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The Quarterly Journal of the Sheffield Society of Aeromodellers Summer 2011

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International

Mark Farrand’s beautiful 5m Slingsby Petrel seen both on theground and in the air, at Camphill, October 2010


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Production EditorRoger Lombard [[email protected]]

Yeardsley Hall Farm, Furness Vale,High Peak, Derbyshire SK23 7PS, tel 01663 742680

The Editorial Team:Steve Bentley - events, reporter and photographer

[email protected] Gregory - indoor flying organiser and reporter

[email protected] Troise - distribution

[email protected]:-0114 2307584

Our webmaster for the SSA club’s websitehttp://www.ssaclub.co.uk/

Robert Thresh [email protected]

CONTENTSWell, no-one asked if I could swim - Roger Lombard page 4

Problems of a winter wonderland - Phil Barrett page 6Kiwi news - Jonathan Shorer page 8

Would you Adam and Eve it - Richard Whiting page 9Chris Foss Phase 6 - Steve Bentley page 12

Senior 60 - Jeremy Storr page 15News from the indoor hall page 16

It’s not all radio control, you know! page 17Fly-in 2011 - Steve Bentley page 18News from the electric fields page 20

Parish notices page 22Parting shots page 23


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EditorialIn the Winter 2009 issue of Gladys (102) the Editor was foolish enough tosimultaneously predict the contents of the Spring 2010 issue and issue a plea for nohollow laughter. This was after a, shall we say slight, discontinuity in production.Well, here we are with the Summer 2011 issue and there is excellent news. Thecontents will be very largely as predicted for the Spring 2010 issue and we have anexciting competition with a great cash prize sponsored by the Editor himself. Thecompetition is open to all members of SSA and all you have to do is to answer asimple question. Which is: “What happened to ALL of the 2010 and the first two2011 issues?” Choose from:

1. The Editor was subject to severe gravitational anomalies

2. The Editor was subject to benevolent but ultimately unsuccessfuleuthanasia

3. The Editor was distracted by an attractive but probably alien life form

4. Other

A cash prize of £100 will be awarded to the first correct solution drawn out of ahat. To be eligible you must:

a) Be over 90 years old

b) Not be called Terry Gregory

c) Submit your entry on a crisp, unmarked, £20 note.

Seriously, ladies and gentlemen (yes we do have lady members - hurrah!) myapologies for the missing issues. Also, because of the passage of time somesubmissions made by exactly the sort of volunteers I desperately need may havefallen through my organisational cracks. If you were hoping to see yourself in printfeel free to write me a justifiably grumbly email and, if possible, either resend youroriginal submission or send me something more up to date. I WILL use it and Gladys104 WILL be published as the Autumn 2011 edition.

As you may know our long-standing Chairman John Penton has resigned for personalreasons but we look forward to his continued presence and input on the flying field.His contribution to the ongoing success of SSAC has been very substantial. The2011/12 indoor season is nigh upon us and Terry Gregory has kindly stepped intoJohn’s shoes as the organiser. Dates and details elsewhere in this issue. I’m hoping,as ever, for eager volunteers to bring us input of any sort for our beloved Gladys.

May the power of gravity continue to smile upon you for the remainder of 2011.


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Well, no-one asked if I could swim by Roger Lombard

My Derbyshire born and bred uncle, Norman Taylor, was one of the county’s WWIIfighter aces. Starting his flying career as a member of the RAFVR in 1939 he learnedto fly on a Tiger Moth, G-AFFA.

By August 1940, however, he’d logged a fair few hours on a variety of aircraft,including 34 hours on Hurricanes at No 6 OTU. It was from there that Sergeant PilotTaylor reported to 601 Squadron at Tangmere, nicely in time to still “enjoy” theBattle of Britain.

601 had been an Auxiliary Air Force squadron, peopled mainly by wealthy fliers withtheir own aircraft. Known as the “Millionaires squadron” (although they preferred tobe called “The legion”) it must have been a strange environment for the definitelyworking class background Sergeant Pilot Taylor.

Disregarding that, Uncle Norman must have got his head down because by the end ofthe month, three weeks after joining 601, he’d already collected a useful score. Isuppose we should bear in mind that he was operating in a target rich environment!By June of the following year he was into double figures having additionally damagedor destroyed a couple of Do17’s and more Messerschmitts. He’d also collected a DFMand an officer’s commission.

