Thu 26 November: Pix from NAAS Mammoth Fly-In
To: Canberra Aeromodellers
From: John Armarego
Subject: Thanks from NAAS for a fantastic time
Date: Thu 26/11/2015 23:41
Hi Guys,
Thank you all for making the NAAS Mammoth Fly-In 20-22 November 2015 such a enjoyable and memorable event.
Hope to see you all next time.
NAAS Link to the Photos album of the Mammoth Fly-In
Youtube slide show
Videos of the event
Maiden flight of 1/3 Scale Sopwith Pup
This should be the full set
Kind regards
John A
Sunday 06 October: Appointment of CMAC Public Officer
CMAC is an Incorporated Association under the ACT Associations Incorporation Act 1991. The Act requires the appointment of a Public Officer.
A Public Officer is the official point of contact for an incorporated association and one of the authorised signatories. A committee member, an ordinary member or a person outside the association may hold the position of public officer. They must be over 18 years of age and reside in the Australian Capital Territory.
Traditionally CMAC's President or Secretary has been appointed as its Public Officer. However, at the recent CMAC AGM, the people elected to the positions of President, Vice-President and Secretary for 2015-16 all reside in Jerrabomberra, NSW and are therefore ineligible for the Public Officer position.
Under these circumstances the new Treasurer - David Haycraft, a Wanniassa, ACT resident - accepted appointment as CMAC Public Officer for 2015-16, effective from Wednesday 16 September 2015.
Friday 18 September: CMAC AGM 2015 Minutes
Thanks to prompt action by Secretary Paul McFawn, the Minutes of the subject meeting are now available for viewing at [CMAC News > Members Only]
Wednesday 16 September: CMAC AGM 2015
CMAC's 2015 Annual General Meeting was held tonight at the Irish Club, Weston, attended by over 20 members.
Outgoing President Terry Griffiths delivered the President's Report for 2014-15 year. He singled out four of the past year's events for special mention:
- the laying of bitumen paving around three sides of the CMAC clubhouse, at a cost of over $15,000
- the acquisition by CMAC of a set of man-portable sun-protection awnings to be placed along the CMAC pit fence
on summer days: these awnings are presently stored securely in the on-site container
- the successful running of the inaugural CMAC Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge: many thanks to Gowrie
for this initiative and for his enthusiastic promotion and running of the event.
For more info see Taipan Challenge Update 6
- MAAA's recent changes to the Awards of Bronze Wings and Silver Wings:
Bronze Wings are now awarded to pilots demonstrating basic competency in operating model aircraft up to 2 Kg in weight (typically low-cost "foamies"),
while Silver Wings require the demonstration of the same level of operational competency for models of more than 2 Kg in weight (that is the old Bronze Wings).
For more info see MAAA MOP027: AWARD OF WINGS AND INSTRUCTOR RATING, Section 4.1.
Due to pressure of work, outgoing Treasurer Glenn Ryan was unable to attend the AGM in
person. In his absence, Terry Griffiths circulated printed copies of Glenn's CMAC's
Financial Report for 2014-15, advising the meeting that the Report has now been
audited and approved for lodging as CMAC's Annual Return.
For more info on Annual Returns see ACT Government > Incorporated Associations > Your Obligations > Forms and fees
Despite the larger than budgeted bitumen-laying expense incurred during the year, Terry noted that CMAC ended up with a surplus of Current Assets (cash at bank/on hand) over Current Liabilities (pre-paid Memberships) of nearly $6000. Terry thanked Glenn especially for his diligent book-keeping services over the past year.
All Committee Positions were then declared empty and Ray Botten was appointed as Returning Officer for the election of the new Committee for 2015-16. Elected were:
| President | Terry Griffiths |
| Vice-President | Byam Wight |
| Secretary | Paul McFawn |
| Treasurer | David Haycraft |
| Committee 1 | Paul Beatty |
| Committee 2 | Ray Botten |
| Committee 3 | Steve Millar |
| Committee 4 | Jack Pittar |
| Committee 5 | Gowrie Waterhouse |
| Committee 6 | Linton Wilson |
At the meeting Gowrie Waterhouse was appointed again as Chief Flying Instructor for 2015-16. Steve Grzeskowiack will continue as Safety Officer, subject to work commitments. David Haycraft will continue as Member Registrar and Web Editor. Ray Botten will continue to serve as CMAC's Large Model Inspector (Fixed Wing).
