An important part of safety at the field is to give your airplane a good inspection before start up.  I have been considering making a list of what to check and then laminating it and keeping it in my flight box.  I know that pilots of commercial aircraft use these lists even though they have long since memorized all of the steps.  The reason is that being human it's easy to get distracted and accidentally overlook a step.

Is my card on the impound channel board?

Check for structural problems on the wing, fuselage, motor and tail feathers.

Check that the prop is still tight.

Check the voltage on the transmitter and receiver.

Make sure you have the right model selected and that the control surfaces move the right way.

Check that screws have not worked loose or have not come out completely. (This one got me on my Katana twice.)

Check the center of gravity.  Making sure that it has not changed due to repair or modifications.

Check landing gear. (are the wheels binding or loose.)

Check the control linkages and control arms.

These are just a few of the things I can think of right off the top of my head so if you have any more please e-mail me at  ottertail7@comcast.net

Fly Safely       Kevin Carlson - Safety Coordinator

     The April Fun Fly was rescheduled from the 21st to the 27th due to rain.  We did three events and the first was Touch and Go Blackjack.  In this event the pilot does three touch and goes on squares on the runway marked with point values of 1, 5,3,7,3,5,1.  The person with a total closest to 21 is the winner.  Al Spearbecker and Kevin Carlson were tied at 21 and won this event.

     The next event was Shortest Time to Take Off, do 3 Loops, 3 Rolls and 3 Stall Turns and Land.  The winner of this event was Stan Zdon who did his flight in 45 seconds.

     The third event was 30 second Climb and Glide at idle.  The plane must land on the runway or the pilot is disqualified.  The time ended at idle up or touchdown on the runway.  Stan Zdon also won this event with a time of 4 minutes and 3 seconds.  He probably could have stayed up longer but everybody more or less relinquished this event to him.

     We had a total of 9 pilots and 2 helpers.  The order of finish was:

1st     Stan Zdon            Tie
1st     Kevin Carlson      Tie 
2nd    Dave Dentz          Tie
2nd    Bob Nagle            Tie
3rd     Al Spearbecker
4th      Zach Geragi
5th      Andy Noll           Tie
5th      Jake Groetsch      Tie
6th      Steve Ulrich

     Next Fun Fly will be held on May 19.  The flight line opens at 9AM for trim flights the first event will start at 10AM.  Come on out and have a good time.  Also, a special thanks to all the members that helped with the clean up and the building of the new safety fence.  It looks very nice.

                                                               Bob Nagle