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HAWKS
- Day 10 (Thursday 7/3/03)
OVM club
members pitching in: Wayne,
Gay, Marty, Bart, and Tim.
Hawks students : Jessica, Kaleb (the younger), Tim, and Jon
Weather: Clear but hot very humid
It's still very hot and humid. The planes just don't have that get up
and go like they do when its cooler. Takeoffs are using up most of the
runway these hot days. Hopefully when we put on the new engines they'll
perform better in the heat.
We had four Hawk's members here tonight. They're all basically new to
the program. So we worked on the basics. Like smooth turns and holding
altitude. Too hot to do much more than that.
PASSING THOUGHT - Did you ever notice that when a new flyer likes his
plane too much it usually takes about twice as long to learn to fly as
someone with an ugly trainer as their first plane. I always recommend
an ugly trainer as a first plane. What new students need and what they
want are usually two different things. What they need is a beaten up,
patched up, epoxyed up, nothing matches,
type trainer what they want is an ARF P51 Mustang with retracts and a
detailed cockpit. One they will learn to fly quickly on while the other
they will like too much and will hold them back for a long, long time.
We have a bunch of AMA Delta Darts that we've kept on hand for possible
use with the scouts or other organizations with youth members. I
brought some to the field tonight to see if anyone wanted to build one.
One of the adults did but because of the low turnout and other
activities on the picnic table, the kids were had more than enough to
do. I'll continue to bring them and see if we can't get them built.
HAWKS - Day
11 (Tuesday 7/8/03)
OVM club
members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, and Tim.
Hawks students : Kaleb
(the younger), Tim, Jon, Kasey (new), Nick
(new) and Tyler.
Weather: Clear but was it a windy day or what!
We had 6 kids in attendance tonight. Kasey
brought the signed paperwork with him tonight so he's officially in the
program. Another young guy, Nick visited with us tonight. I gave him a
demo flight and he talked it over with his Mom and she signed him up
right there at the field.
Boy was it ever windy tonight. Some of the younger kids as expected
have an attention problem. they have a
tendency to get distracted by the smallest things. We had some of that
tonight. Which wasn't all that unexpected
considering the windy weather. I was so windy that a few of the
kids realy didn't want to fly because it
was a bit much trying to keep the plane steady. Tyler was our most experienced flyer
there tonight. He didn't have too much of a problem with the wind but
we couldn't practice on what he's been working on which is takeoffs and
approaches. I did bring the AMA Delta Dart kits but because of the
wind, kids leaving early, and lack of adult help I decided to not to
get them out.
I got cought on the first flight with a
sick engine far down wind. Even thought I could see the plane coming
back to me and I could hear the engine running I just couldn't make it
back to the runway. I had to assume the it was a sick engine, too lean
maybe, and ended up dumping it in the high grass about 100 yards
downwind, I hate when that happens. After that Tom and I decided to
keep the flights short so we could make power landing instead of
chancing a deadsticks and also to keep the
planes in close or at least stay upwind. Most landings were naturally
of the hover variety.
We been wanting to test run some of the used engines that were donated.
So we bolted an engine test stand to one of the safety benches. We had
two engines with us tonight to test, a Thunder Tiger 46 and an OS 46
FS. We were hoping for a good smooth run. The Thunder Tiger ran the
best of the two but not by much. So this weekend we'll make an engine
swap with the trainers. Pulling off the old OS 40FP and also the OS
46LA we bought last year.
GRADUATED: One of our older Hawks members soloed this past weekend. He
has been using his own plane and getting a lot of one on one training
from Darrel. So congratulations Ron! A Hawks "Certificate of Achievment" and the ceremonial wooden prop are
on their way.
HAWKS - Day
12 of 26 (Thursday 7/10/03)
OVM club
members pitching in: Wayne, Luke, Gay, and Tim.
Hawks students : Kaleb,
Kasey, Nick, Jessica, and Tyler.