CMAC, being an ACT Incorporated Association, requires a Public Officer. Paul McFawn continues in this role
For Committee contact details see Useful Info > Committee
[CMAC members can now view the complete Minutes of CMAC AGM 2015 through CMAC News > Members Only Ed. 18SEP15]
Wednesday 02 September: CMAC Reaches One Hundred
CMAC now has exactly 100 financial members for 2015-16.
| Type | Count |
| Senior | 85 |
| Junior | 6 |
| Associate | 5 |
| Life Member | 4 |
| Total | 100 |
CMAC members may view the detailed Member Register at CMAC News > Members Only
Tuesday 01 September: Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge - Medals Ready for Handout
Medals for last month's CMAC Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge have now been received from the Engravers. Event Director Gowrie Waterhouse will hand them out to the passing contestants next weekend, Sat-Sun 05-06 Sep 2015.
Gowrie supplied this photo of the medal:
For Gowrie's wrapup report on TBGC 2015 see Challenge Update 6 - Final and for Peter Baumgartner's great photo album on Flickr see TBGC 2015 Pix.
Monday 31 August 2015 - More on Yesterday's VTOL Test Flight at CMAC
Firstly, Andrew Tridgell explained...
It was all Jack Pittar's work. I just operated the ground station and Justin flew the quad half of the plane.
I'm sure Jack can give you all the details!
Cheers, Tridge
... then Jack Pittar kindly provided the aforesaid details...
The aircraft part of our "Vampire Prototype 2" is Ray Murray's old Senior Telemaster with a 15cc JBA petrol engine. The four outrunner electric motors make up a standard quadcopter. Each pair of motors are mounted on an square aluminium tube which bolts onto the wing. The Telemaster weighs 4.5 Kg, and the quadcopter parts add another 3.2Kg.
In the present configuration, the aircraft component is just a radio controlled plane flown with its own transmitter. The quadcopter component is stabilized with the Pixhawk autopilot, and is flown with a separate transmitter. Tridge monitored and logged the performance of the aircraft using telemetry from the Pixhawk to his laptop.
Initially, we were worried about what would happen when we tried to transition from vertical flight to horizontal flight and back again, but it really turned out to be a non-event. Once the aircraft lifted off the ground, I increased the throttle on the petrol engine, Justin reduced the quadcopter lift to zero, and the aircraft just waddled off like an overloaded Telemaster.
The purpose of this aircraft is to test various airframes in search of something suitable to compete in the upcoming 2016 UAV Outback Challenge: Medical Express. [See story below for link to Medical Express Competition Rules: Ed]
Regards, Jack
Sunday 30 August July 2015 - Canberra UAV test flies VTOL UAV
This morning the Canberra UAV team - Tridge, Jack, Justin and Stephen - successfully test flew their new VTOL UAV model (aka quadplane) at the CMAC field. They safely completed this sequence:
- vertical takeoff
- transition to forward flight
- several circuits
- approach to landing strip
- transition to hover
- vertical landing
The team is preparing for the 2016 UAV Outback Challenge "Medical Express". In this Challenge, the mission task is specified as follows:
"Teams are invited to attempt to retrieve a blood sample from the remote Outback Joe and return it to base where medical staff will be waiting to analyse it. Teams must deploy unmanned aircraft to Joe’s location, and then return a sample bottle from him utilising a remote landing and takeoff site close to him. They must complete all of this within one hour.
For the full 2016 UAV Outback Challenge rules see Medical Express Competition Rules.
For more info on Canberra UAV see their web site with blogs from Andrew Tridgell and Stephen Dade at Canberra UAV.
