THE HISTORY OF V.A.R.M.S.
The Annual Diary.
1995 - Infinity & Beyond
The following pages contain details
of the elected Committee for each year,
and
other pertinent information on relevant
events that occurred for that year,
noted on a July to June basis.
Rev. July 2014
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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(To quickly access a topic, hold CTRL and click on desired item)
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................... 2
1995 - 96 ..................................................................................................................... 4
1996 - 97 ................................................................................................................... 14
1997 - 98 ................................................................................................................... 19
The U-2 - A Postscript..................................................................................... 19
FAI & ASAC ..................................................................................................... 21
THE VARMS AIRSHOW................................................................................... 21
1998 - 99 ................................................................................................................... 25
1995 - 1998 LSF (USA) Nationals Nostalgia Sailplane Event Rules ............ 26
1999 - 2000 ............................................................................................................... 31
General Club Rules - Brigg's Field (15/8/99).............................................. 33
Powered Flight Operations ............................................................................ 34
Glider Solo Rating. .......................................................................................... 35
Power Solo Rating (Including Electric) ......................................................... 35
2000 - 01 ................................................................................................................... 36
2001 - 02 ................................................................................................................... 45
2002 - 03 ................................................................................................................... 48
Bronze Wings for GLIDERS
(2 May 2005) ............................................. 49
Gold Wings for GLIDERS
(2 May 2005) ................................................ 49
Opening Of State Field – Darraweit Guim ..................................................... 54
2004 – 05 .................................................................................................................. 59
A World Championship for Australia & VARMS ........................................... 60
AspectivitEE in Colour ................................................................................... 62
The death of “The Tree” at Camperdown ..................................................... 63
JERILDERIE – Scale - 2005 ............................................................................ 64
THE DEMISE OF THE “VARMS Membership Number” ................................ 70
2005 – 06 .................................................................................................................. 71
2006 – 07 .................................................................................................................. 80
A 2nd World Championship for Australia & VARMS ..................................... 82
Aerotowing. A "How To Get Started" guide ............................................... 84
LANDINGS YOU CAN WALK AWAY FROM..... .............................................. 88
2007 – 08 ................................................................................................................ 103
The DLG ......................................................................................................... 104
VARMS to CELEBRATE 40TH ANNIVERSARY .......................................... 108
How High Is My Glider? ................................................................................ 110
VARMS 40th ANNIVERSARY......................................................................... 113
2008 – 09 ................................................................................................................ 125
VARMS TEAM WINS VMAA TROPHY April 2009 ....................................... 128
VARMS LOSES PLAYOFF SERIES FOR BRIGG’S FIELD .......................... 136
2009 – 10 ................................................................................................................ 137
RCGA – 2010 ................................................................................................. 139
VARMS TEAM WINS VMAA TROPHY – “AGAIN” - April 2010 ................... 142
2010 – 11 ................................................................................................................ 143
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DYNAMIC SOARING - 2010 .......................................................................... 147
U-2 THE EPILOGUE .................................................................................... 150
2011 – 2012 ............................................................................................................ 151
2012 – 2013 ............................................................................................................ 156
August 2012 – Royal Park re-visited. .......................................................... 158
2013 – 2014 ............................................................................................................ 165
2014 – 2015 ............................................................................................................ 173
THE END ......................................................................................................................... 174
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1995 - 96
President
Treasurer
Contest Director
Ordinary Member
A.G.M. –
Tom Wickers
Graham Gibson
Gerry Carter
Jim Robertson
The Committee
Secretary
Editor
Ordinary Member
Chris Gauld
Ross Peasley
Reg Neville
Maurice "Morrie" Watts, voted Clubman of the year.
– A newly created award – “Gentleman’s Award”,
in memory of Stan Mason.
A true gentleman and friend,
VARMS 40, member 1968 – 1994.
awarded to Colin Collyer.
9
July
1995 - Scale Day - Leakes Road
Fliers and models in attendance:
Peter Averill
Zefir, Schweizer 1-30 (tug)
Clare Averill
Skylark 3
Frank Smith
Grunau Baby (!/6 Scale)
Dave Anderson
K6E, DG300, J3 Cub (tug)
Bruce Howard
Grob 109B Moterglider
Wayne Jones
LS4
Rob Goldman
Spalinger
Colin Handley
Schweizer 1-26, Clipped Wing Cub (tug)
5
Harold Elliott
Slingsby Swallow
Barry Dundas
LCF
John Gottschalk
Piper Super Cub (tug)
Geoff Hearn
Grunau 1
July - F3J attains World Championship status effective 1 January 1997 and to alternate with F3B,
F3J, initial inclusion at Australian Nationals at Ballarat for 1995/96.
Electric Flight Special Interest Group (EFSIG) monthly meetings move to the Uniting Church,
Essex Road, Mt. Waverley (this group currently has an active membership of approx. 50).
Brady Road (Police paddocks) under consideration as a flying/club site.
16-17 September 1995 - SCALE WEEKEND AWAY - Yarrawonga
Up until now most of our preceding outings have been one day affairs, so with the promise
of good weather, flying at a new site, plus catching up with Don and Margaret Hauser, Don is a past
VARMS President. Don and Margaret have established themselves at Yarrawonga and Don was
keen to have us up there to bask in the good country air.
Having worked on the Saturday morning, with the car packed the previous night, I was able
to leave straight from work and on my way through pick up Frank Smith in Burwood and some
three and a quarter hours later found ourselves at the Yarrawonga Model Aircraft Club some 5 km
east of the township. This field would have to be the best site I have ever seen for aeromodelling or
any other aviation activity for that matter. Perhaps the best idea I could give your as to its size is to
imagine Leakes Road, then double it!
There was a little bit of everything to see on our arrival, down one end of the paddock Hang
Gliders were being launched by aero-tow, and only a few metres from the model pits, one could
browse over a full size motor-glider and for the technically minded it was a Sportavia RF5B
Sperber, owned by Len Tinker and based at Tocumwal. Alongside of this machine was an Ultralight called a Koala Q, this is a Piper Cub look-alike only smaller and had the unusual and not often
seen geodetic lattice-work construction made famous on the Wellesley and Wellington bombers of
World War 2.
At around five-thirty when everyone was packing up we were entertained by another couple
of Ultra-lights, one in particular a Sapphire giving a spirited display of its agility, the other aircraft I
believe was a Kara One.
Although we arrived late in the day those present reported soaring conditions had been good
all day with a number of flights around the 3/4 to 1 hour duration.
Saturday night our party travelled over into N.S.W. and we had a very pleasant meal at the
Mulwala Services Club at the invitation of Don and Margaret Hauser. Those present were John
Gottschalk and wife, Colin Handley and wife, Peter and Clare Averill, Frank Smith, myself and
Harold Elliot.
Sunday dawned with almost still conditions and a promised increase in temperature on that
of Saturday. We arrived out at the field at about ten o'clock and proceeded to assemble our models,
aero-towing got underway shortly afterwards and continued in a relaxed manner throughout the day
until around 3.30pm when a light cool breeze came in from the south dissipating the lift conditions.
During the morning John Lynch from Tocumwal arrived in his home build Corbon Baby
Ace D, this aircraft is powered by a Continental engine of 65 Hp and according to John Gottschalk
is the sweetest sounding horizontally opposed aero engine he has heard. John Lynch may be known
to a number of our members, as he is an active aeromodeller with a strong leaning to the glider
variety. There have been a number of articles on his creations in Airborne magazine over a number
of years.
It was John's intention to attempt a glider duration record over the weekend, however as no
official observer could be located he had to shelve plans for the time being. After finding out of
these plans and the postponement I suggested he take charge of my 2 X 6 model and bungee and go
and enjoy himself whilst I concentrated on my scale model.
I didn't take much notice from then on until sometime later I was engaged in looking for a
6
dropped tow line about half a kilometre away from our take-off point, when one of the Yarrawonga
Model Aircraft Club member's wives approached me with some concern. John had sent out a
message advising that he was concerned as to how much battery time the model had. I thought this
was a little strange until I started looking for the model and when I spotted it at some 3,000' in
height and only a dot I became the second person now concerned. As the radio gear and batteries in
this model are old stock, I had previously conducted discharge tests which revealed a safe operating
time of around 1 1/2 hours.
Having had a few short flights prior to handing over to John I now calculated that about 1
1/2 hours had been expended so far, so I walked briskly back to where John was flying and made
the suggestion that it might be a good idea to terminate the flight as soon as possible as a fly-away
situation seemed more than likely. John managed to get the model back OK without any drama.
We estimate the flight time in excess of one hour, with most of it having been achieved in the climb
configuration, John also advised that on a couple of occasions during the flight the glider entered
cloud. I suppose this flight was in part consolation for his aborted record attempt, and he thanked
me for the opportunity to fly the model.
At this point I must mention that in addition to his aeromodelling interests he also owns a
full size Pioneer II flying wing (built as a model by a VARMS member, Stan Mason), a Pilatus B4
which has a Konig 3 cylinder radial engine mounted on a fixed pylon, which allows him to operate
the glider in self-launch mode, and in more recent times John has owned a Piel Emerald homebuilt
and a DH-82a Tiger Moth. After his flight with my 2 X 6 he strapped into the Baby Ace and flew
back to Tocumwal arriving back at the model field mid-afternoon in the previously mentioned RF5.
Most of us were astonished when he exited the aircraft on arrival, as perched on his shoulder was
his grey and pink coloured galah, his companion for the last 15 years. According to John his bird
whose name escapes me for the present, travels with him on many of his flights in enclosed cockpit
aircraft, truly unbelievable. Sundays soaring was superb with just about all fliers achieving flights
in the 3/4 to 1 hour bracket. Bruce Howard even has a 26 minute flight with his 1/6 scale Salto
rocket. All in all a fabulous weekend. The Yarrawonga Model Aircraft Club are to be
congratulated on their hospitality, turning on meals and refreshments to us southerners, and making
us feel welcome. They indicated they would like to have us back again next year, and we will have
no hesitation accepting their offer. The time of year appears ideal, not too hot, although I did go
home sunburnt, but this was small consolation for the otherwise fantastic weekend.
And finally a thank you to Don and Margaret Hauser for their hospitality offered to all us
V.A.R.M.S. members and particularly to Frank Smith and myself,
Thanks a million,
Geoff Hearn.
The following is a list of modellers and their models:
Peter Averill
Little Bear (Tug), Pirat.
Clare Averill
Skylark IIIB.
Colin Handley
Clipped wing Cub (Tug), Sweitzer 1-26
Harold Elliot
LS-3. Slingsby Swallow.
Bruce Howard
Grob 109, Salto.
Andy Smith
Discus, Ask 14 (Moterglider).
Don Hauser
Grunau IV, Slingsby Swallow.
Doug Anderson
Sportster (Old timer) flew like a glider.
Geoff Hearn
Grunau Baby (1/4 scale)
October '95 - This Victorian Slope Championships at Mt. Hollowback, Ballarat, was the last where
the event was a combination of Aerobatics and Pylon, and in future pylon events models flew ONE
at a time (F3F) because of the increased value of modern models!
Yet another article unashamedly removed from LSF Newsletter No. 2 of 1995/96, and included
because the author is a well-practised and renowned Contest Director of Jerilderie and Nationals
contests fame, is female, and tells a nice story!!!
7
A BIRDS EYE VIEW
Sometimes I sit, sometimes I sit and think, sometimes I sit and study and sometimes I sit in a
paddock full of sheep and watch planes go round and round and round.
About the October long-weekend. NEMAC and QFS co-organised an F3B comp in Armidale. And
so off we toddle after putting Rikky dog and Tiny puss into the happy holiday home.
The field was the same as always – full of sheepy poo and sheepies, and big and flat. Civilisation
had encroached however, joy oh joy there was a loo on the field. For those of you trying to
convince your partner-in-life to come to a flying comp take my advice – having a loo on the field is
a BIG PLUS (PS. they’ll have loos on the field at the Expo too).
Dave Morgan, the local glider nut did a fabulous job organising lunches, good weather, drinks,
Saturday dinner, cut price rates at the caravan park, etc. I still can’t work it out though – all Dave
did all weekend was complain about the bad weather. For us from the nether regions of the Blue
Mountains the weather was great and certainly nothing to complain about and warm too (though I
think the Queenslanders might disagree about the WARM bit).
Temps all weekend were about 18-20c, a steady little breeze and sunny enough to ensure that the
sun got in your eyes in speed and distance and that we got a little sunburnt despite the blackout.
What happened – well many things”
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The abovementioned Dave Morgan did the bonding with the son-in-law and father to be bit
with David Vels who came down from Queensland (it was sooo cute)),
David discovered that sometimes prawns can make you a teensy bit sick., but that Anzac
bikkies don’t (I still have to send you the recipe David),
4 came down from Queensland (and some of them went home with a headache.....),
David was the only local Armidalian,
4 came from the Sydney region,
Charlie Smith (ACT) forgot which weekend it was and so didn’t turn up,
we discovered that Armidale hamburgers and sandwiches are huge and too much for lunch,
and MOST notable – John Haren DIDN’T LAND IN A TREE – would have to be the first
comp in ages that I’ve been to that he hasn’t.
John was in fine form all weekend. You know he has the most amazing telepathic connection with
his plane. Would you believe that as the plane is going round a corner and pointing at the ground in
the strangest angle at MK II, and across the course he can talk to it and the thing responds and
automatically corrects itself..... A phenomena we witnessed many times over the weekend.
Seriously though, without John running lines which he did almost non-stop all weekend, we would
have been in serious trouble.
Oh yes, about the flying – we completed 6 rounds (F3B Triple task) over 2 days. We could have
finished many more if we had more competitors – helpers were extremely light on and sometimes
we just had to stop to bring lines back, change people on the buzzers etc. Peter Abell did a very fast
16 or 17 something in speed ( I don’t remember what the time was, but I imagine you’ll find the
times and results somewhere else in the newsletter), and eventually won the comp. Phil Bird came
second and Evan Bengston came third in Expert. John Haren won Sportsperson ( and I’m sure he’s
still in shock at the sportsPERSON) on the certificate. (NOTE TO JOHN: when madam CD
prepares the certificates non-sexist language will rule...) (Sub Ed note: sportsPERSON and madam
CD??? Methinks this non-sexist stuff is a bit confused!)
8
Anyway – we had a lovely weekend, the cat had a lovely time in happy holiday home and the dog
was happy too – he shared the geriatric ward with a girl..... Everybody got home tired, but safe and
we look forward to next year. See you then,
Nerida (Ashby) Abell
The Scores
1. Peter Abell
15000
4. Andrew Goddard 13238 7. John Haren
12034
2. Phil Bird
13930
5. Garry Jordan
12860 8. Steve White
11413
3. Evan Bengston
13551
6. David Vels
12701 9. David Morgan
9773
Peter Abell’s speed run was 17.28 sec and the fastest of the comp.
November 1995 - Aspectivity 274 notes the issuing of VARMS membership number 1000 to Adam
Kobelt.
..... and also in the same edition of Aspectivity, a very common-sense article on a little-understood
topic:
What's the difference??
by Peter Averill on the request of Geoff Hearn.
Adverse aileron yaw is a troublesome aerodynamic phenomenon that affects both full size and
model aircraft. It can be a particular problem on aircraft with high aspect ratio wings.
What is it?
Consider an aircraft being rolled to the right using aileron. On the right wing the aileron
moves upward which reduces the camber of the airfoil section of the wing over the span of the
aileron - in fact, it reflexes the camber line. Reducing the camber reduces the lift generated by the
wing on this side of the aircraft. On the left wing the aileron moves downward which increases the
camber of the wing section over the span of the aileron. The increased cambered section creates
more lift on this side of the aircraft. With more lift on the left side of the aircraft and less lift on the
right side, the aircraft will roll to the right.
Unfortunately, the reduction and increase of lift is not the only effect of moving the ailerons.
As a by-product of the increased lift caused by the increased camber of the down-going aileron,
there is also a corresponding increase in the induced drag caused by the wing section generating lift.
It follows, then, that the right wing has less induced drag because it is not generating as much lift.
If the ailerons are a long way out from the fuselage there is a large moment arm around the
yaw axis. In this situation, the additional induced drag from the down-moving aileron can cause a
severe yaw to the left. If the aircraft is one with high yaw-roll coupling, that is, yawing the aircraft
to the left also causes it to roll to the left (this type of aircraft would be easily steered by rudder), the
yaw to the left can actually cancel the original desired roll to the right, even to the point of causing
the aircraft to turn to the left. Aircraft with large dihedral, parasol wings and some biplanes will be
very much affected by this problem.
Adverse aileron yaw is worse at low air speeds. At low airspeeds the wing has a greater
angle of attack and therefore has a high amount of induced drag. The worst case scenario is when
the wing is close to the stall and down-going aileron increases the camber to a point that the wingtip
stalls prematurely. This is because higher camber airfoils stall at a smaller angle of attack and the
down-moving aileron effectively increases the angle of attack of the wing over the span of the
aileron.
Keeping our example of rolling to the right, if the left down-going aileron causes the tip on
that side to stall, not only won't you get the desired right roll, but you will get a sudden flick roll to
the left accompanied by the nose of the aircraft dropping dramatically. I have witnessed this
situation many times over the years and generally radio gear failure is blamed for the outcome. The
pilot is certain that they initiated a right hand turn and a rapid left one into the ground has occurred
instead - must be the radio!!
What to do?
There are two methods to overcome the problem of adverse aileron yaw. The actual hinging
method of the aileron itself can influence and significantly reduce the problem. Two methods I am
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familiar with are as follows; 1. Top Hinging, and, 2. Frise Ailerons (Bottom hinging).
Another method of overcoming adverse aileron yaw is the use of differential aileron. This
involves gearing the linkages to the aileron in such a way that the movement of the down-going
aileron is less than the up-going aileron. This method is popular in full size aircraft and a number of
aircraft that I have modelled over the years have employed its use. The Tiger Moth has noticeable
differential aileron and the Pirat workshop manual recommends the following aileron throws: 30º
± 2° up and 16° ± 1° down. The amount of difference in movement can be quite pronounced to
the point that a Taylor Monoplane that I built had virtually no downward movement on the ailerons
at all.
In installations that use separate servos for each aileron, differential can obviously be
obtained using computer radio to reduce the travel in the downward direction. Another method is to
adjust the servo to aileron linkages in such a way that the differential is mechanically built in. This
has the advantage of being able to be used on single servo aileron installations.
The theory of obtaining differential is the same whether it be applied at the servo,
intervening bell crank, control surface itself or torque rod drives. In all cases it is a matter of not
connecting the clevis at the normal 90° to the pivot point. If this is done at the servo, the linear
movement created from the rotational movement of the servo is greater in one direction than the
other. This can also be achieved at an intervening bell crank but will require a bell crank of less
than 90°.
If the application is to be at the control surface horn or torque rod drive, the equal linear
movement of the push rod is converted to unequal angular movement of the control surface, that is,
more up than down.
Using mechanical linkages there is a limit to the amount of effective differential that can be
obtained and a ratio of 2 : 1 is a good aim point. On computer radios 100% differential (all up and
no down movement) can be obtained and it is easy to experiment with different amounts and then
test fly to monitor the difference in flight characteristics.
~~~
49th 1995/96 Nationals at Ballarat Vic.:
F3J
Thermal
1. Alan Mayhew
2. Rob Benton
3. Rod Watkins
F3B
Multi task
1. Phil Bird
2. Scott Lennon
3. Tim Mellor
Thermal
Task A
1. Rob Benton
2. Tim Mellor
3. Scott Lennon
7 Cell
Elect.
1. Scott Lennon
2. D Whitten
3. Bob Hickman
F3F
Slope Pylon Cancelled due to NO wind, a LARGE Wedgie and a very potent
incoming electrical storm on the top of Mt. Hollowback.
10
Airborne 140 of February 1996 in the 'On Silent Wings' column by Paul Ferguson contains an
evergreen topic on what is or ain't a glider.
LETTERS
The first letter this month is from Bill Tinker in South West Rocks, NSW. For those of
you who are unaware, Bill was the original columnist for On Silent Wings from No. 16 Spring
1976, to No 59, Sept-Oct 1983. Bill, while offering encouragement, takes me to task on my
definition of a glider in my second column, I defined a glider as "a motorless aeroplane for
gliding from a higher level to a lower level by the action of gravity or from a lower level to a
higher level by the action of air currents (source Macquarie Concise Dictionary)."
I concluded that a glider, in modelling terms, could be:
a. A purpose built RC Thermal Soarer,
b. A purpose built Slope Soarer,
c. A purpose built RC Hand Launched Glider,
d. A purpose build FF Towline Glider,
e. A purpose built FF Hand Launched Glider (outdoor or indoor),
f. A motor (IC or electric) powered RC model in the glide,
g. A motor (IC, electric or rubber) powered FF model in the glide,
h. A Cl model in the glide,
i. A model parachute.
Bill says that he would like to continue on the long battle of words that he was having
with the then Electric columnist, Jack Black. Jack has since passed away (that's one way to
terminate an argument), but I seem to have re-ignited an interesting subject. Bill and Jack
were discussing if there can be such a thing as an electric glider (item f in my list).
Bill's letter is very long, so I cannot publish all of it, but I will include the important
couple of paragraphs.
"Having provided the Macquarie definition of a glider, you then proceed to list aircraft
types which DO NOT FIT THAT DEFINITION! There is common confusion between a MOTOR and
POWER or ENERGY. Fuzzy logic may be very well within computer language, but I'm fighting for
my mother tongue, which is being fuzzed out of existence - nobody, even journalists, seem to
know the difference between LESS and FEW or NUMBER and AMOUNT, and so on, ad
nauseam. Language needs to be clear, concise and accurate if correct communication is to be
achieved. What you have tried to infer (aided and abetted by the Editor) is that anything that
flies can, at some stage, be classified as a glider. Incidentally that includes a brick launched
from the top floor low side of the Tower of Pisa!
"Jack got very irate when I insisted that a model with a motor can in no way be
described as a glider - but it's true. The definition includes the word MOTORLESS; that is
WITHOUT A MOTOR. Any dictionary defines a MOTOR as 'that which receives and modifies
energy in order to drive machinery". So anything airworthy that carries an energy converter of
some kind cannot be a glider. Therefore items f, g. and h on your list are out!"
That's the relevant part of Bill's letter. Now let's turn to the letter from Ross Faggotter of
Laura in SA. Ross says: "At this point I must take you to task over your definition of "What is a
Glider?" Firstly you extracted from the Macquarie Dictionary "A glider is a motorless aeroplane
...." My dictionary says "A glider is an aircraft similar to an aeroplane, but without a motor".
"Note the 'motorless' and 'without a motor' bits. Therefore, the moment you add a
motor, IC or Electric, your plane is not motorless, so it is not a glider. No matter who calls a 7
cell or a 10 cell model, or even a 27 cell F3B model, an electric glider, by dictionary definition,
they are all wrong. Your bit about ".... in the gliding phase, becomes a glider!" Wrong!!! It still
has a motor, running or not. Would you still claim that a F-86 Sabre or a SAAB Viggin, with a
flame out, is suddenly a glider?
I think not!!! Your first 5 examples are correct, but from f on, NO WAY!!!"
Now, I must approach Bill's and Ross's comments with an open mind. However I think
that the problem is that the English language has such a loose syntax that it is almost
impossible to pin down a true definition of anything. Just look at any legal document. If the
11
lawyers find it so hard to cover all their bases, what hope have we?
I must return to the most convincing argument that I know of to support my point of
view. Next time you get tired of flying your F3A RC aerobatics rocket off a runway, take off the
propeller, go down to your local slope in a brisk 25 knot breeze and throw it off. After enjoying
a long quiet flying session for absolutely no outlay, think about whether you were flying a power
model or a glider. Is the expensive lump of ballast mounted up the front a motor or just a
means of keeping the centre of gravity in the correct position?
I argue that you are flying a glider, and are in no different a position than if the model
had run out of fuel (thank God, silence). The only difference is that, in the latter case, you have
a stationary propeller that slightly destroys the L/D ratio. Just as an afterthought, don't forget
to lower the retracts before you land on the slope.
Editor's Note. Who remembers the Gibli glider, the 767 that ran out of fuel on a scheduled
RPT flight a couple of years ago? For those who cherish our language, it appears that our
inventiveness has let us down. When we invented a solid state electronic valve we call it a
transistor. Having combined to make a hybrid machine, we should accept the hybrid term, motor
glider. The FAI does!
"Reprinted by the kind permission of Airborne Magazine".
April 1996 - Nic Wright (Past World Champion F3B) visits VARMS as part of a visit to Australia
giving lectures on Glider design, model Construction and flying techniques.
Aspectivity 280, June 1996 reports the possible use of Lewellan Reserve (Cathies lane) as an
alternative flying site. (The current High Street Road site and Lewellan Reserve are too close to
operate at the same time without specific frequency allocation to each site).
….. From Aspectivity 279, May 1996
BACK TO BEVERIDGE
31st March 1996.
Back in 1995 Col Collyer suggested it might be a good idea to hold a vintage scale outing at
Mt. Frazer, Beveridge, some 45 Km north of Melbourne on the Hume highway.
As Barry and Ted DeKuyper, VARMS members, are regular fliers at this site they were
aware of the historical significance this site held as it was the home of the Gliding club of Victoria
for some fifteen years from about 1935, with regular slope and thermal soaring being conducted.
(This was 1 : 1 aircraft)
It was agreed that it would be a good idea to invite as many of the glider pilots of that era to return
to Beveridge and in some small way, relive their experiences, and witness some slope soaring from
models representing the types that they flew from the site during that period.
At this stage I must thank Charlie Lambeth, VARMS member and Life Member of the
GCV, who spread the word far and wide and who is still in contact with many of the pilots who
flew sailplanes from this site.
The plan was for everyone to meet at the Beveridge Post Office/Pub around 11 am and we
would take things from there. Our arrival around 10.30 surprised us somewhat as many pilots had
already gathered and were deep in conversation, talking of old times and re-introducing themselves.
By eleven o’clock a substantial number of people had arrived and it was suggested they venture into
the Pub, to have a bite to eat and view a video covering film footage taken during the GCV’s
activities from the site during the thirties and forties. This gave us modellers time to assemble our
machines at the base of the western slope and start the leg breaking climb to the launch point at the
top of the hill. I’m glad that we don’t fly here often, it sure shows up one’s lack of fitness,
especially carrying all your gear together with a large model.
On our arrival at the top we were able to regain our breath and sat around talking for
sometime as there wasn’t enough wind to sustain the type of models we intended to fly. The wind
was from the south-west at around two knots.
By around one o’clock many of the glider pilots had arrived at the top of the hill courtesy of
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a 4 wheel drive vehicle which had been made available by the present owner of the site. It was also
interesting to note that many had decided not to take advantage of the vehicle ride but actually
walked up the western slope, which is the steepest side; this in itself was a historical act as many of
the climbers were in their seventies.
The opportunity was taken to film the assembled veterans and discuss various aspects of
Sailplane operations from Beveridge so many years ago. As the afternoon wore on those fliers with
models were able to manage some respectable soaring flights, which made the walk up the hill
worthwhile.
The following is a précis of the fliers who attended:
Ian Kinross
early GCV member, 2nd World War fighter pilot and builder of a Dragonfly.
Mervin Davies
early Coode Island and Beveridge pilot and aeromodeller.
Mal Alexander
early GCV member and instructor and more recently a prize winner in the
Birdman rally.
Ernie Smith
early glider pilot and member of the Smith family who owned the property
the club operated from. Current RC glider builder/flyer from Echuca.
Geoff Richardson
& wife Bettye, designer/builder of a primary glider and the Golden Sailplane
which flew at Beveridge.
Alan Patching
long standing VMFG member, glider pilot/instructor and present owner of
the Golden Eagle. (The oldest registered flying sailplane in Aust.). First flew
in 1937. (Colin Collyer has a flying model of the Golden Eagle).
Leo Dowling
early GCV member who flew at Beveridge and past owner/builder of Blue
Grunau Baby sailplane on which the Geoff Hearn quarter scale model is
based.
Ken Davies
founding member of GCV in 1929. Prolific builder of gliders, namely
Primary, Hutter H17, Olympia and in later years a Woodstock, and also had
the distinction of wrecking the GCV Primary in the mid 30’s at Beveridge
and flew continuously at the site until the end of the war. Held the new
Australian altitude & Victorian distance records, from a shock cord launch at
Beveridge attaining an altitude of 3700’ and covering 17 miles, landing at
Nth. Essendon in 1938 in the “Grey Grunau”.
Reg McConnell
GCV member and pilot since the later 30’s flew GCV machines at
Beveridge, instructor, old modeller and survivor of a terrifying flight in a
Grunau baby in the 1950’s at Benalla, where he was sucked up into a thunder
storm and on his return to the airfield his face was covered in blood from hail
stones which peppered his face.
Dick Duckworth
Film maker extraordinaire, glider builder, instructor, winch designer and
builder, started the Australian Gliding Association, producer of a coordinated newsletter for the Glider movement during the 1930-40’s, before
the establishment of the GFA. Many gliders were built and repaired at
Dick’s place at Seddon during the early years, Secretary and Auditor at
different times for the GCV.
Ian Robertson
early GCV pilot who flew at Beveridge, Lancaster crew member during
WW2 who was shot down over Germany and became a prisoner of war.
Dave Darbyshire
GCV President for approx 8 years, flew regularly with GCV. Builder coordinator of the club’s T31 project. Has run his own airline, also builder of a
Primary Glider, Pitts Special and Skybolt Biplane homebuilds.
Keith (Brolly) Chamberlain holder of an Australian altitude record by flying up the side of a
thunderstorm in a Grunau Baby at Benalla.
Jack Hearn
flew often at Beveridge in club machines, one of the three Hearn brothers
who flew with GCV. Later commanded a squadron of Boomerang fighters in
the Solomon Islands.
Bruce Hearn (Jnr)
son of the late Keith Hearn who was an instructor with the GCV and flew at
13
Beveridge and who helped finance and build the club’s first two seater
(Merlin).Bruce is an active GCV Glider Pilot and presently owns and flies a
DH-82 Tiger Moth which he has restored.
Graham Barton
brother of Jim Barton, the longest serving President of the GCV, himself a
glider pilot of many years experience and GCV Treasurer for many years.
Ted DeKuyper
early GCV member who did some initial training on Primary Gliders and in
the Merlin Sailplane, co-ordinator of the days activities.
Jim Fullarton
long standing aeromodeller, early glider builder/pilot with VMFG, still active
in aeromodelling.
Vern Rosenfealt
current GCV instructor/tug pilot and sailplane owner, longstanding GCV
member who instructed the author in his early stages of training.
Charlie Lambeth
VARMS member, first joined the GCV in December 1938, held the
Australian single seat duration record set at Beveridge on 20/11/43 at 9 hours
51 minutes in the “Grey Grunau”, also held the two seater record in the
Merlin at Beveridge at 1 hour 5 minutes. Life Member of the GCV and still
active in Gliders at the age of 75.
From feedback received from those who attended the day, it was a resounding success and it
is hoped that in the near future, we can again organised a similar get together,
Gliding forever,
Geoff Hearn.
14
1996 - 97
President
Treasurer
Contest Director
Publicity
Tom Wickers
Tim Morland
Gerry Carter
Jim Robertson
The Stan Mason Memorial
“Gentleman’s Award”,
The Committee
Secretary
Graham Johnson
Editor
Tim Wilkin
Ordinary Member
Graham Gibson
Fund raising/
Site Liaison
Graham Partridge
Graham Gibson was selected as
“Clubman of the Year”.
presented to Tim Mellor.
August 96 - Des Bayliss takes over Training School organising from Ross Bathie.
14 Sept. 1996 - Indoor Competition - Monash University:Chuck Glider Harry Sokol 15 secs
Scale Rubber Adolf Haas 1 min 55 secs
Rubber
Graeme Flood 33, 46 & 47 secs
One Model Reg Neville 17 secs
R/C Electric Neil Hardiman
Facetmobile Best Flight Jim Fullerton 12 mins
Most Unusual
Arthur Smith Ornithopter
15 Sept.1996 - P.S.S. Fun Fly at Mt Hollowback:17 pilots attended with a total of 28 models - Results (by vote of all participants):(See Contest for full results)
PROPELLER Aircraft
Max McCullough
Douglas C-47
1st
Supermarine Spitfire
Messerschmitt Me-109
Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina
Stephen Anderson
Supermarine Spitfire
2nd
Mitsubishi AM-6 Zero
North American P-51D Mustang
Glen Salisbury
Messerschmitt Me-109 B-4
3rd
North American P-51D Mustang
JET Aircraft
Max McCullough
Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
1st
Rob Lewis
Vought A-7 Corsair II
=2nd
Glenn Salisbury
GAF Canberra
=2nd
15
16
HI-TECH GLIDER TROPHY - BRIGGS FIELD - 13 OCTOBER 1996
One of the best attended events of recent years, a total of 27 people flew, 18 competing for the HiTech Trophy (Sponsored by Model Engines) with 2 channel models and 9 in the (Open) third leg of
the Thermal League. Results:
VMAA Update (Newsletter) of December 1996 contained the following item on Keyboards:
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KEYBOARD
The keyboard system concept was the brain child of Bob Young of Silvertone Electronics
around 1970. At that time we were operating on 27 Meg. - 6 spots, 40 KHz apart. With the
advancement in R/C technology we soon had 20 KHz equipment, this was a giant leap forward for
R/c systems since it meant the 6 channel limitation on 27 Meg. went to 12. At that time frequency
control was by the use of coloured pegs (clothes pegs) clipped to your T/X antennae. The rule of
the field was "no peg no fly". But fliers used to bring along "spare pegs" and the inevitable would
and did happen, two "spare pegs" in use at the same time equalled disaster.
As well as its other limitations, the peg system could not manage the then new requirement
for simultaneous operation of 40KHz and 27KHz systems at the 20 KHz spacing. Bob Young at
great personal effort and expense, developed the concept of the keyboard system. This overcame
all the shortcomings of the peg system. His next and what turned out to be a greater task was
gaining the modelling fraternity's acceptance of the keyboard concept.
With the MAAA's standardisation of the keyboard in 1982, we now do not have a problem
with the implementation of the new frequency allocations.
In handling bandwidth control, the keyboard utilises the width of the frequency key as a
measure of the R/C systems bandwidth requirements. The broader the system bandwidth the wider
the key. In the early days 40KHz systems had 100mm keys, 30KHz had 75mm & 20KHz had
50mm keys.
This meant that if the keyboard slots are at 20KHz spacing (50mm) then a 40KHz key could
not be inserted in a frequency slot where the adjacent channel was already occupied by a 20Khz
key. Now we are faced with the control of 20KHz bandwidth systems in a frequency spectrum
having frequency allocations at 10KHz spacing.
Now with the new system if a flyer has inserted his key into the slot provided for one of the
new channels eg. 630, if flyers 629 or 631 try to insert their keys into the keyboard they will be
blocked out by 630. The keyboard will ensure that no two 20KHz sets can be operated with less
than 20KHz frequency spacing between them.
(NOTE: As at 2001 VARMS prohibits the use of 'even' numbered frequencies as their use is in a
minority, blocks out "two" of the more commonly used 'odd' numbered frequencies and the fact that
10KHz spacing between frequencies if still a long way from being a workable reality).
Airborne 150, Dec '96 - Jan '97 (Page 63), makes a contribution here courtesy of Paul Ferguson "On
Silent Wings.'
CONTEST FLYERS V SPORT FLYERS
As time goes by the gulf between the sport flyer and the contest flyer seems to become
wider. When I started flying RC Gliders in the early 70's, the contest flyer and the sport flyer
were one and the same. Anyone with enough experience could go out with their Graupner
Cirrus or Aquila, and have as much chance of winning as the next flyer. We were all in our late
teens or early 20's then, and we all seemed to have a bottomless bucket of spare time. It was
nothing to spend two days of every weekend flying and socialising. Even our wives enjoyed the
flying, but that was before the kids arrived!
These days everyone seems to have so little free time. Even the unmarried flyers try
and fit too many different activities into their lives. It is this factor that has formed the gulf
between the contest and sport flyers.
17
The average sport modeller is a very self-centred person who wants only to do what
takes their fancy at the time that is most convenient. This is very easy to understand because
they have so little time, and they wish to use it in the most effective way to their maximum
enjoyment. Sport flyers may occasionally enter a contest, but cannot be bothered with complex
rules. Because they see flying as a relaxing activity, they cannot see the point of regimenting
everything that they do. They spend just enough money and time to get a model into the air,
and even that may have taken a lot of creative accounting to get it past the wife. For this
reason they are not prepared to take any risks with their model and will only fly when
conditions are ideal.
On the other hand, the contest flyer has decided to go and make his mark on the sport.
He may have a whole fleet of models (some of them all-moulded) to suit all possible weather
conditions. Some of the models may be the result of hundreds of hours of development time.
He will have at least one winch (maybe two), and practices whenever he can. Because of the
time and money that he has invested, he wants every eventuality covered by the rules of a
contest or the local flying site. On the other hand, he wonders why all the sport flyers cannot
get enthused by all these regulations, and why they oppose any spending of club funds on the
contest related activities of the club!
I have noticed this gulf widening as each year passes, no doubt due to all my mates now
having teenage kids who demand more and more time, as well as the general pace of life
increasing. There is no easy solution to this problem short of ensuring that all types of
members are catered for within the MAAA structure
(Editor's note. There is no problem here; just one of the facts of life.)
..... and O. S. W. continues on in a similar vein on another well discussed topic .....
LAUNCH HEIGHT
As the general strength of models increases and the average flying skills increase, the
launching heights achieved at contests are becoming more and more of a problem. It has
reached the stage where at most contests the average modeller with a traditional balsawoodplastic covered model cannot hope to compete on equal terms. The strong, high performance
models can exceed the launch heights of the traditional models by so much that they more
than make up for any deficiencies in their thermalling ability; a deficiency that is becoming
more and more difficult to see as the models improve. On top of this, they can roam the skies
to such an extent than any lift will be found.
The flyer of the traditional model must make
a decision to search in one area before they launch. If they do not find lift, their models do not
have the performance to fly to another part of the sky and they must therefore either accept
their flight time or re-launch.
The only solution for the traditional modeller is either to join the high technology group
and compete on equal terms, or try to change the rules to limit the launch heights by adopting
weak links in the winch line or reducing the power of the winches.
This debate will not be concluded in the near future. My view is that we should leave
the high technology route to F3B and F3J, as they are regulated International classes.
However, we need to change the rules of the Australian Open Thermal class to allow both high
tech and traditional models the chance to compete equally, and it is my belief that the only way
is to reduce the power of winches by increasing the resistance of the motors to the point where
ping launches are not possible.
.... and on the same topic from the same column in a previous Airborne (146 - August 1996),
we have the following;
The following is a letter that I received from Martin Simons in relation to my proposed
new rules for Thermal Soaring event. For those who do not know, Martin rarely takes part in
contests because he does not feel motivated by the format of the traditional Task A event.
" Your recent remarks in Airborne about thermal soaring events always seemed to me
that thermal soaring contests should be thermal soaring contests. It is a pity that the existing
rule have directed so much attention to the launch and the launching apparatus.
18
I was at Jerilderie over the Easter weekend, where it was demonstrated by Nic Wright
and others that, with the right launching technique, a modern F3B multi task model can win
the traditional type of thermal soaring event without actually having to do any soaring.
Providing that the air is not actually sinking, the model can stay in the air for long enough to
achieve the maximum permitted time. Even if the air for a particular hear is bad all round, the
model which is highest after the launch is most likely to win.
(History compiler's note: World F3B Champion Joe Wurts has been quoted as saying "He who
launches highest, Wins", and he should know).