At this stage of the war aircraft carriers were few and Atlantic convoys were taking abeating. The hazard was not only German submarines but also four engine FockeWulf Condor 200’s which, flying from the French seaboard as part of KG40, could gowest 1250 miles, far beyond RAF fighter defences. Early in 1941 the MSFU – MerchantShip Fighter Unit – was established with the idea of extending our fighter range bythe expedient of launching aircraft from a shipboard catapult, and in May of thatyear Fighter Command invited applications from experienced officers. It may nothave escaped the reader’s notice that any combat trip was likely to be a one-wayticket, at least for the aircraft, so “high mileage” Hurricane Mk1 aircraft (known asHurricats or Catafighters) were volunteered for the task even though, by then, thetwelve gun Mk IIB was the weapon of choice for land-based Hurricane squadrons.It may also not have escaped your notice that whilst getting back to the vicinity ofyour launch ship was one thing, getting back onto your launch ship was quite another.Not only were advanced flying skills necessary but a spot of swimming ability mightnot come amiss either. Remarkably checking the availability of this deliverable,something which Uncle Norman didn’t stock – at all- didn’t feature in the interviewprocess so as he said later “No-one else mentioned it so I didn’t either.” Hmmm!

So Flight Lieutenant Taylor DFM went to sea and saw many ports. And he did end updoing what he’d set out to do, on November 1st 1942, whilst aboard “Empire Heath”in a Gibraltar convoy 250 miles off the coast of Spain. It became apparent that theconvoy had caught the attention of a Focke Wulf Condor 200C and minds werefurther focused as it became apparent that the Condor had selected “Empire Heath”itself as its convoy target. Flying Sea Hurricane Mk 1A V7070 Uncle Norman set off todiscuss matters with the Condor pilot who, a very short time later, realising he’d gotunexpected company put the Condor into a climb striving for cloud cover. Huge


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mistake because in so doing he put his own cockpit right across the Hurricane’sgunsight and at the wrong end of some .303 ordnance thus losing his life. TheCondor crashed into the sea, resulting in the loss of the aircraft and all seven crew.

The information I’ve passed on is all from a book called “Derbyshire fighter aces ofworld war two” in which he is one of ten so described. Having successfully completedhis war there was nevertheless an unhappy outcome. On 29th April 1947 (so I was tooyoung to remember him) he was serving in Germany in the peacetime RAF at Gut-ersloe when on a flight approach to Wunsdorf airfield in his Harvard IIB the enginelost power, causing the plane to spin in, killing both occupants.

One of the very first models that I can remember making, and it will be well morethan 50 years ago, was a Keil Kraft “Flying scale” series Hurricane. It reflected mylack of skill by showing all the flight characteristics of a house brick. Perhaps this hasremained in my troubled psyche all these years. When I came back to aeromodellingand the world of foam kits it wasn’t long before I was casting around for a Hurricane.It turned out to be a challenge. Eventually a little known Chinese company, StarMax,brought out, of all things, a Hurricane of about 36”. I wanted a Hurricane so the plas-tic took another low level strafing.

I decided it might be fun to finish my Hurricane as a tiny memorial to my long-lostrelative. One of the photos in the book shows him sitting astride Hurricat V6927 onthe catapult rack of “Empire Gale”. Its insignia letters LU identify it as being fromthe MSFU “pool” and you can just see that its insignia is D-LU. I don’t have a pictureof V7070 in which he shot down the Condor, so I decided to go with V6927. It getsslightly worse because most Hurricats were camouflaged in two shades of sea greywhich might have been kind of re-assuring when you had 4 gunners in a Condor tryingto take a pop at you, but wouldn’t be good for distant orientation when flying overthe Sportsman’s field on a grey day so I compromised with a sea green and grey liv-ery (which isn’t that visible either!).

The quality of the Starmax Hurri was appalling - so bad that it was taken out ofproduction never to be seen again. However I doubt a war-worn Hurricat looked allthat smart as it came back from an Atlantic convoy. Assuming it came back at all....

So I did my best and even if she was no great beauty to look at she was a lovely flier.Was a lovely flier? Yes, I’mafraid that pilot error saw herpass into history. But there’s ahappy ending. As I write thismy new 48” Hurricane kit is onit’s way from Windrider inHong Kong. Report to follow!


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Problems of a Winter Wonderland !!Phil Barrett

Whilst you will be reading this in the Spring copy of “Gladys” (wrong Phil, but youwere right at the time - Ed), I am writing it just after the two weeks of really coldweather we suffered in February. It had snowed hard in the first week of the month,and this was refreshed by further snow in the second week.