Weather: Overcast with a slight drizzle now and then
We had 5 kids in attendance tonight. The wind that we had the other
night came back to haunt us but this time it wasn't as strong and it
was in the other direction. With the wind blowing like it was we
couldn't get any approaches or landing practice in. Kaleb is at that point where he's ready to land
but the weather won't let him.
Jessica did her first takeoff tonight on about her third try. It was a
sweet, picture perfect takeoff.
If I'm working on one specific area with someone, I like to avoid all
the other flying distractions. If I'm working on takeoffs with someone
I'll let them takeoff then I take over and quickly land the plane to
set up for another takeoff. This goes for takeoffs, approaches, and
landings. We give each kid about 8 to 10 minutes of flying time. So
doing it this way concentrates the training on a particular issue.
Don't get me wrong I don't work them too hard in fact there are times
where I'll take a student up and tell them to just have fun and do
whatever they want, they like that the best.
Ron got his "Certificate of Achievement" and the ceremonial wooden prop
for soloing last weekend. We just kinda
stopped everything and presented them to him. We passed around the prop
for everyone to sign, that's what it all about.
About 7:30 it started to drizzle and there was a mad scramble to put
stuff away. This only lasted about 10 minutes. Since it was close to
quitting time anyway we decided to call it a day.
HAWKS - Day
13 of 26 (Tuesday 7/15/03)
MID-SEASON
OVM club members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, and Tim.
Hawks students: Kaleb, Jon, Tim, Kasey, and Lacey.
Weather: Overcast with a good breeze.
We had 5 kids in attendance tonight. The wind was a little too strong
to teach takeoffs or landings but OK for general flying.
We've been trying to get parts for a small pavilion together for some
time. My neighbor Dave, a carpenter, has been scarfing
up wood for us for the last few months. He's done a great job of
getting most of the wood we needed. We used some of the "Field
improvement" money we got from HiTec to
buy roofing material, screws, and nails. Tonight we brought what we had
to the field and started setting posts and nailing wood. The pavilion
will be open on three sides and be about 16 feet by 20 feet. While this
was going on Tom and I were working with the kids.
Thankfully not too many kids showed up. This gave Tom and me a little
free time to check on the construction every now and then. For the most
part the kids were just as interested in the construction going on as
they were in flying.
So there's not much to report other than flying, flying, and more
flying. We replaced the tired old OSFP40 in plane #2 with a donated
Thunder Tiger 46. It'll take a few tanks of fuel to clean it out but it
sure livened up that LT40. She's a little screamer right now. I've been
talking about making one of the LT's a taildragger. I had planned to use the #2 plane
but since plane #1's nose wheel has been giving us fits lately I'm now
leaning towards #1.
I did take Kasey's Dad up for a flight.
It's always good to take up the parents at least once. He did really
good and had a good time to boot.
HAWKS - Day
14 of 26 (Thursday 7/17/03)
OVM club
members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, Glenn and Tim.
Hawks students: Kasey, Tyler and Lacey.
Weather: Clear with just a slight breeze.
The pavilion's half finished. It didn't exactly turn out the way some
of us envisioned it but it'll do. "The best laid plans of mice and
men", pavilion by committee . Hey it keeps
the rain and sun off us, which is its primary function. Maybe I'll post
a picture of it, then again maybe not.
We had 3 students in attendance tonight. The wind that was bugging us
for the last few sessions was absent tonight. My current favorite part
of instructing is the takeoffs and landings. These two actions put the
plane in harms way, which gets my undivided attention. I was hoping for
a calm night so I could get working in this area on those kids who are
ready. Well, as luck would have it. There were only three students here
tonight and all three were either ready for this or have been working
on it.
Tom and I started by giving them a warm up flight. Kasey
and Lacey were both pumped as they did their first takeoffs tonight. As
usual I quickly landed to let them do more takeoffs. I would say they
both did about 15 to 20 takeoffs each. I start with them standing
behind the plane during takeoffs. Then I move them a few steps closer
to the flightline with every takeoff. By
the end of that flying session or the next, their taking off from
behind the barriers on the flightline.