Given the kind of launch altitudes measured by Nic Wright, between 220 and 250
metres, to achieve an eight minute flight requires a sinking rate of about 27 metres per minute,
or about 1.5 feet per second. Calculations published recently in the American magazine, RC
Soaring Digest, show that a lightweight floater model, like the old Olympic 2, can achieve this
sink rate. An Olympic cannot safely be winch launched at 250 km/h, however.
A modern F3B model has about the same minimum rate of sink, but it can be launched
to much greater heights, so it will, if well flown, beat the lightweight every time in the same air.
This has had the effect of concentrating all attention on the launching apparatus and the
launch technique and turned us away from thermal soaring.
A thermal soaring contest should be won by a person who can most skilfully locate and
use thermals for soaring. I can think of a competition in which competitors' attention and
ingenuity could be directed in this way. (Martin goes on to detail an extended, closed circuit, on
foot style of X-country competition that has not been reprinted here).
"Printed by kind permission of Airborne Magazine."
Victorian State Thermal Titles - Brigg's Field 27 April 1997,
A smoothly run event with 27 entrants having a good days flying in very good conditions. Five
rounds were flown with the best four to count towards the final score as per the Aus. Open Thermal
Rules.
1st Tim Mellor 4000 pts, equal 2nd Gerry Carter & Max Kroger 3997 pts.(See Contests)
May 1997 - Runways laid down at Brigg's Field for the initial introduction of Power (Internal
Combustion) aircraft.
1 June 1997, Open Day at Brigg's Field with almost all forms of model aircraft flown on the day,
Aero-towing, Electric flight, Helicopters, Competition gliders, Sport power and Chuck gliders, all
flew at the field during the day. Over 100 people enjoyed the day with VARMS providing a
barbeque lunch. The Power field strips, Glider area, Hut surrounds and car-park are now serviced
by a recently purchased ride-on mower.
L. S. F. Tournament - Jerilderie - 7/8/9 June 1997:
1st Alan Mayhew (VARMS), Winning Team - VARMS (Tim Mellor, Alan Mayhew, Des Bayliss,
Gerry Carter, Scott Lennon, Greg Voak).
1.
2.
3.
HITEC TROPHY
Max Kroger
Des Bayliss
Jim Robertson
1919
1855
1516
1.
2.
3.
OPEN EVENT
Rod Watkins
Gerry Carter
Alan Mayhew
4931
4884
4853
19
1997 - 98
President
Tom Wickers
Treasurer
(Vacant)
Contest Director
Peter Cossins
Fund raising
& Site Liaison
Graham Partridge
AGM – Des Bayliss awarded
Clubman of the Year.
The Committee
Secretary
Max Haysom
& Barry Dundas
Editor
Alan Connelly
Committee Members Jim Robertson
/John Gottschalk
July 1997 saw the 50th Nationals (for 1996/97) held at Darwin N.T.:
Thermal
1. Rob Benton
2. Brett Solanov
3. Graham Roberts
F3J
1. Rob Benton
2. Alan Mayhew
3. Brett Solanov
HLG
1. Ray Pike
2. Theo Merrifield
3. (Miss) Kieren Pike
September 1997 - World F3B Championships - Ankara, Turkey. The team to represent Australia
was Gerry Carter & Tim Mellor from VARMS, & Greg Voak (W.A.).
The following excerpt from Gerry Carter's very complete and detailed report is included to
demonstrate some of the things that can happen during International competitions.
"The first days practice was not good, I managed to destroy another glider (leaving two, one
new, one borrowed) and an hour later Gregg did the same thing, destroying a brand new Calypso
Cobra. Tim gave his model its maiden flight without mishap and sorted out some problems with his
winch which had been run, but never used to launch a model before. The second days practice at
this field was safe. No mishaps. Greg elected not to fly.
The first Official Practice day at the Official field arrived. Winches were set up downwind
and pilots were routinely towing around to the other side of the turnarounds and launching back into
wind, something we had heard about but never done or even seen before, however, we tried and got
better as the day progressed."
October 1997 - State Slope Championships held as a Pylon only event.
The U-2 - A Postscript
To commence this topic with a nostalgic trip back into time:
Aspectivity 201 April '89 reports that at the March General Meeting a 'Club project" was initiated
by Jim Robertson, being the building of a PSS Lockheed U-2 with the following specifications:
Wing Span
4480mm
14ft 8in
Length
2210
7ft 3in
Root chord
490mm
1ft 7 1/2in
Tip chord
130mm
5in
(from Aspectivity 294 - October 1997 - Author anonymous)
For relatively new members or those lucky enough to have forgotten, the U-2 was a
VARMS Club project to build a biggish scale glider trainer! This was way back in the early
nineties or should that be the roaring early nineties, as it needed a roaring gale on the slope to fly.
And she flew.
Like most democratic committee/group projects the various compromises made in its design
and constructions resulted in it exceeding its design weight of 25 lbs by, I am reliably informed,
some 23 lbs. The two amazing things though are that it was eventually finished, a TAD overweight,
but finished, and the thing flew!
Flight for the U2 though was fraught with a fair degree of peril and some comedy. The
nominated pilot was usually on Rohypnol (at least) and the launch crew, the runners, grunters and
heavers, looked like a bunch of caber tossing sumo wrestlers trying to run in step whilst grunting
20
and heaving the beast into the air.
Resurrection
Whilst at Tom's (Wickers) factory cadging a bit of welding a month or so ago the subject of
the long deceased U2 came up in general conversation with the half a dozen members present. It
was decided to drag its remains out of its tomb in the loft and have a post mortem. With hindsight,
I should have forgotten about the welding, excused myself and gone straight to the pub. More fool
me.
Well, decency prevents an accurate description of her condition, but to say it was stuffed is
pretty close to the mark, although more colourful terms were used. Someone offered to "shoot her
and put her out of her misery".
I don't know the aeronautical term, but in yachting parlance the fuselage "hogged" about
20% in any direction and when placed on her end about half a bucket of crushed foam bits, big
chunks of balsa, assorted bits of servo's cascaded from her tail pipe. The main impact from the
fence post that somewhat spoilt her last landing had been taken at the junction of the fuselage and
the left wing root and this obviously sudden stop had somehow removed the bottom of the fuselage
'in toto". The right wing had shattered the foam, balsa and glass, but was repairable. The left wing
you could not complain about because only the stump of the wing root remained. Tail section was
fair, but had numerous impact cracks and the tail cone was missing, as was the canopy, the wing
joiner bar, hatches etc., etc.
The end result of the post mortem was that she was dead, finito, deceased, passed on, gone
to God, etc., and was not even good barbeque fuel due to the amount of foam, fibreglass, paint and
plasticine(?) in her. Someone suggested the dumpster. One thing was for sure and that was that she
was not going to fly no more, no more.
One dill, nevertheless, felt that she deserved better than the ignominy of the dreaded
dumpster and stupidly suggested restoring her as a sort of static, i.e. not flying, display model, as
she represented a rare example of a committee designed club project that actually worked. I
recalled that she had been built by nearly 40 club members working together as a team (excuse the
cynicism) for once.
First problem, the missing tail cone. It eventually turned up under some boxes tucked away
under a cupboard. The main spar was never found (apparently in her altercation with the fence post
it had bent like a set of bicycle handlebars). The horrid plasticine had been added by some
misguided individual who had plans of taking a glass mould off her fuselage but had given up after
adding about 2 lbs of the stuff to the jet intake area. If anybody knows of a paint that will "take"
over plasticine soaked balsa and foam let me know - I used 2 litres of various solvents trying to get
it out without dissolving what was left of the foam at the same time - hours of time.
I shall not mention any of those present at the time who said "strewth mate, if you want a
hand to do her up, let me know mate", I did and they didn't.
I will mention "One Stop Plastics" at Ardena court, East Bentleigh, where Dave Cook gave
me yards of 2oz cloth and pots of Epoxy, cans of Bog etc., free, and Peter at Waverley Hobbies who
gave me lots of bits and pieces nearly for free. Gentlemen, the pair of them.
Now she is a U2 again, or as much as she ever was and is in roughly the same shape as when
she was built in the first place.
I shall not mention what she has cost me for fear of incurring the wrath of the club solicitor
for not putting in a budget, bless him.
Conclusion
Anyhow, the alternatives were dumpster or static display model and the latter is the case.
She represents an historic project by the club and I hope her condition meets with general approval,
especially if you appreciate what I had and didn't have to start with. Her colours are those I
remember of the ones that were based at Laverton in the late fifties or early sixties. Some sod has
got the club book on the U2 and despite all efforts, is not telling - all I have is a couple of black and
white photos and some small 3 views. I would like, even at the risk of losing my anonymity, to
request the loan of any and all videos (short term - priority post return) that members may have of
21
her construction, first launch, first flight (the Graham Sullivan one), her subsequent flights, prangs,
flights, crashes and last flights. I know that they are out there because I've seen them and really
would like to make a half hour record of her and the effort that went into building her for posterity
(a long time even). See Jim Robertson please.
Name of author withheld on request.
FAI & ASAC
(If you follow Australian teams at International competitions to any degree, you may seem a little
confused when the Australian team is seen to fly under the banner of ASAC. The following
article taken from the VMAA Newsletter of December 1997 shows why this is so!)
Federation Aeronautique Internationale is the organisation at the top of our structure, administering
all types of aero sports including aeromodelling. All countries are affiliated to the FAI through
their respective National Aero Club. Australia’s NAC being the Australian Sport Aviation
Confederation. This year our affiliation to ASAC cost $3.00 per member and this allows us access
to International rules and participation in International Competitions amongst many other benefits,
including liaison with Government Departments.
February 1998 - VARMS celebrates its 30th Anniversary
22
THE VARMS AIRSHOW
1 March 1998 - VARMS holds an Airshow at Brigg's Field, Budget outlay $6,645.00.
(See field layout as per information
leaflet)
The following is "A retrospective view
by
John
Gottschalk",
Planning/Operations &
Co-ordination.
Our objectives were:
1. To promote all facets of Model
Aviation, result: Achieved.
2. To consolidate our presence at
Martin Brigg's Field, result: Achieved.
3. To support the City of Knox
Community Support Services, result
achieved to a lesser extent
than
expected.
4. To raise funds for necessary
improvements to the field, result: as per
3.
The overall analysis of all details
regarding the planning, preparation and
execution of the event is currently
being done and the results will be
available in due course, however here
are a few items worth mentioning.
The Highs, not necessarily in order of
preference.
a)
The high level of support and
interest to participate by 38 pilots
invited with 35 actually taking part.
b)
The magnificent preparation
and running of the Transmitter pound
by Reg Neville/Wolfgang Schmidt
with his frequency scanner. Several
models were saved from disaster after
constant interference was detected on
channel 36.150
c)
The total professional layout
and operation of the P.A. system,
donated on the day by the one and
only Angelo Favoloro, whose
expertise in all matters of sound and
acoustics played a great part in the
total outcome.
Our Principal
commentators were Peter Cossins and
Neil Bathie (L.D.M.F.A.), who
provided a first class commentary all
day long, with occasional support
from Cliff McIver, a difficult job well
23
done.
d)
The setting up and running of the static display by our own Dieter Prussner, the actual
founder of V.A.R.M.S. in 1968. Ask anyone who ventured into the big Marquee and had a look at
the displays. The favourable comments by experienced model aviation experts were very pleasing
indeed.
e)
Receiving the great news at 9 p.m. the night before the show that a distinguished helicopter
pilot was on his way from Shepparton (where a Heli-Fest was in progress) to participate in our
event. All this, after months of inquiries and endless phone calls to persuade the helicopter
fraternity to take part. Up to that time, Ian Cole was the only rotor power item on our flying
program. Many thanks to Damian Mould who so proficiently filled that worrying gap.
f)
The program and general information leaflet handed out to the public at the gate,
Composition and Artwork by Ralph Learmont, Printing and Folding by Neville Leo. Fellas you are
indispensable.
g)
The two ladies at the gate, Monika and girlfriend looking after the tickets and change
dispensation. A fantastic job.
h)
Ah, yes, our new V.A.R.M.S. flag, more on the behind the scene story at the next club
meeting on 13 March.
i)
The great job done by the glider training team. Des Bayliss and his crew were flat out all
day due to the phenomenal interest by the public in the "hands-on-time". They did all they could
and more, it shall not be forgotten.
j)
The almost superhuman efforts before and on the day by some V.A.R.M.S. members and
members of other clubs who helped doing all the necessary tasks for this display - A VERY BIG
THANK YOU TO YOU ALL.
k)
Our security staff on night duty (3 nights), Morrie Watts, Prue Cook and her dog and Chris.
Report - no incidents. Result - nothing damaged, nothing lost, what more could you ask.
l)
Who was everywhere at any time? Yes it was Bill Denheld with his video camera, who
kindly agreed to spend all day capturing the happenings on the field for posterity. (More of that at
the next meeting). A great effort.
m)
The bloke responsible for the weather on the day. How much do we owe him? Seriously,
the weather statistics for this time of the year pointed to a 1:26 chance for bad weather, another
reason why the 1st of March was chosen.
n)
Jim French, retired Auto Electrician and his amazing home build, true replica of the very
first motor car ever built, the 1885 Benz 3 wheeler. What does it take to acquire the necessary
documentation in the first place, and then actually undertake the building of such a historically
important machine ? Motivation, skill and endurance - nothing less! Jim, we will have you any
time again, God willing! A marvellous attraction enjoyed by lots of spectators and kids and parents
who were fortunate to get a ride on your masterpiece.
0)
Where would you have to go to see an own designed, own build 7 cylinder, 350cc radial
engine, driving a 42" propeller, actually running in front of your unbelieving eyes ? 20 feet south of
the commentary enclosure! Paul Chernikeeff demonstrated his creation with well-earned pride; a
world class exhibit no doubt. Having followed the genesis of the marvel for a number of years, I
finally went and heard it running! Model aviation will never be the same again! Congratulations
Paul!
p)
Safety! The radio controlled flying displays were performed with great proficiency,
particularly considering the crosswind situation, which was somewhat interesting but was handled
very well by everybody. All pilots are being congratulated on their safe conduct and competence.
No doubt the relative low damage occurrence to aircraft was the result of this. Our sincere
condolences to Ron Schulz who has the misfortune of having his aircraft destroyed in a mid-air
collision during the R. C. combat sequence. Apart from this and a few undercarriage incidents,
mostly due to the condition of the runways, the level of the glue should not have altered much!
q)
The public behaved very well indeed, rubbish was disposed of responsibly and the clean up
on Monday was a relatively easy job (contrary to expectations) with the help of anti-wasp spray, our
24
practical rubbish receptacles were collected and disposed of in a jiffy.
r)
Total strangers as well as experienced model aviation experts offered their complimentary
comments with a big smile on their faces, to me the ultimate proof that we are on the right track.
The following participants were elected by the public to receive trophies in 6 categories: Best Glider - Kestrel 17 by Bill Denheld
Best Electric Powered Aircraft - Hercules by Cam Wylie
Best Combustion - Fokker D7 by Norm Bell
Best Flying Display - "Jam" by Cliff McIver
Best Aircraft of the Show - Sabre F86 Jet Fighter by Dennis Dracup
Special Award - 7 Cylinder 360cc home build Radial Engine by Paul Chernikeeff
Our congratulations to all recipients.
The Lows
Yes, we had them too. One of them was the collapse of the driveway entrance with some cars
getting bogged. Tom Wickers, with quick, alert action pulled an adjoining fence post, single
handed, out of the ground and created a new driveway. That's what you call crisis management!
Tom will tell you about some other experiences he had in preparation for the show at the March
meeting.
The other lows are being thoroughly analysed, investigated and "Watergated" by the committee.
Believe me we are fully aware of the necessary changes that have to take place in order to achieve a
better result in the future, if there should be another V.A.R.M.S. Model Aviation Air Show.
All you guys who came forward to help prepare and run the show, my most sincere thank you to all
of you,
Yours truly
John Gottschalk
April 1998 had the 51st (1997/98) Nationals being held at Waikerie S.A.:
F3B
1. Greg Voak
2. Steve Keep
3. Tim Mellor
Thermal
1. Graham Garner
2. Steve Keep
3. Mal Pring
F3J
1. Steve Keep
2. Rob Benton
3. R Cant
The May 1998 issue of Aspectivity was the 300th of the series.
25
1998 - 99
President
Des Bayliss
Treasurer
Richard Weil
Contest Director
Peter Cossins
*Co-opted Members:*Registrar
Geoff Moore
The Committee
Secretary
Editor
Ordinary Member
Ordinary Member
*Sites Liaison
Ian Slack
Colin Smith
John Gottschalk
Jim Robertson
Max Haysom
At the AGM John Gottschalk was awarded
The VARMS Clubman Award
10 - 15 August 1998 - FIRST World F3J Championships
(Time 10 - 15 Aug.'98., location: Fish Meadow, Worcestershire County, England - 81 Entrants.)
1. Joe Wurts
USA Diamond
RG15
2. Jan Kahout
CZE Pike Plus
RG15
3. Arend Borst
CAN Gazelle
RG12A
4. Skip Miller
USA Emerald
SD 7037
5. Stefan Eder
GER Stratos 3 F3J MH32
6. Henning Czerny GER Star Light
MH32
7. Alex Hoekstra
Ned Twister
MH32
8. Peter Hoffman
AUS Wizard
MH32
9. Ben Clerx
USA Espirit
SD7037
10.Dion Liebenberg RSA Tokolosh
?
11. Bas Breijer
NED Stork
SD 7037
12. Phillip Kold
GER Stratos
MH32
Of the 297 models flown in this competition, the most popular types of models were:
Espirit 43
Elipse 22
Cobra 12
Nordic 11
Tragic 700
11
The first 12 places only qualified for the Fly-off.
19. Max Kroger
Aus 7449.8
23. Rob Benton
Aus 7377.7
57. Alan Mayhew
Aus 6138.5
Australian Team Members - Pilots:Alan Mayhew, Max Kroger & Rob Benton, Manager Rod
Watkins, assisting Bill & Margaret Pettigrew, Les Davidson.
October 1998 - State Slope Championships cancelled due to lack of wind - an impromptu
R/E Aerobatics contest was held and was won by Geoff Moore.
9 October 1998 General Meeting night was also a “Show Nite” for member’s models with the
following results:
Scale Glider 1. DFS Reiher – Barry Dundas
2. DG 500 – Des Bayliss
Sport Glider 1. Bird of Time – Reg Neville
2. Sagitta X-Country – Peter Mather
Electric
1. Hercules – Cameron Wylie
2. Trenton Terror - David Hipperson
Best of Show DFS Reiher – Barry Dundas
November 1998 - VARMS again permitted to use the Glenfern Rd. site, use was suspended while
sale of property was underway, new owner amenable to use of slope by VARMS.
13 December 1998 - Inaugural "Nostalgia" Rules Thermal competition held at Brigg's Field for
models "released for publication of plans or sale of kits prior to January 1980".
For the sake of 'Nostalgia' overall, the following is a complete list of known eligible models as
26
published in Aspectivity 302 July 1988:1995 - 1998 LSF (USA) Nationals Nostalgia Sailplane Event Rules
Design Release Requirements:
*Date of Release*:
The latest accepted magazine date for the published design or the release of a kit will be 1
Jan 1980. If the kit or published design has several release dates that included modifications to the
design, only those prior to Jan 1980 will be accepted. In the U. K. the "Classic" rules stipulate 1 Jan
1983.
Airframe Requirements:
*Items That Must Duplicate the Original*:
The plane must replicate the original styling and appearance and comply with the vision of
the Nostalgia event (Vision is stated under Special Items).
Airfoil, flying surfaces, planforms, moments and surface areas, fuselage form or styling in
outline both inside and plan views, basic construction i.e. open bay wing structure, wood vs. FRP
etc.
*Items Than Can Deviate from the Original*:
Control surfaces if desired, on a plane with no glide control capability, spoilers may be
added to the upper wing surface as long as the plans do not call for any other glide control device. If
the plans have a glide control system, it must be the one used and shall not be deviated from.
If spoilers are added, they must be designed to minimize the effect on the styling of the
original aircraft. (An example would be on an open structure wing, the spoiler system must be of
minimal dimensions including the area around the spoiler bay used to attach the covering.)
Any interior, non-visible, structural modifications to enable the plane to handle modern
launch equipment and techniques, some examples:
- Substitute spruce for balsa
- CF reinforcements
- Larger joiner rods
- Stronger tow hook systems
- Wing incidence and decalogue
- Wing mounting (bolt on vs rubber bands
- Removable or bolt on stabs rather than permanent stabs as long as the assembled position
replicates the original and visible architecture is unchanged
- Dihedral (either tips or centre or both) can be modified a maximum of 25% of the original for
personal handling characteristics
Special Items:
Radios can be any type legal to operate and electronic mixing is allowable on any set of
surfaces.
The use of landing arrestors devices is prohibited. This does not eliminate the use of a
smooth surface skid to protect the bottom landing surface of the aircraft from scratches and nicks.
The CD will have the final vote on legality for 1997 on any item not covered in this
document. Bear in mind that the vision of the event is to duplicate the spirit of the old days in
styling and form of aircraft and flying capability of said aircraft and only those changes consistent
with launch and landing safety will be allowed.
Final proof of legality of the design for this event lies with the contestant and having an
original set of plans would be the optimum way to settle any questions.
27
A List of Eligible Nostalgia Plans from RCM
Name
Plan W'span(Ins.)
Gary I
152
48
Kahunaa
153
96
Erin's Lass
301
70
Snipe
330
72
Windsong
387
72
SlopeMaster
398
62
Suoflex
408
79 or 99
CliffMaster
412
62
Gus
419
72
Super Sonic Soarer
428
80
Sport Evolution
431
74
Maxisailaor
449
98
Orange Julius
455
96
Monterey
457
100
Esprit
468
85
Specialist V
481
106
Little Plank
492
56
Windfree
495
99
Skylark
496
144
Slingsby T-53B
497
111
Snoopy
498
125
Lady Bird MkII
505
59
Gypsy
510
64
Javalaero
527
48
Barracuda
536
97
SwingWing(Volmer VJ-23 570
65
Monarch
575
126
Silent Squire
586
60
Aquila
596
100
Standard Plank
605
100
Ridge Runner II
612
72
Windhover
617
99
Paragon
626
118
Saracen
639
72
Olympic II
643
100
Sundancer
648
98
N1-M
655
72 3/4
Happy Face
659
85
Zoegling Primary
668
72
Sinbad Supreme
672
94
Cloud Bound 4
686
144
Caracara
692
126
EZ II
695
72
Cadet Ut-1
704
62
Borne Free
707
130
Wasp W-21
709
100
Super Turkey
716
72
Viking
726
118
Voyageur II
736
85
WindFreak
743
100
Designer(s)
Gerald Leak
John Toomer
Don Dewey
Phil Phillips
Owen Kampen
Ken Willard
Harley Michaelis
Ken Willard
Willie Richard
Willie L. Hill
Bob Brugger
Ken Willard
J.W. Headley
Bob & Roland Boucher
Lee Renaud
Kevin Flynn
Chuck Clemens/Dave Jones
Mark & Rod Smith
Hack Headley
Bob Andris
Otto Heithecker
Brian Shaw
Jack Headly
Ted Strader
Bob Steele
Vern Schroeder
Chris Barns
Bill Evans
Lee Renaud
Chuck Clemens/Dave Jones
Dave Katagiri
Michael Carroll
Ed Slobod
Bill Evans
Lee Renaud
Robert Dellacamera
Gus Morfis
Erroll Williams
Gerry Casey
Larry Sward
Don Druly
Leonard Oakley
Jack Headly
Lee Renaud
David Anderson
Scott Jenkins
Joel Rieman
Tom Williams
Terry A. Blake
Roger Sanders
8/65Date
9/65
10/67
2/68
3/69
3/6
6/69
10/69
11/69
3/70
5/70
6/70
1/71
3/71
4/71
8/71
2/72
5/72
6/72
3/73
3/73
11/72?
7/73
10/72
5/73
8/73
10/74
11/74
1/75
5/75
7/75
9/75
10.75
1/76
4/76
6/76
7/76
8/76
9/76
12/76
1/77
5/77
7/77
8/77
10/77
11/77
12/77
2/78
5/78
8/78
11/78
28
Ridge Rat
747
49 3/4
Ed Slobod
12/78
Bird of Time
751
118
Dave Thornburg
1/790
Mirage
753
112 1/2
Blaine Rawdon
2/79
Puranas
775
53
Mark Gumprecht
9/79
RO-8
779
78 3/4
Dick Odle
10/79
Model Airplane News Plans Lists of Eligible Designs
Kestrel
FSP09683
73
Dave Robelan
Thermus
FSP05693
101
Joe Roslyn/Dick Sarpolus
Shoodl
FSP06691
75
George Messetler
Eclipse
FSP07692
156
Jim & Joe Matous
Nuage
FSP11692
96
Jim Matous
Hamilcar
FSP09722
44
Jack Headly
Phase One
FSP06734
72
Chris Foss
Albatrossff
FSP06744
116
Dave Dyer
Phooebe
FSP10742
74
Dave Thornburg
Gulf Coaster
FSP02751
108
Bert Streigler
Pierce Duckie
FSP01763
120
Jerry Kranock
AR-12
FSP08762
114
Edward Kolassa
Nepelle
FSP12762
72
Langdon Halls
WindShark
FSP06774
96
Fred Koval/Alan kicks
The Avenger
FSP11771
94
Jack Headly
Super Cirrus II
FSP09781
149
Rick Reuland
Delta Lady
FSP02792
56
Mike Trew
Free Spirit
FSP06793
99
Lew Kincaid
Model Builder Eligible Plans
Nancy
11711 96
Jack Elam
White Trash
1723 84 & 120
Rick Walters
Yankee Gull
3721 100 &144
Lee Gray
California Coaster
6723 108
Mat Tennison
Coleen-12
9721 96
Randy Warner
Don Quixote
12721 85
Dave Thornburg
Spectral
1732 57
Andy McAfee
Briegleb HG-12
4731 100
Chris Christen
Draggin'Fly
6732 84
Duane Hyer
Quasoar II
12731 144
Niel Liptak
Glenn's "T"
4741 Glenn Cunningham
R C Tyro Trainer
1751 -74
Hank Cohan
Top Sider
2751 Ken Willard
Baby Albatross
9751 -122
Col. Bob Thacker
Merlin
5782 Kevin Flynn
Afternoon Delight
10782 54
Randy Wrisely
Cliffhanger
2792 Larry Renger
Petrel
4792 76 & 100
Jim Ealy
Percy
7792 68
Jack Headley
Pocket Soarer
11791 50
B. Lundstrom
Kits that are Eligible
ACE
Questor 62"
GRAUPNER
Ace High
Grand Esprit 134"
Cumulus 2800 110.25"
AFI
Super Esprit 173"
Cirrus 118.125"
ASW-15
100"
CRAFTAIR
HI-FLIGHT MODELS
ASW-17
132"
Drifter 72'
Mirage
Malibu
76"
Drifter II
HOBIE MODEL CO
29
Super Malibu
Monterey 100
Super Monterey
Californian 115
AIRTRONICS
Square Soar 72"
Super Questor 80"
Aquila 99.9"
Aquila Grande 132"
Olympic II 99.9"
Cadet 62"
MODEL DYNAMICS
Gryphon ?
100
100"
140
140"
MARK'S MODELS
Windfree 99.25"
Wanderer 76"
Wanderer 99 99"
Windward 72"
SOARCRAFT/PACER
Diament
116.5"
Centurion II 100"
Glasfugel 604 144"
Libelle 111.5"
Magnum 12 148"
MODEL MERCHANT
Eagle I 78"
Windrifter 99.8"
SD100 100"
Viking MkI & II
118"
Sailair 150"
DODGSON Designs
Maestro MkIII 132"
Maestro Caliente 100"
Gull II 99"
Todi 76" & 100"
Hijacker II 72"
Hobie Hawk 99"
HOUSE OF BALSA
Nomad 48"
Nomad Two 61"
JP MODELS
Dart 100"
Dart II 134"
Javelin 98"
Javelin II 134"
LANIER
Hawk 75"
BOB MARTIN MODELS BOB SMITH
Cirrus 75L
120"
Sundancer II 98"
MH MANUFACTURING Seabreeze
99.75"
Albatross
99.75"
SUREFLIGHT
Anser 72"
Deadbeat
60"
MIDWEST
Eye Soar
72"
Hobie Hawk 99"
PIERCE AERO CO.
Lil "T" 74"
Arrow 76"
Silent Squire 58"
970
120"
SOUTHWESTERN
Paragon
118"
Top Cat
72"
STERLING MODELS
PERFORMANCE
Schweizer 1-34
98.5"
FLIGHT SYSTEMS
C.A. ZIAC (JETCO)
Rubber Duck 75"
Thermic 50R C
47"
Minuteman 99"
Eastwind 76 75.75"
RALVIN
Eastwind 100 99.875"
Nebula 122"
52nd (1998/99) Nationals Held at Toowoomba Qld. - no known results.
12 February 1999 - At the General Meeting, Colin Collyer displays a 1/4 scale "Woodstock" with
the thought that it will be taken on as a club project, (approx. 9 were built and flown).
March 1999 saw emphatic changes to Brigg's Field; installation of an all-weather road and spoon
drains, removal of trees various and installation of logs/poles around Hut and Power field pits, also
installation of benches/tables.
4 - 7 March 1999 - New Zealand Soar Championships
F3B Results 1. Gerry Carter 2. Greg Voak 3. Chris Kieser N.Z.
(At the conclusion of this event, Joe Wurts demonstrated some Dynamic soaring. Using his F3B
model which was ballasted up to a weight of 4.0 Kgs., he flew repeated laps behind a 10 metre high
tree line. He initially launched from a winch, flew down behind the trees very close to the ground,
then pulled up sharply into the oncoming wind which was about 45 to 50 K.P.H., and then dived
back behind the trees. Joe was able to maintain the energy of the model and flew like this for
greater than 5 minutes.
27 - 28 March - VARMS places 3rd in VMAA Trophy held at P & DARCS.
July 1999 - VARMS institutes SOLO rating requirements for all users of Brigg's Field, to be
required for Glider, Power (I/C), Helicopter and Electric.
30
IT IS WITH DEEP REGRET........
On 14th April 1968, on a slope of Mt Bacchus also known as Bald Hill, north of Bacchus
Marsh, VARMS was born with the official creation of a Committee with the purpose of
fostering R.C. slope soaring in Victoria.
The following article was extracted from the VMAA Newsletter of December 1998.
Although another attempt has been made to have a glider flying site known as Bald
Hill at Bacchus Marsh registered with the Moorabool Shire, it has been in vain. In fact not
only have the Shire Council refused to register the field as a glider flying site, but they have
placed a blanket ban on the use of this site for any purpose and in fact it is illegal to even enter
this area.
The Council is currently arranging signs for the area notifying the public that access is
not permitted. Don't travel all the way out to Bald Hill only to find that you can't have access
to the site.
PLEASE NOTE: This is not Mt. Hollowback at Bald Hills near Ballarat, but a local site at
Bacchus Marsh.
31
1999 - 2000
President
Treasurer
Contest Director
*Co-opted Members:
*Registrar
A.G.M. July "99
Des Bayliss
Richard Weil
Peter Cossins
Geoff Moore
The Committee
Secretary
Editor
Ordinary Member
Ordinary Member
*Sites Liaison
- Special AWARD to Maurie Watts
for "Exemplary & Diligent Service
to VARMS", and also
"Life Membership".
Ian Slack
Colin Smith
Martin Hopper
Jim Robertson
Max Haysom
John Gottschalk was also
presented with VARMS
Clubman Award for the second
consecutive Year.
Also in July Aspectivity (313), the following initiative to improve the safety of operations at Briggs
Field, and also generally throughout the Association.
In the interest of safety, the Committee has determined that it has become necessary to
introduce a solo rating for Gliding, Power I/C, Electric and Helicopter operations at Brigg's
field. A panel of Flight Assessors will be appointed to facilitate this process and the new 99/2000
club members card will include the pilot's current rating(s).
All members will be required to obtain a rating for glider and power respectively,
although in cases where a pilot's expertise is well known and demonstrated, no flight test will be
required. It is understood that is impossible to police activities 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
but the Committee will implementing this policy in a very pro-active way.
To obtain a solo rating it will be necessary to demonstrate a knowledge of safety
requirements, local club rules and the possession of a prescribed range of basic flying skills.
(These solo requirements are contained on a later page).
October 1999 -Aspectivity 316 contained a "revised" set of Rules for the operation of ALL types of
aircraft at Brigg's Field and are shown at the end of this 1999/2000 segment.
14 November 1999 - OPEN DAY held at Brigg's Field to demonstrate to the local community the
operation of VARMS & the use of a wide range of R/C aircraft; Gliders (all types from basic entry
2 metre models to international class competition types), Power aircraft (Internal combustion) from
basic "40" size sports models to large scale & aero-tow models, Helicopters, Electric from Electric
power-assist for gliders and Electric powered "power" including high speed pylon racing aircraft this event was very successful. A special feature of the day was Ray Cooper's power model with
"Live Eye in the Sky". Ray mounted two miniature TV cameras in his model, one for pilot's view
of the world and a second for a straight down view. The mobile TV transmitter and ground receive
system were supplied by Peter Cossins and the remainder of the video gear courtesy of John Bird,
Martin Hopper and Terry Cornall (Monash Uni.). The TV link frequency was 1.25 Ghz (1250
Mhz) and was used under the privilege of Peter C's Amateur Radio callsign VK3BFG.
December 1999- a tractor & slasher purchased to replace existing ride-on mower, also a second
container to house the new equipment.
8 - 9 April 2000 - VARMS finishes equal 1st with P & DARCS (Best six events = 29 points each)
in the VMAA Trophy, and is relegated to 2nd on a countback (All events 33.5 to 37 points).
April/May 2000 was the timing for the 53rd (1999/2000) Nationals held at Nowra, NSW.:
F3B
1. Scott Lennon
2. Gerry Carter
3. Alan Mayhew
F3J
1. Gerry Carter
2. Bjorn Rudgley
3. Carl Strautins
Thermal
1. Alan Mayhew
2. Gerry Carter
3. Scott Lennon
HLG
1. Carl Strautins
2. Brad Harris
3. Scott Lennon
June 2000 - VARMS members; Gerry Carter & Alan Mayhew with Carl Strautins (NSW) depart for
32
F3J World Championships in Korfu, Greece. Results; Carl Strautins 14th, Alan Mayhew 33rd,
Gerry Carter 60th, Team 12th of 27 teams.
June 2000 - A "One Model" contest mooted for later in the year. The model selected was the
Southern Sailplanes Thermal Ricochet using only items provided in the kit, no modern
strengthening materials were allowed but a polyhedral wing design was to be permitted.
33
VICTORIAN ASSOCIATION OF RADIO MODEL SOARING Inc.
General Club Rules - Brigg's Field
(15/8/99)
G 1.
G 2.
G 3.
G 4.
G 5.
G 6.
G 7.
G 8.
G 9.
G 10.
G 11.
G 12.
G 13.
G 14.
G. 15.
G 16.
G 17.
G 18.
G 19.
It is now a requirement of all users of Brigg's field, that they be certified to operate
"Solo" in all aspects of R/C Model Aircraft that they wish to use at this site. This Solo rating
is achieved either by Prior knowledge by the Committee, proof of same from another club,
or by being assessed in the appropriate area(s) by a Flight Assessor. All Visitors must also
meet this criteria or be constantly under the supervision of an appropriately certified club
member.
Only financial club members and guests may fly from the field. Visiting VMAA/MAAA
affiliated members may use the field providing they prove to a committee member that they
are financial members of the VMAA/MAAA, are certified to fly "Solo" (or be accompanied
by a club member certified Solo in the appropriate discipline), abide by the rules for visiting
club members, and sign the visitor's book.
The first Member to enter Brigg's Field is to leave the gate open, the last MEMBER &
KEYHOLDER to leave is to close & lock the gate after ensuring that all visitors have
departed.
The key to Brigg's Field (& other VARMS sites) is issued to all members on the express
condition that it is not lent or copied to provide non-members unauthorised entry into these
areas.
Only 29mhz, 36mhz or 40mhz AM or FM may be used at this field. (The use of even
numbered frequencies on 36mhz & the use of any 27mhz frequencies is NOT permitted).
All radio must have current (24 months or less from date of issue) MAAA certification of
bandwidth.
Frequency keys must comply with the MAAA certification sticker on the Transmitter. Only
the correct type of plastic frequency key is acceptable. The Pilot's name and frequency
number MUST be clearly indicated on the key.
The frequency control board and Key system must be used at all times, and only one
Keyboard is to be in operation for all activities.
Transmitters can only be turned on when the appropriate frequency key is in the correct
position in the keyboard.
Maximum time to hold a frequency channel is 20 minutes, and only ONE channel at a time.
Take-off (Launching) is to be clearly announced by the pilot.
All aircraft must be in a safe flying condition, any considered unsafe by a suitably qualified
member will be permitted to fly until its operational condition has been remedied.
Flying at low level (within 30 metres) over people, the car park, spectator areas, the power
field pits & incoming vehicles is STRICTLY prohibited.
Every member shall accept responsibility for flying safety and is obliged to request other
members and visitors to abide these rules when dangerous & unsafe practices are observed.
Vehicles are not to be left on the Glider field or in close proximity of the Power field pits,
all vehicles are to be parked in the designated car park.
No aircraft is to take-off or be launched within a distance of at least 30 metres from the pits,
car park & spectator areas.
Because of possible interference to Computer Radios, the use of Mobile phones on the flight
line is PROHIBITED.
The consumption of alcohol at the field by persons participating in flying activities is
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
No aircraft is to be flown over 300 feet altitude by Government Regulation.
34
VARMS - BRIGG'S FIELD
Powered Flight Operations
P 1.
P 2.
P 3.
P 4.
P 5.
P 6.
P 7.
P 8.
P 9.
P 10.
P 11.
P 12.
P 13.
P 14.
P 15.
P 16.
Power (I/C motors) models will be permitted to operate at Brigg's Field Monday Saturday inclusive.
Aero-tow tugs actively engaged in aero-towing can operate on Sundays, but operation is
not to commence until 12 noon in recognition of nearby church.
No I/C motor shall be started before 7.00 a.m. on weekdays, 9.00 a.m. Saturdays, and 12.00
noon Sundays (Aerotowing only). This is in line with the Government Noise Abatement
Act.
ALL aircraft using Internal Combustion motors (Glow, Diesel & Petrol) and Electric
powered aircraft (excluding electric power assisted Gliders) are to be operated from the
power field area only.
All aircraft motors (Internal combustion) are to be fitted with an effective muffler and the
maximum noise level is to be kept to a minimum (98 Decibels at 3 Metres).
Engines must not be run for extended periods in the pits.
Aircraft must not be taxied in the pit area.
Pilots are to stand in the designated area in front of the pits & beside the runway when flying
power aircraft.
Power flight operations are restricted to the EAST & SOUTH of the runway intersection at
all times, except where a landing is required on the NW runway. In this case the downwind
leg is required to be as short as possible.
Power aircraft taking off on the NW runway must turn LEFT to the South as soon as
practicable to preclude over-flying the Glider field.
Under no circumstances are aircraft to intrude into airspace above the Golf Driving Range.
When the NE/SW runways are operational, no person is to be standing EAST of the line of
the runways.
When the NW/SE runways are operational, no person is to be standing SOUTH of the
line of the runways.
Powered aircraft must give way to gliders, (Unless tugs are in use for launching). Gliders
should keep clear of the power field when it is in operation.
Landing and take-off is to be clearly announced by the pilot.
Helicopters must be operated from the Heli training area behind the Hut or the main
runways & fly circuits with other aircraft, they are not to take off or land in the pits area.