Tuesday 25 August July 2015 - Notice of CMAC AGM
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Dear Fellow CMAC Members The Annual General Meeting of the Club is to be held Apologies to the Secretary – email to: secretary@cmac.org.au or Mobile: 0408576924 Please note the following:
Committee Nomination Forms and Proxy Voting Forms can be downloaded from the CMAC Website. See: Nomination Form and Proxy Form . Form the Agenda for the 2015 Annual General Meeting Agenda and the Minutes of the Previous AGM see AGM 2015 Agenda and AGM 2014 Minutes . I look forward to seeing you at the meeting. Regards, |
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Monday 10 August 2015 - Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge Wrapup
| For Event Director Gowrie Waterhouse's wrapup report on TBGC 2015 see Challenge Update 6 - Final and for Peter Baumgartner's great photo album on Flickr see TBGC 2015 Pix. |
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Saturday 08 August 2015 - Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge - Run at last
Briefly, TBGC participants perform an eleven-manouevre aerobatic schedule, flying a low-cost model aircraft from a prescribed list of TBGC Model Types. The event is held over two rounds and is open to flyers of MAAA Gold Wings standard. In the Challenge the emphasis is on further skill development rather that competition.
Six CMAC members took part in today's TBGC: Peter, Beate and Marius Baumgartner; Steve Grzeskowiak; Alistair Dalley and Gowrie himself. All entrants flew examples of the low-cost VQ Taipan aerobatic model, five IC-powered and one (Alistair's) electric-powered, and each entrant managed to complete the two rounds without incident.
We were very fortunate to have Canberra's own international Pattern Aerobatics expert Chris Swain to judge the event, present Completion Certificates to the participants and provide feedback to each individual entrant at the end of the day.
The CMAC Committee thanks Chris for taking time out of his busy schedule to provide this service to CMAC and also commends Peter Baumgartner for documenting his personal experience with the VQ Taipan kit in his Taipan Tips for builders.
Finally the Committee and the participants join in commending Gowrie for his untiring efforts over the past six months to design, promote and direct this very innovative event in the face of many obstacles. Outstanding!
Thursday 06 August July 2015 - Notice of ACTAA AGM
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From: Brian Malaquin (ACTAA Treasurer) Sent: Thursday, 6 August 2015 10:53 To: Brian Malaquin (ACTAA Treasurer) Subject: Annual General Meeting |
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The Annual General Meeting of the association will held on:
7:30pm Wednesday 9 September 2015.
Irish Club
Parkinson Street
Weston Creek
At this year’s AGM we are looking to fill the position of Secretary, Chief Flying Instructor, Safety Officer.
Can you please distribute this amongst your club members.
There will an agenda out shortly.
Following the AGM will be the normal general meeting.
Regards
Brian Malaquin
ACTAA Treasurer
treasurer@actaa.net.au
Saturday 25 July 2015 - Worse Weather (again)
In the face of strong and gusty westerly winds at the CMAC Field, CD Gowrie Waterhouse was forced to postpone the Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge event until Saturday 08 August 2015.
Sunday 19 July 2015 - Better Weather
Weather was much more pleasant at CMAC today than last weekend. After an overnight minimum of -4.7C at 04:57 the air temperature rose steadily to a maximum of 15.3 C at 15:02. Wind was very light and variable throughout the day with only traces of cloud.
Temperature data from CMAC Weather Station
After a reported maximum of seven models in the air together at about 10:30, there were still plenty of people in the CMAC pits at 12:00.
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(*) Temperature data from CMAC Weather Station
Sunday 12 July 2015 - Snow!
Snow has fallen on parts of NSW and the ACT this morning. A model-building day!
Photos:
Snow on Brindabella Ranges from Red Hill - ABC News: James Glenday
Tuggeranong Weather Forecast, Canberra Rain Radar - Aust Govt Bureau of Meteorology: IPhone Application
For more images of the white blanket from the ABC and residents of areas including Canberra, Goulburn, Katoomba, Mt Blackheath, Mt Victoria, Mittagong and the New England region see 702 ABC Sydney
Sunday 05 July 2015 - Zero Viz
It's 10:30 AM on a Winter morning at the CMAC Field and visibility is still no more than about 25 m, so flying is out of the question.
With the air temperature just 1 degree C, members cluster around an outdoor incinerator to keep warm.
Click to enlarge
Monday 29 June 2015 - Young Visitor
Burgamann School end-of-term holidays have started and Zach Haycraft - age 11 - visited the CMAC field for a trial flight of a radio-controlled model aircraft.
Our newest member - Ian Mirabito AUS 82864 - kindly allowed Zach to fly Ian's E-Flite Apprentice with SAFE and our most senior member - Ray Murray AUS 2071 - offered to provide instruction for Zach.
