Live And Let Fly - About the Albuquerque Radio Control Club

The Albuquerque Radio Control Club Newsletter
www.arcc.club
April 2016
AMA Chartered Club #2022
Live And Let Fly
Real pilots rate the performance of the airplanes in James Bond flicks.
By David Lande
Air & Space Magazine
September 2008
Wallis WA-116 “Little
Nellie” Autogyro
The autogyro—a
Ever since audiences
rotorcraft using an
first saw British secret
unpowered overhead rotor
agent number 007, tangling
acting as a circular wing to
with a claw-handed villain
create lift—has been
in the 1962 film Dr. No,
around a long time. In
James Bond has branded
In You Only Live Twice, Sean Connery flies an autogyro
1931,
Amelia Earhart set a
souped up with missiles, machine guns,
the concept of cool. This
woman’s
world altitude
and flame-throwers. (The Kobal Collection)
November, (ed: 2008) he’s
record in one—a Pitcairn
back—in a new Bond film,
PCA-2
that
she
flew
to
18,415 feet. But Harold
Quantum of Solace, which, like its
Pitcairn
could
not
have
imagined his design’s
predecessors, showcases the kind of fare
mutation
into
the
tiny
terror
of You Only Live
worthy of Ian Fleming’s suave super-spy: girls,
Twice (1967). Bond’s WA-116, nicknamed
gadgets, sports cars, and, best of all, airplanes.
“Little Nellie,” is armed to the teeth with missiles,
At some point in every Bond film, the action
takes to the sky. The aircraft, ranging from
Continued page 2
Harriers to Cessnas to hang gliders and flown
by friend and foe, are typically cutting-edge for
the time. The Bell Aerosystems rocket belt that
NEXT MEETING
propelled Bond to safety in Thunderball (1965)
April 7th, 2016 at the Asbury Methodist Church at 7pm.
had been recently developed under a U.S.
Army contract. The little autogyro in You Only
Program:
Live Twice (1967) was a fresh design of recordMark Johnston will demonstrate aircraft telemetry
setting pilot Ken Wallis. In Moonraker (1979),
within google earth. This is some of the latest high tech
the now-familiar space shuttle blasted off the
stuff.
big screen two years before the maiden launch
of the real thing. But in the upcoming Quantum
Raffle:
of Solace, the airplanes have been around a
This month we will have the AMA card drawing for a
while—a Douglas DC-3A built in 1939 shares
$20 gift card to Hobby Proz.
the screen with a sleek and sinister black SIAIMarchetti SF.260TP, a descendant of a 1960s
Don’t forget to bring an item for show-n-tell!
design.
Sure, these aircraft are cool. But are they
Bond cool? We ask real-life pilots toContinued
weigh --->
in.
The Presidents Message
Hi Guys,
Our 2016 season is starting
with our first swap meet this
weekend (April 9th). So come on
out and bring your old equipment
and planes and pick up some
more. The following week we
will be manning a booth at the Albuquerque Auto
Show April 15, 16 and 17.
Charles Hensen of the Albuquerque Automobile
Dealers Association has donated a double space
Booth at the show for us to setup a display of RC
planes and Helicopters. We still need some
members to help fill in the time slots. If you want
to help, respond to Keiths email. We will be giving
out material for the Club and AMA to show the
public our commitment to being responsible flyers
since all the negative material has been in the
media. We would like to thank Charles for his
support that he has given with this and also his
donation of several major prizes for our flying
events.
Any of you that have been out to the field
recently have noticed the three new stands on the
line. These were built and donated by one of our
younger members Theron. He is working on his
Boy Scout Eagle Badge and this was his project.
So if you see him, thank him. They really are
great and we also kept the old one down by the
south end for those few who liked it.
There has been a lot of positive feedback from
the city on doing repairs and upgrades to
Maloof. Mark, Keith, Stan and I met with city
officals from Park and Rsc.at the field and went
over items we would like to see done. More about
this as things progress.
We now have a AMA Club Chapter #74 made
up of the clubs in the Albuquerque area. Mark will
give more information at our next meeting. A lot
has been going on since all the negative media
attention to flying in certain parks and this action
will help to get a more positive outlook for all of
us.
That’s it for now. Hope to see you all at our
next meeting Thursday April 7th.
Rick
Continued from page 1
machine guns, rocket launchers, and even
flame-throwers. Bond needs all these
weapons to dispatch four bullet-spitting
SPECTRE helicopters in hot pursuit. Score for
the day: Bond 4, SPECTRE 0.