35
Glider Solo Rating.
(a)
Situational Awareness:- The trainee pilot will be able to demonstrate knowledge of:(i) Frequency control and local related local procedures.
(ii) Pre-flight checks.
(iii) Launching protocols.
(iv) Landing protocols.
(v) MAAA/VMAA- and local safety rules.
(vi) Flight path requirements/restrictions.
(vii) Model weight and balance requirements.
(b)
Flight:- The trainee pilot must be able to safely and consistently:(i) Launch a glider on a bungee or a winch.
(ii) Land a glider after a downwind, base and final approach.
(iii) Control the flight of the glider in all orientations (no inverted flight requirement)
without infringing any no-fly zones or safety rules.
Power Solo Rating (Including Electric)
(a) Situational Awareness:- The trainee pilot will be able to demonstrate knowledge of:(i) Frequency control and local related local procedures.
(ii) Pre-flight checks.
(iii) Safe starting procedures and model handling.
(iv) Pit protocols.
(v) Take off protocols.
(vi) Landing protocols.
(vii MAAA/VMAA and local safety rules.
(viii) Flight path requirements/restrictions.
(ix) Model weight and balance requirements.
(b) Flight - Fixed Wing:- The trainee pilot must be able to safely and consistently:(i) Execute a take off manoeuvre standing behind the edge of the flying field (including a
taxi to take off if the model is suitable).
(ii) Execute a downwind, base and final circuit for landing.
(iii) Execute a landing.
(iv) Control the flight of the model in all orientations (no inverted flight requirement)
without infringing any no-fly zones or safety rules.
(v) Execute a procedure turn manoeuvre.
(c) Flight - Helicopter:- The trainee pilot must be able to safely and consistently:(i) Execute a take-off to hover mode at 30 - 50 feet AGL.
(ii) Rotate the helicopter 90 degrees to the left and return.
(iii) Rotate the helicopter 90 degrees to the right and return.
(iv) Execute a circular flight pattern around the pilot returning to the start position, hover
and land.
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2000 - 01
President
Des Bayliss/Max Haysom
Treasurer
Richard Weil
Contest Director
Mark Withers
*Co-opted Members:
*Registrar
Geoff Moore
July 2000 - A.G.M. saw:Peter Cossins awarded
Life Membership of VARMS
The Committee
Secretary
Editor
Ordinary Member
Ordinary Member
Sites Liaison
Ian Slack
Colin Smith
Martin Hopper
Jim Robertson
Max Haysom
Max Haysom was nominated
as ‘Clubman of the Year’
... and James Robertson took his usual place on Committee for the 15th consecutive year since his
initial co-opting as co-ordinator of the "VARMS Expo" in 1986.
July 2000 - VARMS members/Australian team (Gerry Carter, Alan Mayhew and Carl Strautins,
with Rod Watkins as Team Manager ) compete in the F3J World Championships at Corfu in Greece
(see contests for results).
August 2000 - Max Haysom assumes the mantle of President for the remainder of the term as a
replacement for Des Bayliss who left the Melbourne area and moved to Cobden in October. ... and
Ian Slack takes over the vacated position of Training Officer to continue the Glider training sessions
on a fortnightly basis.
August 2000 Aspectivity 325 reflected the following article on a very discussable topic:
Ian Pullar placed a list of questions on the SFRC (Slow Flight Radio Control) email chat group
regarding "T vs V vs Conventional Tails". The following response (reproduced with permission)
was supplied by Don Stackhouse of DJ Aerotech, makers of a number of fine models including the
Monarch H.L. Glider.
The question - "Would be interested in hearing of dis/advantages of T, V & Conventional tails.
Have heard various theories but am confident there is a wealth of experience in SFRC group to
confirm or kill some of these.
The response(s):Regarding your questions/comments:
(a) Experience with outdoor craft indicates Convention to be more stable though V's keep
themselves safer when landing in grass ??
If the tail is properly designed, there should be no significant difference in the handling and
control authority of an equivalent V, T or Conventional tail. There are several different design
criteria involved that do conflict with each other a little bit, leading to some very subtle differences
in typical applications, but if there's a significant difference, that's a strong indication that
somebody didn't design the tails to be truly equivalent (more on that in a moment).
V-tails on models do seem to have the best track record in avoiding damage during typical
landing mishaps. That's one of the chief reasons I use them so often in my designs. Conventional
tails tend to drag the tips of the stabilizer through the grass (or carpet for indoor models), and Ttails tend to impose high bending moments on the tail boom because of the high-mounted mass of
the stabilizer on top of the fin.
(b) Rule of thumb I heard was to measure the width and height of conventional tail, then make a V
tail that high and that wide ??
This is one explanation of the "Projected Area Method". That particular "rule of thumb" is
probably the single biggest culprit behind the myth of V-tails having poor stability. This widely
known (I've even seen it in college-level aero engineering textbooks written by folks who should
have known better), but DEAD WRONG method results in a V-tail that is WAY TOO SMALL.
37
All other things being equal, the closest thing to a rule of thumb that works well in most
applications is to make the equivalent T, V or conventional tail have the same TOTAL area. That's
right, add the area of the fin + rudder and the stab + elevator together, divide by two, and the
result is the area for each of the two panels of your V-tail.
The dihedral angle for the V-tail is a bit more complicated. This angle is what decides how
much of the tail's effects are devoted to pitch, and how much to yaw. In general, a low aspect ratio
wing will need a flatter tail angle (Just as a low aspect ratio wing needs less fin in a conventional
tail), and a high aspect ratio wing will need a steeper tail dihedral.
There are a several different approaches to calculating the required tail dihedral, one based
on constant control authority and the other on constant stability, with small differences between the
angles they predict. I find the constant control authority method is a bit simpler, and also seems to
give more reliable results in my experience (and this just happens to be an area where I do have a
LOT of experience). Just divide the area of the equivalent conventional tail's fin + rudder by the
area of its stab + elevator, then find the arctangent of the result. That angle will be the dihedral of
each side of the V-tail, measured from the horizontal.
If you want the included angle between the V-tail panels, just multiply the dihedral angle by
two, then subtract the result from 180 degrees.
(c) A T-tail requires less area as it is NORMALLY out of the slipstream of the wing ??
Commonly believed, but rarely true, as least for models. In the vast majority of model
applications, the stab of a T-tail has to be the same size as the equivalent conventional tail to have
the same stability and control authority. In a few cases where it is different, it is usually a very
minor difference, and not always in favour of the T-tail.
(d) However - a T might be less forgiving in the stall as it is then in the LEE of (i.e. hidden from)
the airstream as a result of its position in relation to the wing at that angle of attack.
This
is
often true, for both models and full-scale aircraft. There are a number of fatal accidents on record
of T-tailed aircraft in flight tests that refused to recover from a deep-stall, and carried their crews
into an early grave. However, any type of tail can have funny characteristics resulting from quirks
of the overall aircraft design. All can be vulnerable to blanking by the wing. fuselage, or other
parts of the airframe. Short-coupled and low-aspect ratio designs seem to be especially sensitive to
this. If your design has unusual proportions, be prepared to deal with some surprises during
development testing.
(e) Is the relevance of the tail (T, V, Conventional) more, less or irrelevant to the plane having
ailerons ??
No, an airplane can be weird, ungainly and/or cantankerous regardless of what type of tail
it used, whether or not it has ailerons and/or flaps, or what sort of wing planform and arrangement
it uses. That's one of the things that makes airplane design so "interesting: (although on occasion
some other, less printable adjectives might come to mind!). Just remember, every time you change
even the smallest detail anywhere in the design, it's likely to have "ripple effects' throughout the rest
of the design.
August 2000 - Australia and VARMS represented at the 2000 Electric World Championships in San
Diego (U.S.A.) by Bill Hamilton, Manni Riederich and David Hobby - won by Urs Leodolder from
Martin Weberschoeck. Bill and Manni placed 2nd & 3rd in Fun Scale at a prior event, the Electric
Festival flying electric ducted-fan A4 Skyhawks.
October 2000 Aspectivity 327 contained the following item which is an excellent way to include a
NON-radio controlled glider:
The Flyaway Chuckie.....
Ever noticed how flyaway models are choosy where they land and are usually smarter than
their owners? After a number of uneventful flights of about 45 - 50 seconds, a large, high
performance free flight chuck glider built by Geoff Pentland cleared off from Brigg's Field on
Saturday 12th August. It had been very still and seemed a low-risk day. Shortly after being hurled
aloft, the tight circling chuckie hit a weak thermal, and in no time had cleared the two big gum trees
38
north-west of the clubhouse.
Two surprised VARMS observers called out to its pursuers to chase it north-east. Slowly
drifting away at a considerable height now and still climbing, mild consternation then set in with
Geoff and Jenny (spouse) having to take the car. Traffic now becomes a safety factor. Almost 5
minutes to find a break to exit onto High Street Road! Know the feeling? Meanwhile, one cheeky
model, obviously watching all this with glee, continues circling overhead, exactly where their
pursuers can't see it. Who's having all the fun now? By now it up about 300 feet.
Down H. S. R. to the lights and Cathies Lane. Turn left to go north. We'll get ahead and
wait for it" says Geoff, from experience. More traffic! Out of line of sight for a while, then Geoff
jumps out again to observe carefully. "A good flight, this one", he thinks, checking his reliable
wrist stopwatch to be sure it's still recording the time. The model comes briefly into sight again at
the 20 minute mark, then still with pursuers ahead of it, disappears once more due to obstructions
caused by houses and trees. It appears once again and is visibly estimated at about 400 feet, still
climbing serenely, but abruptly vanishes into a nasty looking grey cloud. Great shock and
disappointment! 15 years old and it had been a superb glider. Hundreds of flights and best model,
usually saved for safe, non-thermal conditions: hence its' long life! Another one 'gone to God", as
Tony Cincotta would have said.
"Ah", you'll think. "There must be more. The words aren't finished yet". Of course, you're
right. After nearly 2 weeks - and on the very day a certain gentleman in Wantirna South was about
to insert better part of the lost model into his council dustbin - the Pentlands received a phone call
from a friendly stranger, the aforesaid gentleman’s' next-door neighbour. She had found in her
garden a wing with a telephone number on it, a relic from the wreck. In the nick of time the greater
part of the model (by now considerably exposed to the elements) was retrieved from next-door and,
with some generous help, arrangements were made to collect the sorry looking chuckie, which had
now paid dearly for having a mind of its own.
With the owner now at the crash site, and having made friends with the finders, a little
detective work on the pieces indicated the all-wooden glider had been flying along steadily at its
normal glide angle, but had collided solidly with the brickwork of a double-story house. This had
caused the fuselage, tail and half a wing to thump onto a much lower Colorbond roof as the other
half of the wing fluttered next door. It seems almost everyone in the neighbourhood heard the
bang! Judging by the height of the model as it vanished into the cloud and its final resting place, it
had probably flown about 45 minutes from only a throw - and without radio.
The post mortem? Fortunately no harm had been done to anyone and Geoff reports the
model is highly repairable. Hopefully no loss to the VARMS image either. Both families knew of
aeromodellers operating at Brigg's Field and except for the occasional 1:1 dropping in, seemed to
think of them as being relatively harmless, well behaved citizens. Finally, guess who the helpful
lady was! No less than Neil McLeod's (club member & past Editor) cousin, would you believe!
Oddly enough too, Neil had been the first non-spectator to be told of the model's disappearance.
(do I hear the theme to The Twilight Zone playing in the back of my head... ...Ed). And, as for the
choice of house to drop into, there's nothing like keeping things in the flying community, is there?
October 2000 - State Slope Championships continues (not held 1999) as an Aerobatics only
competition.
November 19th 2000 - VARMS again hosts an Open Day under the same format as the previous
year, i.e. not being a top shelf display, but rather all types of flying activities involving ONLY club
members displaying their models and associated talents.
39
Chris Williams (Noted English Scale Glider Guru/personality) visits Bordertown and VARMS in
Melbourne, the following is a record of both.
Bordertown - 3-6 November 2000 Scale Regatta ..... "The Big One"
You will no doubt have seen advertising for this event during the past months. Bordertown
for the last four to five years has been the venue for those Scale Glider Guiders who like to
congregate, compete in a no stress competition, chat, swap stories, socialize and generally have a
fabulous time. The event is the brain child of the Scale Soaring Association of Australia, who back
in the late eighties/early nineties decided to co-ordinate Scale Glider pilots who were fragmented all
over Australia. This organisation with its committee of management based in Adelaide has 82
members in five different countries, truly an international body.
Bordertown 2000 had its beginnings in November 1999 when the association decided to
make 2000 a memorable occasion and to give it a truly international flavour, Chris Williams well
known Scale Glider Guider and Scale columnist with Quiet Flight International was approached by
Don Moreland, Secretary of S.S.A.A. to see if he would be interested in coming to Bordertown to
see how we do things down under. I will not bore you with the details, however, after a lot of work,
phone calls, emails to and from the United Kingdom, approaches were made to the M.A.A.A. which
resulted in successful sponsorships for Chris's tour. The tour would have Chris speaking in Western
Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland, more about the Victorian tour later.
For my part this is the third trip to Bordertown, my two previous trips have been enjoyable,
a low key 2 to 3 day affair which had accumulated in around 60 scale models being present. So it
was with great excitement that Frank Smith and myself headed west on Friday morning the 3rd of
November, arriving at Bordertown around 4.30 in the afternoon, some 500kms after leaving home.
This year we transported our models in a full size glider trailer, but also cut down the likelihood of
travel damage on the car roof top box and the constant chafing of models in my sedan. We had nine
models packed in the trailer for our trip and came back with ten. (More about the tenth model later).
On our arrival many modellers who had arrived earlier had taken advantage of the good soaring
conditions and flying continued until sunset.
Saturday and Sunday were the main days of the Regatta, with Static judging and proving
flights conducted on Saturday and the Soaring part of the competition conducted on the Sunday.
The Soaring part of the competition required entrants to accumulate 30 minutes of flight time, this
may not seem too hard, however as most of you will know extended flights are dependent of a
number of factors, the most important being the presence of thermals. Just to give you an example,
I was privileged to time keep for Andrew Crowe, who had entered his 1/4 scale scratch built K13
model, His flight times were 7 minutes, 5 minutes, 17 minutes and to record the minimum of 30
minutes he had to undertake a fourth flight to register 20 seconds to complete the Soaring task.
Saturday night was spent at the Bordertown Town Hall, a very nice 3 course meal was
provided and Chris Williams gave a very informative talk on Scale gliding, smattered with some
jokes and his wiry wit. At the conclusion of his talk Chris was asked to draw the raffle, the prize
being a brand new ASW 24 1/4 scale model fully fitted out with retract unit and guided by a brand
new JR 3810 radio, donated by Model Flight of Adelaide. Chris Williams flew the model on
Saturday just to show the raffle entrants, that they would, in fact, be getting a flyer. Well when the
winning ticket was drawn, none other than the person sitting next to me won the fabulous prize.
You should have seen the smile on Frank Smith's face when his name was called, congratulations
Frank, a deserving winner. There was also another prize on offer when you bought your raffle
ticket, the prize was a magnificent arm chair designed and made by a member of the S.S.A.A. This
prize was won by Reg Millson of Sydney.
The good thing about Bordertown is that general scale flying does not stop because of the
competition aspect, both going on in conjunction all day. On Sunday evening at the field, prizes
were being presented to their respective winners. The gliders were broken into 2 classes, Class 1 all gliders where the full size prototype was flown before 1957 (this period mainly covers wooden
type gliders), and Class 2 covers all full size prototypes post 1957, this covers types right up to the
current time and being mainly fibreglass construction.
40
CLASS 1
1. Colin Collyer
2. Murray Wills
3. Robert Goldman
CLASS 2
Golden Eagle
1. Murray Wills
Fauvette
Jasolka
=2. Robert Goldman Foka 4
Spallinger
=2. John Copeland Fox
3. John Copeland
ASH 26E
There was also a prize given to the highest placed person with a kit model, this went to Greg
Voak from Perth with a DG 500.
After the prize presentation many people departed, as they had to work on the Monday,
however, for many of us we had a very pleasant meal at a local historical homestead. For myself I
had Kangaroo steak and Emu sausages and it was an experience. It was only later pointed out to me
that I had been eating both animals that appear on our Australian coat of arms!! With the
competition having finished on Sunday afternoon, Monday was a free day with many people flying
their treasures under far less prying eyes.
Now for some statistics on the Regatta:
- Over 1500 tows, possibly closer to 2000, Chris Carpenter did over 270.
- 12 tow planes, smallest using G62 engines.
- 46 litres of fuel used.
- 103 gliders on the flight line with at least another 20 assembled in the hangars or in trailers.
- 110 at the dinner on Saturday night.
- 60 registered pilots plus "ring ins" on the day.
- Over an hour of Radio Air Time.
- 2 weeks of TV commercials = 150 airings.
- Every state represented.
- Brief visit for longest journey, Geoff Fox from Canberra for dinner and Sunday morning
.....3200kms.
- Most fun. Ian Moreland and Alexis Scott, after prozac and vallium.
- Don Berry with the only pilot induced crash.
- One other crash with flight pack failure.
- Two props broken by John Gottschalk.
- Three new members on the Weekend.
- Biggest give away prize at any flying meeting, $3,000 of prizes.
- Most models by any one registered pilot. Colin Collyer with a hangar full.
- Loudest laugh, David Nash after a 40 minute flight with Condor.
- Biggest mistake, Bordertown and Kieth Gliding Club running out of bread for hamburgers.
- Oddest look, Chris Williams when asked if he wanted an Emu sausage at the BBQ.
- Most often quoted saying, "Australia for the World Scale Sailplane Championships".
- Most diplomatic person, Colin Collyer when explaining 40 Mhz.
- Most emotional, Ian Moreland when getting a bottle of wine at a frequency debrief.
- Best scale sailplane pilot - EVERY ONE of the 60 who registered.
And on a final note again many thanks must go to the Scale Soaring Association of Australia
for organising a truly remarkable Regatta, the event sponsors and the judges who gave their time
over two days (they 'flew in" a Grob 109 motor glider to the event)
Geoff Hearn (signing off from the Scale Glider event of the Millennium).
Note: After returning to Melbourne with Geoff and Frank, Chris Williams provided a Lecture &
Discussion night the night before the usual VARMS meeting, then attended the brief General
Meeting/Auction the following night and followed that with a "Get together flying session" at
Brigg's field the next day.
December 2000 - Martin Weberschock (German and world class exponent of F3B glider & F5B
electric) also visits Melbourne for lectures and flying demonstrations.
Purchase of a Slasher to complement the new tractor and mower arrangement.
41
27 - 28 January 2001 - Camperdown Fly-In - Camperdown
Peoples and their Models:
Glen Salisbury
F4U Corsair/Macchi MB-326/Spitfire/Skeeter HLG/Canberra/PC-9
Max McCulloch
F-86 Sabre/Airbus/Spitfire/60" Pylon Racer
Mark Withers
P-51D/KA-1/Sabre
Mark Doyle
Combat Wing/ASW???
Colin Kahn
Combat Wing
David Downs
Mungo flying Wing/U-2(Foam)
David Rowlings
Macchi(foam)
Kevin ????? (All Sabre
David ????? from F-18
Kent ???? Canberra) Fox
Colin Collyer
Schweizer 1-26
Greg Voak
Tragi/Zagi Combat Wing(Dynamic Soaring on Mt. Leura)
Ross Bathie
Ventus
Colin Smith
Ricochet
Tom Wickers
Decathalon 1:1 scale
A demonstration of Dynamic Soaring (DS) was provided by Greg Voak off Mt Leura using a Zagi
Combat Wing, very impressive. DS is the not so subtle and sometimes hair-raising art of slope
soaring from the leeward side of a hill or ridge.
April 2001 - 54th (2000/01) Nationals held at Busselton W.A. - Nil report yet.
10 May 2001 - At the General Meeting Colin Collyer initiated yet another "club" project to be taken
on by those members desiring to each scratch-build their own scale model in a group, - the subject
is to be a Schweizer 1-26.
At this juncture an article is repeated that first appeared in Aspectivity 295 of November 1997,
and is worth a re-run, again because of Colin Collyer and the Schweizer 1-26.
This article, written by Dave Thornburg (of Old Buzzard Soaring Book fame), appeared in R/C
Model Builder in February 1980 and I thought it deserved another run and may be of interest to
some of you. My thanks to Colin Collyer for sending it to me. (Editor - Alan Connelly)
It might look tough, but scratch building a "scale" model is really no great trick, says our
author. Here are four scale designs to help you out of the polyhedral rut.
Whatever happened to scale sailplanes? Back in the late '60's and early 70's, when R/C
soaring was just beginning to blossom here in the U.S., scale and near scale models dominated the
flying fields. Sport fliers and serious competitors alike spent their weekends with the Graupner
"Cirrus", the Astro Flight "ASW-17", Soarcraft's Kestrel 19" and the Fliteglas "Phoebus". Even
Mark Smith's "Windward" and "Windfree" designed especially for competition, had the torpedo
fuselages and long lean wings of the typical full-scale sailplane.
Then along came a couple of "new" ideas, both of them borrowed from free flight. The first
was lighter wing loadings. The Europeans, who dictated early designs, were flying mostly slope
and windy-weather thermal. Our conditions were milder and our terrain flatter, so American
designs began to evolve towards lightness. Balsa, spruce and plywood replaced heavier and more
expensive glass and plastic fuselages. Wide-chord wings replaced narrow ones, often on the same
fuselage. Light airplanes not only stayed up longer than heavy ones, they hit the ground a lot softer
at the end of each flight. Under many conditions, the wooden fuselages even proved stronger than
fiberglass. For Americans, lightness was here to stay.
The second new idea was polyhedral. Kit designers such as Lee Renaud (Olympic 99), Ed
Slobod (Pierce Arrow), and Tom Williams (Windrifter) changed the whole face of soaring by
adding free flight dihedral to their wingtips. What is this? Everyone asked. Real sailplanes don't
got these funny-looking wings; why put them on models? But the new designs TURNED when you
hit rudder control ... turned instantly, and held a tight circle at a high bank angle without "sliding
down a wing" the way V-dihedral ships often did. Polyhedral ships could ride smaller, tighter
thermals; they could be turned and banked closer to the ground without fear of snagging a wingtip.
42
In short, they took less skill and forethought to fly, and made a lot of us mediocre pilots look pretty
good. Soon they began to win all of the contests, and realistic sailplane models faded into the
background.
Which is too bad, because a lot of satisfaction of modelling comes not from the flying itself
but from the daydreaming that takes place at the design table and the building board. Some of the
most satisfying soaring flights I've ever had were flights of fancy, dreaming of how 'this one' is
going to look up there in its first thermal, or floating across base leg and turning final. And nothing,
repeat nothing, flies as realistically in the imagination as a scale model.
Please don't think I'm arguing for a return to "realism" in soaring. Nobody loves a
polyhedral floater like I do ... I even fly 'em on the slope! Light polyhedral sailplanes make no
pretence of imitating the flight of full-scale ships; they imitate instead the hawks and vultures and
falcons who ride "the rolling level underneath him steady air" that Hopkins describes in his poem
"The Windhover".
All the same, I never drive past a glider port without picking up just a bit of a charge from
all those big birds sitting patiently beside the runway, one wingtip on the ground, as if they were
thinking of pole vaulting themselves into the sky. And when all those little charges build up, as
they do every two or three years, I find myself dragging out my ragged collection of factory threeviews and line drawings and poring over them, dreaming. That means it's time to build another
scale ship, just for a change of pace.
Maybe I should explain what I mean by "scale". I have neither the talent nor the patience to
build scale the way Colonel Bob Thacker builds scale. Or Doc Hall. Or Gordon Pearson. These
people take a full-size sailplane and reproduce it in miniature, bolt by bolt, rivet by rivet, hour by
gruelling hour. When one of these flying museums goes up the line, everyone holds their breath,
including the pilot. That's too much tension for me ... a constant, nagging low-grade fear every
second you're in the air. Just like flying a borrowed model on 27 Mhz.
On the other hand, there's no thrill left in dragging out the old Cirrus. Sure, it looks a lot
like the real thing up there in the sky; two crossed toothpicks at 1500 feet. But that dime store
plastic fuselage! And that canopy full of servos and pushrods, where a pilot (or at least an empty
seat and a joystick) oughta be!
"Scale" to me, means something between these two extremes. Maybe the term "Semi-scale"
or "Sunday scale," would be better. It has to be realistic-looking, both in the air and on the ground.
But it can't have so many hours in it that I'm afraid to take it flying every weekend. And it shouldn't
copy the real thing so lavishly that it flies like a plaster saint. It has to have a few design
compromises that will make it a worthwhile performer.
Take the Schweizer 1-26, for example. It's still America's most popular sailplane ... you'll
find one to model at almost every gliderport in the country. Pictures, three-views, instrument
layouts are all easy to come by. In the past, I've modelled the '26 in 60, 90 and 100 inch spans.
Right now I have one on the boards with a full ten feet of wing. But the 1-26 has some problems.
On the 120inch version, the fuselage scales out to around 62 inches overall, and that's fine. But the
maximum fuselage height, just behind the wing leading edge, comes out at more than 10 inches, not
including wheel and skid! If you build the 1-26 to exact scale, it's going to look awfully fat around
the middle. And it's going to be a drogue dog in the sky. What I do is slim it down about two
inches in vertical height and one inch in max width while I'm drawing up the plans. Not only will
the resulting model fly better, it will actually look more realistic than a true-scale model.
Perspective plays funny tricks on the human eye when objects are scaled up and down in size ... ask
any sculptor.
A second problem on the 1-26 is its airfoil. Nobody in their right mind would hang an
airfoil like that on a model; it looks like a badly deflated balloon, a piece of restroom graffiti, a
second-hand bubblegum cigar. How it produces lift, even in full scale, if one of the sweet mysteries
of life my granny used to sing about. I've always suspected that the 1-26 is what makes the ship a
perfect one-design competition sailplane; pilots tell me that nothing the factory or the individual
owner can do seems to change the plane's performance much, so a 1-26 contest becomes truly a
43
contest of piloting skills.
What the 1-26 needs for good performance in the model is a clean moderate-lift airfoil
pirated from an Aquila Grande (Bravo) or a Bird of Time (Bravo again). Or, if you have the
ordinates, an Eppler 174, 176 or 178, unless you're a heavy handed builder and plan on a 12 to 16
ounce wing loading. Then you'll want a high lift/high drag section to slow her down a bit. Don't go
to undercamber ... the situation isn't that desperate ... Just grab a good old Clark Y.
Another one of my favourites among the Schweizer series is the 1-29 (in factory language, it
means "single place, design number 29.") The 1-29 came about in the mid-fifties, when Schweizer
first began experimenting with laminar-flow airfoils. They stuck a constant-chord wing with a
15.75 aspect ratio onto a stock 1-23G fuselage and tailfeathers, and it sure does make the plane
easier to model than the stock 1-23 ... no more wings that taper down to nothing! If you ever
encounter a real 1-23, you'll be struck by how tiny the fuselage is in cross-section, especially when
sitting alongside the 1-26. This is another bonus to the modeller who's interested in performance.
Once I Built a 90-inch 1-29 and, bored with its flat bottom performance, put together a set of
wings with a laminar airfoil to fit the ship. After all, the real one has laminar wings, no? I don't
remember what airfoil I used ... one of the Wortmanns recommended for modelling ... but I
distinctly remember the results! It was the only airplane I ever owned that would fly with its nose
down! To make it fly well at all I had to was increase the wing loading from a stock eight to over
twelve. Then it would stroke across the sky (this was at the slope) at nifty speeds. But manoeuvres
of any kind were out, because the instant the airspeed fell slightly below Fast, the whole airplane
fell out of the sky! Stalls were absolutely without warning, and recovery depended on having
LOTS of altitude. Mr Wortmann and his 16% wing sections haven't had much of my business
since.
Incidentally, the 1-29 was a "one-off" design, and as far as I know the Schweizer factory at
Elmira still owns her. Please don't pester them for pictures, as their PR department isn't set up to
promote a twenty-year-old design. The 1974 Sailplane Directory put out by Soaring magazine and
the SSA has a picture of the 1-29, as well as all the other Schweizers. (Ever wondered what a
Bowlus Bumblebee or a Slingsby Kirby Gull look like? This directory has them all, including a
wealth of homebuilds. No three views, however). The very best info available on Schweizer
sailplanes, including three views of everything from the Schweizer 1-1 (1929) to the 2-32 is Air
Progress for Oct./Nov. 1964. It's going to take a good library, or a very good friend, to locate the
book, but it's worth it. Twenty-five pages of photos, drawings, company history. The lovely old
TF-2 military training glider from WW-II. The Schweizer 1-6, world's first all-metal sailplane,
build in 1937. The 1-6 looks for all the world like a Baby Bowlus in a suit of armour; waiting for
her turn at the winch, just in front of an old Franklin Utility. I flew a 72-inch 1-6 off the slopes in
New Mexico for years ... the wing is still hanging in a rack over my head as I write this. Talk about
ugly!
Now a word about drawing number three. There's a shape only a Thornburg could love! It's
the old "Wolf" sailplane, designed by that German Chap who invented the idea of circling in lift,
Wolf Hirth. About 52 Wolfs were build, but don't look for one at your local gliderport; the only one
in the U.S. was back in ol ' Virginny when the 1974 Soaring directory came out. The Wolf has one
of those lovely bird-like undercambered airfoils from the '30's and '40's. Don't use it! If you must
build undercamber for authenticity; try the Eppler 387, or a nice clean NAAC 4409.
The final drawing is my only concession to fiberglass, a Glasfugel "Club Libelle."
No see-through surfaces on the bird! To duplicate, you need a lot of block balsa and white
Monokote. The full-scale airfoil is a laminar, of course, and again I'd recommend something
thinner and more nearly flat-bottomed, such as the Eppler 176.
Would I recommend your trying to build from the drawings shown here? You bet!
(Drawings actually not included in the History, but they are in Aspectivity 296, or try other
sources). I've build dozens of models from just such thumbnail sketches. What you want is a plane
that captures the essence of a particular full-scale machine, not a museum piece. All you need to
scale up the drawings is a straightedge, a ruler marked to at least sixteenths of an inch, and a very
44
sharp pencil. A pair of dividers is a help, but not absolutely necessary.
Suppose you decide on an 80-inch Schweizer 1-26. First you measure the wingspan of the
drawing, which should come out around four inches by the time the R/C Model Builder layout
people, photographers, and printers are through with it. Four inches divided into 80 will give you a
multiplication factor for all dimensions; in this case, 20. Draw a sharp, thin datum line on the side
view of the 1-26 drawing. This datum line can be anywhere on the fuselage, or even above or
below it. The purpose of the datum is to have a single straight line from which to project all
measurements. I like to make my datum line coincide with one of the major lines of the fuselage,
such as the turtledeck-fuselage joint line in the drawing. But for clarity, I've shown a sample datum
line down below the fuselage.
Second step is to project all major intersections of fuselage lines down onto the datum line
... the tip of the nose, the front of the canopy, the wing leading edge, wheel etc. This done, you just
transfer your datum line, blown up to twenty times its length, onto your drawing paper, and mark all
the intersection points accordingly. Now all the longitudinal measurements of your fuselage are
defined. Next comes the vertical measurements.
Measure carefully (here's where a pair of dividers comes in handy) the exact distance up
from the datum line to each of the intersection points on the drawing, and by multiplying each by
20, transfer it to your big plan. For example, the wing leading edge may be 6-1/4 inches above the
datum line on the big plan. Mark it so, then find the distance from the leading edge on up to the top
of the canopy and mark it also. When you're through projecting all these points, you should have
enough points on your big plan to play "connect the dots," and come out with the outline of a 1-26.
Don't forget to slim it down a bit before drawing it in solid. (If you have more patience at freehand
drawing ability, then you may want to scale the drawings up using graph paper, instead. I'm only
describing how I do it, which is much quicker, but admittedly less accurate.)
Great, you say, I can see how to draw the outlines of a scale model on a sheet of paper, but
that's a far cry from designing a plane that can be built. How do I go about that?
Simple. You steal building ideas from every plane you ever built, every kit you've ever
looked at, every plan that's been published in the magazines. For example, consider the structure of
the (very) semi-scale Schweizer that I built back in New Mexico, years ago. Nothing tricky here;
sheet balsa sides. a few blocks glued to top and bottom, carve away everything that doesn't look like
a sailplane, hollow out everything that's left with your dremel tool. Wings were 1/16 sheet, top and
bottom. Empennage was all sheet balsa. The beauty of planes this size (100 inches) and smaller is
that you can usually find a Sig canopy that will fit, by merely snipping both ends away, and they
look reasonably to scale.
For ships like the Wolf, which were mostly stringer-and-fabric, you can build a solid box of
sheet balsa, like an Olympic II fuselage. to carry the stress of wing mounts, stab, towhook etc., and
glue "half-moon" formers around the outside of it, add a few stringers and some white Coverite and
presto ... you've got a really authentic-looking old timer. With very little. Sound easy? It is!
Leave all that super-detailed scale stuff to guys like Colonel Bob, who have the patience for it.
Build yourself a Sunday Sailplane and go fly.
**********
45
2001 - 02
The Committee
President/Sites Liaison
Max Haysom
Secretary
Treasurer
Richard Weil
Editor
Contest Director
Mark Withers
Ordinary Member
Ordinary Member
Jim Robertson
*Co-opted Member:
*Registrar
Ian Slack
Des Bayliss awarded Life Membership
Sam Panettieri
Colin Smith
Martin Hopper
at the July A.G.M.
October 2001 - VARMS prohibits the operation of Gas Turbine powered models at Brigg's Field.
November 17 & 18 saw a VMAA instructor's course held at P &DARCS and was attended by the
VARMS Training Officer Ian Slack - he subsequently attained his Gold Wings and Instructors
rating for Gliders.
December 2001 - The Brigg's field Hut has had lighting installed to complement the use of a
recently purchased generator for those Twi-Fly meetings.
55th (2001/02) Nationals held at Albury/Wodonga :
Thermal
1. Alan Mayhew
2. Greg Voak
F3J
1. Jack Murphy
2. Daniel Haskell
F3B
1. Greg Voak
2. Bjorn Rudgley
HLG
1. Richard Frawley 2. Gerry Carter
3. Max Kroger
3. G Whitfield
3. Alan Mayhew
3. Ray Pike
January 12.2002. Scale Aero Tow day at Brigg's field saw many of the latest 'club project'
(Schweitzer 1-26's) in action. Owners of same were Danny Malcman, Ron Fox with Col Collyer's
help (first aero-tow flight), Barry De Kuyper, Landon Flere, David Downs and Colin with his own.
Also flying was Dave Weller with a Woodstock, Andrew Clyne/DG 600, Theo Arvantakis/ASW 28
and Garry McDougall/K8. Aero-tower was John Gottschalk with his Piper Super Cub sporting a
new colour scheme.
CAMPERDOWN 2002 .
(Editor - Colin Smith)
... it's a bloody long way away when you've got to sit at 80 kliks down that rotten Geelooooong
road, but these are the things we have to endure to enjoy the best slopes in Victoria (unless you
know some better ones ?) Anyway, I dawdled my way down on the Friday so that I could get set up
in peace and then enjoy the Saturday's flying all the more. Saturday and what a day !!! In the
morning the wind was from wherever it needs to be for it to be on at "Coverdales", and although the
wind was fairly light and slightly off the slope there were a lot of scale planes in the sky. Ian Slack
had recently managed to complete his Gold Wings/Instructors course and although he started with a
Ricochet a slight problem with its tail feathers resulted with him finishing the tasks with his well
flown Woodstock. Congratulations to Ian, he is the first to get his Gold Wings for Gliding. After
lunch the wind swung straight on the slope and brought with it most of Victoria. I counted 18
models in the air at one time, before I ran out of fingers and toes, and there were 28 cars parked on
the paddock. It was a good job the owner and his son spent most of the afternoon with us because
the sky was full of scale planes and some riff-raff, but they were all having a ball. Far too
numerous to name them all, but Max McCullough's Airbus was assaulted in the air by Des Bayliss's
machine and both survived. (Oh yes you did Des ... there is video proof !!...Ed) and then Max
decided to abort a landing with the Airbus and flew, very slowly, right over the crowd, obviously to
pick up some passengers, but he forgot some and had to do it again !. He was severely growled at
by all and sundry, but they appreciated it was an accident. "From the left" was the most popular cry
and most planes were over the fence and 30 metres away from the flight line, however there are
46
always a few who want to be heroes and some even flew fast passes between the fence and the
crowd, not good fella's ... more like sheer stupidity ... because you wouldn't have a leg to stand on
insurance-wise in the case of an accident. Col Collyer debuted a 5 metre Discus and Ian Slack and
Colin Smith put on an impromptu synchronised display with their Woodstocks, consisting of two
loops followed by a roll to left and right followed by the applause from the crowd. Great Stuff.
Sunday, and the wind was almost but not quite right for The Doctor's, but as he could not be
contacted, it was a no-fly zone. Early after lunch we got a phone call from Martin Lui and mates
who had tracked down the owners of Mt Elephant and got us permission to fly. 4 to a car and some
bouncy models and we were soon crawling our way up a steep path to the flying site. WOW, what
a view, and the wind was full on the slope, blowing 15 - 20 knots. The landing area is very rough
with rocks of all sizes, but that didn't stop Theo lobbing off his Fox which excelled in the
conditions. Soon there were 6 to 8 planes airborne from foam wings to Max's little Spitfire. He
took his eyes off it for just a moment and couldn't find it again !!!!! In hindsight we all put our
models into a violent manoeuvre when this happens, don't we? Well, Max tried to find it by
keeping it straight and level and eventually had to give up and call for help. Kevin Robertson and
Steve Malcman scrambled to the bottom of the hill and scoured the area and Ian Slack went for a
walk round the side of the hill but all to no avail ... It was lost, and it was Max's favourite !!! It just
goes to prove how quickly 'events' can overtake the most proficient flyers, so if you happen to visit
Mt Elephant keep your eyes open for a little lost Spitfire 'cos it’s still up there ... somewhere. A
contribution towards the upkeep is required but we are always welcome at the Mount, but we soon
left as another phone call let us know the Doctor had been contacted and it was on. Perhaps it
should be renamed Carnage Corner from now on because the wind was only just on the slope and a
bit fickle to say the least. Steve Malcman landed his Fox right at the bottom of the slope, and
Andrew Clyne impaled his DG up a fir tree, Col Collyer had to bring his Swift in quicksmart and
suffered a slightly broken tailplane while Kevin Robertson had a severe case of dumb thumbs and
decked his Woodstock. Denis Hipperson's Kestrel suffered some sort of problem and bit the dust,
literally, and there were a couple more mishaps I think before the wind did a quick 180 and The
Point was where all the action was. From warm and sunny to cool and blustery in about 5 minutes,
but the lift was ballistic and the sky was soon full of all sorts of models, again I could only count 12
at any one time, all wanting to fly before the rain hit. With the air so crowded, and the planes
confined to a relative small area of lift it was a case of waiting for it to happen, and happen it did.
Theo's Fox, which he was flying all over the sky and at ballistic speed had an encounter of the
terminal kind with Max's all foam Sabre, both finding terra firma in an undignified manner. The
rain ended flying for that session and people drifted back to Melbourne leaving a few of us to enjoy
a cuppa while the campsite emptied. Late afternoon saw the sun come out at about the same time as
we hit the Point for some more action... and what action... Denis had his V-tailed 'thing' buzzing and
what a joy to fly it was. Colin Smith put his Schweizer 1-26 through its paces, proving that a nearly
8lb lump can enjoy a bit of a brisk blow and was soon joined by Col Collyer flying a similar
machine. No synchronised aerobatics this time as cold thumbs dictated a landing for Smithy who
found out all about the tip stalling characteristics of the 1-26 ... they bite badly when slowed down
too much but only another fin bent, so easily fixed. Max McCullough got his PSS
Aircobra/Kingcobra (they look the same to me) airborne and had a great fly and Des Bayliss did the
same with his DG whatever (again they look lovely but I can't tell the marque). A Great Afternoons
Flying and the evening was spent solving the problems of the world whilst emptying Martin
Hopper's abundantly filled cake tin.
