September Indoor Meeting

Yesterday's indoor meeting was well-attended with several newcomers and spectators in the crowd.


Mike brought something new, a tiny catapult launched glider. It is sitting on a standard #10 envelope here.


The tiny CLG makes my Little Richard look enormous.


The Little Richard, with a 12 inch wing span, is easy to build and fly. Mine flew right off the board and has been a reliable flyer ever since I built it two years ago. This video shows what happened yesterday when I wound it up too much.


Smacking into an iron beam isn't good for stick and tissue airplanes. This broken wing will be easy to fix, though.


Here is another Little Richard. Mike modified this model by reducing incidence (notice how the trailing edge is raised) and carving a lightweight balsa prop. The CG has been moved back to about 70% of the wing cord. Mike says trimming was more difficult with this arrangement, but performance is greatly improved.


Norman's Pussycat, a Dick Baxter design.


The wing of Norman's modified Cougar is covered with gift wrapping which, when wetted, resulted in a nice mottled pattern.


Tom showed his Deperdussin racer to Marco. This old model from the Nowlen Aero kit was flying well on Sunday.


Refreshments included coffee, cookies, and these delicious Chinese snacks (main ingredients: glutinous rice, sugar). Breakfast of Champions.


Eduardo is one of our newest members. The U.C. Berkeley student brought some of his models, like this A-6, from his native country of Chile. These are definitely carry-on items!


Eduardo says the P-25 class is popular in South America. This example, a good beginner's plane, was designed by Cacho Lastiz.


The transparent P-25 passes under a bright light.


Dave K used an unusual technique to build his new peanut scale Heinkel He 219 Uhu. The wing is conventionally built, but the fuselage and nacelles are built around carved foam forms; the foam is melted away when the wood structure is complete. Dave has posted more information about this project in the discussion forum at Small Flying Arts, here.


Dave is not done trimming the He 219, and he plans to add more scale details, but the small twin is already flying nicely as you can see in this video.


Several years ago, Dick Baxter's Akro design was the subject of a Marin Aero Club group build and contest. Tom decorated his Akro with a Kermit Walker motif, which starts to make sense when Tom explains that Kermit was judging the contest. The strategy didn't hurt, as Tom won that contest.


The pilot looks familiar.


Driving home, I took this picture of wild turkeys on the grounds of St. Vincent's. When I see these birds I'm reminded that Benjamin Franklin proposed making them the USA's national bird. Interesting idea.