Hello and greetings,

Congratulations to all the Skymasters who helped out to make our big event, the 10^th Annual Midwest Regional Float Fly, another great success. I'll let Darrell Watts and Carl Long fill in the details, please look for their report. But I will say this; we had nearly as many pilots as previous years but a noticeable increase in the spectators this year (on Saturday at least). This may be due to our efforts of contacting the media. The bottom line is that we exposed our hobby as a well-organized, safety minded, and technologically advanced pastime to many new people (and potential future members). I received many positive comments on how cordial and friendly you all were when answering questions and interacting with the park visitors. Great job and great show!

As the days get shorter and cooler many of you, like me, are probably starting to take inventory in the work shop, gearing up to log some hours at the building bench. As more of our hobby activities turn indoors, we come upon an annual Skymaster tradition known as the field closing party. (The field doesn't actually close, it is available for use by members all year long. And we do have some hearty souls in the club for whom cold and snow is no obstacle to model flying). The field closing party is our way of saying "so long" to summer with a cozy after sun-down bon fire and plenty of good conversation to go around. This year's field closing party will be Friday, October 20^th starting after flying hours and lasting 'til whenever. I hope you can make it.

Another sign of the season is that now we notice that we are not the only ones using our portion of Bald Mountain State Park. Hunting season brings lots of sport shooters to the park and close to our flying site and if we have a warm autumn there will be some overlap of our hobbies. Do not harass the hunters, they have park privileges also. They must however keep a safe distance from our flying site if we are using it and not fire in our direction. They can park in our area at their own risk, but we are required to lock the gate after the last Skymaster leaves. If you feel that these rule are being violated, please contact a club officer or the park office. It is not wise to argue with anyone carrying a gun!

Where did everyone go? We are indoors now. Don't forget our Larson Middle School meetings are the second and forth Wednesdays of the month starting at 7:30 PM. Each meeting has a theme or guest speaker. These include October 11^th when we will have Ed Kaminski from the Mt. Clemens Military Art Museum displaying some fabulous aviation prints. We are encouraging club members to bring their own homespun aviation art with them to share on the 11^th. October 25^th will be Mark Smith demonstrating foam cutting. November 8^th along with our ever-popular paper airplane contest will be our annual election night. Here is your chance to help the club out by becoming one of its leaders. We elect a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer to one-year terms each November. If you are interested or would like to find out more about it, please see any of the current or past club officers.

That's all for this month. Fly safe and happy landings.
Gary Weaks

Welcome to the October 2000 issue of Skywriter!

September was a busy month - with our 10^th Annual Midwest Regional Float Fly on the 9^th and 10^th- an event that takes a lot of help from the club!

We have a full schedule of programs for our fall meetings as Gary mentioned in his President's letter, and are starting to schedule next years. Got ideas for programs you would like to see this spring - topics you would like to see discussed?? Give Gary a call and let him know!

Elections are approaching! Are you interested in serving as a club officer?? Talk to any BOD member for information about any of the positions. As Gary indicated, there are 4 elected officers: President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. These four plus all past Presidents make up the voting members of the BOD. Appointed positions (by the new President) include Newsletter Editor and Chief Flight Instructor.

Please send me any input you may have for the newsletter. Please send mail to GMCardillo@att.net, or to my address on the back cover...

Location: Larson Middle School

• None

• Skymaster's are invited to fly at the Seven Lakes Park in Holly for Float Fly's on Saturdays. Please see this month's newsletter for more information.
• We are in need of a Video Library Custodian. Please contact Gary Weaks if interested.
• Bill Dezur is looking for volunteers for October 13, 14 & 15^th to be involved with the Boy Scout Jamboree at the Romeo Airport. The Jamboree is based on an aviation theme.