16/17 February 2002 - Mystery Scale Weekend (Apollo Bay)
Gary McDougall
KA 8
1/4
Bruce Howard
Ian Slack
Woodstock
1/4
Bill Hamilton
Colin Smith
Woodstock
1/4
Brett Solonov
John Lee
Schweitzer 1-26
1/5
Andrew Clyne
Peter Jordan
Schweitzer 1-26
1/5
Colin Collyer
Kestrel 17
Discus
Discus
DG 600
Foka 5
1/5
1/3.5
1/3.5
1/6
1/3.5
47
Barry De Kuyper
David Down
?????
Woodstock
Schweitzer 1-26
KA 8
1/4
1/5
1/4
Theo Arvantakis
?????
?????
ASW 28
ASW 20
Woodstock
1/5
1/4
1/4
Aspectivity 344, May '02 reflects the current membership totalling 255 with members being rated
as "Solo" in the following categories:
Glider
97
Glider/Power 28
Power only
16
Glider/Power/Elec.
10
Glider/Elec.
7
Glider/Power/Heli.
4
Glider/Heli.
1
Power/Heli.
1
Power/Elec.
2
Glider/Power/Elec./Heli
1
Electric
1
No Classification
87
June Aspectivity 345 advises on the demise of the "One Model" competition after 2 seasons. It is to
be replaced with a "VARMS Trophy" event to be run throughout the year for Rudder/Elevator only
models up to 2 1/2 metre (100 inch). Part-time 'Sports" C.D. Peter Cossins is to control the event.
Also in this mag., was a report on the occasional Slope Training days being organised by current
OIC of Training, Ian Slack.
VARMS finished the Fiscal year of 2001/02 with the knowledge that the upgrading of High Street
Road would have an emphatic impact on the entry to this site, and that the probable implementation
of the Scoresby Freeway along the East side of this flying site could result in extremely severe
repercussions for the use of Radio Controlled aircraft in this area.
The following extracts from an earlier Aspectivity are extremely worthy of inclusion:
Competitions will be for Spot landing and Limbo. If there is sufficient lift there will be a
freestyle aerobatic event to be judged by grace and smoothness of flight.
and also ...
During this time our flying meetings have progressed from memorable affairs characterised
by spectacular flying problems and intricate electro-mechanical devices in control equipment
(remember galloping ghost, tissue covering, reeds etc.) These days our sophisticated plastic aircraft
with their fit-and-forget digital radios groove through aerobatics and pylon races almost to
perfection (well other people’s do anyway). However, with this perfection, are our meetings any
more interesting)
Both of these items originate from the same magazine, Aspectivity No. 25 of June 1972 – it
seems some things have changed, and some things haven’t!!
48
2002 - 03
President/Sites Liaison
Max Haysom
Secretary
Sam Panettieri
Treasurer
Ian Pearson
Editor
Colin Smith
Contest Director
Mark Withers
Ordinary Member
Martin Hopper
*Co-opted Member
Ordinary Member
Jim Robertson
Registrar
Ian Slack*
July Aspectivity 346 reports final membership figures 2001-02 as at 265, an all-time record.
At the July AGM 2002,
Geoff Moore was awarded
Life Membership.
This magazine also contained the results of the 'new' VARMS Trophy with an overall total of 29
contestants segregated into two grades :'A' Grade 1. David Pratley 2. Gerry Carter
3. Ian Slack
(11 contestants)
'B' Grade 1. Simon Messer 2. Noel Young
3. Gary McDougal (18 contestants)
July 1st 2002 saw the introduction of a rule to standardise winches used in competition, being, that
the L + W + D of the battery must NOT exceed 635mm in total, the battery being of the
conventional lead acid type.
August 2002 Aspectivity (347) reveals Colin Collyer commencing yet another scale 'club project' to
follow the Woodstock and Schweitzer. Nineteen members have signed on to create their very own
1:5 scale MÜ-13 E (Bergfalke I) which should have a 3 metre wingspan.
Sept. 2002 - VARMS to consider permitting use of 27Mhz frequencies at Brigg's field. This is to
cater for the increased sale and use of "Park Flyers". (Better to have them flown in a controlled
environment than in local parks). The keyboard would need to be upgraded to accommodate this
activity.
September G.M. also included a Special General Meeting to change the Statement of Rules to
include a Membership Registrar as an Officer of the Association, prior to this time this person was
co-opted to Committee.
Aspectivity 349, Oct. 2002, report of the activity at the "Scale Aerotow & Fabric Model Rally" held
at Brigg's field. (Report by Colin Collyer).
I must say I was pleasantly pleased with the way the first Fabric Day turned out. I'm new at
this organising thing, but with a little help, WE got the job done. Firstly the field..... it looked
great..... Martin (Hopper) and his mowers had it at its usual state, mown. clean and green and he had
then pulled some strings with Mark Withers and magically white painted lines appeared simulating
a full size runway. The centre-line was particularly hard to 'hit'. Then to top things off, the weather
co-operated.
From early on models started to appear, gliders that I hadn't seen for yonks. Andrew
Crowe's K-13 and Doug Anderson's T46, both lovely big models. (I was parked next to Andrew
when he got the K-13 out of his car... it was covered in quite thick dust ...Ed). Lots of Woodstock's
and 1-26's which meant that tugmeister John Gottschalk was kept very busy. More fabric aircraft,
like 4 Piper Cubs, both big and small. A modern Aerobat and yes it did qualify because the tail is
fabric covered same as the metalled winged, fabric tailed, 1-26's. Angelo Favaloro brought his big
Tiger Moth plus his Fairchild but the star of the show was the Kinner with its 5 cylinder radial
engine. Apparently it hasn't flown for some time and was a bit 'gummed up', and took a
considerable time before it was fired up. Being able to borrow 5 glow-drivers at a glider field is
pretty impressive. The sound was superb... a real show-stopper.
Unfortunately I have mislaid the piece of paper I meticulously wrote all the models and their
owners on, so must apologise for that. I can only say that there were lots and lots of models both
with and with-out engines, flying or static, it all made for a very enjoyable day, and I thank them all
for turning up and that was what really made it such a great success.
49
Also in the October Aspectivity was the publication of some equalising with the 'Power' fraternity,
in that, procedures were at last recognised so that Glider Guiders could now achieve Bronze and
Gold Wings standards:
Bronze Wings for GLIDERS
(2 May 2005)
The current requirements are as follows:
The Pre-Flight requirements are;

Dexterity: The pilot must be able to locate all the transmitter controls quickly without
fumbling.

Theory;

The pilot must be able to name all major components of aircraft and define functions
including effect of controls and have a thorough knowledge of safety rules and
regulations.

Airframe & Pre-Flight Check;

Check centre of gravity location and signs of structural or covering problems that
could affect flight e.g. Controls neutral and control throws correct, presence of warps
which could affect trim, state of battery and range check.

The Flight requirements are;

Demonstrate twice with reverse direction of landing pattern:

Launch.

Straight flight from low release for 30 seconds into wind.

180 degree turn overhead to perform a figure eight.

Rectangular approach pattern and a good landing within FAI landing circle (15 metre
circle).
Gold Wings for GLIDERS
(2 May 2005)
The current requirements for Gold Wings are as follows;

Within one flying session (at each venue), comprising of up to 4 flights, demonstrate
that the pilot has the competent basic skills to perform the following manoeuvres;

Task One- Thermal

Pre-Flight as above (for Bronze).

Launch

5 Seconds inverted flight

2 consecutive loops

2 tied 360-degree turns in each direction immediately following each other.

Rectangular approach pattern with a good landing within 3 metres of a spot.

Task Two- Slope

Pre-Flight as above.

Launch.

10 seconds inverted flight.

2 consecutive inside loops.

1 outside loop.

Flight time must exceed 10 minutes.

Model must have a good landing within 30 metres of launching point.
The 56th (2002/03) Nationals were, as for the previous (55th),again held at Albury/Wodonga
because the allocated site, RAAF Amberley, was unable to be used because of security
requirements. Victoria came to the fore and volunteered yet again much to the delight of many
modellers across Australia who thought that it 'would not happen'.
Thermal
1. Marcus Stent
2. Alan Mayhew
3. David Hobby
F3B
1. Greg Voak
2. Gerry Carter
3. Ross Ginder
HLG
1. Marcus Stent
2. Max Newcombe 3. Evan Outtrim
7 Cell
1. Brett Solanov
2. Col Collyer
3. David Hobby
50
March 2003 sees the VMAA issuing Policy statements on the following subjects;
1. Frequency Synthesised Equipment. Radio equipment using this process can now select from
within itself, any frequency from the entire range and is permitted to be used.
2. 27 Mhz Equipment. The use of 27 Mhz has been reinstated but only on 5 channels NOT used by
C.B. Also, models using these frequencies must not weigh more than 500G, or have a power source
greater than 9 Volts. The use of 27 is OPTIONAL for each club.
3. Frequency Directive - 10kHz separation. It is now legal to operate equipment on a separation of
10kHz, however, extremely stringent testing criteria must be adhered to, including specific
placement of pilots on the flight line. This directive is OPTIONAL for each club, however, if clubs
choose to follow this path, a new Metric Silvertone keyboard must be used. Frequency keys used
with this new board will not fit into the older style boards.
April 2003 Aspectivity - front cover features a photograph taken at Camperdown over the Labour
Day weekend, of 9 of the Schweizer 1-26's that were built as part of a club/scale project, another
Colin Collyer enterprise.
May 23 2003 - an incident occurred at Brigg's Field that was reported to the Australian Transport
Safety Commission..
This incident involved a model being flown by a VARMS member and a Bell Jet Ranger
helicopter carrying out survey work along the line of the proposed Scoresby Freeway (Eastern
border of the Brigg's Field flying site).
. The helicopter pilot reported that, while flying at 1,000 feet, a red coloured model approached to
within 200-300 metres of the helicopter, at the same altitude.
It is known who was involved and there are several members and independent witnesses
who state that the helicopter was at a much lower altitude, and at a safe distance from the model at
the time of the incident. A response to VMAA/MAAA for ATSC has been made.
Irrespective of the outcome of this incident/report, the club must take this matter very
seriously, this being the first reportable incident in 20 odd years of flying in these environs.
Notwithstanding that a response has not been received by the club after making its report,
the following procedures are to come into effect immediately:
NO aerotowing is to take place without an appropriate observer for Tug and Glider pilots,
No power model operations above 400 feet,
All competition type gliders are not to be launched to full height unless an observer is present
for each pilot actually flying, in case of a competition a Timer qualifies as an observer.
This incident was subsequently "closed out" by the VMAA.
Aspectivity 356 of June 2003 reports the attendance of the VMAA "Executive" at the General
Meeting in response to a VARMS' letter expressing concern with the current insurance situation
and that they were investigating obtaining their own insurance.
Also in the magazine and article demonstrating the strength of the scale environment with the
following report.
Anzac Weekend 15-27 April 2003 - Scale Rally - Swan Hill
Those who Went and What they flew:Brian Spencer
Airspeed Tern
Greg Potter ASW 27
Colin Collyer
ASK 18, ASK 14 elect.,
Martin Simons
PWS 101,Weihe,
ASK 8, Swift, Zefir
Condor
Chris Carpenter
Wilga Tug
Gary Whitehead
?
Danny Malcman
Schweitzer 1.26, Discus
Tony Grieger
Eindeker Tug
David Whitten
Kestrel
Trevor Barnes
Kirby Kite
Murray Wills
Jantar, Swift
Theo Arvantakis
DG 300, Ugly Tug
Kyle Walker
DG 600
Terry Clayton
L33
David Down
Kestrel, DG 600, Schweitzer Mark Hunt
Fox, Cub Tug
Andy Smith
ASK 15 elect., Kestrel,
Neville Leo
1:1 Scale motor
L Spatz Tug
para glider
John Gottschalk
Corbin Baby Ace Tug
Vernon Gibson
DC660 & Tug
51
Knut Neumann
Discus
Denis Hipperson
Woodstock
Harold Elliot
Site(?) seeing only
Bruce Howard
LS elect.
Barry DeKuyper
Tandem Falk elect., Kestrel Rob Goldman
Salto
Tim Morland
Schweitzer 1.26, Foka 5
Brett Soloman
Discus
Ron Fox
Schweitzer 1.26, ASW 27
Hayden Letcher
Nimbus
Note: at this scale gathering a new group called the Scale Soaring Association arose out of the ashes
of a similar group that was now dysfunctional. The new group has a very strong nucleus of
VARMS members, with a good mix of staunch long-time supporters as well as quite a few new
comers to this aspect of R/C.
A typical end of competition photo at Jerilderie – possibly 2002.
1. Carl Strautins
2. Nick Chabrel
3. Gregg Voak
The MAAA Newsletter No. 3/ June 2003 contained the following:
Internal Navigation Systems
At the 2003 M.A.A.A. Council Conference the council defined a Radio Controlled Model
Aircraft. This definition effectively rules out the use of internal navigation systems in model
aircraft. The definition as approved by the M.A.A.A. Council is listed below.
For the purpose of the M.A.A.A. operations, a radio controlled model aircraft is defined as;
"A non-man-carrying remote controlled device capable of sustained flight in the atmosphere
not exceeding the weight limitations established in the M.A.A.A. Manual of Procedures. The
operators of such devices shall maintain control without the assistance of onboard autopilots or
navigation systems that would allow for autonomous flight. The operators of Radio Control devices
shall maintain visual contact with the device during the entire flight operation."
A model aircraft flown in contravention of this policy would not be covered by the
M.A.A.A. insurance policies.
52
2003 - 04
President/Sites Liaison
Treasurer
Contest Director
Registrar
Public Officer
The Committee
Max Haysom
Secretary
Ian Pearson
Editor
David Pratley
Ordinary Member
Ian Slack
Ordinary Member
Richard Weil
Roger Stevenson
Colin Smith
Martin Hopper
Jim Robertson
The 2002-03 VARMS Trophy results:
A Grade
1. Ian Slack
2. Gerry Carter
3. David Pratley
B Grade
1. Grant Pearson
2. Leon Carlos
3. Colin Smith
Overall Winner
GRANT PEARSON
RCGA Thermal League results for 02/03 (best 6 competitions)
1. Gerry Carter
2. Rod Watkins
3. Russell Thompson
A new scale group has been formed out of the ashes of previous situations - Scale Soaring Australia
(S. S. A.).
August 8th General Meeting was the scene for a static Scale Competition organised by David
Downs with the following results:
Judge
- Colin Collyer
Best Scale Glide by a Rookie(first timer)
Leon Carlos
Bergfalke
Best Scale Glider
Doug Anderson
Slingsby T 46
Best Cockpit
Doug Anderson
Spacewalker 1:3
Best VARMS SIG
Leon Carlos
Bergfalke
Best Internal Combustion Scale
Doug Anderson
Spacewalker 1:3
Best Electric Scale(Indoor or Outdoor)
David Hipperson
Morane Saulier EP35
Best Power Slope Soarer (PSS)
Max McCullough
Aircobra
Best In Show, Member's choice
Doug Anderson
Spacewalker 1:3
Best In Show, Judge's choice
Doug Anderson
Slingsby T 46
Special merit awards
Barry De Kuyper
Tandem Falke
and
Angelo Favaloro
Stinson 108
Other entrants:Tim Morland, John Gottschalk, Theo Arvantakis, Geoff Moore, David
Hipperson, Tim Lennon, Bernie Sizer, Steven Miller, Rob Goldman, Ivan Smith, Colin Smith, Bill
Wheeler, Frank Smith.
14th September 2003 saw the first F3F Slope (Pylon) competition for a very long time, held at Mt.
Hollowback with 15 entrants.
Results:
1. Gregg Voak
2. Richard Frawley 3.Tom Dupuche
28 September 2003 - successful occurrence of the State Slope Aerobatics Championships,
1. Ian Cole
2. Des Bayliss
3. Colin Smith
Of the 8 contestants 6 flew Ricochets.
HORSHAM - November 1, 2, 3, 4.
Colin Collyer
The major scale glider event for Scale Soaring Australia has been held and what a
beauty it turned out to be. I took Harold Elliot's advice and went via Marong and whilst
not exactly a short cut, it did provide a scenic drive through some parts of Victoria I had
not seen before. As it was cold, wet and windy I knew I was not missing any flying.
Arriving about 2 p.m. it was apparent that others had the same idea as maybe half a
dozen others were setting up. Horsham, being a new venue, I did not know what to
expect having been spoilt with the Bordertown airfield. Well, down to the end of a short
dirt road, on the right was a model flying field about VARMS size and on the left the
"Wimmera Field Days" camping facility with over 400 sites but with 4 power outlets
53
should be adequate! The amenities block had everything we needed with male and
female toilets and a porta shower. Basic, but far more importantly there was plenty of
hangarage for our models. This consisted of one big three sided shed and a smaller
lockup shed., Horsham township was about 10 minutes away with lots of motels and
takeaways and most importantly, a well-stocked model shop right at the top of the main
street ... ... perfect for our needs.
Saturday started with one rain shower in the morning and a bit of wind greeted the
early birds (about 8 a.m.) The wind flew across the field and while take off was o.k.
landings has a row of trees to negotiate with nobody attacked. We had about 50 gliders
and a few motor gliders but importantly there were at least 5 tugs, some of which could
tow small 3 metre gliders vertical! Of these models I think 12 or 13 entered the scale
comp (scale glider comps are still not overcrowded. The comp slowed down the general
flying as comp models had tug priority but with the rate the tuggers were operating you
would never have known. The club had a normal frequency board which worked perfectly
and also provided excellent barbeque facilities for brekky and lunch. We had 3 flyers
from New South Wales and 50 / 50 from South Australia and Victoria. As for models, the
whole spectrum was covered, big, small, medium, museum standard to plain (no
markings or pilot), T tails, V tails and No tails. Some of the larger models were 3 x 1/3
Fox's and a Swift, 2 x 1/4 scale Swifts plus the little Schweizers (about 5) for the aerobatic
flyers, and a couple of Woodstocks which don't know they are not supposed to be
aerobatic!!!1 (Mr. Ed and Slacko again doing their aerobic routine). (The documenter
suggests that whilst the Editor can do aerobatics of sorts, aerobics is NOT within his
sphere of capability). A 1/3 Nimbus plus a DG 600 and a Nimbus 4 in 1/4 scale for the
high performance end.
On Sunday the wind was even lighter and by Monday it had stopped, but people
were still flying even as late as Wednesday. As my notes have gone AWOL here are some
of the club building group models which attended.
1/4 Scale Bergfalke's
Collyer, Reaby and Favaloro
1/4 Scale Woodstock's
Collyer, Slack, Smith, Hipperson/Keep
1/5 Scale Schwiezer 1-26
Collyer, Slack, Malcman, Hopper, Morland, Down.
On Sunday Mark Doyle has his ASK 13 thermalling against a fluffy cloud a fair way
down wind and I overhead a couple of full-size pilots remark that "a full-size has come to
join the fun". Now that's what scale is all about, having people think they are seeing full
size machines when in fact it's a model!
Full marks to the Horsham Club, they provided us with really first class facilities
and did it all with the absolute minimum of fuss ... ... We thank them.
This was the first scale thingy that I had attended and while a bloody long way to
get there, it was well worth it. Admittedly we stayed at a caravan site and had to drive
the 10 minutes or so to get to the flying field, but the event was very well run and worth
it just to see those 'clipped rotor choppers' going up vertically with a 10 footer behind
them, fantastic. Average tow turnaround time was about 3-4 minutes from 10 till 4 with
an hours break for lunch and fuel.... with 3 of them going flat out all day you can do the
maths for how many launches they did over the three days. (between 650 and 750
launches!!!!) The good thing was that you landed, joined the queue, had a chat and were
up again very quickly. Definitely a meet to be repeated ...... Oh, and the wife enjoyed the
long weekend away as well ... ... ... ... Mr. Ed.
54
November 11th, 2003 saw the following claim lodged with the FAI for World Record by a member
of VARMS, as follows:
Class F (Model Aircraft)/Claim number: 7982
Sub-class:
F5-S (Aeroplane, electric motor with rechargeable sources of current)
Category:
F5 - Radio Controlled flight
Type of record:
No 173 - Gain in altitude
Course/location:
Boralma (Australia)
Performance:
2,573 metres
Pilot:
Raymond Cooper (Australia)
Date:
09.11.2003
Until this claim is ratified, the current record is:
2.200metres, set 19.11.2000 - Wolfgang Schaeper, Germany.
The record was ratified early in 2004 and for his efforts, Ray was elected into the MAAA Hall of
fame at the 2004 Annual Council Conference, and was presented with certificates for both at the
May meeting by Darryl Gunst, VMAA President.
November 23rd, 2003 will see the opening of the new State flying field at Darraweit Guim. (Up the
Hume and out through Wallan) Northern Flying Group is the caretaker resident club.
Opening Of State Field – Darraweit Guim
Peter Cossins
The State Flying Field was officially opened on Sunday 23rd of November 2003. As part of
this opening ceremony it was planned to cameo as many aspects of model aircraft as possible. This
included demonstration flights by Control Line, Pattern, Scale, Fun Fly, Helicopter, Electric, Old
Timer, Pylon and of course, Glider.
I was approached by the VMAA to get together a demonstration of Scale Aerotow, Electric
and also High performance Thermal Glider. John Gottschalk agreed to be the Tug Pilot whilst Theo
Arvantakis was to provide examples of Scale glider, Ray Cooper had the dual task of flying his
record breaking electric 'Big Bird' (together with live downlinked video and telemetry) and later his
Electric Scale Fournier.
The Cameo flight ran to plan until it was time for John to tow Theo's Glider. VARMS
member and expert Heli flyer Lindsay Henderson was in the middle of his flight with the keyboard
inoperative and frequency control being handled by the VMAA C.D. There had been some
unforeseen clashes and some re-organisation of the flight schedule had occurred. The C.D. asked
John to start up and John concurred. Guess what ... ... ... John and Lindsay were on the same
frequency and Lindsay's Helicopter went in head first. After a short while, allowing Lindsay time
to pick up the pieces, John was again requested to start up. Engine running now only to find that he
has lost rudder control ... ... ... no flight was to occur at this time. The demonstration flights had lost
their impetus by this time and the official opening ceremony was imminent.
John retired to fix the minor rudder problem and the VMAA Officers, to their credit, took
full responsibility and financial accountability for the Helicopter's demise.
Whilst initially and understandably 'p' off, Lindsay took it all very well and come over to
John to let him know that he was aware of the situation and who was responsible. John was not
feeling too good as we all know he has had a bit of bad luck lately, one way or another. Lindsay
and John fly regularly together at Brigg's field and will continue to do so in the future.
I guess the lesson here is that under pressure, all of us can make mistakes. The safety factor
of using a keyboard was missing in that part of the event, I am sure that it will not occur again.
After the official opening and a short display by a 3/4 scale Mustang, a Ryan and a
Chipmunk from Tyabb, the field was open to general flying. It was decided by our group that we
would still showcase gliding as best we could under the circumstances.
Gerry Carter had not yet flown and I was in the pits when Gerry made his first launch. This
resulted in quite a few gasps and exclamations, (jeez, etc., etc.). I suspect that many of our power
55
model friends has never seen the like!!!!
John and Theo successfully undertook two aerotow flights that also created quite a bit of
interest. Again, I suspect it may have been the first time some modellers had seen this aspect of
flying.
The State Field is certainly a great venue with plenty of space available all around. The
Northern Flying Group have done a fine job in getting the area up to a very high standard. Whilst it
is a long way from the population centre of Melbourne, it will be available as a flying field for
Victorian Modellers in the future which is a good thing.
An issue for us is to encourage the VMAA to get an increased height clearance which is
currently insufficient for Thermal glider. Also, perhaps funding could be made available for
another site more towards this side of town?
NOTE:
The RCGA held the State Thermal Championships at the State Field in
May 2008 as a two day event, and also intends to continue doing this in the future.
February 2004 saw the passing of Leo O’Reilly after a long illness. Leo was the founder of Model
Flight (South Australia) and was very involved in many aspects of modelling over many years both
at State and Federal level. Leo was also an associate member (245) of VARMS many years ago.
CAMPERDOWN – March ’04
(Labour Day weekend)
Colin
Collyer
Another good Camperdown was enjoyed by many. Scale gliderer’s have very few competitions but
we do have several good scale events. For Victorians, Camperdown is the only slope event and
therefore attracts a different clan and this year was no exception with many arriving long before the
long weekend, but I hear the wind was not booked so very little flying took place until Saturday
arvo. I arrived Friday well after dark and it has just started to rain, and by morning there was quite
a blow and still a few showers about. No flying so I went looking for a little local aerodrome..... did
not find it but I did see some lovely local properties, one in particular suggested that there was a few
bob knocking about. On entering the property over the cattle grid the drive was dead straight and
56
about a mile up to the house that was set at the end of it, complete with circular garden that I drove
around to get to the front door. Alas, no one was at home, but if gave an idea of how rich the area
was in better times...... Still could not find the aerodrome.
As for the models and flying, there were lots, some I had not seen before, particularly a
couple of ASW 27 and ASW 28’s, possibly R2C kits, one by Chairman Mao (Martin Lui) did not
fly due to radio set up problems. Also there was a Pilatus B4 and a Multiplex LS3 from the
Doncaster mob. As usual they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Mark Withers had a couple of
whoppers, a “Big” Swift and 5 metre Nimbus, couple those with Mark Doyle’s 1/3 scale Salto and
there wasn’t much room left in the pits. They both has ASK 6’s in different scales and all got a
good airing without being upset by the Riff-Raff. Mark W tossed his ASK off just as the wind went
walkabout and ended up scratching by the water’s edge, using the shadow to judge height... he was
that low.... amazingly he got it back and deserved the round of applause! Ian Slack had a go at the
same trick with his 1-26... its first flight and he got it back as well with thanks to Knut Neumann
who talked him through it. It certainly improves your thumbs when you’ve got a wet background.
Even one of the P & DARCS brigade managed to land on the road by the lake without putting it in
the wet stuff. The gods were smiling that weekend. Brian Spencer must have upset them ‘cos he
nested his Pelikan in a tree top overnight during torrential wind and rain, but it was thrown out
during the night and returned to his van at 7.00 the next morning by John Lee (7.00 am Urgh !!!...
Ed ) Other notables... Barry DeKuyper’s Woodstock flying when only the floaters were staying
up... Ross Bathie’s Japanese Primary Trainer looking just like a Jap primary trainer would look and
sound, those scale bracing wires emitting quite a hum... Max McCullough’s Lear jet PSS zooming
around and looking very scalelike (Max’s time in the air was limited due to him developing GOUT
in his right elbow. He got a lot of stick through it, especially as it was his right elbow, but it can be
very painful... Oh, and he lost forgot where he put his kettle lead... Ed). As for me, I flew my
Bergfalke, the 3440 Zefir restoration, the ¼ scale Plank which thermals remarkably well and my
trusty Schweizer 1-26 for a few aerobatics. The Pakenham group had a great tine, complete with
the chaos that comes with only flying gliders once a year.... AND... the sight of Darryl Gunst
(VMAA Pres.) flying a glider and loving it. Peter Harris, Chief Flying Instructor, struggling with a
rudder elevator model and Darryl Gunst both having a ball once they realised there was no motive
power up front. The go faster stick is DOWN elevator fellas. The latest craze seems to be semiscale Lunaks and 1-26’s flashing about close... some sort of scale Riff-Raff I suppose?.
April 3 & 4 saw the running of the VMAA Trophy.
Club was represented by:
Points
David Pratley
Musical Landings
1
John Whittaker
Old Timer Duration 1
Colin Collyer
Fun Scale
1
Steve Malcman
ARF Aerobatics
3
Ray Cooper
7 Cell Electric
6
Gerry Carter
Thermal Glider
6
Peter Cossins &
Steve Miller
Most Unusual Model 3
Total points 20
Winner DAC with 32.5 points – VARMS 5TH
….. and extracted from Aspectivity 367 of June
’04 – advice from CASA that Brigg’s Field is
registered under a permanent NOTAM with
height clearance to 1,000 feet (with an
observer),
and also …
57
Scale Aerotow—Wagga
Colin Collyer and David Down
Lockart is a small town 65km from Wagga Wagga in NSW. The town is about two thirds
the size of Camperdown and generally is flat, very flat. The local glider club is really several large
sheds with a kitchen and an East – West runway. The NSW’s scale flyers Wayne Hadkins and Tim
Nolan organised the event in conjunction with the Lockhart Glider Club with the aim of running
simultaneous operations. The club flew several full size gliders towed up by a winch while we aero
towed. This all happened on the same piece of runway and the whole thing was something to see
with real gliders on the winch. The local news crews came to get it on the TV and the newspapers
had a photographer out and about. Lockhart is quite a drive but I felt it was worth the trip just to
see the co-operation between the two groups. I hear the Germans do this type of thing frequently.
In the light wind prevailing we all took off to the West but the full size were landing from the West
and often parking the glider back in the queue at the end of the roll out. Touchdown was about
halfway down the strip! Great airmanship. As you can imagine it is dry, the best part is you know
there are thermals as you can see Willy Willies spinning all around you which means thermals are
everywhere. Around midday on both days the thermals were fantastic. Lift here, there and
everywhere and not much sink. I think the sink may have been left down at High Street Rd. for the
weekend. Did I mention it was dry? I hope the rain does come because it’s very dusty, in fact I’m
still looking at the dust now as it’s in the car and then on me wherever I go after leaving the car.
The crop next to the strip was burnt a few weeks ago so I have a fair bit of the blackened wheat
stubble in the car and trailer as well.
There were a lot of models not seen by us Victorians before and the really spectacular ones
came from Bill Bland from Sydney. Big Salto, Big Fox and really big ASW28 complete with
winglets and half scale measuring a whopping 7.5 metres span. (full size is 15 metres). You would
need a kidney belt just to lift the fuselage! On the ground it looks a bit bulky amongst the other
models but in flight was completely convincing. Sadly, on the fourth flight it had a midair with a
third scale ASH26 completely wrecking both models and they were the only two models in the
air!!! Needless to say a deathly silence came over the place a bit like when John G’s Elfe went
down years ago….. not much flying was done afterwards. Meanwhile the full size were having a
great time with passenger flights and at dusk one of the Blaniks did a sunset flight complete with
beatup, coming down the strip at about 1 metre…. Through the sunset and then up into a steep
banked turn, touching down back through the sunset and then proceeding to taxi back down the
strip to the hangar….. Impressive. The ability of the Blaniks was amazing, not all that fast but they
just went on and on and on and on and on with their wings level.
Saturday night’s dinner was at the Serviceman’s club with good beer, good food and
warmth. The night was topped off with a Quiz, the modellers and the full-size pilots presenting 16
questions to be answered by the opposition. The modellers won by 1 point and there were some
great questions—How many World champs has Ingo Renner won? – What was Fred Noinvilles
Tiger Moth called? – Who was the second man on the moon? -- All good fun aided by the usual
glider fuel!! A small price to pay for what was a great weekend of flying, flying, more flying and a
lot of socializing mixed in with good friends. We had a great time at this event and like all things
new it took a bit of getting used to the local surroundings and field procedures. Each glider pilot
required an observer during simultaneous operations so we all had a chance to buddy up with old
and new friends. From a VARMS point of view Tony Greiger flew his new glider and didn’t tow,
while Kyle Walker flew his converted ARF Stick and had his first of many tows under the guidance
of Theo Arvantakis and Steve Keep. David Hobby bought a glider from Colin Collyer and
promptly won the pilots choice award for the best model. That’s one way to win. Mark Withers,
Mark Doyle and Greg Voak hooked lots of thermal with great models and Bill and Rose Hamilton
dropped in for a visit on the way home from an east coast holiday. With folks from NSW and SA
we had a ball.
58
Now that we have a better understanding of how to interact on the field I feel this will be a
good even to go to as we see a lot of NSW and SA blokes and their fantastic models. We are
getting spoilt with Scale glider meetings, and the following will whet our appetites…
October – Lameroo; November – Horsham and Bendigo, March – Camperdown, April – Swan Hill,
May – Wagga. (Now that we have a State Flying field why can’t we arrange an interstate event out
there? Surely that is what it is for? … …Ed). From May until the end of September is prime
building time so get to it and join in the fun. No real competitions, and everybody has to start
somewhere so, beginners, get your name down on the Schweizer group and get ready for some pure
unadulterated enjoyment.
I am told by a trusted source that Mr Collyer also lost a model in a most spectacular way
…. Evidently he was stuck on tow when the tug pilot pushed the tug’s nose down and rocketed
earthwards … complete with Col’s plane (K18) still firmly attached. After the first wing snapped it
was out with the bin bags big time and everybody helped to pick up the pieces. By all accounts one
of the first casualties was a big Swift that lost radio on take-off and was totalled. Comments from
the gallery about Bill Bland’s lately lamented big ASW28, was that the rudder post came up to
David Down’s knee and David ain’t exactly short of a few inches and the rudder itself resembled
half a surf board. David’s 6 metre Lentus looked positively tiny alongside these monsters.
The ‘Up-grade’ to High Street Road is now complete making it a dual carriageway with two lanes
in each direction. General clearing work is being undertaken in the general area also as preparation
for the Scoresby By-pass (Mitcham-Frankston freeway).
5-7 June 2004 – 27th LSF Tournament at Jerilderie:
1. Matt Wood,
2. Michael James,
3. Carl Strautins.
59
2004 – 05
The Committee
President/Sites Liaison
Max Haysom
Secretary
Roger Stevenson
Treasurer
Ian Pearson
Editor
Colin Smith/David Jones
Contest Director
*David Pratley*
Ordinary Member
Martin Hopper
Registrar/Sports C.D.
Ian Slack
Ordinary Member
David Weller
David Pratley remained on as a ‘token’ C.D., when in fact the responsibility for the major
competitions was shared between the RCGA competitors, and the VARMS Trophy was catered
for by Ian Slack and Peter Cossins
At the A. G. M., Max Haysom was awarded
Life Membership for his constant
and ongoing work for VARMS.
Another tireless worker for VARMS, Jim Robertson, did not seek re-election to Committee
having already completed 18 continuous years serving the Club in this area.
VARMS Trophy 2003-04 : I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who
participated in the 2003-04 VARMS Trophy. As those of you who attended last month’s meeting
would know, prizes have been distributed, but here is a full list of who won what! The prizes were
awarded to those members who attended the competitions consistently and not necessarily for
performance. Prizes and pilots were both drawn from a separate hat to ensure absolute fairness by
the Committee members.
Finally I would also like to thank all of the generous sponsors who made the prize pool available to
participants of this event.
Peter Cossins Contest Director.
Tim Lennon
Leon Carlos
Roger Stevenson
Ian Pearson
Bruce Clapperton
Maurice Lloyd
Colin Smith
Prelude kit of choice
Hitec Autopilot
Isis Thermal Glider kit(2 Ch.)
ARF Thermal glider
JR Rx, 700
ARF Thermal glider
Epoxy & Rubber bands
Southern Sailplanes
Models & Hobbies 4U
Saturn Hobbies
Model Engines
Model Flight
Model Engines
Hawthorn Hobbies
Fee structure for Financial year 2004 – 05
Annual Subscription (All Members)
VMAA Affiliation (Flying Members only)
$
$
Senior
90.00
Each Senior
140.00
Pensioner/Student
55.00
Each Pensioner
133.00
Junior
25.00
Each Junior
113.00
Family
90.00
Social(Newsletter)
40.00
VARMS completed the 2003-04 year with a total of 256 members.
4th July saw Ray Cooper celebrating yet another successful World record attempt. He established a
new Goal & Return Distance of 54.3 km to overtake an existing record of 6.21km and another
attempt of 20.02 km pending recognition.
Details: The Record:
Category: F5 : Radio Controlled Flight
Sub-class: F5S (Aeroplane, electric motor with rechargeable sources of current).
60
No.: 171 : Distance to goal and Return – 54.3 Km.
Date of flight: 4 July 2004
Pilot: Ray Cooper
Course/Place: Tungamah (Victoria)
The Model:
“Little Bird”
Airframe: Standard construction from Balsa, Ply and covered with iron-on-film.
Span 1.8 metres
Total Surface Area: 45 Dm. Sq.
Weight: 1696 grams.
Motor: Hacker B40 21L, geared 5.2:1
Prop: Aeronaut 15” X 13” with 2.5 deg. twist in centre piece
Motor Battery: eTech 1200 Li Poly cells, 6 series 4 parallel
Radio Control System: JR 3810 TX, R700 Rx, 3 x JR331 servos, 1 x NiMh 650Ah Rx Battery
Controls: Rudder, Elevator, spoilers and ESC for motor
Cruising Airspeed: 55 Kph approx.
A World Championship for Australia & VARMS
August 2 – 8, saw the World F3J Championships held in Alberta, Canada;
Results were 1. David Hobby VARMS/Aust.
16. Carl Strautins Sydney
31. Gerry Carter VARMS/Aust.
Team result 3rd Australia
Team Manager was Bjorn Rudgley, with Helpers Theo Arvanitakis (VARMS) and
Ziggy Kusiak.
This is the FIRST time an Australian has won a World Championship Glider event and the
best ever result for an Australian Team. (See full report elsewhere.)
August 13 – General Meeting and David Down’s Scale Night, and what happened.
Tim Lennon
Dewoitine D520
PSS
Rob Goldman
ASW 2YE
Electric
Best Electric by Judges
Gary McDougall
Minimoa
Glider
Steve Lunney
Mustang
PSS
Tim Lennon
Focke Wulf TA-152H
PSS
Best PSS by Rookie
Andrew Allen
Schweizer 1-26C
Glider
Best by Members
Ivan Smith
Boultan & Paul DEFIANT PSS
Angelo Favaloro
Tiger Moth
Power
Best Power model
Max McCullough
Handley Page Victor
PSS
Best PSS by Judges
Frank O’Neill
Woodstock
Glider
Best from Special Int. Group
Roger Stevenson
DG 800
Glider
Ivan Smith
Focke Wulf TA-152H
PSS
Steven Malcman
Fox
Glider
Best ARF
Daniel Malcman
Schweizer 1-26
Glider
Lew Rodman
Auster J1
Power
Steve Miller
Sopwith Camel
Power
Antony Howard
A10 Warthog
PSS/Electric
Colin Collyer
ASK 14
Electric
Steven Malcman
Bea Hawk
PSS
Colin Collyer
Bergfalke 1936
Glider
Best by Judges
Ross Bathie
Schweizer 1-26D
Glider
61
Colin Smith
Judges:
Lo100
Glider (EPP) Best cockpit
Geoff Hearn and Doug Anderson.
September 2004 – The minutes of the VMAA Executive for this month reflect that a “new”
Silvertone 36 Mhz Keyboard was presented initialy to VARMS, and then to the Corangamite Model
Aircraft Club for use at the Camperdown slope soaring sites. The keyboard was mounted on a
frame that also contained allocations for the 29 and 40 Mhz frequencies. It is hoped that this new
keyboard will assist in preventing any frequency mis-management and also displays a sticker
exhorting modellers not to fly when under the influence of alcohol.!!
The Radio Control Glider Association (RCGA) has been the mainstay for open glider competitions
in Victoria since its inception in December 1994. At its AGM in September 2004, the following
statistics relating to contest participation were provided.