I was suffering transmitter withdrawal symptoms on the Friday evening of that firstweek, with no indoor flying available and a field up at Lodge Moor with around eightinches of snow. With most of my electric powered models having an undercarriage, itseemed that flying was a non–starter until the snow had gone. I realised I needed asimple modification to fit skis, and picked one of my own design models that had arobust carbon fibre undercarriage, where the wheels could be removed and the skissimply bolted on.

A quick hour on the Saturday morning saw a pair of skis knocked up, some 9” longand 1.5” wide. In order to ensure rigidity with minimum weight, I used a sandwich of1/8th liteply and 1/16th ply for the skis with the mounting block made out of hard ½”balsa with a 1/16th ply facing.

I deliberately kept the weight down and the uplift at the tips modest, as I was a bitworried about the effect on pitch bearing in mind they were some way forward ofthe centre of gravity.

The following pictures give a general idea


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Flying

I went up to the Sportsman field after lunch, well wrapped up as it was still aroundzero degrees C. The snow was deep but powdery, so I decided to err on the safe sideand hand launch the model. There was some impact on the overall performance, butit climbed away with no problems and was still capable of its usual aerobatics, al-though with a slower roll rate than normal.

There didn’t seem to be any effect on themodel’s trim, so all in all a reasonable result al-though the proof of the pudding would be in thefirst landing. I had this (deluded) vision of themodel delicately putting down on the frostedsnow and sliding to a gentle halt. The reality wasa little different, the snow being so soft anddeep that it just made a plane shape hole in thesnow when it touched down. A second flightended the same way, but the model was intact and I had got my stick time!

I took the model back to the field on the following Saturday afternoon, at whichpoint the snow condition was very different. Days of gentle melting, and nights ofhard frosts, had put a hard surface on the snow which was now much better at loadbearing. I was now able to take off from the ground, and I have to say the modellooked really good tracking across the virgin snow before lifting smoothly off. Thelandings were now less of an event, but I never really achieved the graceful slide Iwas looking for.

Conclusion

Whilst it didn’t meet all my hopes, the skis kept me flying and I had a fun timegetting my head around the design and fitting. They were well worth the effort, andare now kept safe for next winter !!

Editor’s note.Whilst not as inventive or creative as Phil I have, in the past, fitted GWS floats to aGWS Beaver and can report that although I’ve yet to try them on water they workvery well on crisp snow!


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Kiwi newsby Jonathan Shorer

Since leaving the UK to “retire” in New Zealand, I have been trying to maximise myflying time but stuff such as gardening and the occasional bit of work sometimes getsin the way. Mind you, things are relative and I manage to fly three or four times aweek so it is not too difficult to pursue the hobby on the other side of the world.Winding back to my auction of surplus models in March at the indoor flying session, Imanaged to reduce my fleet to about 36 planes that I couldn’t bear to part with andmade wooden boxes to transport them to New Zealand. Having packed all myworkshop tools, I left for the other side of the world to establish my residencyqualifications and left my wife to pack up the house. I was back in the UK in July2009 to despatch all our worldly goods in a shipping container and we got back toNew Zealand in mid August. When the container was delivered 7 weeks later I foundmy aeroplane boxes a bit bashed but the contents were intact thanks to bubble wrap.

As the photos show, I have developed a part of our property into my very own airfield.Much mowing and filling has resulted in a piece of grass about 10 metres by 80 whichhas proved adequate for the purpose of taking off and landing. There are someunique features such as a post and wire fence down one side and a row of trees atthe end but my spot landing technique could use some polishing. Taking off to thewest requires a fairly swift left turn to avoid a premature landing in the trees at theend of the strip. So far I am about half way through getting an airing of my powerfleet and have flown my Junior 60 lots of times with the camera attached. Otherplanes to have felt the New Zealand air include Magnatilla, Limbo Dancer and acouple of electric powered gliders. I can land in the field next door but it is best tochoose a time when the Highland cows are not there. I have raced them to a mislanded aircraft a couple of times but the pointy horns don’t encourage aconversation.

I have been having a lot of fun with the Flycamone2. I just stick it to the undersideof the wing and away you go. I tend to flyin the early evening when it is calm. I havehad some difficulty with the low suncausing the camera to struggle with theexposure but the answer seems to be toangle the lens downwards more and notexpect too much when flying towards thebig bright thing. I have had good resultssetting the camera to take a still pictureevery 4 seconds. The resolution is muchbetter even though the footage is not asexciting to watch, especially the landings.