Lacey also attempted his first landings tonight. The few that made the
runway were, on average; a little ugly so I'm not ready to check this
off for him yet but another night like this and he'll be there. He
still has other things to learn and we'll get to them.
I took some time with the kids tonight to go over the training matrix.
I have been a little to busy lately to update it. So the kids and I
went over the matrix and crossed off those activities and maneuvers
that the kids have learned. We don't check off activities or maneuvers
when the kids learn them, we check them off when they show proficiency
or for non-flying items when they know it well enough to explain it.
Even though we use a four level training program, we don't teach in a
strict order. I find that boring and the kids do too. If they feel like
flying inverted and the matrix calls for them to do figure eight's, hey
they fly inverted. It's interesting this way for both the kids and us.
Were not big on maneuvers in the program. We teach some of the basics
to keep the kids interested but we don't push maneuvers on them. Like
inverted flying, consecutive rolls, inverted loops, etc. Their not part
of our training program but some kids want to learn them, so we teach
them. Other kids may never do any inverted flying and that's fine with
us.
Our mission is to have them takeoff, fly, and land safely, period. They
have the rest of their lives to get better at it and to learn the rest.
Each pilot who helps with the Hawks instruction is free to teach what
they feel like teaching that student, on that flight, on that night,
assuming of course that the student is ready for it. As an example I
had Kasey and Lacey doing takeoffs, which
is in level four and they're not out of level one yet. It's ok though
because they could handle it, they wanted to do it, and the weather was
right and besides they got such a big kick out of it.
I'm really looking forward to the remainder of the season because
several kids are going to be soloing in the next few weeks. Currently
all of them have access to a plane either their own or in their family.
I think having a few young pilots standing at the flightline
boring holes in the sky would be very cool. Were also giving some
thought to the few in the program who probably won't have anything
waiting for them when they solo.
HAWKS - Day
15 of 26 (Tuesday 7/22/03)
OVM club
members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, and Tim.
Hawks students: Kasey, Tyler and Jessica.
Weather: Overcast, slight breeze
The pavilion's still under construction. The finished product will have
a roof, a full wall on the West side, front will be completely open,
and the sides will have half walls. Right now the metal roof and the
West wall are up. The half-wall sides should be up before the club
picnic this weekend. I don't know what the attraction is but we're all
drawn under the roof even if it's a nice day. Strange, probably goes
back to our evolutionary period when we were somewhere between being a
one celled organism and a four legged rodent. :) 3 students in
attendance tonight. We got a few of the ground school issues out of the
way tonight. I've been meaning to get caught up on that for a few weeks
but hey I'd rather the kids fly. Tyler worked on
flying low and slow while Jessica and Kasey worked on their takeoffs. Kasey also did a few landings. Plane #2 has a
new engine but it hasn't been tuned up properly. Were running a few
tanks through it first. I used plane #1 figuring that the engine would
be more reliable for taxiing, wrong! It would quit about half of the
time on landing. When I'm teaching takeoffs I let the kids take off
then I quickly land it so they can takeoff again. It was frustrating to
have to restart the engine after every other landing. Those LT40's want
to fly right by. The fact that there wasn't any wind didn't help. A
little wind would have let us keep a higher idle. So when we get the
idle slow enough for landing it would quit soon after. Maybe a tune up
on the low end would help, or a lower pitch prop, or an on-board
igniter. Plane #1 had another bad habit. The nose wheel kept getting
out of alignment. About every third or fourth landing the nose wheel
would end up off center. Jessica and Kasey
both said that the plane didn't want to go straight. I thought they
were just having problems using the left stick. This plane is destined
to be THE taildragger I talked about in an
earlier post. I was about ready to pull the landing gear off altogether
and hand launch it for the rest of the night. I don't have time to fix
it now because were going to using it again on Thursday. I will do
something in the meantime, if to only grind a flat spot on the LG wire
but this weekend there will be changes made. It was a frustrating
evening. Mostly due to mechanical problems. When it started to rain, I
was kinda glad the night was over, so we
cleaned up, packed up and called it a night.