Year
2004
2003
2002
2001
Total
No. Competitions No. who No. who Highest
Lowest
Competitors flown
attended
attended
attendance Attendance
all Comps 6 Comps
25
26
29
31
10
9
9
10
5
4
3
1
13
14
11
8
17
21
17
19
12
10
11
10
October 2004 saw an announcement from the State Government that the contracts for the building
of the “Scoresby Freeway” had been signed. This action confirms serious problems for VARMS
and its occupancy of Brigg’s Field.
62
The Minutes of the VMAA October Executive meeting reflected the following item:SLOPE SOARING at Charman Road. (Cnr. Charman/Beach Rds., Beaumauris-Mentone area.)
Under MAAA rules and guidelines this site has been deemed not safe for Model flying. Kingston
and Bayside city Councils have been informed that this site is not safe for model flying.
(This is a decision that VARMS came to in the mid 80’s and advised all members of its decision,
also removing the map of its location from the “Starter’s Kit” provided to new members.)
AspectivitEE in Colour
November 2004 saw the birth of AspectivitEE with the production of Aspectivity No 372 under the
guidance of the new Editor David “Numb Thumbs” Jones. AspectivitEE provides for delivery of
the club magazine by electronic means/email for those who preferred this method to ‘snail mail’.
The posted version remained in Black and White printing whilst the electronic version was
produced in full Colour and also contained additional photographs in colour, all of which would
have made the original magazine too large and expensive. With many members electing to receive
the electronic version, overall costs for the production of the magazine have fallen significantly.
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A sample of the first colour front cover follows:
November 2004, Aspectivity No 372 also reflected the following article.
The death of “The Tree” at Camperdown
You may or may not be pleased to learn that the nemesis of RC gliding at The Point in
Camperdown, known as “The Tree”, has met its demise. The 80-year old tree was felled on the
weekend by the council, as The Tree was deemed unsafe. This was largely due to the damage
inflicted upon it by two men attempting to retrieve their glider from the clutches of The Tree’s
upper limbs.
It appears that the men decided that the only way to get their $125 glider back was to
attempt to cut down the tree with a woefully inadequate chainsaw, leaving The Tree with gaping
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cuts around its base. Be warned that R/C gliders may not receive the warm welcome they are used
to, the next time they visit Camperdown. In the meantime, hopefully the persons involved will tear
their house down to get the footy off the roof.
(It should be noted that the glider ‘exited’ the tree the following morning, entirely of its own
accord and was promptly impounded by a Shire official. It should also be noted that the glider
was a ‘Prelude Plus”, and that the “alleged offenders” received their initial flight training from
a member of VARMS).
Some 12 months after this incident, the more senior of the “alleged offenders” was duly
prosecuted and fined nearly $4000 for his efforts!!!
December 2004 and Aspectivity 373 announces that the magazine is now available as an
“Electronic Edition”, emailed to all those who are happy to receive it that way in lieu of the ‘snail
mail’ paper edition. It will usually contain extra pages of photographs.
April 9 – 10 VMAA Trophy
=1st Doncaster (DAC)
=1st Northern (NFG
3rd
VARMS
4th
Nepean (NMAA)
th
5
Pakenham (P&DARCS)
27.5
27.5
23.0
20.0
18.5
6th
7th
8th
9th
Peninsular(PARCS)
VMAA
Geelong (GMAA)
LaTrobe Valley (LVMAC)
18.0
12.0
8.0
0.0
May 2005 – Aspectivity 377
JERILDERIE – Scale - 2005
by Gary Mac (Dougall)
(This article is NOT related to the LSF Tournament at Jerilderie, but could be the fore-runner to
more such SCALE gatherings in the future.)
On arriving at Jerilderie and proceeding to the racecourse I found a big inner circle of the
racecourse totally clear of any obstacles. You could land anywhere you liked. I checked in and
paid the entry fee of $20 which gave us 4 days of flying and a wide brim hat with the words
JERILDERIE 2000 printed on the front. I think it was good value.
It was a little bit windy at the start but it died down a bit so we were able to start flying.
This was good because people had come from Surfer’s Paradise, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne.
Unfortunately for me on my 2nd flight I got into a spot of bother with the tow release and snapped a
wing off the KA8 and, as you know, they don’t fly too well with one wing. Down it came to
mother earth and into a 100 bits. The wing that came off landed in a paddock about one and a half
kilometres away. It was found by the farmer who kindly returned it to the flying field next day. So,
back to the trailer and select another one!
Bill Bland had come down from Sydney with his van chock a block full of large scale
gliders and a tow plane with a 3 metre wingspan and 120cc twin cylinder motor on the front end.
Just the size needed as there were some big gliders there to be towed up.
There were 2 off Ventus 2C (I think this is the correct name), one belonging to David Hobby
and the other one which had an electric motor mounted behind the pilot belonging to a flyer from
Sydney. Both had 6.8 metre wing spans and looked very impressive in the air and when coming in
to land. Unfortunately for David, on Sunday he got mixed up when making an adjustment to his
transmitter. He looked back up and followed the wrong plane as his model was going down
elsewhere. It was a complete write-off.
Greg Potter made the journey over from S.A. to fly his yellow Lunak and was having a good
time catching plenty of thermals. Steve Keep was flying a Lunak as well . Ziggy Kusiak came all
the way down from the Gold Coast to join in the fun. Normally Ziggy flies F3B competition but
wants to get into more fun flying. He certainly had fun over the weekend with his ¼ scale 4m wing
span Pirat and got onto some good thermals. On Sunday Bill Bland gave him a lend of his
Piccalario variometer. He had a grin from ear to ear and was like a kid with a new toy! I don’t
65
know if Bill was able to get it back off him or not because he was sure having fun flying with it.
Mark Doyle had his beautiful looking Reiher 3 – 1/3 scale – 5.4 metre wing span with gull
wings. This plane looked beautiful in the air. He also had his big ½ scale 5.2 metre Salto 101.
Also from Victoria we had Theo with his 1/5 scale Minimoa and his big Nimbus which had a tangle
with a tuft of grass on take-off and performed a cartwheel, snapping a wing. Also, we mustn’t
forget our ever reliable tug pilot Tony Greiger who likes to relieve the pressure of flying his tow
plane with a bit of thermal flying with his 1/5 scale DG 500, 3.6m wingspan.
At the initial pilots briefing Greg Voak had explained that we were going to fly with each
pilot having a spotter or caller standing beside them to make sure that there were no planes flying
on collision courses with each other. This was also to make sure that the field was clear when
coming in to land. I think this worked quite well and I think it should become standard practise as it
makes for pretty good safe flying, and, after all, that is what we all want.
On Sunday there was an Aerobatic competition for anyone who wanted to try their luck. In
1st place, Greg Voak, 2nd place Colin Collyer – 136 points, 3rd place, Steve Keep with 124 points
from the 5 pilots who entered, and the winner of the PILOTS CHOICE OF THE MOST POPULAR
MODEL, Mark Doyle/Reiher, Bill Bland’s Duo Discus, David Hobby/Ventus, Ziggy Kusiak/Pirat,
Gregg Potter/Lunak.
I think everyone had a good time and certainly had plenty of airtime with plenty of good
thermals. The weather was perfect and there was plenty of all different types of accommodation
available. The local LIONS Club have their ”Chuck Wagon” there for breakfast and lunch on Sat.
and Sun. so we didn’t go hungry.
Bill Bland’s Hots Tug, now that really is a tug!!
It was decided that this would become an annual event and would be held over the
Easter break to give the interstate visitors time to travel.
The pilots and their models:
Bill Bland
Hots Tug, Duo Discus, Fox, Salto
Tony Greiger
Tug (?), DG 500
Walter Radovich
1/3 scale Ventus (with foldaway Electric powered motor)
Mark Doyle
1/3 scale Reiher, ½ scale Salto
David Hobby
1/3 scale Ventus
Steve Keep
Lunak
Ziggy Kusiak
Pirat
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Gregg Potter
Lunak
Theo Arvanitakis
1/5 scale Minimoa, Nimbus
Greg Voak and others for a total of 14 pilots with a total of 30 models.
Pictured below, the 2005 Jerilderie scale group.
..... also in the May magazine was the following article related to the impending problem of
the East Link Tollway .....
Re-siting of the VARMS Power Strip.
Assumptions.
VARMS wishes to continue to provide facilities for sports power flying and aero towing.
NO flying can be permitted over the new ‘East Link’ road at any time.
Safety considerations.
Power and Glider flying at the same time (except when aero towing) do not mix.
CASA 101 should apply where ever possible.
Therefore no overflying of pits, car park, club house etc can be permitted.
Suggested Solutions.
To satisfy the above assumptions and considerations, the use of the existing power strips will have
to be discontinued. Therefore a new power strip will be required.
This strip must be placed somewhere on the existing glider paddock.
If a North/South strip is required then it should either be on the Eastern side near the current strip
and drainage channel.... OR....
on the Western boundary of the Glider field. Note: a strip on the Western boundary would require
major works regarding access, pits, keyboard etc. No East/West strip is proposed as there can be no
flying to the East beyond the extension of the pit road/drainage channel.
If either of the North/South solutions is implemented then arrangements would need to be made
regarding separating power and glider usage. As stated in our President’s column, it is likely that
the safest solution will be separate days for Power and Glider.
As VARMS is still a predominately glider club, then it seems logical to allocate 4 days to glider and
3 days to sports power. An alternative solution could be power in the morning and glider in the
afternoon. A day each at the weekend should remain.
MEMBER ACTION IS REQUIRED.
67
68
June 2005 - 28th LSF Soaring Tournament, Jerilderie
1. Carl Strautins
2. Greg Voak
3. Mike O’Reilly
AdvancedTim Kullack
NoviceDavid Johnson
The following items were extracted from the Minutes of the General meeting – 10 June 2005-07-07
Radio Interference at Brigg’s Field.
Problem has escalated from a point some 5 weeks ago, when Ray Cooper reported total loss
of control of a test model. –Matter reported to VMAA and MAAA and situation being investigated
by small team including Professor Greg Egan & Ray Cooper from Monash University & President,
Max Haysom. – no meaningful answer at present but VMAA have allocated funds to permit further
testing – possibility that modified receivers maybe the answer. More detail on progress to be
announced at the next club General Meeting.
(The above problem appears to stem from the transmission output of a recently activated
“Community Radio” station located on Mt. Dandenong. The interference is causing sporadic
interference across the 36Mhz band and has caused all major competitions to be scheduled to
other flying sites).
The future of Brigg’s Field. (because of the implementation of the Eastlink Freeway)
Report by President, Max Haysom.
VARMS has become a Glider & Sports Power club.
We have 2 years to find & prepare a suitable unhindered site for Club use. Meanwhile we have to
make the hard decisions on what flying operations should be permitted at the field and what
restrictions need to be applied to ensure the safe operation all aircraft within the field boundaries.
ALL pilots must operate with a degree of discipline not exercised before to ensure that safety
issues are observed at all times.
Two major issues must be decided by the Club membership as a whole;
1) Do we want to retain I/C and electric type power models?
2) Do we want to place limits on type and size of model operations at the Field?
DefinitionsGlider – non power assist with launch by bungee or winch.
Power aircraft – I/C, power assist and electric models.
Members views summary.;
David Hipperson – Electric aircraft should be designated as power aircraft, but any separation of
power & glider operations will conflict with aerotow operations at field, separation conflicts.
Ross Peasley – power & electric flyers much more flexible – often there for short periods – glider
flyers more often there for several hours – no need to separate these operations – no conflict!
John Gottschalk – Size of models flown an important issue – safety issue a matter of common
sense. VARMS initially primarily a glider club – power a “pariah” – but now accepted as an
integral part of club operations – structural changes must be made for safety in aerotow operations.
John Bird – Public perception of club operations – safety issues paramount – perceived danger or
inconvenience to driving public – perception of models flown at or near public places seen as
inherently dangerous – airspace control over Brigg’s Field paramount. Public perception of our
overall operations a vital issue.
Colin Collyer – early history of Club as purely glider orientation. Power introduced initially on
basis of aerotow operations – later expanded to include sports flyers. Power flyers use field as
convenient base. Glider flyers have no other alternative but Brigg’s Field All other clubs actively
exclude glider operations.
Henry Wolmuth – little mid-week glider flying at Field – reluctance to exclude power flying, as
otherwise the field will be regarded by Parks as totally under-utilised. Alternative of Police
Paddocks – inherent dangers in use of this field as alternative flying site.
David Hipperson – Club cannot return to pure glider operations – progressively less influence on
Parks Vic. in use of field – in any event power flyers primarily involved in mowing operations at
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Field.
Michael Lui – discussion of power/glider operations really a divisive issue. We need to focus on
club activities to ensure all flying activities at Brigg’s Field are compatible with Eastlink operation
– safety issued paramount – manage the problem rather that exclude classes of models.
Tim Lennon – should not focus on the philosophy of Club operations – vital issue how to manage
field compatibility with Eastlink operations until a better alternative flying site eventuates – new
requirements – how do we manage flying safely in restricted air space?
Ross Peasley – suggestion of day separation – Saturday glider and Sunday power (including
Electric flyers) proposed strip should be capable of use by both strips, sensible management – field
usage by glider flyers minimal during week.
Jim Norman – power flyers – new strip proposed, ideal for operations – what is the problem?
Where do we go now?
The Committee will be contacting all members.
Because of the impending ‘loss’ of a large part of Brigg’s Field due to the implementation of
the Eastlink, it seems prudent to include a picture to reflect VARMS at its highest level of
activity that included both Power and Glider operations. Note High Street Rd. in the bottom
left-hand corner, and the soon to be replaced Golf Driving Range in the top left.
70
July/August 2005 – The World F3B Championships were held at Lappeenranta, Finland.
The contest was for 7 Rounds, drop worst.
Results:
1. Andreas Bohlen SUI
7. Joe Wurts USA
2. Andreas Herrig GER
22 Gregg Voak AUS
3. Reinhard Liese GER
28. Michael James AUS
4. Martin Weberschock GER
36. Matt Wood AUS
Team results: 1. Germany 9. Australia from 20 teams
THE DEMISE OF THE “VARMS Membership Number”
At the completion of the 2004/05 fiscal year, the use and issue of the VARMS Membership
Number was discontinued, the last was 1432 and issued to Paul Jacobson.
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2005 – 06
The Committee
President
Max Haysom
Secretary
Roger Stevenson
Treasurer
Ian Pearson
Editor
David R. Jones
Contest Director
*“Ad Hoc”
Ordinary Member
David Pratley
Registrar
Ian Slack
Ordinary Member
Martin Hopper
Ordinary Member
David Weller
*C.D. for RCGA events will be shared among participating members. Ian Slack will again manage
the duties for the VARMS Trophy events.
The following is extracted from Aspectivity 379/July 205.
Muckin’ about with planes.
David Jones (Editor)
Since the start of the school year there has been a project going at University High School,
Parkville, involving a group of Year 9 students in the process of designing and building remote
control aircraft. The program was run by a teacher, Aldo Marotta and myself – I am IT Services
Coordinator at the school. The project came to fruition on Friday, June 24th at Brigg’s field when
12 Uni High students and two teachers joined Ian slack, Colin Smith, Jim Baker and myself at High
Street Road to fly their creations and have some fun.
The project, as put to the kids, was to design, construct and fly a remote control aircraft
based loosely on the FoamFly “Blue Frog”, a slow flyer/park flyer electric pusher made from Fan
Fold Foam. Since Fan Fold foam is virtually impossible to find in Australia, we chose 6mm white
Deptron as the construction material. Propulsion was by a GWS IPS-A motor/gearbox driving a
GWS 9x6 prop. We used Hitec 6 channel receivers and Flash 5 transmitters, Poly-Quest 1100mAh
2S LiPo’s and a 10 amp speed controller. Roj’s Hobbies gave a good deal for the radio gear. The
students were given a large sheet of paper with a set of fixed positions marked on it. These were:
The shape, angle of attack and position of the wing,
The position and relative angle of tail feathers with rough sizes,
The position and angle of the motor mount,
Rough position of the nose and belly of the plane.
We mass produced the wing sections by ‘cooking” on a jig in an oven and gave the students
two wing panels each which they then made into a simple wing with flat centre panel and two
dihedral end panels. I showed the students a “Blue Frog’ and a “Park Shark” which are both based
on the “Blue Frog” design. The students then supplied their imaginations and came up with a first
draft plan which was either approved or sent back for a “reality check”. The resulting designs
included a veritable menagerie of animal based designs including a killer whale, dolphin, Friesian
cow and flying pig. There was also a racing car, a clown and some very interesting abstract
designs.
The students then cut the one to one scale drawings into plans and cut out the foam. Next
step was to turn a collection of bits of foam into a plane. Maiden flights were made on the school
oval, resulting in some very exciting flying! Some of the planes flew extremely well first up and
some required a lot of work to make flyable! The students, meanwhile, had been working on their
flying skills on school computers using the FMS freeware flight simulator and “flying” the “Blue
Frog”, “Park Shark” and Multiplex “EasyStar” virtual models. I loaned a fake transmitter which
can be plugged into the computer to give an authentic controller for their flight practice.
On Wednesday before the trip to HSR, Aldo and I took the students to Royal Park for some
real flying on the EasyStar on a buddy box system. The students all had a fly and most did
extremely well for first timers. This showed the great benefit of getting “stick time” on a simulator
as they had a good grasp of what stick does what and how to move it. They also knew what to
expect from the plane as they had all flown the EasyStar on the simulator. Several students also
flew their own planes briefly at Royal Park.
Two days later, on Friday, we set off from Uni High in glorious sunshine looking forward
to a great day’s flying. By the time we hit the freeway we were in heavy fog which continued right
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to Brigg’s field and hung around until we started packing up at 1:00pm! Ian and Colin took the
students flying on their own models with buddy boxes so they all got some good stick time on the
planes they had spent a whole semester creating. They managed to get all the planes to fly quite
well. Ian and I then took the students flying on the club gliders with Jim Baker doing a great job
running the winch for us. The kids had a ball flying their planes and watching some other planes
being flown by Colin, Ian and myself. Colin threw my EasyGlider around the sky while the
students watched in awe. Colin certainly seemed to be enjoying himself! He also had fun with the
Blue Frog and its clones. he seems to be thinking of a “Class Racing” setup with Frogs doing low
level obstacle courses – should be heaps of fun! Colin would probably want a “Loop-to-land”
component!.
Aldo and I have learnt a lot during this exercise and will be doing it with another class next
year and then probably two classes the year after – just in time for Loopy to get to Year 9!
A huge thanks to Ian, Colin and Jim and to the club for the use of the field and planes!

The same magazine also reported the final results for the annual VARMS Trophy contest:
1st Bruce Clapperton, 2nd Col Smith, 3rd Maurice Lloyd.
encouragement awards to Frank O’Neill, Ian Pearson, Mel Wood and Paul Jackson.
A total of 23 members participated in the contest through the year.
July 2005 – The 58th Nationals were held at Richmond, N.S.W. The proposed Glider events were:
Task A Thermal (Snr. & Jnr), F3J, F3B, R/C H.L.G. and 7 Cell Electric.
ALL GLIDER events were cancelled excepting 7 Cell Electric because of less than 6 entries in
each of the other events.
August 2005 –Stand Off Scale Competition (held at the General Meeting, August 12th)
“Scalie of the Year” to John Gottschalk
Winners in Scale display categories:
Best Rookie Model Ross Bathie
Internal Combustion Geoff Moore – BF 109
Best Cockpit
Leon Carlos – Grunau 4
Special Interest
Ian Slack – Woodstock
Model in Progress
Tim Morland – Schweizer 1-26B
Best Electric Model Angelo Favaloro – Corby Starlet
Best Scale Model
Glen Salisbury – F111 PSS
ARF
Maurice Lloyd – Fletcher Crop Duster
Aspectivity 381 of Sept. ’05 contained the following item on the next Scale club project.
Scale Building Group
David Down
The Primary Glider. Ideal for beginners and the experienced scale flier alike.
Without doubt one of the turning points in manned flight. The primary gliders design was
replicated through many successive gliders and powered aircraft as it proved too easy to build and
has stable flight characteristics.
(The glider pictured is not necessarily the one to be built.)
(A later decision was made NOT to continue with this project as the general operating parameters
were extremely narrow).
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Aspectivity 384/Dec.’05 reported the following scale happenings from Horsham for October
29/30/31.
The following results of the scale competition:
Vintage Class
Modern Class
1. David Hobby
KA8
1. David Hobby
DG 600
2. Colin Collyer
Bergerfaulke
2. Steve Malcman
ASW 28
3. Barry De Kuyper Slingsby Gull
3. Colin Collyer
Nova
ARF Class
David Hobby DG 600
1St Time Entrant
Darren Smith
Best Tug Pilot
Chris Carpenter
Best Glider Overall
David Hobby
Also extracted from the President’s report in Aspectivity 384 was the following“It has been proposed to cease using the old power strip from Saturday December 10, with
power flying relocated to the new area from that day forward. New rules will apply from
them, essentially Power in the morning, Glider in afternoon. If you arrive to fly outside of
your timeslot and the field/s are not being used than it is OK to fly, until a member of the
other persuasion is ready to fly. Absolutely no flying power/glider simultaneously in the new
areas, even though you may have an “arrangement”. Glider (winch/bungee/electric) all day,
any Sunday. Aerotow on last Saturday of month, or as advised, Keyboard will remain in its
original place for the immediate future and must be used at all times. All users are reminded
that only “uneven” frequencies are to be used on 36 Mhz band.”
..... and yet another intriguing article from the same magazine that has more applications than
you may initially consider!
Risk Management.
There are three risks in flying model aircraft.
1 - Damage to plane and property; 2 - Bodily Injury;
3 – Loss of use of the field.
I work in the insurance industry with a team of people who handle claims where something
has gone wrong. There are thousands of claims and the range of causes is mind boggling.
There are common themes:
(a)
action not taken to minimise a known or foreseeable risk; and/or
(b)
the alignment of events and factors causing or contributing to the severity of the
74
incident.
What’s a foreseeable risk? It’s regarded by the law as what the “reasonable person” could
foresee. Now though “reasonable people” have differing opinions and are constantly arguing, most
events that occur have also occurred in the past – and are thus, foreseeable. We need to think
ahead to minimise risk.
Examples of what may occur singly or in alignment and cause a serious incident:
My radio/brain/thumbs glitched. My servo jammed. Control horn came off. Up was down. Left
was right. The wind caught it. but the range check was ok last month. I was close to the pits.
Wrong model on radio. I/he was doing the wrong thing. I/He forgot to put a frequency key in the
board. I wasn’t over the field when it happened. She came out of the bushes with her dog and
walked right into the path of my plane. He didn’t call “on the field”. That child should not have
been there.
We could lose our field. Our view of the importance of our hobby may not always be
shared by others. It is important that we do not upset those who decide if we can keep the field.
They will make their decision based on whether they perceive us to be “good tenants”. or not. We
will be perceived as poor – or high risk tenants- if they receive reports of: noisy aircraft; dangerous
flying; flouting the rules; rudeness; a perception of us having a disregard for public safety;
accidents/incidents; and risk of involvement in litigation.
But what if no-one is around? You can never assume that “no-one is around”. On the
roads, it is totally unacceptable to; drive over .05; go the wrong way round the roundabout, or the
wrong way on the free-way on/off ramp – just because “no-one is around”. Same with flying. Too
risky. Your actions may coincidently align with another event, such as equipment or operator
failure, or someone arriving unexpectedly.
The same rules are to apply to everyone. Unfortunately it is only practicable to determine
one standard set of rules to cover all ranges of flier – from the novice to the experienced. This is
similar to when we drive along the road, we are all subject to the same speed limits and road rules,
despite the differences in our vehicles and driving skills. And, we cannot afford to set a bad
example that less experienced fliers may follow.
But we still want our club to be friendly – do be mature and friendly in the way you
approach any-one flying dangerously. We all “ glitch” occasionally or may not have recognised the
danger.
If you see others stray from safe flying practices, that does not reduce the obligations upon
you to comply. The obligations upon you remain. It’s like saying “But officer, I saw two people
speeding so it must be okay for me to drink-drive.” If you have continuing concerns or queries
about flying practices, see a Committee member.
Safe flying – different planes have different flying characteristics – and must be flown
accordingly. A light aircraft will be more easily blown downwind than an aircraft with greater
penetration. SOLUTION; - if field layout allows it, keep light aircraft upwind unless in the landing
phase, A heavier aircraft will have more penetration but will require a longer landing approach and
will land at a faster speed. They are different, but the requirement – to fly both safely – remains.
Flying ”crash-proof” planes only means the model itself may not be damaged. All other
risks remain the same, so these planes, and also 3D models, must still be flown in control and
safely.
75
We were recently asked what our passion was. I said that I was anxious about losing the
field – and passionate about retaining it. I ask you to share my passion – and make sure that we
retain our field so that we can continue to fly and fly safely.
To minimise the risk;
“Expect the unexpected – then work like crazy to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Ian Pullar
November 26th & 27th, Bendigo Scale Weekend saw the following models well utilised:Schweitzer-1.25 scale, LO100, DG600 1.3.5 scale, 2 of Dg600 ¼ scale, 4 x Schweitzers,
Bergerfaulke, Foka 5, Ask14 (Self launching), Ash26 1/6 scale, Mosquito, 3 x Woodstocks,
Discus ¼ scale, Boomerang ¼ scale, Dg300, Ventus 2AX 1/3 scale, Nimbus 4D 1.3.5 scale, plus
the models that did not get taken out of cars or trailers.
The inaugural “Brian Laging Model Gliding Excellence Award” was presented to Colin Collyer by
John Gottschalk.
The Minutes of the General Meeting of 9/12/2005 reflected the following: –
Brigg’s Field –
New power area – to commence operations Sat. 10th December 2005 – “old” runway now
MUST not be used.
Basic Rules.
Absolutely no flying East of road/shelter line- This applies right down to Southern
Boundary., and North to the imaginary East/West line through the tree to East of the bend in the
entrance road.
All power operations, i.e. circuit to be West of new North/South strip.
All glider operations including aerotow to be restricted to West & South of above boundary lines.
Times of use POWER – 8.00 to 12.00 noon – Glider 12.00 noon till dark.
Outside these times, if no member flying, alternative discipline permitted, until any other member is
read to fly appropriate discipline.
NO “ad hoc” sharing, and ABSOLUTELY NO FLYING POWER & GLIDER (apart from
aerotow) in the same airspace at same time.
Alternative flying field – good prospects of use of Competition & aerotow field near Lang Lang in
near future. Exec. Committee to report back in New Year.
Working Bee – to be held shortly – various tasks prioritised and volunteers list drawn up. – see
Max or Martin Hopper for inclusion on list.
Site Liaison – work started on road works reserve. The “new” access off High St. Road could start
soon – Cathies Lane to be blocked off before it reaches Tip/Recycling centre. Make sure that peg
markers are not knocked over as set in existing track. Watch out as well for heavy road equipment!
#####
March 24-25-26, Scale Gliders at Jerilderie 2006
Some of those who attended and their models:Greg Voak
Hots Tug (Small)
¼ scale Schweizer 1-26
3.5m
Bill Bland
Hots Tug (BIG)
½ scale ASW 28
7.5m
David Hobby
¼ scale DG600
4.8m
ASK 8
Jim Houdalakis
¼ scale DG600
4.8m
Theo Arvanitakis
⅓ scale Ventus 2AX 4.4m
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Chris Carpenter
Rod Watkins
Bill Hamilton
Gary McDougall
Henry Kobylanski
Wilga Tug
¼ scale ASW 28
¼ scale ASW 24
⅓ scale Nimbus
⅓ scale Discus
⅓ scale Salto
Lunak
¼ scale ASW 28
4.2m
4.2m
7.0m
4.2m
4.53m
4.4m
May 2006 and Ray Cooper adds a third World Record to his collection:
Sub-class : F5 Open (Aeroplane, electric motor S (rechargeable sources of current))
Category : F5: Radio Controlled Flight
No 174: Distance to goal and return : 142.8 km
Date of flight : 27/05/2006
Record holder: Raymond J. V. Cooper (Australia)
Course/place: Yarrawonga, VIC (Australia)
Ratified on 11/07/2006 – Database ID 13877.
All of Ray’s models are designed and built by himself – low tech traditional balsa, ply tissue
covered models.
June 2006 – 29th LSF Soaring Tournament, Jerilderie
1. David Hobby
2. Matt Lowe
3. Matt Wood
AdvancedChris Staats
NoviceJames Southwell
From the June Aspectivity we have the following (oh, shock, horror) announcement-
Proposal for a new Competition Format.
(as proposed by Messrs. Gerry Carter and Alan Mayhew)
The new format is aimed at Electric assisted glider pilots.
Below is a summary of the concept with some of the draft rules.
The Committee hopes to have a demonstration day soon…
ELECTRIC LAUNCHED THERMAL GLIDING RULES
Summary:
This is a club oriented competition that emphasizes thermal skills and judgement and includes a
small reward for landing precision. Two clocks are started when the model is launched. One clock
measures the motor run time and the other the flight time. The score consists of Flight Points, less
Adjusted Motor Run, plus Landing Bonus. To allow different models to compete on a more or less
equal basis, the Adjusted Motor Run is a calculated figure that takes into account the type of motor
being used. For Speed 400 motors the deduction is 30% of the motor run time. At the other end of
the scale, for brushless motors, the deduction is 100% of motor run time. For brushed ferrite motors
the factor is 50% and for brushed cobalt motors the factor is 80%. The target flight time is set by
the CD on the day in the range from 6 minutes to 10 minutes. A Landing Bonus of 25 landing
points applies to landings within 3 metres of the spot, and decreases by 5 points with each 3 metre
further distance. Only one motor run is allowed so the pilot must make a judgement about the
minimum height needed to achieve the target flight time.
Other Rules:
No limits on models, motors or batteries as long as the model complies with FAI requirements.
No fixed or retractable arresting device (i.e. bolt, saw tooth-like protuberance, etc) is allowed to
slow down the model aircraft on the ground during landing.
77
The competitor may use two model aircraft in the contest.
The competitor may combine the parts of the model aircraft during the contest, provided the
resulting model aircraft conforms to the rules and the parts have been checked before the start of
the contest.
All ballast must be carried internally and fastened securely within the airframe.
The competitor (pilot) must operate the radio equipment.
Each competitor will be allowed either one or two helpers according to the conditions of the day.
The CD will make this decision. If conditions permit, one helper only is preferred so that the
competition will run more quickly.
The competitor is entitled to a new working time if:
a) His model in flight collides with another model in flight,
b) His attempt was hindered or aborted by an unexpected event, not within his control.
The flight in progress is annulled and recorded as a zero score if the model aircraft loses any part
during the launch or the flight, except when this occurs as the result of mod-air collision with
another model aircraft.
The flight is recorded as zero score if the propeller is seen spinning for any reason after motor
shutdown.
The model should be launched within 10 seconds of the CD’s order to start the group.
The ‘working time’ is the target flight time plus 20 seconds. The extra 20 seconds provides for
those who may overfly the target time (to a small extent) to complete the landing without rushing
and thereby gain their Landing Bonus.
If the model has not come to rest on the ground before the working time ends, then a Landing
Bonus will not be awarded.
Any model aircraft launched prior to the start of the working time must be landed as soon as
possible and relaunched within the working time. Failure to comply will result in cancellation of
the competitor’s score for that round.
There is no limit to the motor runtime.
      
The Final result for the VARMS Trophy 2005 – 2006
(As Max Haysom is ineligible for the trophy, John Needham is to be congratulated for a very
consistent effort.)
1. Max Haysom
6503 10. Ian Pearson
2141 19. Les Cleeland
1000
2. John Needham
5052 11. Gary McDougall 1863 20. Tim Lennon
946
3. Paul Jacobson
4992 12. Bruce Clapperton 1825 21. Michael Lui
937
4. Frank O’Neill
4736 13. Simon Raphael 1710 22. Gerry Carter
846
5. Leon Carlos
4398 14. Graeme Hollis
1436 23. Neil Spencer
868
6. Ian Slack
3562 15. Jim Baker
1429 24. Steve Lunney
754
7. Peter Cossins
3467 16. Martin Hopper
1424 25. Andrew Allen
763
8. Lou Rodman
2985 17. Roger Stevenson 1353 26. Daniel Malcman 719
9. David Weller
2206 18. Alan Mayhew
1000 27. Colin Smith
713
The following document was a mail-out to all members of VARMS as a prelude to the ensuing
General/Annual General Meeting to be held in July, and, in conjunction with a previous article
relating to Electric Launched Gliders, aroused a reaction or three!
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Dear Member,
At our last club meeting a proposal was put forward to amend the hours of operation at Brigg’s
Field. It was agreed that this proposal should be put to the whole membership for decision. Please
consider the arguments below and forward your vote to the Committee by 11 July 2006.
Brigg’s Field hours.
It is proposed to amend the hours of operation at Brigg’s Field so that on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
the hours are reversed. This would mean that Glider operations would be from dawn to 12 noon.
Power operations would be from noon to evening. All other existing arrangements to remain
unchanged.
FOR
The club voted in 1996 to allow power models to use Brigg’s Field and we have had many members
join VARMS since that time to only fly power models. This meant that by June 2005, we had
grown to be the largest club in southern Australia.
Following the field layout changes implemented to provide a safety buffer to Eastlink and High
Street Rd., we have had a large drop in membership (nearly 20%), and it has been intimated that
more members will not be renewing this year. The reasons stated are that our current rules do not
provide equity in usage times even though the same fees are paid and that working “power”
members are unable to use the field after work except on Saturday morning. Some comments have
also been received from glider pilots saying that early morning flying, expecially during the warmer
months, would be preferable.
AGAINST
Since its inception VARMS has been a glider club. This reason for being has been reinforced by
VARMS’ committment to glider training and usage of the field for glider competitions and
aerotowing. Apart from slope soaring at Glenfern Road. There are no other close clubs/sites in
metropolitan Melbourne where VARMS glider pilots can go fly without specific arrangements
being made and therefore any restriction in available hours is a major penalty for glider pilots.
The Committee, VARMS, PO Box 4096, Knox City, 3152.
Proposal: To amend the hours of operation at Brigg’s Field so that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the
flying hours are reversed, This would mean that, on those days, Glider operations would be from
dawn to 12 noon. Power operations would be from noon to evening.
 For
............................................
Name
 Against
....................................................
Signature
79
June Aspectivity 389 reflected the following item relating to the “History of VARMS” document:HISTORY OF VARMS
Our club historian, Mr Des Bayliss has produced a series of documents which detail the history of
VARMS, the history of the League of Silent Flight plus information concerning matters such as
Contests and World Record results. Also available is a copy of every cartoon produced in
Aspectivity or its predecessors. These documents are available to all club members on CD on
request. Please contact a committee member.
Final results of the RCGA Thermal League Competition for 2005-06 (Best 6 of 10 results).
Whilst the final competition was not flown until 23 July, the results are as follows:1. David Hobby
5997 2. Gerry Carter
5984 3. Jim Houdalakis
5963
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2006 – 07
The Committee
President
Max Haysom
Secretary
Roger Stevenson
Treasurer
Ian Pearson
Editor
David R. Jones
Ordinary Member
David Pratley
Registrar
Raoul Wynn
Ordinary Member
Martin Hopper
Contest Director
*”Ad Hoc”
Ordinary Member
Alan Mayhew
*C.D. for RCGA events will be shared among participating members. Ian Slack will again manage
the duties for the VARMS Trophy events.
July 2006 – Aspectivity 390 displayed a very definite reaction to the variation of the flying field
rules at Brigg’s field as well as the introduction of “Electric launched” Thermal activities. The
following responses are taken from the magazine as they appeared:Fellow Members, there is a proposal before the Club to swap the flying times for power and gliding
on two days of the week. This came about because some glider pilots and some power pilots have
approached the committee and asked to make this change because it better suited them.
This seems to have started another round of “Us versus Them” in the club. I think it is important
that we all remember a few simple points:

The flying hours roster was forced upon us (in December last year?) by EastLink
construction works and safety concerns.

No reduction in “Glider” hours is suggested.

We are all flyers, and many members fly all sorts of planes.
So can we all just go flying?
Fair winds and soft landings!
Numb Thumbs
(Editor – David Jones)
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor Aspectivity,
Dear David,
What’s happened to the focus of VARMS in recent times? I was of the understanding that the
founding of VARMS, was for the purpose of model soaring (gliding). It was never intended to
incorporate power flying at all.
There were already many clubs in existence for that purpose and the founders realised that gliders
were in a category of their own. Hence the need for a unique association such as VARMS.
Just to throw some light on the events that have changed since our inaugural days. Slope soaring
was initially the main drive in our hay days of this association. No doubt the need to fly gliders
even when it was calm, encouraged more thermal flying and the need for a flat open field. Brigg’s
Field was finally chosen for a home base of our R/c gliding members. For a number of years bungy
and winch launches were acceptable and seen as the only method for models to get airborne. The
hassles associated with these methods of towing gliders into the air are quite familiar to everyone.
When aero tows finally came along, efficient glider launching became a reality and is still most
desirable.
And here maybe …. Ends the story of VARMS …. Perhaps?
Is a growing membership so desirable that we should now share our field with power fliers? I for
one think NOT! I also fly and have a passion for power models and enjoy this activity on calm
days. But I believe that VARMS members who wish to fly their gliders or sailplanes should have
first right to do so at anytime, a.m. or p.m. and every day. Power model flyers, who are not
engaged in the process of launching a glider, should have no rights over any glider flyer at all,
whether there is only one or a dozen glider pilots present. VARMS is, as its name shows, an
81
association of radio model soaring. As a founding member of this Association I would strongly
advise our gliding members to stand their ground and refuse any attempts to undermine the aims
and needs of our club.
I would not have any objection to power fliers using Brigg’s Field for their personal enjoyment
when no gliders are present. But when they do, should respect the sole right of gliding members
and give way when they require the use of the field at any time.
The one issue that has discouraged me from flying at Brigg’s field over recent years is the annoying
knowledge of “that” time table allocated for power and glider flyers. As a member I should not
have to think whether or not it is my turn to fly at our home field. It’s a real turn off.
In conclusion, I would also draw the line at Electric flyers that are not strictly gliders but power
models disguised as such. No doubt this last point would need a revision of rules in order to clarify
“what an electric assisted glider launch” in fact specifies. Please keep Brigg’s Field for what it was
designed for – GLIDERS.
Dieter Prussner (VARMS Mem. No 1)
BRIGG’S FIELD – HOURS SURVEY
REJECTION OF ‘FOR’ CASE
Our Committee has gone to great lengths to make sure that all fully paid up financial members can
register their vote for or against the proposed change to the allocation of time to power flying and
glider flying at our field. They are to be commended for that. It is not an easy issue to resolve and
not everybody will be happy with the final decision. What is very important is that a proper and
transparent process is followed.
The survey outlines the case FOR and AGAINST.
In particular. The case FOR relies on the argument that
“… our current rules do not provide equity in usage times even though the same fees are paid and
that working ‘power’ members are unable to use the field after work except on Saturday morning”
I totally reject the argument.
Firstly all members, when joining agree to abide by the rules and regulations of the Club as
determined from time to time. Accordingly all ‘power’ members have agreed to this and would
have known, or should have known the ‘hours’ situation before joining. If they did not know, that
is not a problem that the Club has to resolve.
Secondly, it is patently untrue that ‘power’ members cannot fly after work. They can. They can fly
a glider just as ‘glider’ members can fly a power model during ‘power’ time.
The simple fact of the matter is that the field is available to ALL members ALL OF THE TIME.
Having said that, I am in favour of the proposed change and will be voting accordingly. What I
don’t want to happen is for my vote to be seen to be endorsing the above argument.