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So, good weather that lasts for about 9 months, a purpose built workshop that letsme have my tools ready to use and my own airstrip 50 feet from the front door, yes,I’m happy. If anyone is contemplating the big holiday and can’t bear to be without aflying fix, drop me a line and I can thrust a transmitter in your hands.

Would you Adam and Eve it? Richard Whiting

The Bible tells us that when God had created Adam, He saw that he was lonely andtherefore decided to create Eve as a companion for him. Still, you can’t helpwondering whether He also saw Adam’s attempts at cooking and realised the poorsod would starve to death within days if He didn’t provide a lass to help him.

But maybe it was when He saw Adam trying to solder gold connectors on to a newbattery pack, or bolt the wing on to his Ripmax Mustang that finally convinced Himthat there were situations in this wonderful new world that would require more thanjust one pair of hands.

Nevertheless, while one cannot deny that in creating Eve, God bestowed upon Adamsome wonderful blessings and access to a whole new set of life-skills, he seems tohave largely neglected to endow the female of the species with an unstinting love ofand aptitude for aeromodelling.

Tolerant towards this particular male proclivity she may be. Benign and generous sheoften is. But can she pick up a fuselage without poking her pretty nails through thecovering film? Is she always around when you need help to find that tiny little nutthat the big nut has just dropped on the dining-room carpet? And does she reallycomprehend the complexities of connecting aileron servo leads to a receiver while


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holding both the fuselage and the wing in close proximity without letting the wing-bolts fall out of their sockets? No, wondrous though she is, by and large her manyundoubted gifts and talents do not extend to these really important issues of life.

To compensate for these lapses, thankfully God gave Adam a small measure ofingenuity and invention. And it was to these resources that I turned when, as well asneeding to solve the problem above, I also needed some means of supporting amodel aircraft without an undercarriage, so that it would be adequately tethered,with its prop free to turn, while I connected the battery and carried out a rangecheck. Of course I’ve seen flight boxes incorporating some sort of cradle, but theseare always heavy and bulky to cart around, and I wanted something very light thatwould not reduce my carrying capacity of models and other stuff from the car to theflight-line

.The solution came to me while reading an old magazine article in which someone hadconstructed a launch ramp for an EDF jet. He had used 22mm plastic overflow pipingfor the rails, and it struck me that this might be the ideal material with which tocreate a suitable cradle. As I mulled over possible designs, I realised it would needto be versatile enough to support models of different sizes and lengths. It wouldneed to hold the model above the level of reasonably long grass occasionally. Itmust be strong and firmly rooted to the ground for running up a motor. And if it


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could also be used for bench-testing models back home, that would be a worthwhilebonus.

So off I went to our local DIY store to buy a few lengths of pipe, some packs of “T”and elbow joints and some cladding foam. And armed with nothing more than ahacksaw and a ruler, in a couple of hours I had knocked up what has proved to be anextremely useful piece of kit.

The material is so quick and easy to use, and lends itself to such an infinite variety ofdesigns and configurations, that it made me wonder if I should have spent more timeon thinking through the design. But as I had loads of the stuff left over, it didn’tseem to matter. In fact time has proved the original design to be a winner and I useit all the time, both in the workshop and at the field, and it is incredibly light andeasy to carry.

Since the joints simply push on I had originally intended to leave it as a “dry”assembly so that I could change the design if necessary, but in practice “push-on”translates into “pull off” a bit too easily, so I resorted to dribbling superglue into thejoints to fix them permanently and this has resulted in a firm and stable constructionwhich does not fall apart when stressed (unlike me).

To anchor it at the field so that I can test-run the motor, I simply drive a standardtent-peg skewer through a hole in the bottom centre-rail, whereas for bench-testingon the work-table at home, I just place large heavy objects on the bottom rails.

It is also an invaluable aid when attaching wing to fuselage (as noted above) and sup-ports all my models whether upside-down or right-side-up. The other advantage isthat it leaves my wife completely free to make tea, cook and do the ironing. (Hopeshe never reads this!!). How did I ever manage without it (or her)!

Editors Note: I can think of at least two people in the Club who, if they’d had thiswould not now be carrying prop scars - can’t we JH?


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Chris Foss Phase SixSteve Bentley

As most of you may know, Chris Foss is a ‘name’ in R/C. Using his own designs he wasa champion and innovator of slope and thermal soaring glider design, latterly movinginto powered aircraft with the WOT series. The family tree is a little vague but in-cluded the Mini Phase, the High Phase, Phase Two, Three, Four, Five, Middle Phaseand Phase Six. (Apologies if the chronological order is incorrect). The Phase five isavailable as a plan and by all accounts is a supreme aerobatic slope soarer, using acombined semi and fully symmetrical wing section. It has a seventy-three inch spanand apparently measures up admirably to current aerobatic gliders in performance.

