Issue 5 29-Nov-1994 Our electronic distribution has grown to 44 If you would like to be removed from this distribution for any reason, please send email to racores@world.std.com with the message unsubscribe NERCCA so we can find your entry in our distribution. If you know someone online that would enjoy this newsletter, have them send email stating their name and email address and we'll add them and mail back issues. Current Contest Schedule (please send details of your contests for next year) Dec 3, 1994 Oxford MA 10am Ray/Jim CDs (508) 757-5883/765-9998 March 1995 Beattie Field RI Charlie Hochstrasser Short notice of contest next weekend! Pass the word Saturday, December 3rd, there will be a Gremlin contest in Oxford MA with a pilot's meeting about 9:30am and starting combat about 10am. Directions follow. Please pass the word to your fellow club members since the paper copy of this newsletter probably won't get to people in time. There will be dollar donation collected to pay for the streamers and the contest will be run to maximize flying and fun. If the weather is slippery, access to the field will be difficult so if there's rain/snow the night before, please contact me (508) 765-9998 or Ray (508) 757-5883 between 7am and 8:30am saturday morning to verify. Directions: You want to head south from the Mass Turnpike exit 10 in Auburn on Rt 395 (this is what Rt290 through Worcester turns into south of the Pike) and get off at exit 4, Sutton Ave., Oxford Center, heading west towards Oxford Center. When you get to the lights in Oxford Center you continue straight through and go 1 mile and on the right you should find Old Howarth Rd. Continue down Old Howarth Rd. for .7 miles looking for a dirt road on the right, lined with large boulders. On the enterance there is a gate, it will be closed but unlocked, please close it back over when you are inside. Welcome to the Rocky Hill Fliers field! The following is a safety concern discussed at outr last Rhode Island meet. I also have a couple of articles about a contest in Texas but I'll type them in and mail them out another night this week (Thanks Sandy) Jim, This story stems from the midairs and seperated engines at our meet on Nov. 13th. I'm not sure if this is a subject you feel should be discussed in your newsletter or just discussed among the flyers at the meets. I'll leave it up to you. Thank you. [ed note: I feel information like this needs the broadest publicity we can give it. Safety is the most important part of our contests] SAFETY SUGGESTION During the Gremlin Combat meet at Beattie Field, RI, we had two midair collisions. The engines from two planes, one in each collision, were seperated from the fuselage because of broken mounts. After lenghty searches both were found a good distance away from the impact area. These incidents brought a safety concern to my attention. That is, the possibility of a detached engine being propelled into the pits or spectator area. We try to keep the planes a safe distance away from these areas and usually do, but when the wind is blowing toward you, it's difficult. In the heat of battle the planes tend to drift downwind (especially the stock class) and before you know it, they're on top of you and the judge is yelling to "get back in the box." The two planes involved had similar setups. The engines were bolted to glass filled nylon engine mounts which were attached to a square mount firewall. Both nylon mounts broke between the engine and the wall, just behind the rear engine mounting bolts. If you use this type of setup I would like to suggest the use of a tether. A piece of wire or thin cable attached from the engine to the fuselage, strong enough to keep the engine and fuselage together in the event of an engine mount failure caused by a collision. In the Nov. 13th case, a cable attached from the engine mounting bolts to the firewall would have kept both engines with the rest of the plane. Another suggestion I received was to attach a small piece of metal across the back of the engine cavity using the existing engine bolts. Then drill a hole about 3 inches back on the underside of the fuselage. Loop a nylon cable tie through the hole and around the metal piece on the back of the engine. This would work well if you use the conventional mount shown on the plans. Aside from the safety concern is the possibility of not being able to find the engine. I can think of a couple of fields that we fly at, where we would have had a very difficult ( if not impossible) time finding the seperated engines. This may have been an isolated, unusual incident but I felt it merited some attention. Hope to see you all at our Frosty Gremlin Fly in March. ..............Charlie Hochstrasser......... Charlie, This is a worthwile discussion. While the use of the beam/firewall mounts is different than the original design, it is being used in the cases where large engines are being used. We did have quite a time finding those engines in the open field. It would have been VERY difficult in CMRCM with all the briars. Several people have mentioned doing something similar for mufflers in cases where the rear portion or entire muffler have come off. In our case we have spectators and competitors to consider and we need to keep the scattering of parts to a minimum. I hope contestants will keep this in mind for future contests/planes. Thanks for your suggestion! By the way... what is the date for the Frosty Gremlins in March? (attention CDs: we'd like to get dates on the calendar for next season as soon as possible so we can avoid some of the conflicts we ran into last year)