On a somewhat related . . .
‘VARMS’ stands for Victorian Association of Radio Model SOARING.
I would like to see the SOARING put back into VARMS, but not simply by excluding power.
I propose that all new members who want to fly power at our field be required to first gain at least
their glider Solo qualification, and preferably their Bronze wings. Such a move would see VARMS
continue as a glider club and be true to its Constitution.
Gerry Carter.
82
Response from the Committee
Members should note that your committee strongly believes that VARMS continues to support
Radio-control Model Soaring. VARMS is still the only club providing formal Glider training and
providing Glider only facilities. We have a very active glider training program, ably managed by
experienced members. It is without a doubt our main source of new members. Sadly many of these
new members drift off to other clubs because we cannot retain their interest once past the initial
glider training phase, or we don’t offer a structured training program for i/c power. We are actively
involved in Glider competitions and provide aero-tow facilities for Scale glider flyers.
Members should be aware that power operations were approved by membership vote some 10 years
ago and that the current split hour arrangements were only implemented last December, following
considerable member consultation and with member approval. These changes were necessary as a
consequence of East-Link construction and associated safety concerns.
There is no proposal before the membership to cease or reduce glider operations. The only proposal
is to swap hours on 2 weekdays at the request of both power and glider pilots.
As always your committee will only implement changes affecting critical operational issues
following member approval.
A 2nd World Championship for Australia &
VARMS
August 2006 – David Hobby successfully defended
his World F3J title at Martin, Slovak Republic.
David was 9th of 12 in the qualifying 10 rounds and
was placed 1st after the 4 rounds of the Final. Carl
Strautins (NSW) qualified 11th and earned a final
place of 10th. Other participating Team members
were Matthew Partlett 48th and Mike O’Reilly 49th
with the Australian team finishing 13th. Matt Wood
was Team Manager with Theo Arvanitakis, Thomas
Cooke & Ziggy Kusiak as towers.
(Note: David Hobby chose not to be a member of the Australian team which is restricted to 3
members, as this enabled another flyer from Australia to compete. If David’s score was included as
part of the Australian team, they would have taken 6th place.)
Club Member Demographics as at June 2006 from a total membership of 183.
Unknown
Glider
Power Power/Glider Sub total
VARMS (Full)
16
76
8
48
148
VARMS (Assoc.)
2
11
7
15
35
Overall Total
18
87
15
63
183
83
August Aspectivity contained the following schedule of flying times as Brigg’s Field as a
result of an overwhelming vote for them to be changed, 53 to 15.
84
The following is taken from the August Aspectivity, President’s Report (Max Haysom) –
The Parks Victoria Future Directions Plan 2006, for Dandenong Valley Parklands has
been released in its final form. This plan is important to our future at Brigg’s Field and it
makes no reference to our presence in the DVP. Our site is classified as Special Use Zone B
(Multiple Use) and the following references are taken from the plan:
Many types of recreation activities may be appropriate for this zone into the future.
Acknowledge and maintain pre-existing land uses within the Parkland’s boundary, which are
not compatible with the general park management zones.
To recognise and provide areas within the Parklands where a range of compatible park
management, community and commercial uses may be permitted.
To provide opportunities for new commercial or community uses, which contribute to and
complement the Parklands’ recreational opportunities and settings.
What this is saying to us, is that, as the situation stands at present, we will always stand
a chance of losing, or, having to share part of our site with another activity. The only way we
can be assured is to have freehold land or a secure lease.
The following article has been extracted from the Silent Flight website by kind permission of the
author and is a very useful guide to an activity that has been a very strong element within VARMS
and the wider modelling community for many years.
Aerotowing. A "How To Get Started" guide
By Colin Collyer. V.A.R.M.S
Scale sailplanes are one of the most graceful forms of model aircraft, and when they get to a quarter
scale or larger, they tend to appear less like a model, and more like the real thing.
The traditional way of launching from a flat field has been to use a powerful winch, petrol or
electric. You soon notice that heavy models wind in a lot of line, and launch heights are not great.
Real sailplanes used to be winch launched, but these days this has mostly been replaced by
aerotowing, being towed much higher by an aircraft with a "tin thermal " in the front. Why not
emulate this?
Early aero towing was done in VARMS in the 60's . I have seen early film by Brian Laging of Ray
Cooper and Ray Pike with a .60 powered stick and a large Foka 5. To say that it was a struggle with
only a .60 model would be an understatement ! I'm sure a big dose of horsepower would have made
a huge difference.
So, how do we get started?... Well, it's going to be a team effort, a tug, a glider, and 2 pilots.
As a general rule, the tug needs to be overpowered and about 1.5 times the weight of the glider. The
weight allows the tug to be the dominant partner, and the power is required for an adequate climb
angle (see later notes on tugs) A tow line is required, as is a release in both the glider and the tug
(See later notes )
The basic rules are as follows:
1. Use the release BEFORE or AS you get into trouble...
Do not wait for things to go pie shaped, as things go "awfully wrong awfully quick" and the
forces involved can be considerable, and will easily over ride servos
2. Concentrate on keeping the wings level, even for gentle turns
85
3. Try not to let the glider get to high above the tug. Most gliders will be flying faster than their
normal gliding speed, and so will want to climb.
Let’s do it..
TUG
Make sure the towline is not under the tailplane. When both pilots are ready, increase the throttle,
but do not rush getting airborne. Keep the climb rate slow until adequate flying speed is reached.
Maintaining flying speed is what determines climb angle
Climb out almost in to wind ( maybe 45 deg is ideal ) Adjust the climb angle to suit the glider ( eg:
steeper angle to slow down, but don't forget your own min flying speed, as speed decays quicker
than normal when towing ). If the model deviates from its chosen course, just bring the wings back
to level and continue on a new heading.
Due to visibility, a turn will become necessary. Full circles are a no no at this stage, as is down
wind, normally a zig zag course into wind is employed, but avoiding the sun You will need to
negotiate with your glider driver because he needs to make sure he is not cutting the corner. When
he is so, start a wide turn while maintaining height. Negotiate start and finish
After several zig zags, if you haven't already got cold feet it will be time to release. Again, negotiate
with your driver. Wait for VISUAL separation, then return for the next 'victim'
Points to watch for....


Tug motor stops...
No time for niceties, DROP the line and fly to the best of a bad situation
Slack line...
Although this situation can be saved, it is also potentially dangerous, breaking bits off
models on the jerk, or using the line as a cheese cutter on parts of the planes. Again, the
answer is DROP the line
GLIDER
Have someone support the wings level ( important: not hold, just support ) put in a little down trim.
The model will probably leap into the air, so be ready to hold it down. About 5mtrs above the tug is
about right, and still keeps you above the tugs slipstream... keep the wings level
Concentrate on keeping your wings level, and to not get too high above the tug ( important if the tug
is underpowered ) Do not worry about following the tug, as with the line connected to your nose,
you will tend to follow easily. If you find yourself too high, try a little spoiler rather than down
elevator, as you are less likely to overtake the tug. (Sailplanes are slippery critters, and speed up
readily on down elevator). If you even think the line is slack DROP the line
How is it going....Your tug driver has just informed you that he is to do a turn to the left, so you
need to make sure you are not about to cut the corner, and in fact you can be about 1 wingspan to
the right of the tug... and back to wings level... OK to the tug driver and round we go. The tug will
pull you around the corner.
If the turn was gentle its easy .... if not... DROP the line if it gets slack
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If you are still hanging on, and the tug driver has had enough, he will tell you. DROP the line and
thank the driver for the tow. NOTE: He should NEVER HAVE TO ASK YOU TO GET OFF
TWICE !
Points to watch for.....



Getting ahead of the tug...
Will not work ! Generally caused by a combination of underpowered tug and out of position
glider. Lots off slack line and a real model wrecker
Out of station..
No real problem if minor, just keep wings level and watch for slack line
Tug turns too tight....
Follow him around or get off... it could get rough. This problem is not always the tuggies
fault, as often the line is against the tugs rudder, and so he has to fight to get a turn going...
and then the line lets go of the rudder !
TIPS
By far the easiest way to learn aero towing is to go somewhere where its already being done. It
matters not which half of the team is the learner, if the other half knows the game, its only one set
of mistakes happening, and the experienced guy can , and knows when to bail out.









If the tug driver says GET OFF, do it promptly, and don't ever expect to be told twice... and
expect to bring the line back
Long lines are easier than short ones 50 ft is bloody short, and 150 ft is a bit long... 120 ft is
about ideal (see notes below )
Most aborted tows are caused by the tug stalling... its driver not concentrating on airspeed
The tug driver gets good at flying "an un-trimmed aircraft " as the line pulls on different
parts of his plane
The towing heights used are between 500 and 1500 ft, the latter they would want to be big
models
Always use weak links on the towline. 20lb fishing line is ok for most models. no reason
why people with heavier models can’t use a bit stronger weak-link, as they do in full size.
Weak links save models... ask me how I know !
Don't forget..." Power gives way to sail" - that means that the glider has right of way on
landing. AND the tug is sometimes a glider too !
The tug driver will either get very good at landings, or he will get very good at fixing
undercarriages. You may get to do 50 take offs and landings a day, so the u/c gets a fair
workout.
The glider pilot sometimes finds himself weaving behind the tug... caused by trying to
follow the tug instead of just concentrating on keeping his wings level.
1.5mm piano wire (bend to suit any curve) Nyrod allows for the servo to be installed anywhere.
On the servo, use the innermost hole on the horn. Closed position is as shown with the servo arm in
a "locked" position to gain mechanical advantage.
Both designs need to be mounted to a solid former, as does the servo.
Tug tow hook can be anywhere within the yellow circle. Not too far from the C of G and through
the thrust line.
87
Glider tow release
My Favourite , the "Peter Averill" Tow release.
Glue the nyrod into the hole, but do not allow it to protrude into the towline receptacle hole. The
actuating wire is a 1.5mm piano wire from the servo.
On the servo, use the innermost hole on the horn. Closed position is as shown with the servo arm in
a "locked" position to gain mechanical advantage.
Use a 3kg/cm or greater servo
When installing into fuselage, the area around the slot may need reinforcement with ply or glass.
Could also use "servo eyelet"
Glider tow hook can be anywhere within the yellow circle. This one is the Engine bearer type.
Towlines
Material - You can use any of the following:
F3B Winch Line, Thick Whipper snipper line, Brickies Twine or a thin rope.
Length:
21 to 45 metres is in the range, but optimal would be around 36 metres.
Note: the Glider end of the towline is often "floating" about 36 metres behind and below the tug. It
can be prone to catch on fences, power lines or trees. Make a special effort to keep it away from
people and property.
Summary
For the scale Glider pilot, aerotowing has some real advantages, the obvious one being high
launches , up where the thermals are bigger. Even on a non thermal day, flights of 20 min are the
norm. You get to take off and land on a runway, much nicer than dropping into the longer grass...
nice landings top off a nice flight
More importantly, its easier on the model than a winch, none of those figure 9's just after launch, no
huge bending loads on the wings, and no line "birds nests!"
For the Tugger, he will find a purpose for his flying, and his skills will improve by lots of flying
with the TX sticks in unusual spots, and take offs and landings will improve "out of site"

Scale Static Competition (August General Meeting)
Judge’s Choice – Tim Morland
Schweizer 26B, ¼ scale
Member’s Choice – Martin Lui
Bergfaulke Mu 13e
“Scalie” of the Year – Russ Naughton
... yet another article purloined from the SilentFlight website –
88
LANDINGS YOU CAN WALK AWAY FROM.....
By Chris Williams
At the White Sheet aerotow event here in the UK recently, I was approached by one of the
chaps who wondered if he could suggest a topic to be covered in my regular scale column.
I listened politely, for any writer knows the value of outside stimulation, and I am no
exception. Why is it, he asked, that model glider pilots don’t generally seem to plan their
approaches in the manner of the full-size? This question was no doubt prompted by some
rather dodgy arrivals during the course of the day and a couple of outbreaks of IMFD
(Involuntary Modified-by-Fence Disease). This feller, and I apologise for not recording his
name as I was flying at the time, went on to detail what happens when the full-size decide
to descend to Terra Firma.
At a height that is predetermined by protocol and local conditions, the circuit commences
by applying forward trim and upping the speed by a small but significant amount of knots.
A square-ish pattern is flown which culminates a controlled landing directly into wind with
forward velocity reduced to a safe margin just above the stall. At the last moment the
descent is checked by pulling back on the stick and ‘rounding out’, with the mainwheel
gently and sweetly kissing the ground, the transition from flight to mere perambulation
being indiscernible to even the keenest observer. (As a knowledgeable chap at the Dorset
Gliding club was telling me recently, with the K13 it is entirely possible to pull up to such an
angle of attack at the point of landing, that the tailskid will touch before the mainwheel.
Apparently this is not cricket and causes much muttering and head-shaking back in the
clubroom). Why don’t we modellers fly to the same standard, that is the question.
We’ll start with the more obvious observations: even scale models, operate to an entirely
different regime. If the full-size pilot has been taught, for instance that once down to 500
feet he must commence a circuit and land, and if the placard on the glider he is flying
informs him that his approach speed must be in the region of 60 knots, why then this is
what he does. One thing, or rather two things help him to achieve this, and they are in no
particular order, the altimeter and airspeed indicator, Now I’d be the first in the queue for
the telemetry that would give me these instruments on my tranny, but until then, I like the
rest of you, will have to rely purely on visual judgement. This means that we have to judge
(guess) the minimum height from which we can set up a reasonable circuit, we have to
judge (guess) just how close the machine is to obstacles such as bushes, trees and
fences, and we have to just, (really guess or consult Mystic Smeg) where a model is going
to come to rest after it has touched down.
On the day of this event, it so happened that I had the last flight of the day with my
Minimoa. It was not particularly difficult to set up a landing as described and roll her gently
into the centre of the patch, and I reckon this was something that most of the flyers present
could easily have accomplished too had they the advantage of an empty sky and such a
modicum of peace and quiet. They say that the deck of an aircraft carrier during
operations is one of the busiest places on earth, I don’t plan to argue with that. Anyone
who has experienced a busy period at an aerotow event will know how to vote when it
comes to deciding the second busiest place on earth. If you haven’t had this experience,
let me describe it for you.
Having fought your way through all of the frequency and queuing battles, you have moved
to the front of the queue and the flightline controller bellows,
‘NEXT’. ‘Flair, or Loop’ he enquires, referring to your preferred method of towing
attachment. ‘Er, Flair’ you might say. ‘Not on this tug’, he replies, try the next one
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over’. With a sudden roar, the next one over takes off with a glider on tow, You hear a
shout: ‘Tug landing, you’re in the way, glider pilot, please move back”.
You move back as a tug burbles and swishes its’ way on to the patch, an elderly gent
earnestly asks you if you have seen Mabel.
‘Flair?’... the flight line controller beckons you forward. You grab the proffered ball and
attempt to stuff it in the hole in the front of your glider.
‘Glider landing!’ comes a shout followed by another, different voice: ‘Glider landing...’
Bump, swish, rumble, a sleek glass ship comes to rest in front of the tug. The pilot starts
to run forward to retrieve his precious creation, but is halted by a stentorian bellow:
‘GLIDER LANDING’, please keep to the bottom half of the patch’.
Faced with a rapidly diminishing area in which to land, the glider pilot tries to change
direction, but catches a wing tip in the long grass and ground loops. With a sudden roar
another tug heads skywards with its charge hanging on behind, and the two glider pilots
rush out to retrieve. After much fumbling, you still haven’t managed to connect your glider
to the line, and a tide of red slowly rises up your face, as the people in the queue behind
shuffle and stand impatiently. Finally, the job is done, and you stand next to the tug pilot
whilst someone else authoritively holds your wingtip clear of the ground. That someone
else turns out to be the elderly gent .... he looks under your starboard wing.
‘Mabel’, he quavers, ‘are you under there?’
‘OK?’ The godly figure of the tug pilot enquires, kindly, well mostly they’re kind. As you
nod nervously, he calls ‘all out’ and the tug and glider waltz merrily off down the patch. If
there’s a slight tailwind and your glider is heavy, if the temperature is high and the tug’s
engine is sucking comparatively less oxygen, then those first few seconds can be pretty
crowded. If your anhedralled gull-wing’s tips barely clear the ground to start with, then the
first task is to apply the necessary physic guesswork on the aileron stick to keep them
clear, the second is get the thing off the ground before the tug overrruns into the long
grass. Once airborne, things become easier and it’s usually a fairly simple ride up to
altitude.
Skipping lightly over the period of soaring, you’ve lost the lift and now the model is getting
larger and larger. Another glider is undergoing the same experience, and is stooging
about at the same altitude.
‘Tug landing’, shouts a voice, ‘is the patch clear?’ ‘Are you coming down now?’ asks
the other glider pilot, ‘cos I think I’m gonna have to...’
It becomes obvious that Mr. Gravity is asking both gliders for repayment of all outstanding
sums.
‘Me to’ you reply.
‘Tug landing’, says yet another voice, ‘is that tug clear?’
‘Dunno’ replies the flight line controller (bet you’d forgotten about him) ‘there’s a damn
great glider pilot in the way!’
A hand guides you gently out of the way, just as your final circling coincides with the other
guy’s and what looks like a potentially nasty mid-air passes off without incident. You
decide that enough is enough, and push the stick forward and the spoilers out in an
attempt to get down first and out of the damned way. The speed builds up and you flatten
out just over the grass and hold it there as the patch approaches. A bit more spoiler, a bit
less, a flurry of small elevator adjustments and the skid finds the mown grass right at the
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leading edge of the square...lovely. But, wait, the machine won’t stop, it’s slipping and
sliding along according to the laws of Conservation of Momentum (not to be confused with
the laws concerning the failure to abate a smoky chimney).
There’s nothing you can do, it’s all in the hands of Fate, and it’s with no small relief that
our machine rolls right into the pits, coming to rest amid half a dozen other gliders and
someone’s lunch box. Holding onto the tranny firmly to hide the fact that your hands are
shaking badly, you walk with all the insouciance of someone who meant that to happen all
along, whilst all around people shake their heads with disgust or appreciation.
Compare the foregoing to that last flight of the day... there’s something holding up its hand
to be noticed, Right, dead right in fact.... when you fly at a busy aerotow event, there are
sometimes quite a lot of things clamouring for your attention, and quite often it’s this factor
that leads to a degrading of a flier’s otherwise flawless competence in the landing phase.
So, part of the answer to the original question is that at an aerotow event, such as the one
described, it’s the unaccustomed pressure of events that causes many people, myself
included, to do things that they normally wouldn’t when bringing their machines back to
earth. But even under more normal circumstances, the question is still valid. Why do
pilots sometimes get into such a mess in the landing phase?
Let me tell what I am convinced is one reason: putting off ‘til tomorrow that which should
be done today. To many people the landing is a difficult hurdle, something to be put off as
long as they can, and then got over with as quickly as possible. No two landings are alike,
and indeed if there wasn’t something special about this procedure, people wouldn’t burst
into spontaneous applause when someone pulls off a good one.
So, a pilot gets a model up on the slope, for instance, soars to a great height, stooges
around for half an hour, then lands and reaches for his flask of coffee. He may repeat this
procedure five or six times during the course of the day and then wend his way home filled
with the glow of satisfaction that is the reward of a day well spent. So what, you may ask,
what’s wrong with that? Regard now that same flier when the lift has suddenly died and
the landing, which was previously a leisurely affair, now needs to be performed toot sweet.
As often as not, the result will be a manoeuvre that is significantly degraded from its
predecessors, sometimes leading to a confetti-strewn hillside and some surreptitious
dustpan-and-brush work. The conclusion is obvious; any pilot who flies the same pattern
day in, day out, is going to overwork his sweat glands when presented with unusual
circumstances such as may be found at a busy aerotow event. (Or the sudden
appearance of a low-flying aircraft, or a dense patch of mist flowing unexpectedly up the
hill, or the horn of a maddened bull appearing between his legs...)
To help make things clearer let’s define three types of landing, then you can decide into
which category yours will fit.
1.
Controlled crash: This is usually accompanied by some nifty legwork as people
struggle to get out of the way. The approach is often totally unplanned, with the
pilot’s options diminishing throughout the procedure until the inevitable ensues.
2.
Adequate Landing: Most fall into this category; it’s safe, it’s geographically correct
(in the same field as the take-off) and has all the style of a water buffalo passing
wind.
3.
Greaser: No description required here, as we all know what a greaser looks like,
right?
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Well, you know what’s going to happen now, don’t you? Some git is going to tell you how
to fly... don’t you just hate it when that happens.
Getting a model from a particular point in the sky down to a particular point on the ground
is basically an exercise in energy management. At 100 feet you model has a given
amount of potential energy compared to its resting state on the ground. Looking at the
extremes of your many choices of action, you can dive vertically downwards converting all
that energy into velocity, or you can burble around on the stall trying to retain height by
energy conservation instead. Neither is a wise choice of action, instead, this is where the
circuit comes into play. The idea of flying a circuit is a simple one, as the pioneer aviators
at the turn of the century found out; this simple pattern gives you the time and the
opportunity to adjust your glide path (which is determined by balancing speed, height, drag
and direction), so that you arrive at threshold with just the right amount of remaining
energy to pull off your high quality landing. As I mentioned before, without flight
instrumentation we are going to have to rely on judgement to balance the factors involved,
and good judgement can only come with practice.
What happens with practice is that some hidden part of your subconscious becomes a
computer, it automatically correlates what the eyes see with the knowledge database that
you have build up from previous experience, This will vary from model to model and will
be refined with experience, the critical factor being the behaviour of that particular wing
section upon which your model is relying. The other critical factor is the efficiency or
otherwise of your glidepath control apparatus, the airbrakes/spoilers living in the wings.
So to recap, you control altitude and airspeed with the elevator, drag (and also airspeed)
with the spoilers.
Traditionally a circuit is square in shape; you fly overhead into wind passing to a point
somewhere in front of you where you will commence your first crosswind leg, either to the
right or left as the situation dictates. At the appropriate point you turn another ninety
degrees in the downwind phase, losing altitude as necessary, The point at which you
enter your final crosswind leg, known as base leg, is crucial, as it will determine the
amount of energy you have left when you enter the last into-wind leg, known somewhat
sinisterly as Finals. If you turn too soon you will come over the landing area too high and
with the distinct possibility that the brakes may not be man enough to kill off the excess
energy. If on the other hand you turn too late, you will find yourself short of the required
energy to reach the landing area and that’s usually when the lurking fence leaps up and
takes a bite out of your sailplane. The square approach is the simplest and best way to
give you the time you need to sort things out and bring your flight to a suitable and
satisfactory conclusion, but of course outside of competition, it doesn’t have to be a square
at all, a large circle will do the job just as well.
Why then, does the pilot of the full-size add down trim and speed up in the landing circuit,
surely this is not the thing to do? Actually, it’s a pretty nifty idea, because it gives you
options both sides of your rate of descent in this configuration. If the computer in your
brain beeps and says, ‘too low too low... you can’t get back from there’ you can opt to
leave the spoilers alone and rely on your extra airspeed to bring you home. If the
converse applies (Beep! Beep! Too high), you can pull out the spoilers until things start
looking better. But, I hear those of you still awake say, surely if you are short of the height
needed to reach the landing then it’s better to slow up and trim for minimum sink? It
depends on the strength of the wind of course, but most experienced pilots will, in this
situation, stuff the nose down and head for the home plate. There are three possible
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explanations for this; firstly at higher airspeeds there is more positive control, which is
something you might need on a blustery day. Secondly, as you lost altitude you get to that
part of the wind gradient near the ground where the air is moving more slowly due to the
drag of the grass, bushes, coffee flasks and antelope etc. This means that you can cover
comparatively more ground compared to the higher altitude, even allowing for the extra
drag at high speed.
Finally, as you get within a few feet of the ground, the aircraft enters what is known as
ground effect where due to the winds’ proximity to the ground, it rides on a sort of cushion
of air, something which also increases the wing’s efficiency. If I was coy before in
describing exactly what constitutes a ‘greaser’ then now is the best time to elucidate. A
perfect landing, and I ought to point out that this is purely my definition, takes place when
the transition from flight to flat is entirely seamless, one minute the sailplane is floating
effortlessly within inches of the ground, the next the wheel is rumbling and you can actually
see the lift dying from under the wings as she slows and comes to rest. Hopefully, you will
be able to hold the wings level until the last moment, and prevent the usual tip-snag and
semi-ground loop that bedevils a landing on a less than perfect surface. No doubt the full
size practice is somewhat different, landing at unnecessarily high speeds may well cause
dissention in the workshop, but I believe that for models, the best landings come from the
benefit of a slightly higher airspeed. Then you can experience those final, satisfying
seconds before touchdown, skimming the surface of the ground and utilising the spoilers
to designate the exact point of contact.
There are no shortcuts to pulling off a good landing, not just now and again that is, but
with consistency, and it boils down to this: practice, practice and more practice. First you
have to get to know the efficiency of your airfoil, and this means deliberately setting the
glider up to land short, and then pulling back to see how far you can stretch it. With many
models, what will happen as the airspeed diminishes is that a wing will suddenly drop, so
get to know if yours falls into this category, Often pilots with such a model come to fear
the stall and do everything to avoid it, which in many ways seems entirely sensible. More
sensible is to stall the machine repeatedly at a safe height under different conditions, i.e.
from straight and level, from a turn etc. This will enable to pilot to know precisely the time
when it’s going to happen, and thus avoid its consequences nearer the ground. You often
see a model set up nicely on the approach suddenly drop a wing and sag to the ground in
the final moment of landing, with practice this is quite avoidable.
As we reach the end of this little homily, I would beseech you not to be put off by my
description of a typical aerotow event, you have to make allowances for artistic
interpretation. Although our aim is to emulate the full-size as much as possible, there are
inescapable differences between the two, and it would not be sensible to try to take the
comparison too far. When things go wrong for model pilots, nine times out of ten it is
because unforeseen circumstances have suddenly cropped up, and the pilot has not got
the experience to cope. This is why commercial pilots spend so much time with their bums
strapped to a simulator, and why our simulation must come from practice.
I must thank that gentleman at the aerotow event for his suggestion, and I sincerely hope
that by now he’s managed to find Mabel...
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... and even more scale happenings ...
Bordertown 06
By Gary Mac
I arrived at Bordertown for my first ever visit to the place that I had heard so much about in my
short modelling career. I can now see why it is a great place to hold a scale meeting there, with all
the facilities, the clubhouse, hangars to store the models overnight and plenty of room to camp if
you want to, and even bunks to sleep in.
On arrival at lunch time on Friday there was a fairly strong wind blowing and it did not look like we
would be flying that day. There were a few people there all ready and every one was taking the
time to rig up all their models in the hope that the wind might die down later in the afternoon and
we would get a fly in. This was not to be, so we sat around chin wagging and sipping an ale or two
till it was time for dinner put on by the Gliding club members.
Saturday dawned with a beautiful blue sky and a very gentle breeze blowing and we were in for a
good days flying. It wasn’t long before the tugs had us up into the air and there were plenty of
thermals to catch. The first casualty of the day was Wayne Gordon’s ASW 22 which suddenly went
off the air and luckily it was in a nice thermal circle and started coming back to the strip instead of
heading for the road and landed in the paddocks and sustained a lot of damage. Theo was the next
one with his Minimoa losing a wing off the launch and sadly hitting a tree on the way down. John
Copeland was coming to land inverted and ran out of room when he tried to flip it right side up and
hit the deck in a cloud of dust. There were good thermals all day and everyone was able to stay up
for 10 to 20 minutes and sometimes longer for some. At one stage we had 6 tugs on the field so we
managed to get launched pretty efficiently.
Gary Whitfield from Mildura rocked up with his brand new tug, a Modeltech Piper Cub 1/3 scale
with a 3350mm wingspan running a 62cc Zenoah up front and weighing in at 13.5 kg. Gary took
no time in working out how to use his new tug and was soon launching us up like he had been
flying the Cub for years. Paul Clift had the blue tug which is now the yellow tug which is on its 3rd
re-build, and had an 80cc twin Zenoah up front and 2.450mm wingspan. Paul managed to keep
flying all day in spite of taking a few hits from the glitches he was copping one area of the field.
Greg Potter had his tug out which was a Bowers Flybaby 1/3 scale with a 2800mm wingspan and a
62cc Zenoah up front. Chris Carpenter has his Wilga tug there and had a bit of trouble with his new
tuned pipe but got it going. Col Collyer has his Cub out on the line and also Bob McEwin with his
Hots runni9ng a Zenoah 62. I would like to say a big thank you to all the tug pilots for all their
work over the weekend as it was a great effort on their behalf.
Saturday night the members from the Gliding club put on a full lamb on the spit along with roast
pork and roast beef and roast vegetables and also sweets, which all went down rather well. The
presentations were held after dinner and the winners were as follows:
Modern Class
1 – Col Collyer – Fox
2 – Chris Carpenter – ASH 26
3 – Henryk Kobylanski – ASW 27
Vintage Class
1 – Michael Lui – Bergafaulke
2 – Tim Morland – Schweitzer 1-26
3 – Col Collyer – Golden Eagle
SCALE SOARING ASSOCIATION MODEL ENGINE’s AWARD
Greg Potter – 1/3 scale Fly-Baby tug
After the presentations Martin Simons gave us a talk on all the latest news and about some of the
new models from his trip to the World Championships in Europe.
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Sunday dawned overcast and a strong wind blowing, too strong to throw some models up. Went
out to the field and stood around chin wagging till lunch which was again put on by the members of
the Gliding Club. After lunch the wind was still too strong to fly until we has a shower of rain and
the wind died down so we were able to get some flying in for the rest of the afternoon. Monday
was a bit windy but there were a few flights early.
Murray Wills finally got make his maiden flight of his GROB 109. Chris Carpenter was the test
pilot and Murray got to have a go at the controls. There was a bit of fine tuning needed before the
2nd flight and that went a lot better than the first. Here are some of the details of Murray’s model. It
is scratch built of fibreglass and 30% scale with a 5m wingspan running a 45cc Zenoah and it has
Opto-coupler with twin battery packs for the main control servos.
I would like to say thanks to John Copeland, Col Collyer and Chris Carpenter and anyone else I
have missed who organized the weekend meeting as it went off really well and hopefully next year
the weather will be a bit kinder to us.
October 2006 – General meeting advised that Glider training at Brigg’s field will now be on the
1st Sunday of the month.
At this time membership stands at a total of 160.
VARMS also has a new and very active website courtesy of Henryk Kobylanski and can be found
at - www.varms.org.au.
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..... and we have yet another very pleasant evening at Brigg’s Field
It is with great sadness that we have to report that Tony Cincotta has ceased to operate
his well-known Modelling retail business after well over 35 years.
Tony became a
member of VARMS (31) and was originally Saturn Mfg. operating in Hampton in the late
sixties.
Later he became very well known for his operations at several locations in
Caulfield as Hobby Hangar/Saturn Hobbies and was also a solid sponsor of the VMAA
Trophy in its early days as the Futaba Trophy.
Tony was very well known for many
styles of models across the entire spectrum that he designed and kitted himself.
With
his departure goes a very active and dedicated modeller, a great drop-in centre and shop
where there was always a great bargain and a lot of chit-chat.
60th Nationals - A Competition Report
By Gerry Carter & John Skinner
F3J Thermal (with winch launch)
This event was run over two long days with 13 rounds flown in all. Run to the
FAI F3J rules, this event was tougher in a number of ways to the usual
Australian Open Thermal Rules. In particular, under the FAI F3J rules, there is
no such thing as a "perfect" score. The task is to achieve the longest flight
possible within a 10 minute window measured from the time the model leaves
the launch line to the time the model touches the ground.
There is also a precision landing bonus. The model must touch the ground
before the 10 minute window expires or there is a severe penalty.
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The flight line was arranged with teams 15 metres apart so that all pilots could
launch at exactly the start of the working time. It was quite a sight to see up
to five high performance gliders, all with wing spans of over 3 metres,
launching simultaneously. When all pilots achieved their flight times, the
landings were also all happening at the same time.
Thermal conditions over the two days varied widely with some heats won with
times that were much less than the theoretical 10 minutes maximum. This
made the whole event very challenging in terms of testing the pilots
thermalling skills. The outstanding pilot was Carl Strautins who seemed to
have no trouble finding thermals and who's landings were deadly in both
timing and accuracy. At times there was massive lift, and at other times
massive sink.
Everybody was very appreciative of the effort put in by the VMAA, the TCMAC
and the facilities and catering provided for the pilots. Throughout the
competition the pilots also became quite familiar with the property owner Andy
and his wife and family and they showed a great deal of interest in our
activities. Andy is a bit of a character, a lovely man and was good fun to have
around.
The final result was:-
1st Carl Strautins
2nd Max Kroger
3rd Daniel Haskell
ICON/Maple Leaf
PIKE SUPERIOR/Samba Model
ESPADA RXL/Jaro Muller
F3B Glider Multi-Task
This event was run at the same field as the F3J Thermal over the following two
days and 6 rounds were flown.
The three tasks are:Task A (=Thermal) 10 minute flight and precision landing in 12 minutes
working time.
Task B (=Distance) The most times up and down a 150 metre course in 4
minutes wins. The 4 minutes is within a 7 minute working time.
Task C (=Speed) The quickest time for 4 laps up and down a 150 metre course
wins. The working time is 4 minutes.
We were fortunate, and extremely grateful for the help of a group of Air Cadets
who volunteered their time to help with the running of the distance task. This
task requires a person at each end of the course for each pilot so that, if 3
pilots are flying, you need 6 helpers. Without this help there is no way that the
event could have gone to 6 rounds. They did a great job.
We were also fortunate to have two pilots (who weren't able to continue to fly)
to man the pylons for the speed rounds. This enabled this part of the
competition to run much more quickly than would otherwise have been the
case.
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Conditions were similar to those for F3J except that the wind direction for
launch was at best 90 degrees to the direction of launch and more often than
not, even more than this. However all pilots handled the situation well by
steering their gliders around to the side (and beyond) so that the release of
the glider from the line was into wind.
Highlights of the competition were a number of scores for the distance task of
30 laps (of 150 metres) achieved by Steve Keep and Max Kroger. That's 4.5Km
in 4 minutes with a lot of turns as well. Also, there was an outstanding speed
flight by John Skinner of 14.11 seconds. That's an average of 153 Km/Hr
assuming that the bare minimum of 600 metres was flown.
This is perhaps the fastest competition speed flight ever achieved by any pilot
in Australia.
Once again everybody was very appreciative of the effort put in by the VMAA,
the TCMAC and the facilities provided for the pilots and the property owner
Andy continued to be very interested in our activities.
In the end, consistently high performance over all tasks wins F3B events and
on this occasion that honour went to Steve Keep(Caracho 3000), with John
Skinner(Caracho 3000) second and Gerry Carter(Estrella) third.
H.L.G. (Hand Launched Glider)
The entries for this event were very low but the standard of flying was very
high, particularly in the case of the winner.
Marcus Stent dominated the event with his thoroughly researched and
practised discus launch technique and his flying skills.
Unfortunately one pilot was taken out of the event by a willi willi that picked up
the model from the ground and broke it.
Another was taken out when Marcus launched it using his advanced technique
and folded the wing.
Three rounds were flown with the winner being Marcus Stent and second was
Theo Arvanitakis.
Extracted from Aspectivity 396, February 2007
In the current climate of modelling, with ARF’s and similar reigning supreme, the following
article is very typical of days gone by for its optimism and appropriate modeling “highs and
lows” of a bygone era.
Eddie the Eagle
Colin Smith
It all started way, way, way back in the previous century, or to be more precise, in the good
old days when a magazine about gliding was crammed full of glider and sailplane stuff and not
those “bloody-electric-aeroplanes” as they are nowadays............. 1993 to be exact and it was all
Silent Flight’s fault and in particular the Feb/Mar edition. I even remember where I bought the
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magazine .. Ballarat .. and I was up there for a model boat demo during the Begonia festival.
Sacrilege do I hear you say ... model WHAT !!!!! Yep...... I was a boaty in those days, not yet
having got back into flight and quite happy fiddling with paddle wheels and fighting ducks at the
Surrey Dive in Box Hill. It’s a good, relaxing club nowadays and if any of you are interested give
them a looksee on Wednesday mornings and Sundays, they also have the quaintest/most old
fashioned frequency system I have ever seen. But I digress, that particular magazine also contained
an article on the Habicht and I was hooked ..... gotta find those glider guys again. When I say
again, I migrated in ‘83 and brought a lot of planes with me and had written to a bloke from
VARMS beforehand about flying in general .... so I was aware of the club, in fact the Historian
presented me with “that” letter on my last visit Camperdown. It’s funny how things can bite you
after many, many years.
The next part of the saga, if you are still awake, takes place in November 1993 when
VARMS held their last expo at the old Waverley High School on Waverley road before it was
pulled down and replaced by houses. Halcyon days and it was always a bloody good expo with
plenty of displays, both flying and static for the crowds to see and do. Again I was part of the
Surrey Park mob who has a static display (they also won best stand for a few years, as I recall), and
at the second stall I bought two things from David Hughes. A plan and wing set for his Viper slope
soarer and a plan for Eddy the Eagle that a deceased member had brought into the country, I was
later told it was Martin Briggs .... seem to have heard that name somewhere? In the meantime I was
happy slope soaring at Glenfern road and in those days we could almost guarantee the afternoon
sea-breezes coming in about 3.30 and I was given a set of reflex-sectioned cores by Lindsay
Henderson for a Windfree I think. (It was when your road was still a cart track Lindsay... that long
ago!.)
The cores were put to one side... one day I’ll use them..... one day. Hmmm, I seem to have heard
that before somewhere??? Time advanced and more and more junk/models were accumulated in
the garidge. As happens, some models migrated to the house until “she who must be obeyed”
issued the ultimatum.... “no more lemon meringue pies until you have a clearout!” ....Yeah,
Yeah....one day...one day!
I’m not sure what actually made me dig out the Eddie plan and get those cores out at the
same time but I obviously did and thought. Hmmm...roughly the same chord... why not. The plan
calls for a central spar with hand sanded aerofoil shaped panels fore and aft of the spar and all of it
tapering from the root to tip plus there is a couple of dihedral breaks on each panel thrown in for
good measure.....sounds like a lotta work but the final result looks fantastic, Basically it sounded
like a sort of free hand sculpture all tied together at the bent spar. The bent spar looked weird and
complicated to build and being basically bone idle and lazy, I looked at it sideways and thought if a
swept flying wing (my BKB as featured a few months ago) has a constant thickness wing, why
shouldn’t Eddie? So, using cardboard patterns to replicate the planform, things started to gell and
before long I had a load of wedge shaped off-cuts from the foam cores. The spar was knocked up
from 6mm hard balsa with a 6mm pultruded rod (solid fibreglass) in its centre and at that point I
decided to cheat on the dihedral and utilise the properties and cross section of trailing edge stock. I
varied slightly from the plan but I worked on the Colin Collyer principal of “Iffff you don’t tell it –
it won’t know” principle... its always paid dividends in the past. So trailing edge stock glued onto
the edge of one panel and it forms the dihedral...brilliant Smith, brilliant. The fuselage as shown on
the plan was nightmare, mainly because there were no right angle joins or at the very least, some
form of datum line to work to, plus it was very fat, obviously a well fed eagle. Soon sorted all that
out and one thing learned on the slope is that its very hard to launch if you can’t hold it easily.