• September 27^th - Demo on Scale Model Building from scratch
• October 11^th - Aviation Art Theme
• October 25^th - Mark Smith will give a demo on foam cutting
• November 8^th - Paper Airplane contest. ELECTION NIGHT
• December 13^th - Christmas Party
• December 31^st - Krazy Snow Fly

• Darryl Watts reported 110 pilots registered for the float fly with 140 seaplanes.
• Darryl reported the weekend went well and they were able to fly between the clouds on Sunday.
• Gary Weaks reported a $504.93 kitchen profit.
• A special thanks to all who volunteered their time during the float fly and contributed to its success!

• Greg Cardillo led an interactive discussion on radio and servo installation. Topics included battery charging and cycling, receiver installation, push rod installation and much more.

• Greg Brausa brought in an Aspire from Horizon Hobby. It is a 2-meter sailplane powered by a 550 motor.
• Darrell Watts brought in his House of Balsa Indecker powered by an O.S. 120.
• Grey Lane brought in a Sig Hog Pipe powered by a Saito 91.
• Mark Smith brought in his "Home Design" Fat Cat Junior. He powers it with a 91 FX.
• Bill Dezur brought in his wing, which had an end date of August 30, 2000 at 7:45 p.m.
• Ross Hardy brought in his Sig Skybolt powered by a 61 FX.
• Joe Hass shared his Sukhoi SU 31 Aerobatic Arf (slow-flyer). It is powered by a speed 280.
• Jim Held brought in his Top Flight Spitfire in the bones. He will power it with a four-stroke OS 91.
• Greg Charbeneau brought in his Hobbico Hobbystar. It is powered by an OS 91 four-stroke.

Motion to adjourn and second

Throughout last winter construction commenced on the two raffle prizes: a Great Planes 1/4 Scale Spacewalker and a Top Flight 100" Stinson. Bob Burns, Herman Greif, Jack Fleming, Ron Greening, Otto Gutgsell, Al Nelson, Fred Johnson, and Dick Chapman worked on the Spacewalker and the advanced raffle sales began with the February Swap Shop. An ARF model that came covered in Ultra-Cote, it looked pretty in the box and assembled well. A lucky Ross Hardy won this plane.

The Stinson took much longer to produce. This plane had much more detail. Steve Fredericks, Darrell Watts, Jim Held, and Vince Pettke were the main master craftsmen for this showpiece. Joe Rubinstein, Gary Weaks, Harold Rueter, Jack Fleming, Randy MacInnes and Marv Middleton also contributed. This giant scale plane truly resembled a work of art upon completion. Lucky Otto Gutgsell won this for his hangar.

Raffle sales were the highest ever thanks largely to Donna Burns. Her determination brings many wallets out of their pockets--and her offer to fill out the tickets for you gives her lots of practice with her penmanship-a big THANK YOU to Donna! Raffle tickets had been sold throughout the Skymaster's event schedule. Ticket sales were also brisk at the event. Donna received help from Denise Cardillo, Deanna Burns and Judy Brahier. Judy flies with her dad at this event; they are from Ohio contingent.

Mark Smith made the nametags for the entrants as well as all the helpers. He also produced labels and the dinner tickets. Mark's creativity and expertise is a great asset to the club-his work is first-rate.

Registration began early on. Prior to the event, my wife, Cindy, helped greatly with getting the pilot envelopes together. Unfortunately her broken leg kept her on the sidelines for the event. Kathy Fredericks, Lydia Fleming, and Chris Leppard kept the registration table running smoothly both days, doing a great job.

Set-up was done with the help of Al McGee, Doug Riley, Steve Fredericks, Gene & Ron Thuringer, Joe Hass, Greg & Denise Cardillo, Dick Freiwald, Carolynn & Pete Foss, Ross & Josh Hardy and Bob Burns. Ross was kind enough to let us borrow his lighting equipment for the main tent--and we really needed the tent this year!