Nellie’s creator, Wing Commander Ken
Wallis, became a Royal Air Force pilot in World
War II. After retiring from the RAF in 1964, he
concentrated full time on developing autogyro
technology. He’s set many autogyro records,
including speed, time to climb, duration, and
altitude.
Wallis himself flew his WA-116 in the Bond
movie. Now 92 and living in Norfolk, England,
Wallis recalls, “I did 85 takeoffs and landings,
and flew for 46 hours,” which translated into
seven and a half minutes of pure excitement on
the screen. “The helicopter pilots had to ask me
to slow down, because they could not keep up
with Little Nellie in level flight and while
climbing.”
Film footage alternates between air-to-air
views of Wallis from a distance and close-ups of
Sean Connery in the cockpit. The two men were
similar in build, “but Connery’s arms were
considerably hairier, and that can be seen in the
movie if you look closely,” says Wallis.
Connery’s scenes were filmed in a studio before
a blue screen (to enable fake backgrounds to be
used), while Wallis’ were filmed high in the skies
over Spain and over Japan’s Sakurajima
volcano.
Another record-setting autogyro pilot, Andy
Keech, who has 450 hours in seven autogyro
types, says of the WA-116: “It was the most
sympathetic machine I had ever been in. The
blades of the WA-116 are quite short, relative to
other gyros, at 20 feet. They are therefore very
smooth and there is no feedback into the stick.
It is as smooth to fly as a Piper Cub.”
Verdict: In a coded message to HQ, Bond
described Little Nellie’s reception: “Four
bigshots made improper advances toward
her, but she defended her honor with great
success.” Packing heat, Little Nellie is tailormade to fit Bond cool.
Bede BD-5J Acrostar Micro-jet
Ever wonder what it would be like to strap on
a micro-jet and shriek
Continued on page 3
Continued from page 2
across the sky? Ask the man who built and flew
the one in Octopussy (1983). That pilot is J.W.
“Corkey” Fornof, who, when flying past at more
than 300 mph, also passes as a credible double
for Roger Moore. Fornof has 1,000-plus hours in
his TRS-18 microturbo-powered Bede jet. And
he figures he and his friends spent 3,300 hours
building it.
The memorable opening of Octopussy shows
his Acrostar evading a ground-to-air missile by
flying through a hangar, but it soon runs out of
fuel, so Bond nonchalantly lands on a road and
coasts to a stop at the pumps of a service station.
Except for the ground-to-air missile, the scene’s
action came directly from Fornof’s personal
experience.
While he was flying near Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, his BD-5J lost oil pressure and he was
forced to land on a highway. “Once on the
ground, I went down the exit ramp and coasted
into a gas station, just like in the movie, and ran
over the little hose that went ding ding,” he
recalls. He has a clipping from the local
newspaper documenting the event.
Prior to the movie, Fornof had flown the
Acrostar through an open hangar for a Toshiba
commercial in Japan. After Bond producers
Michael Wilson and Cubby Broccoli saw it, they
wanted similar action in their upcoming film.
About his “kids, don’t try this at home” stunt,
Fornof explains that he opened all the hangar’s
doors and windows to reduce the sudden
pressure increase caused by an aircraft trying to
push a lot of air through an enclosed space. He
calculated that, given the frontal area of the BD-5
and the size of the hangar, airspeed couldn’t
exceed 180 mph. If he went too fast, “the
pressure feedback would probably have caused
me to bounce off the floor and into the rafters,” he
says. “As I approached the hangar, the opening
looked very small. I had exactly six feet below
me and six feet above me. My heart was in my
throat. I don’t think I took a breath for a minute
and a half.” The stunt came off perfectly.
“The Acrostar is in my top five favorite
airplanes of all time,” he says. “It’s like driving a
Formula One racecar compared to a regular
sedan.”
Verdict: The Acrostar used in Octopussy is
still Fornof’s airplane, now on loan to the
Museum of Flying in Santa Monica, California.
It is the quintessential Bond airplane and a
scene-stealer in the coolest 007 opening
sequence ever.
To read the complete article about more Bond
airplanes, please go to:
http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/
live-and-let-fly-442427/?all
Fleeing a heat-seeking missile, Bond outwits foes in Octopussy
by flying his micro-jet through a hangar. (The Kobal Collection)
AMA Vision
We, the members of the Academy of
Model Aeronautics, are the pathway to the
future of aeromodeling and are committed
to making modeling the foremost sport/
hobby in the world.