Once Ian had taken off, Zach took over the controls of the Apprentice. After an initial steep dive and a recovery to level flight, thanks to the E-Flite "panic" function, Zach quickly gained confidence and, after a few minutes coaching from Ray, was flying horizontal figure-eights with some assurance.
Ray talked him through the first landing from the south, with the model ending-up safely in the long grass just to the left of the runway.
Sunday 21 June 2015 - Winter Solstice at CMAC
The winter solstice occurs when the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky at noon, and the day length is shortest.
On Sunday 21 June 2015 the day length in Canberra was 9h 46m 30s - see Canberra, Australia — Sunrise, Sunset and Daylength, June 2015.
Overnight minimum temperature on Sunday was -5° C and, after early morning fog, the sky cleared to a perfect Canberra winter's day with light winds and a maximun of 12° C. Perfect for model flying :o)
Thursday 18 June 2015 - Mr Charles Menswear
We would like to offer all CMAC Members a 20% discount
off any full price item all year round
upon presentation of your membership card.
Excludes sale items.
Regards
Daniel Muscat AUS 82162
Owner, Mr Charles Menswear
Shop 043A Westfield Woden, Phillip ACT 2606
Click for Details
Sunday 14 June 2015 - NAAS Fly-In Day
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From John Armargo, NAAS President "NAAS would like to thank each and everyone who turned up on Sunday. The weather was magnificent, it could not have been any better. We had a fantastic range of aircraft flying all day and it really showcased what this great sport is all about. Those that did not fly also really enjoy the day. Here is a link to some images of the day. We hope you enjoy them: Fly-In Pix. Thanks again. John A" Ed: See if you can spot Byam, Gowrie, Jack, Ray, Tridge and other CMAC members in John's Fly-In Pix. |
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Sunday 07 June 2015 - New Fire Extinguishers Arrive
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At its May meeting, the CMAC Committee agreed to replace our old red firefighting spray packs - their inner bladders had perished - with two new heavy-duty Firefighting Backpack Sprayers. These 16 litre rigid back pack units are especially designed for Australian bush and grass fire fighting. The new units have now arrived and will be placed just inside the clubhouse, filled and ready for use next fire season. Please note that to refill them, use the water tap located against the inside of the north wall of the clubhouse. This tap is gravity-fed and does not rely on the electric pump as do the outlets in the toilet area. |
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Sunday 07 June 2015 - Maiden flight of Sea Fury
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After a delay till the fog lifted, Andrew (Plucka) Doré flew his new large-scale Sea Fury for the first time this morning at the CMAC Field. He reported that he was quite pleased with the initial CofG and trim setup, saying that, in flight, the model held its track well after rolling inverted on both a horizontal line and a 45 degree up-line. Andrew assembled this great-looking warbird from the 77" Black Horse Hawker Sea Fury ARF Kit and chose the DLE-35RA Gas Engine to power it. |
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Wednesday 03 June 2015 - Matting for helicopter field arrives at CMAC
Monday 01 June 2015 - CMAC ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FEES
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Dear CMAC Member Your CMAC Annual Membership Fees for 2015-16 become due on 01 July 2015. Annual Fees remain unchanged from 2014-15. See CMAC Fee Schedule 2015-16 If you will pay your Annual Fee by EFT then please follow this procedure:
If you are paying by Cheque then:
Once your payment has been received you will receive a confirmation email or letter and, later, your MAAA Card for 2015-16. Thanks for your cooperation |
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Sunday 31 May 2015 - Last Day of Autumn at CMAC
Saturday 30 May 2015 - MAAA Introduces Silver Wings
MAAA has at last added Silver Wings to its set of flight competency awards. Briefly:
The Bronze Wings category is aimed at attracting modellers who fly models under 2kg. It's a great step towards progress up the scale to bigger and more powerful models. You'll learn some basic manoeuvres like take-off, landing, procedure turns and flat eight turns.
Silver Wings will be applicable to members flying models weighing over 2kg. Silver Wings will allow more flyers to demonstrate their proficiency when visiting other MAAA clubs and participating in MAAA events.
Gold Wings are awarded for pilots who can complete more difficult manoeuvres including Cuban eight and inside loops and horizontal rolls.
For more information see these MAAA documents:
- Procedure MOP027 - Award of Wings and Instructor Rating
- Form MAAA016 - Power Bronze and Silver Wings
- Form MAAA017 - Power Gold Wings
Sunday 17 May 2015 - Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge: Update 4
Gowrie Waterhouse reports...