Gary and Phyllis Weaks kept the kitchen going. Gary took on the grill both days--buying the food, setting up, tearing down, and transporting the kitchen. It is a huge job that is greatly appreciated. Helpers in the kitchen included Laura Devine and her kids, Kelly Fleming, Chuck Slattery and Herman Greif

Then there are the boat people: Al McGee, Paul Shurtliff, Josh Hardy, Ron Thuringer, Robert Long, David Fleming and Chris Hass. Al McGee brought his boat again for us to use. My boat engine blew just prior to the event. My sister-in-law, Diana Long, was good enough to let us borrow her boat and motor.

Gaby Neubert stayed with us for both days as our on site nursing staff. We only had one casualty when Gene Thuringer hit his toes on one of the stakes securing the transmitter tent.

Greg Charbeneau, Ryan Neubert, Craig White, David Lange and Al Nelson were beach waders.

The flight line coordinators: Steve Fredricks, Pete Foss, Jack Fleming, Marv Middleton, Keith Wrighton, Bill Leppard, Herman Greif, Ross Hardy, and Bill Wood

Transmitter Impound: Jerry Blumenthal, Doug Riley,Sr., George Dzendzel and Dick Bier helped keep things in order. Thanks to Chet Brady who borrowed a frequency scanner.

This year the dinner entertainment was provided by Michael Mode. We put on quite a show for us. His magic and comedy show kept us well entertained. The dinner was sold out and a feast was set before us. We all ate well.

As I already mentioned, little flying took place on Sunday. The highlight of the day was announcing the winners of the raffle and judged events. Steve Fredericks won Scale. Steve took home a 1/4 scale US Balsa Sopwith Pup. Tom Ramm won the Standoff category and became the new owner of a 1/4 scale EAA Bipe with Edo floats.

Joe Hass finished top in the Sport category and won the Balsa USA Northstar Congratulations to all and a big Thank You to our Judges: Ernie Leclair (Great Planes), David Lewis (Balsa USA), and Rolph (Just R/C Planes).

Tear down on Sunday took place during a monsoon. As soon as the drawings concluded it was evident that the flying was over. I had deep reservations about asking people to help, maybe wait for the rain to let up? Most of us got soaked to the skin as it continued to pour for the next couple hours. The biggest thank you goes to the hardy souls that braved the weather and completed all the final work.

This year we had some feature articles in the Free Press Livingston County section with Steve Fredericks and Jim Held. depicted with their aircraft. Also the Ann Arbor News the Brighton newspaper wrote about our event this year. Bob Ryan from the Flying Times came by on Saturday and stayed for dinner.

As we endeavor to continuously improve upon this event, we welcome your comments as to fine-tuning the Float Fly. Some current comments are going to be implemented for the next year. Please converse with me or your favorite board member with your comments.

In closing my sincere thanks to those who helped with the Float Fly-my apologizes if I overlooked anyone. As you see it takes a lot of dedicated staff to put together an event such as this. As I'm plotting forward to next years' Float Fly, I hope that we may inspire some of the newer members to step forward. We have a time schedule to meet to complete all items necessary for the success of next years' event. We can all be proud of hosting another first-class event successfully.

Soft water Landings,
Carl Long

8500 Jeep vehicle owners gathered August 10-12 at the Oak Ridge "plantation" near Charlottesville, Virginia to participate in an annual owners reunion which is called "Camp Jeep ." They came from 44 states and four foreign countries. Their average age was 39 and they are strongly oriented toward an active lifestyle...in other words, an ideal audience for R/C modeling.

The easiest way for me to describe the venue would be to compare it to a small-scale worlds fair. There were 165 tents and four miles of woodchip covered pathways (that's 100 semi-trailer loads of woodchips). There are over 70 activities in which the owners can participate plus a stage show and fireworks Saturday evening. So, in October of '99 when the Senior Manager of Jeep Direct Marketing asked me if I could put together a model airplane activity for Camp Jeep I jumped at the opportunity. And, when I described an activity in which the owners would get a chance to actually fly the R/C models, as well as having an exciting model air show twice a day, all of the managers associated with Camp Jeep got really excited.