HAWKS - Day
16 of 26 (Thursday 7/24/03)
OVM club
members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, and Tim.
Hawks students: Kasey, Tyler, Lacey, and
Kaleb.
Weather: Partly cloudy, slight breeze
Work on the pavilion continues. We are a small club so these things
take time to get done. The two sidewalls went up tonight. These walls
are about 30 inches high, good for sitting, leaning, or eating on. Were
working to get it done for this Saturday's family picnic. I'm glad the
pavilion is up because now the picnic table is under it and the kids
congregate around the picnic table so therefore the kids are under the
pavilion and in the safest place possible in an open field. We have not
had any safety incidents since the program began. No cuts, no bruises,
no punctures, no near misses, etc. The unfortunate planes that have
gone in have mostly gone in on the runway side of the field but like
most flying clubs we do have those few that end up on the wrong side of
the fence. So the pavilion's a good thing in my book. We do have a
safety kit, it's still intact and I hope it stays that way.
4 students in attendance tonight. We got a few more of the ground
school issues out of the way. Lacey did most of the flying tonight. He
is working on landings and doing really good. In some cases, better
than some of our regular club members.
The club has quite a few AMA Delta Dart kits on hand. I had requested
we buy some for those times when some of us go out to talk R/C at the
Scouts or other youth organizations. Of course as you might have
guessed we haven't been invited to any since we bought the kits, go
figure. Anyway I have been bringing them to the field recently in case
anyone wanted to build one. Last night was a Delta Dart night. After an
initial flight Tyler,
Kasey, and Kaleb
spent the rest of the night under the pavilion building their Darts.
Did I mention I crashed one of the trainer planes?
As I have said in the past that since we use buddy boxes the student is
never responsible for any damage to the plane so I can't blame them,
darn, darn, darn. I hate that rule! Our runway is surrounded by high
grass about 3 feet tall. This is good cushion for emergency landings
like dead sticks that don't make it back to the runway. Lacey was
working on his landings and on this attempt he was too close to the
high grass on the far side of the runway. I saw the shadow of the
planes wing on the grass and decided to take over and abort the
landing. I put the coals to it just as the right wing tip caught the
grass. With full power, ample up elevator, and my cat like reflexes,
she did a wingover at about 5 feet and proceeded to auger in followed
by a not so gentle cartwheel, it wasn't pretty. It looked like some
kind of WWF body slam. The engine broke off, the carb
was packed with dirt, the motor mount broke in two pieces, and the wing
held on by rubber bands that's supposed to pop free in moments like
this DIDN'T! and took some leading edge
damage, the nose wheel nylon bracket broke off taking some of the
firewall with it, and the fin broke loose. Hey the good news is I
didn't break the prop. She'll be flying again soon. (update7/27/03:
Plane got fixed Friday night. Planned on test flight Sat morning so the
kids could fly at the picnic but it was too windy) Our picnic is
Saturday. There may be one individual who's ready for his solo test. We
might give it to him at the picnic, we'll see. I also plan on
introducing the kids to egg dropping. There are not too many fun fly
activities you can do that don't require takeoff and landings, so eggs
it is. I'll post any highlights. (Update: Basically no egg drops due to
the high winds.)
HAWKS - Day
17 of 26 (Tuesday 7/29/03)
OVM club
members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, Darrel, and Tim.
Hawks students: Kasey, Tyler, Lacey, and
Kaleb.
Weather: Nice, slight breeze
Plane #2, that crashed last week, was airborne tonight. Plane #1 still
annoys us with its front nose wheel which doesn't want to straight, of
course several bad landing aren't helping things much. More work was
done to it last night. Hopefully that will fix it for awhile.
Marty has been assembling, off and on, a new LT40 on the picnic table
with the kids but He just doesn't have the time currently to continue.
So we decided that I should take it home and put it together. The crash
last week made us realize the importance of having a backup ready to
go.
