together
with your buddies, it adds so much to the fun. See pictures of my buddies, Tony, Chris, Coastie Steve.

Serious TO DO LIST ITEMS: pay AMA dues, pay Club dues, go to Wednesday night TRAMPS meeting at King's Court, buy heli decal or T-shirt from dialarotor.

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