So with a completely redesigned fuz all clad with blue foam and rounded off, it was out with
the brown paper, diluted white glue and rubber gloves. With large flat surfaces the beast was soon
covered, even the fiddly little bits at the trailing edge soon neatly wrapped in soggy paper. The only
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thing spared the BP treatment was the balsa head which had been hollowed to take the church roof
that I thought would be needed to balance correctly. I was right ...... there is a church somewhere
that now leaks! All parts fitted together and under Max McCullough’s guidance/threats/curses he
showed me how to use a spray can to best advantage and Eddie was now a dull red ochre colour .....
a feather scheme could be done ifffff and when and after it flew. Wing loading came out at 15oz
per sq ft, and with its reflexed wing section, I reckoned a 10 to 20 knotter will be needed for
success.....but take some photos first!
First fine day with a good breeze and Kilcunda here we come. Friday and a 10 to 20 knot
southerly promised but didn’t quite get there. What the hell ....give it a bung.... it was blowing
about 12 knots straight on the south slope so why not, double check all the waggly bits were going
in the right direction and the C of G felt about right and Ian slack launched Eddie. Straight
out....over the road... little bit of up and it rose a bit but was banking left.....right aileron to
counteract ....Bloody Hell it seemed to shudder right a bit then spun left and headed earthwards
quicker than a Pommy batsman returning to the pavilion.......Oops!
Jeez it looked good in the air... this bird has
got to fly not matter how long it takes.....not too
much damage considering that it had actually turned
180 degrees and gone back onto the slope over the
fence and cart-wheeled halfway down the top
paddock. Gary MacDougal found it in the very long
grass and I suppose I was lucky that missed
“Hopper’s windmill” (You’ll have to ask him).
Perhaps it might have been a snap roll instigated by
too much aileron and a nose heavy C of G, but then
perhaps not......I’ll never know. So lets get it all
stuck back together, move the C of G back a bit,
reduce those aileron throws a bit and give it another try.
Next shot was again in a southerly but only 10 knots and this time I chucked it myself and
again it went out and up as ordered and again it banked left, but this time headed straight for the
road, fortunately it didn’t quite make it.... preferring the scruff grass and clumpy tussocks for its
somersault but with twist this time, so that it could wrench its head off and deposit that church roof
over the slope. BUMMA !!!!!
All the pieces were collected, even the church
roof was found thanks to Martin Hopper, and they were
stuck back together, then more brown paper applied to
cover the scars...maybe I’ll lighten the tail, maybe I’ll
used a cheater fin, maybe, maybe, maybe..........Will it
fly? .... Will the resident Camperdown eagle marmalise
it? ..... Will there be any wind at Camperdown? .... Will
it join Brian’s plane lodged up in a tree?...
Who knows.....all will be revealed in the next thrilling
edition of Aspectivity........
100
Scale at Jerilderie, Easter weekend (6-9 April) 2007 (the third time)
Roll call of everyone there...
Gregg Voak
ASW 15,
HOTS (Tug)
David Hobby
ASK 8,
DG600,
Piper Cub (Tug)
Theo Arvanitakis
Ventus 2AX
Pilatus B4
Ross Bathie
Schweitzer 1-26,
Lentus
Henryk Kobylanski
ASW 28,
Stick (Tug)
Neil Spencer
Slingsby Gull
Pegasus
Danny Malcman
ASW 28
DG 500
Gary Mcdougall
DG 600
Lunak
Minimoa (now deceased)
Wayne Jones
Twin Astir
Anthony Peate
Lunak ASW 22
Jim Houdalakis
DG 600
Bill Bland
Duo Disc
ASW 28
Salto Bird Dog (Tug)
Barry Kenyon
Ask 13
Hayden Daley
Nimbus 4D
Discus 2B
Andy Smith
KA 6 ASK 16
Lunak
Rod Watkins
Minimoa
Discus 2B
Barry Smith
Bird Dog (Tug)
Bill & Rose Hamilton
Salto w. Jet Joe 1200 turbine
May 2007 – At a Special General Meeting held prior to the monthly General meeting, the
following Special Resolutions were placed before the Membership for their consideration:
Clause 3 (1) (iii)
Qualification of Membership
Replace existing with Associate Members – Those members, Senior, Pensioner, Junior and Full student, who have paid
the MAAA Insurance via another club.
Resolution lost
Clause 3 (10) Qualification of Life Membership
Replace existing with –
A full Member may be elected a Life Member by the Club at an Annual General Meeting, or by
Special Resolution in accordance with the Act, upon the recommendation of the Committee to
recognise outstanding contribution to the Association, as a whole over an extended period of years.
Life members shall have the same rights as Full Members.
Resolution carried
Clause 4 (2) Entrance Fee and Subscription
Replace existing with –
In no case will the Entrance Fee be less than $20 for Full Members, and $10 for Junior Members.
Resolution carried
Clause 33 (2) Winding Up
Replace existing with –
To the extent it is permissible within the Act if the Association is disbanded, the remaining funds,
equipment etc, shall be held in trust by a firm of Solicitors nominated by the Committee of that
time, for a period of two (2) years. If the Association does not re-form in that time, then the said
funds, equipment etc, are to be offered for sale, and after legal charges etc., the balance to be paid to
The Model Aeronatutical Association of Australia Inc. (MAAA Inc.)
Resolution carried
June 2007
LSF Tournament at Jerilderie, results:
1. David Hobby
11994 2. Mike Rae 11945 3. Mike O’Reilly
11912
101
... and from the June Aspectivity we have some options at Brigg’s Field
THE 2007 VMAA TROPHY RESULTS.
1. DAC
32 ½
=5. VARMS 24
2. PARCS
31
6. P&DARCS 13 ½
3. NFG
25
7. NMAA
10 ½
4. L&DMFA 24 ½
8. VMAA
8
=5. LVMAC 24
Individual results – David Pratley 1st in 7 Cell Glider, Mat Dulak 3rd in Helicopter, Gerry Carter 1st
in Thermal Glider, Theo Arvanitakis 1st in Fun-Fly, and VARMS also had 6th place in Fun Scale,
Club Racing and Musical Landings.
102
June 2007 saw a mixed blessing with the MAAA/VMAA fees, being a very large drop by the
MAAA and only a slight increase by the VMAA. An outstanding anomaly is the decision by the
VMAA to remove any discount for Pensioners to bring them in line with the MAAA who also no
longer recognises the contribution of such people and neither is prepared to ease their burden, just a
little!!
RCGA – Open Thermal League Competition - 2006-07 Overall Results:
Advanced
1. David Hobby
2. Jim Houdalakis
3. Theo Arvanitakis
Sportsman
1. Bernie Sizer
June 2007 – 30th LSF Soaring Tournament, Jerilderie
1. David Hobby
2. Mike Rae 3. Mike O’Reilly
AdvancedBrad Wilman
NoviceBrian Hamilton NZ
103
2007 – 08
The Committee
President
Max Haysom
Secretary
Roger Stevenson
Treasurer
Ian Pearson
Editor
David R. Jones
Ordinary Member
David Pratley
Registrar
Raoul Wynn
Ordinary Member
Martin Hopper
Contest Director
*David Pratley
Ordinary Member
Alan Mayhew
Scale Group Rep.
Colin Collyer
*C.D. for RCGA events will be shared among participating members.
The A. G. M. saw the incumbent Committee returned with the addition of Colin Collyer as Scale
Group Representative.
The following awards were also made at the A.G.M. :Outstanding Achievement Award
David Hobby - World F3J Champion 2004 & 2006
Leadership & Encouragement Award
Colin Collyer
Scale Group Leadership
Clubman of the Year Award
Martin Hopper
Significant club service
over a number of areas.
Life Membership
Ian Slack
Services to the Club,
Training and encouragement to New members.
July 2007 – Australian team achieves 7th place at the World F3B Championships in Switzerland
with John Skinner gaining 10th place, Nick Chabrel 29th and Tim Kullack 34th.
September Aspectivity reflected the results of the David Downs Scale Show Night.
Scalie of the YearHenryk Kobylanski.
Members Choice Model Andrew Allen’s Platypus.
Judge’s Choice Model Theo Arvanitakis’s FA 18.
... and of course the following scale instrument should easily find a place in every pilot’s flight
box!!:-
104
The DLG
The following article is taken from Aspectivity 405 of November 2007, and included because it
reflects an emphatic change in a modelling trend, namely, a new way to get hand launched gliders
(H. L. G.’s) airborne. Whilst HLG’s have been around for a very long time, up until quite recently,
the launch method was a short quick run followed by a javelin style throw to achieve the required
result. Over recent times a new method called the Discus-launch has been brought into use and has
proved extremely effective from the flat-field and also on a slope with little or no breeze. The
discus-style launch method only requires that a gripping “peg” be fitted just inboard of one wingtip
105
and protruding above and below the wing. A quick “discus-throw” rotation of the body completes
the launch to heights well above the usual javelin style throw.
The Joy of Flying a Discus-launched Glider
by Neil Pollock
Up to now discus or side-arm launched gliders appeared to be playthings for the expert
thermal duration and F3B fraternity. However on the basis of recent experience, I believe they have
much to offer the mere mortals of the soaring community like myself. Through a set of accidental
circumstances I found myself the proud owner of a kit for a hot European discus launched glider
made by Mibo Modeli in Slovenia. This appears on the basis of photographs to be the same DLG
that is now available from David Pratley.
The good news was that the fully molded pieces were of beautiful quality and finish. The
bad news was, that there was not a single word of instruction, not even a suggested CG location!
The biggest challenge was getting all the radio stuff into the carbon fibre eggshell, which formed
the fuselage pod. All the servos had to be accommodated in the fuselage since the wing was too
thin and fragile to contemplate putting servos in there. However I managed to get it all together and
a very nice model weighing 320 grams resulted (doing a quick change of units, this gave a wing
loading of 4.8 oz/ft ²). With total focus on weight saving, around 290 grams would have been
possible. But for general fun flying a bit of penetration takes precedence over absolutely minimum
sink rate.
The model turned out to be an absolute pleasure to fly in a variety of circumstances. Despite
being on the wrong side of 60, at least as far as athletic ability goes, I found it easy to get quite
satisfying launch heights. The discus launch is not too physically demanding and the height
achieved was way above what I could manage with a javelin launch that just about ripped my arm
off. For flat field thermal soaring, the only new challenge is finding small low-level thermal feeders
to get up into the more familiar large thermal structures.
My overall impression was that flying a DLG had a Zen like tranquility and peace. The
model flew slowly in complete silence and responded to every tiny air movement. It revealed small
areas of lift and sink that one would never have expected. In gusty conditions I had fun using quite
aggressive control throws to effectively “surf” the gusts. Close to the ground it drifted along in
ground effect for a seemingly endless period. It was nice to be able to walk into a piece of parkland
with just a model and a radio, throw it into the air with no extra equipment or noise, pick it up or
catch it at the end of the flight and throw it again. In a light breeze it was possible to walk to
windward flying he model so close that you could reach out and touch it. It was a novel experience
hearing the servos operate and seeing the control surfaces move and the model responding.
As familiarity grew I found that it was an excellent light-lift slope-soarer. It would stay up
in conditions that would normally only see 2 metre or larger “floaters” in the air, but with much
sharper manoeuverability. Discus launches were useful in getting up into slightly stronger lift in
marginal slope conditions. All the basic aerobatics were easily achieved and despite the low wing
loading, it had a fair turn of speed with a little bit of reflex camber when pointed towards the
ground. The model has really nice and forgiving handling characteristics and never tried to surprise
the pilot. If it was floated up smoothly into a stall, the nose dropped very gently and it recovered
with little loss of altitude. To my great surprise I found that the model was quite tough despite its
eggshell like structure. When experimenting with launch presets I managed to have it stall from a
vertical climb too close to the ground to recover. The model ended up sticking out of the ground,
which admittedly was on the soft side, like a fence post with absolutely no damage.
106
The Dance of the DLG!!
107
Aspectivity 405 of November 2007 contained the following, origins, author and subject being very
self-evident.
Subjects for Scale
Smiddy
“And now for something completely different” was it Monty Python uttering words a bit like those
of another zany crowd? Who knows, but it would seem that Bert Rutan may have had thoughts
similar when designing this months offering:-
The Rutan Solitaire
The Rutan name is synonymous with canards and weird and wonderful layouts. However his
canard layout for a sailplane was not the first, that honour goes to SZD with their Kaczkaw which
wins the ugly duckling award way back in 1949. The Solitaire is without doubt the most beautiful
but that is probably due the lack of constraints allowed by the use of modern high stress materials
and advanced fabrication techniques, or in layman terms, foam and epoxy .... sound familiar? The
following text is taken directly from a website but I have forgotten which one.
“The prototype was exhibited at, among other places, Oshkosh 1982. It had the usual fore-plane,
but a conventional tail boom and rudder. Uncharacteristically for one of his designs, it didn’t have
winglets. The retractable motor was stowed in the fuselage ahead of the cockpit. The fixed
undercarriage consisted of two equal sized wheels mounted in tandem under the fuselage. The
Solitaire was reputed to fly well, though it was not the aim. It was to be a simple-to-build
unstallable glider, with the advantage of having an engine. Unstallable? Well that was one of the
reasons for the tail-first layout in Rutan’s aircraft. The fore-plane design is such that it stalls before
the main plane. The nose will then dip, unstalling the fore-plane. In fact the Long Eze can be
flown with full aft stick, the nose bobbing up and down as the fore-plane stalls and unstalls while
the main-plane stays well within its critical angle. The other advantage of the tail first configuration
is that both surfaces provide lift, unlike the normal layout where the tailplane produces a down-load
and the main plane has to lift the aircraft’s weight plus this down load. The main wing has trailing
edge flaps which also operate as spoilers by the leading edge coming above the top surface of the
wing when deploying. The unusually effective ‘spoilflap’ trailing edge surfaces provide good
glidepath control. Oh, and the engine with electric starter for air starting, erects (erupts?) from and
retracts into a bay in the forward fuselage by means of electro-hydraulic power. So why aren’t
there any home built Solitaire’s flying around? It seems that no one wanted one. Whether that was
conservatism, or whether those building gliders wanted something with a higher performance, I
don’t know. Pity, as it would have been interesting to see a few of them flying around.
As far as the the technical stuff:- Span 12.7m, Aspect ratio 20.78, that’s about it!!! But it did win
the Sailplane Homebuilders Association Design contest in 1982 so somebody loved it.
Happy Building
108
..... a typical December Twi-fly and General Meeting at Brigg’s Field
VARMS to CELEBRATE 40TH ANNIVERSARY
4 February 1968
-Initial gathering on Mt. Hollowback of interested glider guiders and
several hundred very interested spectators.
14 April 1968
-Slope Soaring Rally at The Bald Hill (Mt. Bacchus Marsh) for model
aircraft without audible means of support. This meeting resulted in the
creation of the Victorian Association of Radio Model Soaring.
In the Aspectivity of June 2006, an article appeared signalling the introduction of “Electric Glider
competitions”, where props and electric power rather than winches and bungees launched the glider
into the wild blue yonder to engage in thermalling activities. After many introductory fun-fly
situations, the following reflects a slightly more serious aspect of the activity!! And there will be
more in the future.
Feb 10th – Open Electric Glider Event – After 4 rounds of flying the results were:1. David Pratley
2 Max Kroger
3 Alan Mayhew
February ’08 – VARMS has a total of 175 members
February 2, ’08 – VARMS Trophy results:1. Bruce Clapperton 2. Paul Dumsday
3. Peter Cossins
March 2008 Aspectivity (408) reflected several variations with regard to flying at Brigg’s Field.
The first –
Bronze Wings Electric Glider Group
Raoul Wynn
Background
At the end of training, with a newly won Glider Bronze Wings, the pilot has an enormous variety of
pathways to follow – choices of model and launch type, flying disciplines, venues and so on.
Typically, they have experienced a winch/bungee launched 2 channel Prelude and perhaps a little
time with an electric power assisted glider. They have struggled to get enough stick time to do
anything more than focus on the Bronze Wings test requirements.
Consequently:
With the apron strings cut they can lose focus.
They often feel very alone and lose confidence.
Many of the popular ARF electric gliders are pigs to fly with the supplied power systems.
Their foray into electric gliders often ends in a collection of scrap plastic and balsa!
The complex requirements of electric power systems just make it worse.
There are reports of some new members not leaving the Sunday training sessions after they
109
have won their Bronze because they enjoy the support and companionship of it all.
We propose an alternative; a pathway that supports and encourages the progression from the
training school into the exciting world of electric gliders. It will be a new grouping to be called
“Bronze Wings Electric Glider Group”. This group will be formed around the existing bunch of
enthusiastic MPX Easy Glider flyers who meet at Brigg’s Field each Sunday between 7.00am and
10.00am. Rob Page is already leading this group and has offered to formalise and expand its’
activities.
The second –
Bronze Wings – Approved Policy
Raoul Wynn
It remains the minimum requirement that Bronze Wings must be held by all those VARMS
members flying solo at Brigg’s Field. This policy to take full effect on the 1st July 2008, whilst
those holding VARMS “solo” rating can fly solo at Brigg’s Field before then.
March 2008 – Easter saw many scale enthusiasts hearding north to Jerilderie for the 4th time for
what has become a well established event since the initial venture in 2005. The following list is
only some of the pilots and models in attendance :Danny & Steve Malcman
Piper Cub tug
Brian Simpson & Rod O’Neill
Neil Spencer & Henryk Kobylanski Big Stik tug Bill Hamilton Salto (with turbo)
Bill Bland
Bird Dog tug & Asw-28 (7.5m)
Rod Wadkins Mini Moa
Jim Houdalakis
Duo Discus
Gary McDougal K-8 (1/3 scale)
..... and many others.
110
How High Is My Glider?
This simple gauge will be able to tell you (see page 2).
(Note – to see pictures, document needs to be viewed in “Print Layout”. (View, Print
Layout).
It is also designed to be printed on A4 sized paper (8.27"x11.69"). I am told that you may
have to change your settings if you use “Letter” size paper (8.5"x11") in your printer.
You can measure the height either directly above or at 45 degrees up (which is safer). You can
also use the “directly above” scale to work out how far away you plane is, regardless of angle..
It’s based on wingspan of Cularis being 2.6 metres, and the distance from your eye to the card
being approximately 600mm (ie 60cm or 2 feet). Additional cards have now been added for the
1.8m Easy Glider and 1.37m Easy Star and any 2m glider. For bigger gliders, simply photoenlarge it appropriately, eg for a 3m glider, enlarge the 2m version by 150%.
Cut the card out, remove the shaded triangle in the middle and, if you wish, stick the gauge to
some card, wood or plastic.
I recommend you have a friend measure the height of your plane while you put it into position and
concentrate on the flying!! Attaching the guide to your transmitter and measuring your own plane
while flying may cause loss of orientation.
Flying the plane directly above you can be dangerous as it is easy to lose orientation, so I have
also included a scale on the right to use when your plane is viewed 45 degrees up.
DIRECTLY ABOVE YOU
Hold gauge at arm’s length and have plane’s wings in view so they seem to touch BOTH sides of
the V at the same time. The scale on the LEFT tells you height.
FLYING AT 45 DEGREES ABOVE THE HORIZON (safer)
Fly plane towards you until it is 45 degrees up from the horizon.
Hold gauge at arm’s length and have plane’s wings in view so they seem to touch BOTH sides of
the V at the same time. The scale on the RIGHT tells you height. The scale on the LEFT tells you
Distance Away from you.
Gauge
View of
plane
through
Gauge
45 degrees
Height
of plane
above
ground
Distance
from you
300 ----
45 degrees
Directly above
or distance
away.
----- 200
45
degrees
up
At 45 degrees up, plane is 200
feet high and almost 300 feet
away from you.
111
Triangle must be 51mm wide when
printed
100----
Cularis Wingspan - 2.6m
Triangle must be 35mm
wide when printed
----- 70
Cut out this
shaded
triangle
-----100
150------Wingspan / 100
200----
-----150
Height
in FEET
300----looking
400 ----directly
500------above or
measuring
750 --distance
1000 ----------away. 2000 -------------1500
-----
--- 200
---300
---------400
-----500
-------- 750
--1000
Mount / hold card 60cm (2 feet) from eye
version 1.1
Feb 9 2008
Height
in FEET
Looking
0
45 up
Fly
towards
you
Easy Glider Wingspan 1.8m
100---
----- 70
Cut out
shaded
triangle
----100
150------
FEET
Wingspan /
100
200---
---150
Height -in FEET
looking
300-directly
400 ----above or
measuring
-- 500--distance
---750 -away.
1000 ------
--- 200
---300
Mount / hold card 60cm (2 feet) from eye
version 1.1
Feb 10 2008
Easy Star Wingspan 1.37m
Plane with Wingspan 2m
Cut out
shaded
triangle
150-----200---Height
in FEET
looking
directly 400 -above or 500------measuring
750 ---distance -1000
---away.
-
300----
------1500
2000
-----------------
0
45
up
----100
---150
--- 200
---300
---------400
---500
--------750
--1000
Mount / hold card 60cm (2 feet) from eye
version 1.1
Feb 11 2008
Fly
towards
you
------ ----
For 2m, triangle must be
39mm wide when printed
----- 70
0
45 up
---------400
-----500
--------750
--1500 - --1000
---- -------2000
Triangle must be
27mm wide
when printed
100----
Looking
100---
----- 70
Cut out
shaded
triangle
150-----Height
in FEET
looking
directly
above or
measuring
distance
away.
200----
----100
FEET
Wingspan /
100
300----400 ----
- 500-----750 --
---150
--- 200
---300
Looking
0
45 up
Fly
towards
you
---------400
-----500
1000
------- --------750
--1500 -- --1000
--- ---------2000
------
Mount / hold card 60cm (2 feet) from eye
version 1.1
Feb 11 2008
112
March ‘08
..... and out of the blue we get an email that proposed the following from Marcus Stent “I would like to announce the introduction of a DLG (Discus Launch Glider) Mini League to
be run over the next 4 Months.
The Events will be held on SATURDAYS at Briggs field from 1PM to 3PM on the following
dates.
March 22, April 19, May 17, June 21
Numbers and weather permitting we will run 2 heats per round and 20 Rounds for the day
(4 Blocks of 5 Rounds).
Between rounds we will hold DLG clinics on launching, trimming, setup and thermalling.
Entry is $5 and there will be prizes and trophies at the end of the League.
All are welcome and anyone new will be allocated an experienced person as a mentor and
timer for the day.
The Rules are very simple and involve a modification of the F6D (HLG) rules.
1. Each heat involves the pilots launching at the same time (one launch only) from a
designated area.
2. The task is a 3 minute max time.
3. Your score is a percentage of the maximum time achieved in the heat.
4. You must land back in the designated area.”
113
VARMS 40th ANNIVERSARY
1968 - 2008
114
AN INVITATION
Dear Members, past and present, and Partners,
VARMS came into being as an Association on
the 14th April 1968 and now has been in
existence for 40 years.
The model at the right is Dieter Prussner’s
¼ Scale Zefir which was a part of the first
flying days organised.
To commemorate this 40th anniversary, the
committee of VARMS and members wishes to extend an invitation for you to join with them in the
celebrations on Saturday 10th May 2008.
These celebrations will be in the form of a general get-together and a range of flying activities at the
VARMS home flying site, Brigg’s Field Wantirna South (see below for site details). A BBQ lunch
will be provided for all of those who attend .
VARMS also intends to issue to current members a special edition of ‘High Aspect’ which was the
original magazine of the club.
At this point in time a program of model flying will be generally
along the lines of the following
timetable:
Start to 9.00 AM
Park Flyers & similar models .
9.00 AM to 11.00 AM IC Power or similar Electric.
11.00 AM to 1 PM
Aerowtowing.
12.00 PM to 2.00 PM Lunch
1 PM to close
General winch launched models and
HLG
115
To assist with catering, it would be appreciated if you could indicate your
intention to join with us
in these celebrations by advising one of the organising committee, Peter
Cossins (pcossins
@bigpond.com), Colin Collyer ( colinc@aerosonde.com.au) or Colin
Smith
(colinkay@lizzy.com.au)
VARMS home site, Brigg’s Field is located at High Street Road, Wantirna
Sth.,
Melways Map 72, C1.
General Directions:
Approaching from the east along High Street Rd. Wantirna South from
Melbourne city, proceed
past Norton’s Lane to the traffic lights at George St. just prior to the new
Mitcham-Frankston
Freeway Link. Execute a U-turn at these lights and return to the entrance
to Brigg’s Field on the
left.
Approaching in a westerly direction from Stud Road, pass under the new
Mitcham-Frankston
Freeway and turn left into Brigg’s field after the George Street lights.
Note 1: This program may be varied on the day to suit prevailing
conditions.
Note 2: Any MAAA/VMAA affiliated visitor wishing to participate in the
flying activities will be
required to provide proof of insurance by producing a current membership
card of a
recognised club.
Flying Day @ Hollowback
Sunday May 11 (the day after)
A flying day at Mt Hollowback is being organised by Des Bayliss.
Just turn up and fly, maybe with some old friends, current
members and re-live the memories.
Peter Cossins, Colin Collyer, Colin Smith.
116
The following 5 pages are extracted directly from the June Aspectivity to
provide reports of the activities that occurred at Brigg’s Field for the 40th
Anniversary, and also of the Fun-Fly that had been arranged for the following
day at Mt Hollowback, Ballarat.
117
118
119
120
..... and in the following 2 pages we have an additional report of the VARMS 40th Anniversary as
reported in the VMAA magazine by the Editor, Joe Finocchiaro, in which most of the reports and
photos were in colour.
121
122
123
A better picture of the plaque presented to VARMS by the VMAA
to commemorate their 40th Anniversary.
124
The following Past Members attended the Reunion - (Name & VARMS Number)
Abbott Lew
22 Goldman Rob
76 Pullar Ian
1043
Addiscott Stuart
104 Gottschalk John
66 Reynolds Lew
335
Balodis Ojars
214 Hipperson Dennis
811 Smith Bruce
121
Bexley John
38 Hung Greg
632 Squires Ron
337
Bird Ron
277 Kroger Max
411 Stephens Larry
242
Cheeseman John
49 Learmont Ralph
7 Taylor Don
1213
Condon Brian L
24 Leo Neville
596 Trone Geoff
35
Dumsday Paul
103 Marriott John
25 VigilanteMichael
134
Dundas Barry
639 Neumann Knut
543 Walsh David
J9/99
Fiddes Cliff
70 Neville Reg
713 Whatley Geoff
16
Fiddes Michael
525 Nugent Barry
281 Wickers Tom
686
Floyd Terry
932 Paine Ron
84 Young Noel
1203
960
Frodsham Harold
591 Partridge Graeme
Frodsham Stephen
592 Pentland Geoff
293
Apologies:
Villiers Alan
2 Pring Malcolm (S.A.) Associate 4
Datodi Ray
3 Claughton(Nee Condon) Margeaux
33
Also present were many members of the VMAA Committee:
Murray Ellis
President
Chris Caulcutt
Paul Winter
Vice President
Brian Dowie
Joe Finocchioro
Editor
Ron Ericson
Graham Scott
CD
David Nichols
Secretary
Treasurer
Public Officer
Education Officer
2008 June 7 – 9
31st LSF Tournament Jerilderie
1. Mike O’Reilly
9999
6. Steve Keep
2. Alan Mayhew
9986
7. Tim Kullack
3. Joe Wurts
9978
8. Gregg Voak
4. Carl Strautins
9974
9. John Skinner
5. Matthew Partlett
9968
10. Alan Lowe
AdvancedDarrell Blow
NoviceMike Richardson
9965
9965
9949
9949
9939
Aspectivity 412 of July 2008 reports the sighting of either small Kangaroos or Wallabies over the
western boundary!!!
RCGA 2007 – 2008 Thermal League results:
1. Alan Mayhew
2. Theo Arvanitakis 3 Jim Houdalakis
Best Sportsman class Brett Anthony
Modeller of the Year Award Trophy – Bruce Clapperton.
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2008 – 09
The Committee
President
Colin Collyer
Secretary
Roger Stevenson
Treasurer
Ian Pearson
Editor/Sites Manager Max Haysom
Registrar
Bruce Clapperton
Ordinary Member
Martin Hopper
Contest Director
Alan Mayhew
Heli Group Rep.
Steven Malcman
Sport Power Rep.
Chris Kurdian
The Stan Mason memorial “Gentleman’s Award”,
presented to Bruce Clapperton.
Bronze Wings – Approved Policy
It is now a minimum requirement that Bronze Wings must be held by all those VARMS members
flying solo at Brigg’s Field. This policy to take full effect on the 1st July 2008.
World F3J Championship, Turkey, results:1. Benedikt Feigl
GER
Teams2. Jiri Duchan
CZE
3. Tobias Lammlein GER
9. David Hobby
AUS
23. Theo Arvanitakis AUS
27. Mike O’Reilly
AUS
33. Gregg Voak
AUS
August Meeting – Scale Night:
Best Scale Model
Gary McDougall
Member’s Choice
Theo Arvanitakis
“Scalie of the Year” Award Joint award
Clubman of the Year
1. GER.
2. CZE.
3. NZL
6. AUS.
-
1/3rd scale KA 8
ASW 28
Danny & Steve Malcman
Ian Slack
..... and following on from the building of the “Eastlink Freeway” beside the VARMS flying site,
we have yet another BOMSHELL to report.
The following is taken from the President’s Report in the October 2008 Aspectivity:
Now the biggie!
Last weeks Knox papers had an article about plans to build some new basketball courts... we knew
that it was coming, but we didn't know how big the plans were. They are stating a site 57 times bigger
than the MCG, including soccer, footy and other sporting sites. On a list of 14 selected, ours is rated
at No 1
So.... the known facts. Knox Basketball Inc. wants to build a sporting complex, and our field is their
first choice site.
The unknown facts, are how they would fund the project, the idea being to have State and Federal
backing, with no proposals to either as yet, so funding is an unknown.
Our field is on a flood plain, and is therefore unstable.
Our field is not sewered or powered, and to do so would be a huge additional cost
Parks Victoria have not been approached yet, but being another Gov't Department, probably won't be
a huge obstacle.
Mention has been made that some assistance would be available to help us re-locate, but early indications are that they have little appreciation of our requirements.
So....... What do we do? Come along to the next meeting, where some idea's will be floated.
I believe we will get a good outcome, and maybe we’ll get to turn it into an advantage,
Cheers,
126
Colin C/.El Presidente
Steve Tester has taken over the role of VARMS Webmaster following Henryk Kobylanski’s initial efforts
in putting the Association on the “Web-page Map”.
The following is an update on an important subject from the April Aspectivity:
Site Liaison (Max Haysom): During the past month I have had further contacts with the Knox
City Council re the Basketball Complex and our Brigg’s Field. Because of the state of the economy
and the recent bush-fires, it would appear that no (State and Federal Govt.) decisions have been
made re loan / grant applications by Knox City Council. The matter was not on the March 2009
KCC meeting agenda and the minutes contain no mention in this regard.
I have made contact with the Knox Ratepayers Association and they want to meet with us, and
other bodies, after Easter, re the Knox City Council and their extensive spending plans on projects
such as the Sporting Complex. Some good may eventually come out of this even if it comes down to
a ratepayer petition to the Council / Council management and we are required to participate.
127
Scale at Jerilderie – Easter 2009
Vale Jim Robertson
Life Member, Jim Robertson passed away on Saturday 18th April
after a long fight with cancer. Jimmy was a master metal craftsman and
an excellent modeller. I had the honour of test flying many of Jim’s new
models over the years. The only one I can recall being a ‘dog’ was a scale
Sukhoi which looked the business but was absolutely awful to fly. Colin
Collyer had a fly of it and agreed it should be a Hangar Queen. It
probably is hanging up in Jim’s workshop right now. Jim and I often
laughed and joked about the Sukhoi for long time after that.
Jim and I made an annual Easter excursion to Camperdown for
many years and had great fun flying both on the slope and also the power field, usually on the
Sunday. We had friends down with us such as Geoff Moore, Des Bayliss and Bill Eunson, just to
name a few. Some stayed at the caravan park, but Jim and I opted for the added comfort of a local
Motel.
I can recall one occasion at Camperdown when Jim convinced me and Bill Eunson to go to
the Warrnambool dirt track for the annual Easter Race Carnival. When we arrived at the track I
wondered why no one sat down near the front where there was plenty of space. After race 1, I came
to understand perfectly, Even where we were standing halfway up the slope, the odd lump of clay
came whizzing by. It also started to drizzle a bit so we all went home that night, a bit wet, covered
in clay, but having a great time.
Jim’s overall contribution to VARMS was significant and he was a member of the
Committee for so long I can’t recall how many years it actually was. The ultimate PR man, Jim
was to organize the extremely successful series of VARMS Expo’s which were held in the
Waverley High School Hall. Due to Jim’s efforts, just about every club in Melbourne participated
in an event that showcased all facets of radio controlled modelling to the public. Although not a
prime aim of these Expo’s, they were so successful that a significant component of the current
VARMS financial position can be attributed to Jim Robertson’s efforts over many year.
Jim was a true friend to me and I will miss his sincere friendship and his very positive
128
aproach to life. The latter is evidenced in the way he lived his life to the full as best he could during
his long periods of treatment for his cancer.
Jim was an example to us all in this.
Farewell old friend .... You will always be in our memory.
Peter Cossins
VARMS Life Member
(Compiler’s Note – Jim was co-opted onto Committee at the commencement of 8 very successful
Expo’s in 1986 and continued on in other extremely useful roles within the club to serve for a
total of 18 consecutive years on Committee).
VARMS TEAM WINS VMAA TROPHY
April 2009
VARMS Team Captain, Peter Cossins accepts
Trophy from Murray Ellis, VMAA President.
129
The VARMS team won the VMAA Trophy held at the State Flying
Field on Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th April.
Although there were only four clubs participating in the event, the performance of the team
would have been very competitive even if more had entered. Clubs fielding a team were VARMS,
Northern Flying Group, P&DARCS and Latrobe Valley. This is the lowest participation rate I can
recall for many years and the travelling distance may be a factor which the VMAA should
investigate.
Having made that comment, the State Flying Field is an appropriate venue for all of the
events and the food and hospitality provided by the host club excellent. There is an adjacent
paddock which was used for the Thermal Glider event and will be further improved for future use.
VARMS has been second in this event on at least two occasions, which had us as the
perennial bridesmaid. We have now set the record straight and demonstrated that we do have the
skills to compete in a range of radio controlled activities on an equal or better footing than most
clubs. Three of the nine events do favour those with thermal skills, but you still have to have the
right model for the task.
The weather on both days was slightly overcast in the morning, but clearing later in the day.
The wind was not strong so general conditions for radio controlled models of all types was quite
good.
Geoff Moore flew the Helicopter event which is a time trial. There are three circles and you
have to take off from one, land in the other two with no part of the landing gear outside the circle,
then return home and land. All this is to be executed in as close to three minutes as possible. This is
a precision flying event with the requirement to timekeep in your head. Geoff’s time keeping was
excellent which shows he can actually count!
Steven Malcman entered his new (very large) Cessna 182 in the ‘Fun Scale’ event. He flew
the model with precision and only attempted maneuvers that a full size 182 can execute. The model
is painted in the livery and markings of the Melbourne Aviation Group’s Cessna VH – CXZ. The
flying speed was true scale and I am sure that impressed the judges. His main competitor was an
impressive Turbine Jet from Northern that was also flown very well.
The Fun Fly which involves very quick loops, rolls and cuban eights, was attempted for the
first time by Ross Peasley. Ross flew a small electric powered model which he kept quite close to
the ground. Because of this fact and given that it is a time based event, Ross was very competitive.
The maneuvers are not elegant by any standards and with a bit more practice, Ross could do even
better than he did on the day. He did well anyway!
The Thermal Glider event was on a 2 – 4 - 6 – 8 -10 minute flight basis with the usual
landing points thrown in. All pilots were required to fly in the same time slot and hence the same
air. Unfortunately there was a bit of carnage where two of the contestants eliminated themselves
before the end of the flights. A new rule system was introduced to this event allowing for more
sophisticated models, but with wings substantially obtaining their strength from wood. Carbon fibre
re-inforcement was allowed, however. Alan returned a perfect score in the 10 minute round, I recall.
Electric Glider was also flown on the Saturday with new rules opening the field a little more
realistically to more modern technology. This event is a time trial but with penalization for the
number of seconds of motor run. I called David Pratley ‘ Mr Miser’ as I think in the first round his
motor run was 2 seconds which did not use anything of the charge available in the battery. Short
motor run and good thermal capabilities are a winning combination in this event.
Scale Aerobatics was flown by Theo Arvantakis. All pilots are required to fly two rounds,
one being a prescribed set of maneuvers and the second a free style selection by the pilot. Theo did
very well in the first round, but absolutely went berserk in the free style. The set include many
impossible feats including a series of flat spins. I can tell you, seeing is believing.
Sunday arrived and the first event was Team Racing with Lou Rodman flying and David
130
Weller the ‘Caller’. We flew four rounds with no rest in between other than perhaps a quick re-fuel.
Later in the day another group of rounds were flown. Eventually all the pilots quit by common
accord as being completely fagged out.
The next event was Musical landings which is an R/C Model equivalent of Musical Chairs.
Last down when the music stops is eliminated. Col Collyer did some doctoring of an old model of
mine to ensure that it would not run along the ground too much. Round 1 saw Col come down at a
great rate and forget to flair. Bang goes one of the undercarriage wires right out of the wing. Repairs
are allowed within a short time scale and fortunately I had brought some gaffer tape. Lou Rodman
provided some 5 minute epoxy and we were airborne within 3 or 4 minutes in the next round. Let
the glue set in mid air was the philosophy. Landed again and the wheel popped off, just as before.
So much for the epoxy. Forget that, the trusty old gaffer did hold the wheel on for take off and
popped off again during landing …. A shorter landing roll …. beauty !!!! A second set of rounds
were flown later in the day and by then we had no real idea how we were going, but the
undercarriage kept coming off on landing every time. More gaffer tape !!!
A generous offer of the use of a model by Lou Rodman allowed VARMS to enter the Old
timer event. This is based on a 1930’s ( or 40’s ??) style model with an engine that makes it climb
like the bat out of hell and then thermals well. A 25 second motor run was allowed. I flew this event
which had a total of six rounds. I had the expert help of Theo and Colin and learnt a new rule ….
Getting bigger is BAD … getting smaller is GOOD. I will now apply this rule to my future thermal
flying. Unfortunately in about Round 4, we had a situation where the model lightly hit a young
person on landing. With the light nature of the model and no engine running, there was no danger to
the person, but the tailplane was damaged and we had to undertake field repairs which included
elastic bands to keep the stab on. During the last two launches, I noticed the stab was at an angle to
the fuz. Fortunately it did not come off and the thermal capabilities of the model were not affected.
By the last event which was the ‘Most Unusual Model’, we were fairly sure that the Trophy
had been won as it is the best six events to be counted. All being exhausted we decided to retire and
pack up.
We did win the VMAA Trophy 2009 !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Below are the placings for the events we entered.
Helicopter
Geoff Moore 2nd Place
Fun Scale
Steven Malcman
1st Place
nd
Fun Fly
Ross Peasley 2 Place
Therm Glider
Alan Mayhew
1st Place
Elec. Glider David Pratley 1st Place
Team Racing
Lou Rodman
2nd Place
st
Old Timer
Peter Cossins 1 Place
Musical Landings
Col Collyer
2nd Place
Most Unusual Model
No entry
Scale Aerobatics
Theo Arvanitakis
1st Place
Thanks to all the Team who helped out over the two days, a great result for VARMS !!!