4 students in attendance tonight. Every one of these students are in the final phases of the program. This
means that most of their flying involves approaches and landings. All
have taken off and continue to take off at the start of each of their
flying session. I believe that they all have landed at least once. This
part of the program really puts wear and tear on the planes, mostly on
the nose wheel and prop. So yea, maintenance is high at this part of
the training
Not all of the wear and tear is from the student. The Instructors do
their fair share of knocking the plane around. When you're teaching
landings there's not much time for an Instructor to correct a bad zig or a wrong zag
when the plane is 2 feet off the deck. You pretty much take control at
the moment of thump but I'm not complaining, as I've said before, this
is my favorite part of Instructing.
HAWKS - Day
18 of 26 (Thursday 7/31/03)
OVM club
members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, Gay, and Tim.
Hawks students: Kasey, Tyler, Lacey,
Nick, Braden and Kaleb (the younger).
Weather: Nice, slight breeze
"It's only funny until someone gets hurt. ...Then it HILARIOUS!"
I saw this on Josh's shirt last Saturday at the picnic and I thought it
was awesome. I just wanted to pass it along. Although the saying is
funny it not as funny as the jesters hat Josh and Kaleb
were wearing all day. Kids, what are you gonna
do. (Josh is a 2002 graduate of the Hawks program. Kaleb
is a 2003 member)
http://www.amadistrictii.org/d2forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=46
Plane #1 continued to give us fits last night. We replaced the glow
plug the other night and it ran ok for awhile but that was it. Jim and
I noticed that there was a little fuel being blown back. Darrel
indicated that the OS46LA was in need of a new head gasket. This was
our newest engine, bought new last year. I'm hoping that the new LT
with the 4-stroke engine will be cleaner, more powerful, and have a
better idle.
This plane also continued with its nosewheel
problems. I'm working on getting parts for the tailwheel
conversion. I wonder if one of those Fults
dual strut nosegear would be better than
the L-shaped nose gear that comes with the LT. We could use it on plane
#2, Which we'll continue to use as a trike
gear. I think it would carry the load a lot better if nothing else. We
also noticed that the new SIG LT40's come with wing mounting screws
instead of the dowel/rubber band setup. I still doubt the screws will
break before the wing does on a cartwheel.
6 students in attendance tonight. Me,
Tyler, and Kasey went over the training
matrix to find those items that they know but have not been crossed off
yet. Lacey finished up his training tonight. I'm the one who decides
when someone is finished with the program and is ready to take their
solo test. When this happens I tell them to get with Darrel to take
their test. Darrel will usually plan on setting aside some time on the
next Hawks night for test.
Basically the test goes like this. Darrel has the student work the impound and the frequency board then head out
to the flightline. We have them takeoff,
fly, land under power, and then a dead stick landing. The flying part
is a 2 -3 minute freestyle flight to show off if they want to. This
year were using a point system to better grade the students. They lose
points for crossing the flightline, ct
make it back to the runway. Lacey was working on his landings and on
this attempt he was too close to the high grass on the far side of the
runway. I saw the shadow of the planes wing on the grass and decided to
take over and abort the landing. I put the coals to it just as the
right wing tip caught the grass. With full power, ample up elevator,
and my cat like reflexes, she did a wingover at about 5 feet and
proceeded to auger in followed by a not so gentle cartwheel, it wasn't
pretty. It looked like some kind of WWF body slam. The engine broke
off, the carb was packed with dirt, the
motor mount broke in two pieces, and the wing held on by rubber bands
that's supposed to pop free in moments like this DIDN'T! and took some leading edge damage, the nose wheel
nylon bracket broke off taking some of the firewall with it, and the
fin broke loose. Hey the good news is I didn't break the prop. She'll
be flying again soon. (update7/27/03: Plane
got fixed Friday night. Planned on test flight Sat morning so the kids
could fly at the picnic but it was too windy) Our picnic is Saturday.
There may be one individual who's ready for his solo test. We might
give it to him at the picnic, we'll see. I also plan on introducing the
kids to egg dropping. There are not too many fun fly activities you can
do that don't require takeoff and landings, so eggs it is. I'll post
any highlights. (Update: Basically no egg drops due to the high winds.)