Happily for those of us who like kits better than just plans Chris Foss kitted the excel-lent Middle Phase and Phase six. It is testament to ‘if it looks right it is right’ thatboth kits are still major sellers bearing in mind the Middle Phase design is over thirtyyears old.

The Phase six is an altogether different beast. Available in either ‘Sport’ or‘Pro’ versions it is a fully aerobatic sixty-three inch sloper. Sleeker, narrower andlonger in each dimension than the MP, the P6 has a fully symmetrical wing section inthe Pro version, whereas the Sport is semi symmetrical.

I elected to use servos for each surface, installing as I have two aileron andtwo flap servos. Metal-geared Hs82’s went in after cutting the wells in the foam. Inthe same way baby vomit can go far and wide, wing core foam seemingly has thesame capacity to grow exponentially from it’s original volume! Cable installationgoes from the wells forward to the leading edge and from there is tucked into thecarved out foam to the root. Running cables from the flap and aileron cables in the


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same slot could present electrical interference so I stripped out the screening fromsome TV coax cable to run the aileron cable in as far as the root. Using the outercable sheathing cut in half to form a U shape, protecting the cables and also beefingup the LE to form a base for the leading edge strip to have something to stick to. Theflaps and ailerons are cut from trailing edge section hinged with robart hinges to astrip fixed to the trailing edge of the wing section. And that’s all there is to it.

I cut two slots into the lower surface and sunk two ten inch lengths of 6mmcarbon fibre rod. The removed skin was replaced and the depression brought back tosurface level with filler. However before fixing the upper wing fairing, I succumbedand epoxied a piece of glass cloth top and bottom to bridge the wing halves- (haveyou seen my flying?) (Space for Editors note… .:-) )

Flaps are chamfered to a point on the top edge, a corresponding chamferplaned on the sub spar in the flap position to get maximum flap movement. The flapsare actuated via horns on the upper surfaces, the pushrods going through the wing.As I’m looking initially at maximum travel in each direction on the ailerons, they arechamfered symmetrically on their leading edge, with the sub spar remaining flat.Surface horns made from fibreboard, available from Maplin.

The fuselage is made up of plywood sides front and rear glued together usinga datum line for accuracy with strip longerons on the upper and lower edges. Squaresection aft of the root and triangular section forward of the root. The supplied balsaI replaced with hardwood for strength, but before installing this I made a bit of workfor myself unfortunately. I’d decided before building to reinforce the inner fus withglass fibre tissue and epoxy resin. I placed the completed sides flat on a board cov-ered in polythene sheet. A good brush with resin and tissue flatted on it was left todry. When it came to inserting the longerons the epoxy adhesive wouldn’t easily taketo the epoxy used on the tissue! I had to sand back to key in- go on, ‘Yeah, wellthat’s obvious’.

The inner sides are further supported with ply doublers. Placing the rear fuzupper balsa section flat on the bench along a central datum line is the crux to align-ing the two fus halves.It is vital that the sides are vertical having made sure all theformers fit where they should. If you build the Phase 6, note that former 8 is NOT atninety degrees to the fus side - a template in the instructions needs copying to stiffcard, ply etc, to get the required angle.

Now, say I’m stating the obvious, but Chris Foss didn’t really think this bitout in my opinion, having a wing stress point and a fus join in the same square inchof fus! This area has something of a reputation as the weak spot, no great surprisethen! The only way I can think of trying to negate this is to strengthen as and wherepossible. Memo to Chris Foss-make the bloody box longer for a one-piece fus!

After fixing the second rear side and making sure all was trued up, I fittedthe hardwood nose block and the second side onto each of the formers, mixing someglass/epoxy gloop to reinforce. The structure is quite strong and brings into sharp


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focus all the precise, laser accurate building we’re all famed for,. Well maybe not allof us.

The sheeting is fairly straightforward, taking care NOT to glue the variousbits of upper sheeting where the instructions say not to, as access hatches and wingfairings will otherwise exercise your vocabulary when the time comes to try and re-move them…TIP: separate the sections with polythene sheet.