ARCC Calendar
Apr 7
Apr 9
Apr 15-17
Member Meeting
Spring Swap Meet
Car Show Display
Apr 29
May 5
May 27
June 2
June 25-26
Aug 13
Sept 3-4
Sept 23-25
Sept 24
Board Meeting
Club Meeting
Board Meeting
Club Meeting
Scale Fly-In
National Modeling Day
Labor Day Fly-In
Heli Meet
Fall Swap Meet
Asbury
Maloof
Civic
Center
Asbury
Asbury
Asbury
Asbury
Maloof
Maloof
Maloof
Maloof
Maloof
ARCC General Membership Meeting Minutes
3 March 2016
The meeting was called to order at 1905 with 14
members present.
Announcements

New vice president – Mark Johnston
Heli meet - Weekend of Fall Swap Meet –
23/24/25 Sep
Received updated permit for all three days
Guest(s)
None
Treasurer Report

Vic reported the club’s balance
Report approved
Secretary Report
Will be posted on web site
Discussion
Individual came in with aircraft and parts for sale for
everything $200.00. Stan will look into feasibility of the
club purchasing them for prizes and report back.
Car Show – 15/16/17 April
Friday 12 noon – 8 pm
Saturday 10 am – 8 pm
Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
Keith will get an email out to the club to get
volunteers
Safety Minute
Stan talked about fail safe on radios.
Plane Failsafe Function
Plane has a limited failsafe function which is
designed to do three things:
Detect complete loss of RC signal (if the RC
receiver is able to generate a predictable
signal-loss behavior) and initiate a defined
auto-mode response, such as returning to
home. Some RC equipment can do this, and
some can’t (see below for details on how to
Continued page 5
New Starting Stands for Maloof
Theron, working on his Eagle Scout, built
three new starting stands for use at Maloof.
I met him at our airpark on March 12th to
help him install them. They are great as the
pictures show.
Thanks Theron for the wonderful job you did.
Rick Linden,
President
use it if yours supports this function).
Detect loss of telemetry for more than 20 sec
and switch to return to launch (RTL) mode
(GCS Failsafe).
Detect loss of GPS for more than 20 seconds
and switch into Dead Reckoning mode
until GPS signal is regained.
Here’s what the failsafe will not do:
Detect if one more individual RC channel has
failed or become disconnected
Detect if you’re flying too far away or are
about to hit the ground
Detect autopilot hardware failures, such as
low-power brownouts or in-air reboots
Detect if the Plane software is not operating
correctly
Detect other problems with the aircraft, such
as motor failures or low battery situations
(although the latter can be set up through
the main code if you have the right
voltage/current sensor)
Otherwise stop you from making setup or
flight mistakes
AMA Card Draw
$20 gift card won by Steve M.
Presentation/Show & Tell


Stan brought in a video on – Soaring models
Mark brought in his 1/3rd scale Sopwith Pup under
construction
Don brought his scratch built Sourcerist
Don won the $20 gift card
New Business
None
Next Meetings
The next board meeting is on FRIDAY 25 March
6:30 pm at the church. It is open to the
general membership.
The next general membership meeting will be on
7 April 2016 at the church.
Meeting adjourned at 2110
Keith Perry,
Secretary
(The February meeting minutes did not get published, so here
they are now. Editor)
ARCC General Membership Meeting Minutes
4 February 2016
The meeting was called to order at 1915 with 8 members
present.
Announcements
 Need for new vice president
 Stan will take the taskof meeting programs from Les
Heli meet is a go weekend of Fall Swap Meet – 23/24/25
Sep
Guest(s)
 Drew Riedle – joined tonight
Don DeGasperi – Rejoined tonight
Treasurer Report
 Vic reported the club’s balance
Report approved
Secretary Report
Will be posted on web site
Discussion
Car Show – 15/16/17 April
Friday 12 noon – 8 pm
Saturday 10 am – 8 pm
Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
Keith will get an email out to the club to get volunteers
Safety Minute
Stan went over spotters
Pilot’s eyes for the surrounding area
AMA requirements
W/I 3 miles of an airport
Flight over 500 FAGL
AMA Card Draw
Bobby won the $20 gift card
Presentation/Show & Tell
 Chuck showed a rubber powered plane and talked
about rubber powered planes
 San showed a foam plane
Chuck won the show and tell
New Business
None
Next Meetings
The next board meeting is on FRIDAY 26 February
6:30 pm at the church. It is open to the general
membership.
The next general membership meeting will be on 3
march 2016 at the church.
Meeting adjourned at 2110
Keith Perry,
Secretary