HAWKS
- Day 17 of 26 (Tuesday 7/29/03)
OVM club members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, Darrel, and Tim.
Hawks students: Kasey, Tyler, Lacey, and Kaleb.
Weather: Nice, slight breeze
Plane #2, that crashed last week, was airborne tonight. Plane #1 still
annoys us with its front nose wheel which doesn't want to straight, of
course several bad landing aren't helping things much. More work was
done to it last night. Hopefully that will fix it for awhile.
Marty has been assembling, off and on, a new LT40 on the picnic table
with the kids but He just doesn't have the time currently to continue.
So we decided that I should take it home and put it together. The crash
last week made us realize the importance of having a backup ready to
go.
4 students in attendance tonight. Every one of these students are in the final phases of the program. This
means that most of their flying involves approaches and landings. All
have taken off and continue to take off at the start of each of their
flying session. I believe that they all have landed at least once. This
part of the program really puts wear and tear on the planes, mostly on
the nose wheel and prop. So yea, maintenance is high at this part of
the training
Not all of the wear and tear is from the student. The Instructors do
their fair share of knocking the plane around. When you're teaching
landings there's not much time for an Instructor to correct a bad zig or a wrong zag
when the plane is 2 feet off the deck. You pretty much take control at
the moment of thump but I'm not complaining, as I've said before, this
is my favorite part of Instructing.
HAWKS
- Day 18 of 26 (Thursday 7/31/03)
OVM club members pitching in: Wayne, Tom, Gay, and Tim.
Hawks students: Kasey, Tyler, Lacey, Nick, Braden and Kaleb
(the younger).
Weather: Nice, slight breeze
"It's only funny until someone gets hurt. ...Then it HILARIOUS!"
I saw this on Josh's shirt last Saturday at the picnic and I thought it
was awesome. I just wanted to pass it along. Although the saying is
funny it not as funny as the jesters hat Josh and Kaleb
were wearing all day. Kids, what are you gonna
do. (Josh is a 2002 graduate of the Hawks program. Kaleb
is a 2003 member)
http://www.amadistrictii.org/d2forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=46
Plane #1 continued to give us fits last night. We replaced the glow
plug the other night and it ran ok for awhile but that was it. Jim and
I noticed that there was a little fuel being blown back. Darrel
indicated that the OS46LA was in need of a new head gasket. This was
our newest engine, bought new last year. I'm hoping that the new LT
with the 4-stroke engine will be cleaner, more powerful, and have a
better idle.
This plane also continued with its nosewheel
problems. I'm working on getting parts for the tailwheel
conversion. I wonder if one of those Fults
dual strut nosegear would be better than
the L-shaped nose gear that comes with the LT. We could use it on plane
#2, Which we'll continue to use as a trike
gear. I think it would carry the load a lot better if nothing else. We
also noticed that the new SIG LT40's come with wing mounting screws
instead of the dowel/rubber band setup. I still doubt the screws will
break before the wing does on a cartwheel.
6 students in attendance tonight. Me,
Tyler, and Kasey went over the training
matrix to find those items that they know but have not been crossed off
yet. Lacey finished up his training tonight. I'm the one who decides
when someone is finished with the program and is ready to take their
solo test. When this happens I tell them to get with Darrel to take
their test. Darrel will usually plan on setting aside some time on the
next Hawks night for test.
Basically the test goes like this. Darrel has the student work the impound and the frequency board then head out
to the flightline. We have them takeoff,
fly, land under power, and then a dead stick landing. The flying part
is a 2 -3 minute freestyle flight to show off if they want to. This
year were using a point system to better grade the students. They lose
points for crossing the flightline,
contacting the high grass, or if the instructor, on the buddy box, has
to step in and either save the plane or jump in because of a safety
issue, and other small items like that.
HAWKS
- Day 19 of 26 (Tuesday 8/5/03)
"rained out, again"
I hate when this happens!
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