Before attaching the upper nose section sheeting, I epoxied and tissued theentire forward floor area to greatly improve the strength. Extra white gloop of microballoons and epoxy applied as and where needed. The whole lot is then planed andplaned and sanded, followed by sanding some more sanding. This is where it starts toresemble a quite attractive fuselage. With wood kit builds the things seem to cometogether all at once. A few sub structures resembling not a lot in particular all of asudden have form and function., and as one relatively new to this self imposed maso-chism, a degree of achievement.

Servos for rudder and elevator are recommended side by side, largely because thesingle aileron servo is recommended to be installed in the wing, but as I had a lot ofspace now available (and there is a lot of space despite it being narrower than a MP)I mounted the elevator servo in the forward area behind the battery, and the rudderservo midships behind the principal former. I had bought gold-n-rods snakes. The rud-der horn, like the wing surfaces, is made from fibreboard. I hooked up the elevatorservo to the receiver and checked for throws on the assembled elevator…up down updown up,……nothing…servo moved, elevator still…zilch….Switched off, Moved eleva-tor,, servo still… not even the snake. Coffee needed and thesaurus on how I couldadequately express my deep feelings. The horn for the elevator is included in the kit.

It consists of a length of 16 gauge wire (bent at 90 degrees at each end and insertedinto each surface) soldered halfway through a hole in one end of a small flat plate,the other end of said plate having a hole for the snake clevis. The soldered joint hadfailed. The plate was moving the wire didn’t. ‘So what’s the problem Brains?’

..The plate and clevis is assembled prior to the rudderpost and rudder being fixed inplace. However, that was a while back.. Off came the elevator surfaces, andthrough the small gap in the fuselage it was clear the once soldered joint wasn’t. Ipondered on this whilst thinking of painful ways to repay the person who had donethe soldering. In the end I made a far stronger combined control horn and hinge frompiano wire, but to remove the original and insert the new, I had to carve a hole inthe side of the rear fuselage.. joy.

The geometry for the flaps took a while to work out due to a need to get efficientservo throw combined with maximum flap deflection. I still haven’t managed 90 de-grees but what I have got I think will be sufficient. The ailerons are more straightfor-ward as the servo and surface horns are both on the lower surface.

Confession time from the Editor. The above was (obviously) written during the build.It was a long time ago, before Gladys 103 was delayed by about 18 months. Theplane flew but is now ... history.


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Senior 60By Jeremy Storr

Old Junior 60s never die; they just get rebuilt. In July 2004 I should have beendelighted when my Axi 2820/10 powered Junior 60 won first prize in the vintagecategory at the Ebor Silent Fliers Event at York. But my joy was clouded when I realisedit had also come last (it being the sole entry) and mortification set in when I lookeddown at the mangled remains I was clutching.

Horrible to relate, it had crashed on its second flight of a windy day. At great heightthe last of several loops had snapped off the starboard wing. The fluttering wing madea spectacular and prolonged descent across the field while the other four and halfpounds of model spiralled down rather more quickly from several hundred feet - andbounced.

The dihedral brace had failed. The one supplied with the kit was thinner than thatspecified by the plan and was probably weakened by the model being blown upsidedown by a gust of wind after the first landing, although a check had revealed nodamage.

The model was quickly rebuilt, slightly heavier, and a removable wire anti-roll barmade to protect the wind when landing in gusty conditions, a sort of zimmer frame forelderly models with dubious joints.

So this stately old dowager still flies, mainly without the zimmer, but has now adopteda more sedate lifestyle and is no longer allowed to indulge in unseemly loops in hergracious retirement.


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News from the indoor hall

As mentioned earlier Terry Gregory has very kindly volunteered, at least for this sea-son, to take over from John Penton as the organiser of these popular (sometimesTOO popular!) meetings. The venue remains the Sports Hall at Dronfield Civic Centre,Dronfield S18 1PD and the charge for adults remains at £2, juniors free.

Dates for SSA Winter indoor program 2011/2012

October 2 9 16 23 30

November 6 20 (other dates already booked by others.)

December 4 11 18

January 8 15 22 29

February 5 12 19 26

March 4 11 18 25

April 1 8 Finished


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It’s not all radio control you know!

I asked committee member Neil Stewart who heads up the freeflight group to let mehave some details and here they are. Look forward to further information andpictures from from Neil in Gladys 104 – Ed.

The Sheffield Indoor Free Flight group has been in existence for a number of years. Itmeets at the Scout Hall / gymnasium attached to Bradway Primary School (formerlySir Harold Jackson Primary School) Bradway Drive, Sheffield S17 4PD. The sessions arefor free flight indoor aircraft (mostly rubber powered). The group is much smallerthan the radio indoor one with about ten to a dozen people in attendance.

