The Freeze Fly was fun, but I was surprised that there were not more people there.  It was 42 degrees, sunny, with little or no wind.  I did bring out a new plane and I will have it at the next meeting.  I had two crashes, one was minor, and the other was not so minor.  All in all, it was a lot of fun.

     The fence will be voted on this month.  There will be two plans to vote on, so be there to let your voice be heard.

     At the last board meeting Kevin Carlson was designated to be our new safety officer.  Please let him know what you are seeing that is either good or bad.  Safety is something that should be on everyone's mind.

     Remember to vent that room when you are using CA, epoxy, painting or sanding.

Well that is all for this month.  Fly Safely,

                                                        Al Spearbecker

     Hello fellow flyers.  As your new field safety officer I would like to start out by introducing myself.  My name is Kevin Carlson and I have been flying RC aircraft on and off for approximately 20 years.  For the first 16 years it was all on my own and only maybe 5 flights per year. It has only been the last 3 years that I have

been a member of ACRC and have been concentrating on getting better at it.

     The more flying I do the more I have become aware of how dangerous this hobby can be.  Building our models properly and maintaining all the components that make them fly can minimize this danger.

     I try to be very careful but being human I make mistakes.  For example just three weeks ago I was at a friends house in Nisswa and we were getting ready to do some flying on Gull Lake the next day.  I was helping him set up a flying boat (hydrofoil).  We were in his basement workshop with the boat on the workbench.  We got to the part of setting polarity of the servos and travel adjustment.  What I should have done is disconnected the wires to the motor or at least remove the prop.  To make a long story short I accidentally reversed the throttle servo and the motor went wide open.  Luckily no one was injured but it did destroy the boat and caused me a lot of embarrassment.

     The problem is that with electric airplanes, when you are at idle, the plane is completely silent and it's easy to forget that the battery may be plugged in.  All it takes is a bump of the throttle stick or in my case a programming error.  The best thing to do is restrain the electric planes just like the gas ones.

That's all for now.                            Kevin Carlson