The 40'x60' tent was laid out to maximize throughput. The participants entered via a roped walkway that took them by a building display that illustrated how we put together a "built up" model (in this case a Great Planes SlowPoke 40) and well as an ARF. This led them to a digital camera area where we took their picture holding a Tower Trainer 40 and printed it on a "certificate of accomplishment." The next station was the AMA booth where Carl gave them an overview of the hobby and then it was into a classroom where we explained how the controls of a R/C airplane worked. From there they went to one of the eight RealFlight simulators (Dell Computers helped us with the equipment.) and then it was out to one of four flight lines. We had prepared 16 Tower Trainer 40's with Futaba radios and buddy boxes which operated continuously from 9am to 5pm daily. Using this process we were able to give 1020 participants a chance to pilot a R/C aircraft! (It would have been more, but a brief windstorm forced us to shut down an hour early Saturday evening.) Out of the 1020 flights we totaled three airplanes and have three others that are in pretty bad shape. We're going to need five or six more trainers for next year so you might start thinking about that. (Again it will get you free dues for '01...that is $50 to assemble and cover a Tower Trainer 40 ARC.)

In addition to the "Jeep Flight School," twice a day we put on a 45 minute "Model Air Show." We had grandstand seating for about 200 that was full for each show and, particularly for the afternoon show, we usually had about the same number sitting on the lawn. Given the layout, the air shows could be seen from all over the camp and I was told that during the air shows many of the other activities slowed while people stood to watch.

During the air shows, we demonstrated banner towing, 1/4 scale warbirds, a funfly airplane, a big biplane, helicopters and we concluded each show with Jerry Neel from the Team JR, flying his 42% Staudacher (10' span, 43 lbs., 16 hp engine). Jerry really wowed the crowd (and the rest of us R/C pilots) as he literally made the Staudacher dance through the sky. Also, during the Saturday afternoon show, we had to pause while the Goodyear blimp flew over the flight school area at about 150 feet high...Impressive!

All in all we made a very favorable impression for radio control airplane modeling. No doubt some of the participants will go back and get involved in the hobby but whether they do or not we made a lot of people aware of what a great hobby we have.

A very heartfelt thanks to all of you who helped get all of the equipment ready to go to Camp Jeep:

Dave Ditner Bob Donohue Steve Fredericks

Al Harriman Jim Held Charlie Giudici

Mike Katalinich Grey Lane Bill Leppard

Roberto Mesnik Vince Pettke Harold Reuter

Dave Rowells Andy Smith Mark Smith

Ron Sokacz Paul Zabawa

Visit with the Skymasters who attended...we have already been asked to come back next year. It would appear that the front runner for location would be back at the same site in Virginia.

Our fall meetings start at Larson Middle School. Larson is on Long Lake (18 Mile), between John R and Dequindre. Our fall/winter meetings are typically a short business meeting, followed by a hobby related program, and show and tell - where members bring in their projects to share (and maybe win a gift certificate!)

(And I don't believe I'm saying this already this year, but...) We are fast approaching winter weather - If Troy School District is Closed or Cancels After School Activities, our meeting is cancelled as well...

October 11, 2000 Skymasters Meeting - Larson Middle School, 7:30 PM

Ed Kaminski from the Mt. Clemens Military Art Museum will join us with some fabulous aviation prints. Please bring any aviation art you would like to share as well.

October 25, 2000 Skymasters Meeting - Larson Middle School, 7:30 PM

Skymaster Mark Smith will be demonstrating foam cutting. Mark has cut many foam wings including lots of Gremlins, and several of his own designs. Come see how to do this yourself!

November 8, 2000 Skymasters Meeting - Larson Middle School, 7:30 PM

Come participate in a Paper Airplane Contest. Paper will be provided for your creation and Darrell is sure to come up with some interesting events..
Annual election meeting as well.

December 13, 2000 Skymasters Christmas Party - Larson Middle School, 7:30 PM

Our annual holiday party! Bring the family and a plane or two! Look for more info as we get closer. Santa is planning on flying in with some gifts for the kids! Those bringing planes will be entered in a drawing for some R/C related prizes.