Peter Cossins
Team Captain
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VMAA
TROPHY
2009
Individual
Winners &
Placings
EVENT
FIRST
SECOND
THIRD
Aaron Owsianny
NFG (Junior)
Joe Tortorella
P&DARCS
Geoff Moore
VARMS
Electric
Glider
Thermal
Glider
Fun
Fly
Fun
Scale
Most
Unusual Model
David Pratley
VARMS
Eric Martorella
NFG
Mick Gunn
LaTrobe
Alan Mayhew
VARMS
Barry Nugent
LaTrobe
Tony Greiger
P&DARCS
Mick Gunn
LaTrobe
Ross Peasley
VARMS
Colin Harris
NFG
Steve Malcman
VARMS
Frank Laguda
NFG
Roly Gaumann
P&DARCS
Ivan & Kevin
Murray Ellis
Chiselett Paul
LaTrobe
Somerville P&DARCS
Riley Sills
NFG (Junior)
Old-Timer
Duration
Musical
Landings
Peter Cossins
VARMS
Jim Brennan
NFG
Col Collyer
VARMS
Chris Caulcutt P&DARCS -------------------equal first
Mark Sills
NFG
Scale
Aerobatics
Club
Racing
Glenn Burgdorf
P&DARCS
Theo Arvanitakis
VARMS
Pat Garro
NFG
Bill Burrows
LaTrobe
Lew Rodman
VARMS
Kevin Chiselett
P&DARCS
Helicopter
Don Grant
LaTrobe
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2009 VMAA TROPHY RESULTS
VMAA POINTS.
The best 6 of the 10 events to count. Juniors get an extra 1 & ½ points
C
L
U
B
P
L
A
C
E
Total
of
the
best
6
S
C
O
R
E
S
L
V
M
A
C
N
F
G
P &
D
A
R
C
S
V
A
R
M
S
H
E
L
I
C
O
P
T
E
R
Fun
-
4
Fly
Scale
Fun
Club
A
E
R
O
B
A
T
I
C
S
S
C
A
L
E
R
A
C
I
N
G
3
1
1
T
H
E
R
M
A
l
G
L
I
D
E
R
E
L
E
C
T
R
I
C
Most
U
N
U
S
U
A
L
Old
T
I
M
E
R
D
U
R
A
T
I
O
N
M
U
S
I
C
A
L
L
A
N
D
I
N
G
S
G
L
I
D
E
R
M
O
D
E
L
4
2
3
3
-
3
19
4
19 5 ½
2
1
2
3
1
3
3½
2
2
2
19
3
1
2
4
2
2
-
4
1
4
1
23
2
3
4
3
4
3
4
-
4
4
2nd, 3rd and 4th places were decided by a ‘countback’
The most number of event wins… wins!
LaTrobe had TWO wins, Northern had ONE win,
P&DARCS had THREE wins
133
134
Left to Right: Colin Collyer (VARMS Pres.),
Graham Scott (VMAA C.D.), Murray Ellis
(VMAA Pres.), Peter Cossins (VARMS Team
Leader), Lou Rodman & David Weller
(VARMS Members).
June 2009 –
32nd LSF Soaring Tournament, Jerilderie
1. Carl Strautins
2. Joe Wurts NZ
3. Mike O’Reilly
Advanced- Gregg Potter
NoviceBrian Hamilton NZ
135
136
VARMS LOSES PLAYOFF SERIES FOR BRIGG’S FIELD
At its Committee Meeting on Tuesday 19th May 2009, the Knox City Council announced (obviously
with deep regret), that its plans to establish the Eastern Recreation Precinct were now fully funded
and that the project would proceed as soon as all of the legal technicalities relating to the transfer of
the site Titles were completed.
Stage One of this project will see a Basketball facility of 6 courts and also 2 Soccer fields, all with
appropriate amenities and infrastructure.
Stage Two will see the Basketball facilities up-graded to at least 10 courts with further additions at
later stages to accommodate Netball and Gymnastics also.
If it is any consolation to VARMS, the following was included in the many recommendations:
“The need of the existing user group (VARMS) is to be accommodated in any development
proposal(s).”
VARMS was first granted use of the site in June 1984, and as entry was via Cathies Lane, that
became the obvious name for the area which has now been over-run by Eastlink. In October 1988,
due mainly to the construction of a Golf Driving Range on the corner of High Street Rd. and
Cathies Lane, VARMS was permitted to move further into the paddock which necessitated entry via
High Street Road, the construction/erection of a ‘temporary’ shelter, and the procurement of several
shipping containers to house its growing range of equipment.
Co-incidentally, VARMS had previously used a flying site on the city side of nearby Norton’s Lane
in 1977/78.
137
2009 – 10
President
Treasurer
Registrar
Contest Director
Sport Power Rep.
Colin Collyer
Ian Pearson
Bruce Clapperton
Alan Mayhew
Chris Kurdian
The Committee
Secretary
Editor/Sites Manager
Ordinary Member
Heli Group Rep.
Webmaster
Roger Stevenson
Max Haysom
Martin Hopper
Steven Malcman
Steve Tester
The Stan Mason memorial “Gentleman’s Award”,
presented to Barry de Kuyper.
September 2009 – In recent months we have lost the following identities who have graced the ranks
of VARMS:
Alan Villiers (Inaugural Secretary 1968, 1969 & 1972 – VARMS 2). Alan was VARMS
chief agitator in arranging for Glider events to be included in the Nationals. This first
occurred as an ‘Un-official event’ at Strathalbyn, S.A. 1970/71, then as an ‘Official event’
at Northam W.A. 1971/72.
John Bexley (Joined 1969 – VARMS 38) – past Editor 1970/71/73,
indulged in Free flight and R/C gliders.
Geoff Pentland (Joined 1976 – VARMS 293),
noted for his work in the production of documentation
relating to “RAAF Camouflage & Markings & also Scale
Gliders”,(Kookaburra Technical Publications).
James (Jimmy Robb.) Robertson (Joined 1985 – VARMS 553) – of “EXPO fame”,- 8 in
total from 1986-1993. Life Member & Committee Member for 18 consecutive years.
Although Jimmy did not fly much, he was a constant “Organiser, doer, dogsbody, helper
and general gofer” at all club meetings and activities.
The cartoon is of a “Duster”, an Australian home-built glider,
construction of which is currently being undertaken by some VARMS
138
members as a club project.
139
February 2010-
RCGA – 2010
As of January 2010, the RCGA will be including the organisation of F3K and Scale gliding as part of its
management of RC gliding disciplines and events. This is in addition to its already well-established
management of F3J & F3B gliding in Victoria.
The RCGA has extended its role to coordinate and develop additional facets of gliding in Victoria in order
to foster future growth of the sport.
As part of this commitment, the RCGA has developed the following statements of purpose:




To co-ordinate, foster, and promote the flying of Radio Controlled Gliders both for Recreation and
Sporting Contests.
To represent Victorian RC gliding interests to respective State and National aeromodeling bodies.
In conjunction with relevant State and National bodies, develop, implement and maintain rules
and guidelines for gliding activities.
Develop and promote flight proficiency programs for all categories of RC gliding.
The following item was part of the Editorial & Site Management Report that
appeared in Aspectivity 429-March 2010 to signify the end of yet another era within
the history of VARMS.
You may notice that the previous paragraph was headed, “VARMS Glider Field”
which is the new and more meaningful name for our South Wantirna flying site. The
last remnants of Brigg’s Field disappeared when the shelter was demolished in
December 2009. Please note in all references and correspondence, VARMS; and the
VARMS Glider field is now an integral part of Knox’s Eastern Recreational Precinct,
together with the Basketball and Soccer Stadiums. Martin Briggs, a past President,
was involved in the construction of the original shelter on the site, will be
remembered, with reverence, on suitable plaque/s to be displayed in the new secure
club room.
140
….. and for those who care to remember, this is the way it was!
….. and this is how they moved it to the south-west corner!!
141
A VISION. This is a presentation that I gave at the last meeting
(February) outlining where we think VARMS is headed, and
some of the ideas we have to get there. But first we need to look
at VARMS history, to see where we have come from, and remind
ourselves of how we got here.
When we first came to the site we now know as Brigg’s Field we
were over where the toll way is now, an area about 150mtrs wide
and 350mtrs long. It had all the market garden furrows we have
come to love, trees along the eastern side, limited parking and no
facilities….. Just a paddock, but it was the first ‘home’ we had, up until then VARMS were
known as the “Nomads”, and it was fine for bungee and winch launching.
Late 80’s or early 90’s we took over the whole paddock, cleared trees, blackberries, long
grass, and really made the paddock look like someone lived there, and eventually we
obtained permission to fly power and the first strip was built. This was mainly for aerotow,
but also so some of the members could fly their power models when not gliding. Then we
had our model airshow, masterminded by Herr Gottschalk, and we got our first lease, for
one year, then monthly. This lease is about to finish, (After about 20 years) and will be
replaced with a Knox Council Licence.
This state of bliss went on, with VARMS getting equipment to look after things, mowers,
tractors, a club house, a container, then another and peaked at about 300 members before
the toll way came along, so a new strip was built further to the west.
Then, about 2008 the dreaded Basket Ball centre came along, and we all thought that it
was the end for Brigg’s Field, but when the real facts started to emerge, we found that
VARMS were in the picture. Negotiations started, that involved a group from VARMS; Max
Haysom, Peter Cossins, Alan Mayhew and myself, along with a group involved with the
Sporting Complex. Let me say that at the start there was not too much optimism, but as
we got to know each other, we found that Knox were good listeners, and we gradually
found that there maybe a future for VARMS, and as things moved along we have come to
realize that although the field will be a bit smaller, and surrounded on two sides by sporting
Complex, we will be OK for most of our activities, and in some areas we will be better off.
So, now the VISION, 2010 onFirst…. Some facts,
1)
We will have two soccer pitches and a pavilion to the north, and an indoor
basketball centre to the east with car parking for maybe 2000 cars. Some of this is still in
the planning stage.
2)
We will not have as much ‘elbow room’, and our safety barrier will be much
reduced. We will need to manage this carefully.
3)
Model flying will become a spectator sport. The fact that a lot of traffic will be in the
area will make us probably the most “SEEN” club in Melbourne, and is probably a great
opportunity to capitalize, become part of the Sporting Complex and contribute to the
community.
To create this “spectacle” we will need to make the most of our shed; clean, sharp,
and well sign written, both telling who we are and what we do. We need to provide some
“Spectator Areas”, with seating and shade, and again good sign writing. And every
member will need to be a Safety Officer and a Public Relations Guy.
Other ideas are to grow fruit vines along the fence, to hide them and make them
softer to hit! Plant some shade trees in the car park and along the fence line, and a rose
garden around the shed to keep the graffiti people at bay. And I bet there’s more that we
haven’t even thought of yet.
Now is a great opportunity to make VARMS a place where members, partners and
visitors enjoy.
142
Then we talked about the likely costs and the timeframe, and the members present
passed a motion of support, so. We are on our way. Thanks for taking the time. Col
(Colin Collyer – President)
VARMS TEAM WINS VMAA TROPHY – “AGAIN” April 2010
1. VARMS
33
2. LVMAC 30
3. L&DMFA 28
(See Results for details)
Below we have an early diagram of what the new “Hut/Shed/Clubhouse” could look like.
June 2010
– 33rd LSF Tournament –
Jerilderie
1. Joe Wurts NZ
2. David Hobby
3. Carl Strautins
Advanced- Eric Smith
NoviceJoel Pedder
143
2010 – 11
The Committee
President
Colin Collyer
Treasurer
Ian Pearson
VP/Editor/Sites Manager
Max Haysom
Ordinary Member
Martin Hopper
Heli Group Rep.
Geoff Moore
Webmaster
Steve Tester
“It seems that VARMS now has a Vice President!!”
Secretary
Registrar
Aspectivity Compiler
Contest Director
Sport Power Rep.
Roger Stevenson
Bruce Clapperton
Glenn Salisbury
Alan Mayhew
Chris Kurdian
Presentations at the AGM – July 2010.
At a Special General Meeting, August 2010 the AIMS of the VARMS Constitution was changed
to:“VARMS – Fostering the Sport of Radio Controlled Soaring in Victoria.”
144
September General Meeting – Static Scale competition organised by Geoff Hearn & Frank Smith.
Scale Glider & Members choice
FAFNIR
Leon Carlos
Thermal Glider
VORTEX (Club project)
Danny Malcman
Power Scale soaring
F4U-1 CORSAIR
Glenn Salisbury
October 3 – State Slope Championships, Mt Hollowback –
1. Ian Cole
2. Ian Slack 3. Des Bayliss
145
146
The following pictures tell the story of the VARMS flying site at High Street Road, from
October 2009 to October 2010.
147
DYNAMIC SOARING - 2010
December 2010 – DS’ing has been the ‘new boy’ on the block for a while now and is gathering a lot
of impetus locally and also overseas. The following is some indication of the speeds that have been
attained utilising new model technology and new flying techniques:NEW WORLD RECORD
October 2010
446 Mph/713Kph
AUSTRALIAN RECORD December 2010
325Mph/523Kph
Social reciprocals – a Donation for a Display.
148
149
VARMS does not complete the “Hat-trick” for the VMAA TROPHY – 2011
CLUB Results
1. LDMFA
35 ½
2. LVMAC 33
3. P&DARCS 32
4. VARMS 26
VARMS Individual results
Thermal Glider
1st
Scale Aerobatics
3rd
Most Unusual Model 2nd
Electric Glider
1st
5. Northern F G
6. Croydon A C
Alan Mayhew
Peter Mack
Scott McKenzie
David Pratley
25 ½
17
Fun-Fly
Fun Scale
Club Racing
Music. Landings
7. Ballarat A M
5th
5th
6th
4th
16
Scott McKenzie
Peter Mack
Ross Peasley
Colin Collyer
150
U-2
THE EPILOGUE
After 5 outings, 2 disasters, 3 excellent flying sessions, the last of which was an outlanding in the tight embrace of a fence, the U-2 is restored to a high level of ‘static
excellence’ for an ‘outing’ at the 40th Anniversary bash in 2008, and thence to her final
resting place in the new VARMS Clubhouse in 2011.
June 2011 – 34th LSF Soaring Tournament, Jerilderie
1. Joe Wurts NZ
2. Carl Strautins
3. Mike Rae
AdvancedJoel Pedder
NoviceHugh Blackburn
4 – 10 July 2011 – Results for the Inaugural World F3K Championships which were held at Arboga
Field, Sweden:
QUALIFYING FINALS – 10 Rounds, drop 2.
TM Marcus Stent
1. Martin Herrig
Germany
100%
29. Brett Anthony Aus 96.39%
2. Joe Wurts
NZ
100
61. Hugh Blackburn Aus 86.29
3. Soren Svantesson Swe
100
65. Jon Day
Aus 84.57
FLYOFF – 6 Rounds, drop 1.
TEAM RESULTS – 27 Teams competed
1. Joe Wurts
NZ
100%
1. New Zealand
23,946
2. George Morris
USA 99.64%
2. Germany
23,762
3. Mike Stern
GB
99.40%
18. Australia
21,380
151
2011 – 2012
The Committee
President & VMAA Comm. Colin Collyer
Secretary
VP/Editor/Sites Manager
Max Haysom
Treasurer
Registrar
Bruce Clapperton
Aspectivity Editor
Contest Director
Alan Mayhew
Ordinary Member
Heli Group Rep.
Geoff Moore
Sport Power Rep.
Webmaster
Steve Tester
Roger Stevenson
Ian Pearson
Glenn Salisbury
Martin Hopper
Chris Kurdian
At the July 2011 AGM the following awards were made;
The Stan Mason Award
VARMS Clubman Award
Geoff Trone,
Brian Spencer
Courtesy of some industrious work by Geoff Moore, the pictured ‘Honour Board’ now adorns one
wall of the new Clubhouse.
152
October 2011 – VARMS and the VMAA introduce significant changes related to the production
and delivery of their respective Newsletters.
VARMS initially tried to deliver the October Aspectivity by email, but many problems were
encountered, so a link was provided to access the magazine (in colour) on the club website. A full
COLOUR version of Aspectivity had already been available on the website since November 2004
(No. 372). A Black & White copy of Aspectivity will still be provided to those who request same.
The VMAA newsletter had always been in Black & White, but progressively introduced
colour; first in March 2009, more in September 2007, and then full colour in July 2008 to all
affiliated members, and delivered by snail mail, being also available on their website as of March
2009. But this will now cease as a full colour copy will only be available on their website, with a
Black & White copy of the newsletter by snail mail to remain available on request.
November 2011 – After the recent RCGA AGM, newly elected President, Marcus Stent
announced the following: RCGA - Grand Champion League.
To encourage participation in all classes we are creating a 'Grand Champion'
League this year. The Grand Champion will be decided by taking the competitors 3 best
Open Thermal events, 3 best F3K events and their single best F3B event. This will make it
easy to get a score and it is a great way to improve your skills.
Nov. 2011 – Yet another advance in technology is to affect the VARMS Trophy. Bruce Clapperton
(CD), has advised that for the coming VARMS Trophy season, Altitude Limited Electric Gliders
will be able to be used in conjunction with Winch Launched Gliders in the same competition.
November 2011 – VARMS Training takes a GREAT LEAP forward in a move which is reflected
by the accompanying article -
In accord with the previous article regarding VARMS Training which was
commenced by Geoff Hearn (Past President) in February 1991, it is not unreasonable to
repeat the Training scenario that is
currently provided by VARMS and
how this is actually achieved in 2011.
All training is conducted
using Rudder/Elevator Polyhedral
gliders. The current glider used is
the Prelude Plus by Southern
Sailplanes.
153
To ensure that Training is as stress free as possible, Buddy Boxes were introduced
some 5 years ago. Their use lessens the fear of crashing for many beginners and enables
faster learning.
Electric assist glider training is provided using a Prelude Plus which has been
modified to house a Hyperion G2220-14 Brushless motor, a Hyperion 30A speed controller
and Hyperion 3S 2000Mah Lithium Polymer batteries. This combination works very well
for training and enables a safe transition to Electric Assist Gliding.
The above conversion was kindly supported by Hyperion Australia.
A second model is available for demonstration and practise. It is a modified Gentle
Lady. Again the motor and speed controller has been provided by Hyperion Australia.
Graduates from the training school are encouraged to further their enjoyment of our
hobby by entering the VARMS Trophy, a fun low stress competition for 2 channel glider
where further tuition is readily available. Introduction to Slope Soaring sessions are also
conducted several times each year.
Dates and times for Training and the VARMS Trophy are listed in the Calendar.
154
Nov 2001 - ….. and VARMS puts out the ‘welcome’ mat to one and all-
31 March & 1 April – VMAA Trophy – State Flying Field
Club Results(Best 6 scores)
1. L & DMFA
35
5. VARMS
26
2. NFG
33
6. PARCS
25
3. LVMAC
32
7. Ballarat BAM
18
4. Yarra Valley
29
8. Bacchus Marsh 14
VARMS Individual Results
Fun Scale
Thermal Glider
Old Timer Duration
Electric Glider
2nd
1st
1st
2nd
Steve Malcman
Graham Sullivan
Colin Collyer
Alan Mayhew
Most Unusual Model 5th
Club Racing
6th
Musical Landings
6th
Peter Cossins
Graham Sullivan
Colin Collyer
155
April – The VMAA held Instructor training at VARMS flying Field which resulted in 11
MAAA Glider Instructors & 10 Gold Wings accomplished with the use of 10 students.
The local Knox paper contained an article indicating that the Knox
Council had made an application to re-name the Eastern Recreation
Precinct, which in fact has taken place, and it is now the Knox Regional
Sports Park.
156
2012 – 2013
President & VMAA Comm.
VP/Editor/Sites Manager
Registrar
Contest Director
Heli Group Rep.
The Committee
Colin Collyer
Secretary
Max Haysom
Treasurer
Bruce Clapperton
Aspectivity Editor
Alan Mayhew
Ordinary Member
Geoff Moore
Sport Power Rep.
Webmaster
Steve Tester
Roger Stevenson
Ian Pearson
Glenn Salisbury
Martin Hopper
Chris Kurdian
The following awards were made at the AGM.
Colin Collyer
Gary McDougall
Life Membership
VARMS Clubman Award
The Stan Mason Gentleman’s Award
Max Koludrovic
June - Results – 35th LSF Soaring Tournament, Jerilderie
1. Carl Strautins
2. Joe Wurts NZ
=3 Mike O’Reilly & Bernie Sizer
Advanced – Bernie Sizer
NoviceMitch Todd
Results RCGA League Events
Thermal1. David Hobby
F3B1. John Skinner
F3K1. Brett Anthony
Grand Champion1. Marcus Stent
The main entrance to the
Basketball Stadium
displays Logos of all
participants in the Sports
Park, including VARMS,
with a clearer picture
shown below.
2. Jim Houdalakis
2. Mike Rae
2. Marcus Stent
2. Jim Houdalakis
3. Bernie Sizer
3. Gerry Carter
3. Hugh Blackburn
3. Hugh Blackburn
157
158
August 2012
World F3J Championships
South Africa
58 Entrants – 11 Qualifying Rounds – Drop 1.
12 Qualifiers in Fly-Off – 7 Rounds – Drop 1.
1. Jan Littva
SVK
1. Benedikt Feigl
GER
2. Joe Wurts
NZL
2. Jan Littva
SVK
3. Tom Kiesling
USA
3. Cody Remington
USA
18. David Hobby
AUS
4. Bob McGowan
USA
37. Mike Rae
AUS
5. Daryl Perkins
USA
52. Carl Strautins
AUS
6. Joe Wurts
NZL
Team Results – 22 Teams
(Only 16 Teams had the Maximum 3 Members)
1. USA
2. GER
3. NZL
11. AUS
September 2012 – At the General meeting, it was announced that “POWER” was now
connected to the VARMS clubhouse, with ‘Water’ to follow once some small difficulties
were sorted out!
August 2012 – Royal Park revisited.
Several pictures taken at Royal Park
of the first RCGA/ F3K event to be
held for the season.
VARMS also held two contests in the
same general area in February and
May 1977.
October 2012 – VARMS holds it FINAL meeting in the Glen Waverley Primary School hall, a
location that they have used for the majority of their meetings since February 1981. All meetings
will now be held in the newly created Clubhouse at the club flying site in Wantirna South (Knox
Regional Sports Park).
… it seems that when the Olde Farts Club goes to
Camperdown and there is no wind to fly, they play
parlour games, outdoors of course!!
159
November 2012 –The following two items are taken from this months newsletter.
160
… celebrating Australia day 2013,
Camperdown style!!
March Aspectivity reported with great sadness, the passing of club member, Frank Smith.
Frank had been a member since 1978 and his building of and contribution towards information
relating to early scale gliders was unsurpassed – Andy Smith probably said it best, … “in his day
the Wikipedia for scale gliders”, RIP Frank.
Vale – Frank Frederick Smith 2/5/1943 – 17/2/2013
Geoff Hearn
Frank’s involvement with VARMS goes back to the 1970’s when he joined the club. He
was taken under tuition by the late John Vanderwolf who taught him the skills of radio
model soaring at Glenfern Road, Upwey. Frank built and flew many of the gliders of the
time, i.e. trainers, slope types and floater/soaring models. As time progressed he found his
love in scale models with his pet era being the German Golden age of full size gliding of
the late 1920’s and 1`930’s. Perhaps his favourite type of glider was the Grunau Baby,
having build in excess of eight examples in various scales; 1/6th, 1/5th, and 1/4 scale. His
vast knowledge of this type often resulted in a variety of colour schemes. Not generally
known to most of us VARMS members, was that many members have been lucky to own
examples of Frank’s superb building skills, whilst many other members have benefitted
from his broad knowledge of Vintage Gliders. Many members may not be aware that
Frank didn’t drive and was at the mercy of others to transport him and his models to flying
sites. He obtained great satisfaction in past time visiting various Victorian clubs with the
scale group and flew many of his scale models on visits to Camperdown during the 1980’s
and early 1990’s. Right up until recent times Frank continued his interest in model gliding
with a number of purchases of foam/electric powered models and continued to build glider
types which took his interest. Frank passed away peacefully with many of his friends
visiting him in hospital during his last days. His enduring membership of VARMS, in
excess of 30 years showed his passion for model soaring. He will be sorely missed.
I hope he finds many perfect flights where ever he may be.
161
29 Mar – 2 Apr 2013 (Easter) – Futaba EasyTow Scale Event – Jerilderie NSW
Many people, many BIG Tugs and many very BIG models (6M), but, no report is available.
It is with regret that we announce the passing of Tony Cincotta.
Tony was an avid modeller (AUS 936), an early member of VARMS
(No. 31). He operated Hobby shops in Caufield as well as East
Bentleigh collectively for 35 years, being a major sponsor of the
VMAA Trophy when it was well recognised as the ‘Futaba Trophy’.
Whilst his preferred activity was Control Line, he was active in most
elements of modelling including slope soaring at Mt. Hollowback
and the slopes at Camperdown.
162
VMAA Trophy 13 & 14 April 2013
1. Northern F G 37
5. LVMAC
27
2. PARCS
31
6. Bacchus Marsh
26
3. P & DARCS 30
7. Yarra Valley
25½
4. VARMS
27½ & below we have a full report by the Team Captain.
VMAA Trophy Report
Graham Sullivan
The VMAA Trophy has once again been Run and Won. What a weekend!
For those of us who got up early on Saturday morning, the weather was fine. It was a balmy 21 Degrees in
Melbourne. On the way to the State Flying Field the sky indicated that shepherds and sailors should
beware. The sky was indicating that the weather Bureau was a day ahead of their forecast. I travelled to
Wallan and got the shock of my life when I stepped out of my car and found the temperature to be about
10 degrees and wind at about 20 knots but the show must go on. From Wallan to the field I missed the allimportant turnoff and had an adventure to Romsey (not enjoying the sights). Totally lost I found a roadside
General Store and asked for directions. The owner was very obliging and told me the turnoff I wanted was
500 metres down the road. Five kilometres later I arrived at the road I needed. Luckily I arrived 30 minutes
before the all-important Team Captains briefing. The first familiar face I saw was “El Presidente’ Colin
Collyer, followed by a steady stream of competitors and supporters from VARMS. Things were looking
good.
THE COMP
Fun Fly.
Were proudly represented by Paul Van Tongeren. The conditions were horrendous. The
wind was gusting about 20-25 knots and Paul didn’t hesitate to commit his Fun Cub to the task
at hand. To Paul’s credit he flew beyond belief! He executed all (most) of the manoeuvres
brilliantly and received copious amounts of applause from the crowd on landings.
Unfortunately his score did not reflect the guts and determination of such an inexperienced
but confident pilot. Well done Paul.
Fun Scale.
Again the wind was still howling. Tony Grieger flew his Gee Bee Racer and battled the wind
turbulence created by the trees situated to the North of the field. Together we came up
with a plan to fly above the turbulence before making any manoeuvres. This worked well
and got us off to a good start in the second round. Tony’s flight was impressive and he
came a respectable 4th. Again, well done Tony.
Thermal Glider. With the wind still howling I assembled my Eclipse 3.5 metre glider. I had no intentions of
flying in the present conditions but thought I would psych-out the rest of the competitors. As we were
called to the field, the wind began to calm down. Everything went really well and I had the first round won.
Then, someone (El Presidente) said it would be a good idea to run another round because the comp was
running ahead of time. Off we went and again I was doing pretty well. Then in one of the rounds I got
extremely competitive and decided to NAIL a Spot landing on one of my flights. The
result of that decision resulted in a broken Aileron connection, no flap control and a
broken rudder. Within 2 minutes we had a flying machine that the Wright Brothers
would have second thoughts about flying. Anyway, off we went again and I went on to
win the event.
Electric Glider. This was the first event for the Sunday schedule. With only seconds before the start of the
comp we were anxiously awaiting our Junior Pilot, Luke O’Neill. We made an agreement
with the CD and the first heat was flown by David Sheehy. Luke was ready for the second
heat and nervously took to the air. He flew very well. Luke’s times were extremely close
to 5 minutes with approximately 18 seconds of motor run for each, we all gave him a
very good chance of being up there in the final scores. There was some hot competition
to contend with and Luke ended up a creditable 4th. P.S. I have just checked the VMAA
site and found the official results. It would appear that Luke came 3rd not 4th. I will pursue.
(Note: After several scoring anomalies were sorted, Luke remained in 4th position).
163
Most Unusual Model. Enter Col Collyer’s radio controlled, control line model. Unsure if the model would
even fly on the control line we proceeded to centre field. With about 50 metres of VHS
Tape attached to the tail, away we went. To our surprise it flew perfectly. Colin managed
to score a couple of streamer hook-ups and performed all sorts of manoeuvers. I was on
the handle and decided to rotate in the opposite direction the plane was flying. After a
couple of circuits I placed the handle in my mouth and with my arms spread, managed a
few more laps. Eventually Col released the plane from the lines and went on to fly an “Out of Control”
controlled flight. Well, we thought it was pretty good but the judges scored us 4th place.
Old Timer.
Again it was Colin’s turn. With a full field of competitors the competition looked
formidable. Colin flew 4 perfect rounds out of the 6 on offer. We walked from the field
feeling very confident we had the comp won. After waiting for an hour or so, the results were
posted. Congratulations to a junior who flew 5 perfect heats tipping Colin into 2nd place. Well
done Col.
Helicopter.
This was a very controversial event. Originally the chopper events were scheduled for
Saturday and Sunday, then they changed to Saturday and 2 days before the comp a list came out indicating
that they were to held on Sunday. After much discussion our pilot Tim Stewart was
allowed to fly on Sunday as the other choppers flew Saturday (did you get all of that?)
Unfortunately I was helping with Old Timer while Tim flew and didn’t get to see him fly.
Geoff Moore was Tim’s helper and told me he was only 20 or so seconds off a perfect
round. The end result was Tim got 2nd Place and VARMS grabbed a valuable 5 points to
add to the board.
Musical Landings.
On Friday morning Colin lent me an old plane that was originally owned by Jim
Robertson. I had one look at it and decided to replace the OS 40 Four stroke with an OS
46 Two stroke and on Friday afternoon test flew it. Talk about being a little
overpowered! The first heat saw me reaching VNE (velocity never exceed) with every
control surface fluttering, I backed off the throttle and landed with only one half of the
wing on the runway, this eliminated me immediately. The second round was a lot
better and I ended up in a fly-off for first place but then the motor decided to rattle
itself loose and I was forced to land. I finished equal 3rd.
Overall VARMS came 4th, pretty good considering we only entered 8 out of the 12 events on offer.
Congratulations to our competitors and a special thank you to the helpers and supporters who stepped up
where they could to assist with all manner of tasks.
People keep telling me that the VMAA Trophy is a Fun Event, but I can tell you that the level of competition
at the time is ferocious. It’s only after the dust has settled you realise that, “Yes, it was fun”, I can’t wait for
the next year!
Happy landings.
The VARMS Team & Placings:
Helicopter
Old Timer
Electric Glider
Fun Scale
Tim Stewart 2nd
Colin Collyer 2nd
Luke O’Neill 4th
Tony Greiger 4th
Glider
Musical Landings
Fun Fly
Unusual Model
25 – 28 Apr – JR Aerotow Warracknabeal Vic
Great weather – 50 Pilots – 100 Models
including 2 x 7.5 metre ½ scale ASW 28’s –
5 Tugs – a fantastic long weekend.
Graham Sullivan
Graham Sullivan
Paul Van Tongeren
Colin Collyer
1st
=3rd
6th
4TH
164
AWARDS:
Pilot’s choice
Best Modern model
Best Vintage Glider
Best Tug over 80cc
Best Tug under 80cc
Chris Carpenter’s ASK14 (Self launching)
John Copeland’s StemmS10
George Buzuleac‘s Kookaburra
Greg Leigh’s Pawnee with DA120
Mike Schneider’s Ultra stick with Zenoah 26
June 2013 – LSF Tournament, JERILDERIE
Thermal
1 Joe Wurts 2 Matt Lowe
3 Carl Strautins
F3K
1. Joe Wurts 2. Marcus Stent
3 Hugh Blackburn
(Also selection trial for World Championship Team)
VARMS reflects on the passing of Neil McLeod, a foundation
member of VARMS (No. 8), also Aspectivity Editor for 4 years
(1989-1992).
Neil McLeod, a long time member of the Victorian Free Flight Society and other
aeromodelling organizations, died recently in Melbourne at the age of 81. He was a quiet
and very private man with a well-developed sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye.
We remember him as a very enthusiastic and skilled aeromodeller always making time
to help others and enjoying the delights of rubber powered models in particular.
A regular attendee at Sandringham and Manningham indoor meetings Neil flew
often and most successfully with a wide variety of well constructed and finished models,
quietly enjoying the company of others and the fun of involvement. As most of us will
remember he did not tolerate fools or time wasters, (to use his words!) A very self-contained man of independent spirit.
Neil had been a schoolteacher and librarian with keen interests in research in his passion for all things
aeromodelling. This lead to the creation of many "files and folders" as he called them, which were often brought to club
meetings, for discussion and distribution. He usually had photocopies of information to pass on to those interested.
Further to his research, he also frequented an interesting selection of second hand bookshops, the State Library and of
course the many facets of the Internet aeromodelling sites.
Neil also possessed a large number of Model magazines and plans, and could always be relied upon to "chase
up" information for others no matter how obscure the subject. I had the pleasure of working closely with Neil over a
number of years in our involvement in the "Working with Wood" show where we presented Free Flight models on the
VMAA stand. Model aeroplanes integrated well with the general woodwork theme, and although the stand featured
mostly large RC models, there was always great interest in our members Free Flight model display. Neil would always
arrive early, complete with a briefcase, which contained building board, tools, many sheets of balsa; in fact everything
needed to produce small balsa gliders and rubber powered models. I had a similar stock and so together we gave a
display of "hands on" model making and flying (in the space between stands and amongst the crowd!)
Neil had a most inter active and fun relationship with the audience at the stand and really got them involved. To
the great delight of people of all ages he actually had them building and flying, and many small balsa gliders were given
away along with plans and building instructions. Neil related well to the older "when I was kid brigade", and to the many
boys and girls who loved it all. A beautiful slow and stable flight by one of Neil's flying wing gliders over the heads of all,
landing about 30 metres away drew a noisy round of applause, especially when a tiny female "fetchermite" crawled to the
stand and returned the model intact. Neil's face lit up with pleasure and laughter, as he gave the model to the little girl.
......................This is how I will remember Neil McLeod.
Ron Neve.
….. and after being created in
1974, the VARMS winch just
keeps on keeping on …..
165
2013 – 2014
President & VMAA Comm.
Vice Pres./Sites Manager
Aspectivity Editor
Contest Director
Heli Group Rep.
THE COMMITTEE
Colin Collyer
Secretary
Max Haysom
Treasurer/Registrar
Glenn Salisbury
Membership Sec.
Alan Mayhew
Ordinary Member
Geoff Moore
Sport Power Rep.
Webmaster
Steve Tester
Andrew Allen
Lindsay Henderson
Tim Morland
Martin Hopper
Graham Sullivan
At the Annual General Meeting 2013 a new ‘Statement of Rules’ was proposed to the members in
line with new requirements by the Consumer Affairs Victoria for Incorporated bodies.
The proposal was accepted by the Members and also by Consumer Affairs Vic. in August.
Clubman of the Year -
Stan Mason Award -
Lindsay Henderson
Graham Sullivan
June – VARMS loses yet another modeller- (Professor) John Bird
John joined VARMS in 1998 and quickly became an avid modeller. His work was in
the field of education; at Swinburne University he taught computer animation and his
work was highly regarded in the motion picture industry. He was awarded a
professorship at RMIT University with an award in computer animation named after
him. At Monash, John and his friend, Dr. Russell Naughton researched and compiled
a history of Lawrence Hargreaves, the Australian pioneer in aeronautics.
The recently issued July copy of the VMAA Newsletter is the last to be issued by mail – ALL
future editions will be placed on their website as with the MAAA newsletter also.
July 2013 - Australian Team for the 2nd World F3K Championships
in Denmark 2013 –
Jon Day, Hugh Blackburn, Marcus Stent.
In the preliminary rounds( 17 Rounds, drop 3)
the results were:
Marcus Stent
38th
Hugh Blackburn
59th
Jon Day
64th
The Final was of the Best 12 scores, a Fly-off of 6 Rounds, drop 1.
1. Henrik Vogler GER 5000
19th FAI F3B World Championships – 18 Teams – 97 Entrants – 8 Rounds
1. Andreas Herrig Ger
20752.16
9. John Skinner Aus 20032.14
23. Carl Strautins Aus
19602.52
25. Mike Rae Aus
19533.75
Team Results1. Germany 61135.37
6. AUS
59168.41
The October Aspectivity carried a notice that the Australian Electric Flight Association (AEFA)
will be holding its monthly meetings at the VARMS Glider field on the 4th Thursday of every
month.
166
November Aspectivity reported the recent passing of Barry DeKuyper in October.
Barry had been a member since the early nineties, his main interest was with scale
models and was very generous with his time in helping with the Club Training
programme.
... also from the November mag comes the following innovation – 3 F’s at V F F!!
The December Aspectivity reflects more eclectic Electric activity at Varms flying field!!
….. and to end the year we have the
customary salutation from the usual
personality.
167
Winner of 2013 VARMS Trophy – Geoff Trone
….. and below we have the outcome of the “1/2A” Texaco Challenge held in December.
168
The displayed Flyer was used to advertise the upcoming 2014 Open Display day at the flying
field.
169
… and VARMS was able to obtain some extra publicity for the Open Day from the local
Knox newspaper.
170
171
March 2014 – Honorary membership is
conferred on Bill Eunson
April – VMAA Trophy – VARMS was 5th – main place-getters:
Heli (3 Circles)
2nd Geoff Moore
Electric Glider
3rd Zdenek Busek
nd
Oldtimer Duration
2 Colin Collyer
Musical Landings
3rd Colin Collyer
Glider
3rd Graham Sullivan Sport Limbo
3rd Graham Sullivan
Members who participated in other events:
Combat
Paul Van Tongeren Fun-Fly
Paul Van Tongeren
Fun Scale
Danny Malcman
Novice Heli
Geoff Moore
April – Anthony Mott, a past member of VARMS (1972-1995) is awarded the prestigious
Andre Tupolev Diploma by the VMAA at the Greensborough MAC for the FAI, for his
World Record breaking achievements. He is only the second Australian to be presented with this
award.
April – Ron Ericson, a VARMS member in 1979 passed away. Ron was a passionate modeller but
also had time to be involved in other ways being a member of the VMAA Committee for many
years and also a past MAAA President.
May Aspectivity reflected the passing of yet another club member, Wilhemina (Willi) Vanderwolf,
wife of John who was Past President and Site Controller spending a total of 4 years on Committee.
Willi was also an actual club member and held the Committee position of Treasurer for a period of
5 years (1976-1980), as well as taking an interest is many other aspects of the club’s activities in the
days when many member’s wives traipsed around to club outings and competitions.
Danny Malcman is about to start a club build of 1/5 scale
Schweizer 1-26. This model is a great flyer on slope or aero tow
and not too difficult to build. Interested members please register
with Danny. At this time 8 members have signed up for the
project.
172
173
2014 – 2015
President & VMAA Comm.
Vice Pres./Sites Manager
Aspectivity Editor
Contest Director
Heli Group Rep.
Ken Thompson
Clubman of the Year
Phil Eagles.
THE COMMITTEE
Colin Collyer
Secretary
Andrew Allen
Max Haysom
Treasurer/Registrar Lindsay Henderson
Glenn Salisbury
Membership Sec.
Tim Morland
Alan Mayhew
Ordinary Member
Martin Hopper
Geoff Moore
Sport Power Rep.
Graham Sullivan
Assets Register
Webmaster
Steve Tester
Stan Mason Gentleman’s Award
was presented to Robert J Kassel.
2013 – 2014 RCGA Tournament Results:
Grand Champion 1. Marcus Stent
Thermal
1. Marcus Stent
F3B
1. Gerry Carter
F3K 1. Marcus Stent
F5J
1. David Pratley
174
The End