The sessions are held from 2 pm to 5pm on the first Saturday of the month.

Forthcoming sessions are on 1st October 5th November and 3rd December 2011.

Parking is available at the School and tea, coffee and biscuits are provided half waythrough the session. The hall is heated in winter. A fee of £1 is payable for SSAmembers (£3 for non-members).

Whilst the hall has only a low ceiling flight times of three minutes or more are possible.Retrieval of hung up models is easy with a medium length pole (which I will bring withme) and there are no inaccessible places. Indoor rubber is available for members topurchase (A £1’s worth will last ages) and a rubber stripper and winders are availablefor people to borrow.

If members are interested they can just come and watch but if they telephone me firstI can bring some examples of beginners models and some plans. I can be contactedon 0114 2848324.


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Fly-in July 2011Report by organiser Steve Bentley

Back in January my being elected slope secretary sparked a desire to get someevents thrown open to both club and non club members on our slope site. Over thehistory of the SSA, long before my interest in slope soaring, there have been manysuch occasions, and it’s always an opportunity to see familiar and not so familiar fac-es and models.

A fly-in arranged at Callow Bank for the weekend of May 15th and 16th and the fol-lowing weekend was smitten with extreme prejudice by the weather gods. A look atthe diary and the consideration of other events made the weekend of July 23rd and24th a possible alternative. The nearer the weekend came the more various forecastsgave out doom and gloom. Much muttering had no effect, so on Thursday 21st, de-spite a forecast of intransigent north westerlies I made the decision to go aheadwith the fly-in hoping that the wind might swing to the west, or at the very least,WNW.

A NOTAM, or Notification to Airmen, essentially, informs other airspace users that inour case, there was possibility of intense model glider activity, and they should beaware of it.

Having successfully applied to the CAA for ours I Learned A Great Truth, as othersprobably have before me. A NOTAM acts as a magnet, and we seemed to get more thanthe usual full size aircraft, helicopters and microlights flying within “our” designatedarea!

Several of our more experienced members helped me on the day and with internetpublicity, drawing up a ‘how to get there’ sheet, a slope guide and registration formfor visiting glider fliers. I also had the video and still camera skills of Brian Clamp


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and An Excellent Person Whose Name I have Lost – I’m so sorry. Special mentionshould be made of Peter Bramhall, for cutting the fast growing landing strip at veryshort notice. (Editors note – if Steve’s mystery photographer cares to contact me I’llpost due recognition and appreciation in the next issue)

Saturday morning dawned cool, sunny, and with a light northerly. Not good, con-firmed by a quick try out with my foam Wildthing. Brian met me at the lay-by, andhelped me erect a tarpaulin sheet over the gully, to afford us some just in caseweather protection.

Within an hour, the wind increased, and it warmed up considerably. Still a stubbornnorth westerly, yet the slope worked. About sixteen of our members attended, to-gether with Paul Jubb over from Wales. Sadly, Paul was the only non-member to flywith us, but he brought a stunning Lunak aerobatic scale glider, resplendent in it’sgolden yellow livery. As well as that, he also had another two scale gliders with him.Complementing his line up, we had a Discus, ASW 28, Salto, DG600 and several otherscale and F3F models, as well as several other wooden and foam gliders in variousshapes and sizes. The lift was very good, the weather stayed fine and dry, the banterin full flow. All in all, it seemed all who came along had a good days flying. IfSaturday’s lift was good, Sunday’s was destined to be phenomenal all day, withbrighter weather and again, no rain! We had similar numbers with some great flying.

I’m hoping that I can organise another fly-in in early October before it gets too chilly(Yes I know Callow only has two settings; tepid and arctic).


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News from the Electric fields

Since the last Gladys the club has been awarded a licence to fly at the Sportsmansfield. While this formalisation of the arrangement must be good in general, and has,I’m told, helped with one or two people who were being unhelpful we neverthelessneed to remain ever vigilant on the safety front, given that some members of thepublic are either bent upon using their legitimate right to walk the right of waywhich unfortunately crosses our flying area, or, alternatively they are singularly un-imaginative or unhelpful.

Driven by the need to demonstrate a duty of care to both the public and our ownmembers the committee made a proposal at the last AGM about the introduction ofBMFA “A” certificates for those who wanted to fly unsupervised at our electric fields.