Sunday, Oct 29* Kent Radio Aeromoders Swap Meet, Grand Rapids, Danny Osborn 616-681-2359

Sun, Nov 5 Midwest R/C Swap Meet, Northville, Craig Whitbeck 734-332-1297 (evenings)

*See additional information for these events in this issue of Skywriter!

Herb Schiebold provided the following list of Web Sites that are among his favorites. Click away and enjoy!

Complete Plane:

72inch span Ohio RC Extra 300L

YS 1.40FZ

Futaba and JR coreless servos

Futaba 8UAFS transmiter with 148 receiver

Various other excellent items

Very little (1 hour) air time. Everything is almost brand new.

Will sell for $1200 or best offer.

Contact Mike Russell at MDRCHEF@aol.com or call 248-852-7413 before 11pm.

1/2 A Tony with Paw Diesel $110.00

Sail Plane 124" wing Topaz $85.00

Sig Piper cub J-3 71"wing (kit)$45.00

Sig Sky bolt $45.00

Sukhoi 60 size Byron with Supertigre 90 (kit) $350.00

ValleyFlyer $65.00 Kit

Saito 91 new $160.00

K&B 20 $15.00

Thunder Tiger pro 61 $120.00

OS 40 line control $45.00

and some small parts...

Contact Randy L MacInnes at 248-394-0414

George Dzendzel has volunteered to take over running our Video Library. He has gotten the videos, and will be bringing them to the meetings. He will also provide a listing we will include on Skywriter and on the web site in the near future. Thanks George for helping out!

We are looking for another volunteer. We need someone to pick up coordinating the ordering of logo merchandise - hats, shirts, jackets. Let any BOD member know if you are interested in helping out.

Ross Hardy will be bringing an industrial calibration tool for dB meters to our October 25 meeting. Please bring your dB meter to the meeting to have it checked and adjusted. If you can't make the meeting, give Ross a call...

Some clarifications in this area for newer members as we enter renewal season... Our normal dues are $50 a year for family membership (all AMA members at same address) payable through Feb 28 of the calendar year. From March 1 through July 31, the dues are $55 for the remainder of the year ($5 initiation fee added). Beginning August 1, dues are $30 ($25 plus $5 initiation fee).
Beginning in October, we accept following years membership (2001 in this case). Note a 2001 AMA card is required for renewal. 2001 applications will be at the October meetings and in this issue of Skywriter.

To fly at our field, you do need to be a member of both AMA and Skymasters (guest flying in accordance with our club rules and our open events require AMA membership only.)

Skymasters field is located within the Bald Mountain State Park (see map). State Park Permits are required and can be obtained from the Park Headquarters located on Greenshield Road or at club events. Flying is permitted from 10 AM to 8 PM. The noise limit for 2000 is 94dBa at 10 feet - this noise rule is strictly enforced.

Wednesday evenings during the summer is Student Night and there are usually instructors around all afternoon. Student night is also 'pot luck' buffet night so that you can fly-n-feed (though not usually at the same time). Students are encouraged on other days and weekends. It is a great idea to come on Wednesday, meet the Instructors and arrange for more instruction time together. Our Chief Flight Instructor is Greg Brausa.

From June to August, Club Meetings are held at the field on the first Saturday of the month at 12 Noon - a great chance to fly and gossip too! Winter meetings (September to May) are held at Larson Middle School (on Long Lake just east of John R - see map) on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 7:30 PM. Show and Tell, coffee and donuts, and model-speak are the order of the evening. Come along - they are fun.

The Skywriter newsletter is sent to all members, local hobby shops and other local R/C clubs. Any and all contributions are welcome, please pass any articles to the Editor. If you know of anyone who may be interested in our hobby (friend, relative, neighbor, colleague or acquaintance) - please give them a copy of this newsletter or a copy of an AMA magazine - it may spark their interest and get them into our hobby!