There was some discussion but arising from the AGM discussion a postal ballot wasconducted about a formal rule change, namely:

Formal Rule Change – BMFA “A” Certificate for Electric-powered Models -a) From 1st January 2012, any member flying an electric-powered model on RedmiresPlaying Field, or Castle Dyke Playing Field, shall possess a current BMFA “A” Certifi-cate in any discipline.b) From 1st January 2012, any member wishing to fly at Redmires Playing Field, orCastle Dyke Playing Field, but not holding a current BMFA “A” certificate, shall flyonly under supervision. The member is responsible for arranging a supervisor, and forfollowing the supervisor’s instructions and requirements.The supervisor must ensure that:i. He has an appropriate BMFA “A” certificate for the intended flight, as required bythe SSA rules.ii. The flight can be conducted safely, as per BMFA Handbook recommendations.Iii He remains close to the pilot in order that he is in a position to take over controlof the model before a dangerous situation develops, or as soon as one is seen to havedeveloped.

The outcome of the ballot was 61 in favour, 15 against and I spoilt out of a member-ship of 111.

This means that the rule will be formally adopted at the 2011 AGM and will be in ef-fect by 1st January 2012.

Members wishing to fly at Redmires or Castle Dyke on or after that date now havetwo choices. Set about obtaining your “A” certificate - see below - or set about find-ing a supervisor who does have (or will have) an A certificate and who is willing toaccompany you when you want to fly.

This is not the Club or the committee being awkward, it is driven by the need to dem-onstrate that we have processes in place to satisfy ourselves, and others, that wehave taken a responsible approach to ensuring basic flying competence and safetyawareness on the part of our members in areas of public access.


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So, if you want to get your BMFA “A” cetificate (for fixed wing aircraft) what youneed to do is contact Terry Gregory, preferably by email (see details at the front ofthis issue) or, if you don’t have internet, by phone on 01142665030 and he will keepyou advised of when we are running certificate sessions. Already, during August, ourmember/examiner Adrian Lant has been able to approve the first nine applicants.

Don’t be intimidated - the tests are quite basic and require knowledge and skills thatyou should already have if there is to be no question about your ability to fly safelyanyway. Roll up! Roll up!

At the same time as we were discussing the changes for 2012 the committee werealso considering the possibility of introducing a similar arrangement for our othersites for 2013. Be advised that the committee has now reviewed this decision andhas decided that any proposals to extend the “A” certificate scheme to cover Slope,or Indoor RC, flying, or to further tighten the requirements at Redmires and CastleDyke, will be put before the 2012 AGM for implementation from 1st January 2014

So, in summary new rules will apply at our electric fields from January 2012 but youwill not need a certificate to fly at our slope or indoor sites until January 2014 andonly then if proposed and approved at next year’s AGM.

Richard Whiting’s Ripmax P51d on flypast


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Committee openings

Apart from the Chairman, John Penton, who has retired after serving the Club verywell for a good few years the Secretary Mike Stott has also indicated that if awilling volunteer can be found he would be very pleased to relinquish his post to anewcomer. Finally Phil Brandreth who is the events organiser has also given thecommittee notice that he will be resigning at the 2011 AGM.

So here’s your chance to influence the way the Club is run, the strategic directionit is taking and the sort of activities it organises (or as some of you have said,doesn’t organise!) If you want to serve on the committee please contact Mike Stottor any other committee member.

2011 AGM

Subject to confirmation in or before the next Gladys the 2011 AGM will be held onThursday December 1st, venue to be confirmed.

Highlow slopes

Note that these northerly and easterly slopes are no longer rented by the Club. Wecontinue to have the use of the West and South slopes at Callow and the East Slopeat Higger Tor where you are particularly cautioned to operate with careful regardfor the fact that there is public access in the flight area.

Organised events

There will be a swapmeet at our usual Bents Green meeting place on Thursday 10thNovember at 7.45. Please support this event, it is very dispiriting for committeemembers to put effort into organsing events which are then poorly attended. If youhave any ideas for events that the committee should organise please email or ringthe Editor. Likewise, if you are happy with the generally informal way in which theClub makers flying resources available for the use of the membership tell us thattoo. It’s your Club.

Website

New website address since the last Gladys and note there are opportunities tocontribute to it http://www.ssaclub.co.uk/


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PARTING SHOTSMore images from the 2011 open day - the editor regrets he is unable to accredit thephotographer(s),

Not content with having his own landing strip for wheeled aircraftour man down under, Jonathan Shorer, clearly likes to get REALLY up

close and personal when it comes to water take-offs

And just to make you shiver, Jonathan, a picture of Callow in the snow.

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