"For those CMAC folk interested:
See the attached Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge - May 2015 Update, noting that Chris Swain (who has represented Australia internationally at pattern comps) will be available at the field for advice and tips this Sunday (17 May) from around 10.30 am, weather permitting.
Cheers
Gowrie
For more information on the "Taipan Challenge" see Coming Events > Descriptions
Thursday 07 May 2015 - Turn Left when leaving the CMAC Field
We were advised recently by Roads ACT that is a traffic offence for motor vehicles to use the dirt track crossing the Monaro Highway median strip as a short cut when entering or leaving the CMAC field.
Accordingly, drivers must enter the CMAC field only by turning left from the north-bound lane of Monaro highway and must leave the CMAC field only by turning left into the north-bound lane.
Two new traffic signs are now in place to reminder drivers of these requirements:
Click to enlarge
Saturday 02 May 2015 - Large-scale Turbojet R/C Models in WA
Wednesday 15 April 2015 - Autumn Balloon Landing
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Hotair balloon "Questacon" overflew the CMAC field this morning at about 09:00, landing shortly after in the Callum Brae paddock just to the south of us. For safety reasons, model flying was suspended until after the recovery crew deflated the balloon and packed up. The operators kindly donated a bottle of sparkling wine to CMAC to compensate for the interruption. |
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Thursday 09 April 2015 - Tridge published in US newspaper "SD Times"
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While in the USA recently, Andrew Tridgell was interviewed by Software Development Times and was reported at length in their publication dated Thursday 09 April 2015. See the SD Times report at A look into the future of drones |
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Wednesday 01 April 2015 - CMAC Committee meets at Club House
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Tonight, for the first time in about three years, CMAC held its quarterly management committee meeting at the Symonston club house rather than at a member's home. With the outside temperature near 20C, and internal lighting powered by energy from CMAC's solar-charged storage battery setup, it proved quite a comfortable Autumn venue. Issues discussed included:
Minutes of the meeting will soon be published on the members-only CMAC News > Committee Reports page. Photo at right shows (from left to right) Committee Members Byam, Paul, Terry and Brett pausing from their deliberations. |
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Sunday 29 March 2015 - Rotary-wing Passion
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Paul Ukhoff joined CMAC last August after relocating from Darwin. Paul is a member of the Royal Australian Navy, with over 39 years service, most recently in Armidale-class Patrol Boats, on an eight-week at sea/four-week ashore cycle. Paul told us that "I started flying R/C heli's in late 2013 but was only able to fly for four weekends out of 12 due to being at sea for eight of those weekends. I would get quite comfortable by week four, then would have to spend the first couple of weekends relearning everything when I got back to Darwin after my eight week period on rotation." Photo at right shows Paul preparing his two current models - a Thunder Tiger Raptor 50 and a Raptor 90 - for flight at the CMAC field this morning. He says that he'd found the RealFlight 6.5 R/C Flight Sim program a great help in building up his R/C helicopter skills, particularly because it supports both of these Raptor models right out of the box. Post-retirement plans include the acquisition of a gas-turbine model helicopter, possibly powered by the JetCat HP5. That would be a real first at CMAC! |
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23-25 March 2015 - Andrew Tridgell presents Long-distance UAV Demo at Silicon Valley Conference
CMAC's Grant Morphett Reports ...
The gathering Tridge attended was called the DroneCode Conference (https://www.dronecode.org) and was held in parallel with the Embedded Linux Conference (http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/embedded-linux-conference).
It may seem a little odd to have two conferences at the same place and time but with so much overlapping subject matter it made sense.
It was the first year that the DroneCode Conference has been run as DroneCode itself is a relatively new organisation. ELC on the other hand has been running for a number of years and is the premier Linux conference for embedded Linux applications. These conferences are technical in nature so you mostly get the technical people working in the space - developers, electronics engineers etc and fewer project managers.
As for the demo, the Skywalker 2014 RC Plane's autopilot hardware was a prototype open hardware PXF Cape daughter board on an open hardware Beagle Bone Black (BBB) development board. The BBB is running Linux and ArduPilot (the software Tridge works on) is running on Linux. Jack Pittar was the pilot and could enable full manual control at any time. We had a 915MHz radio plugged into the BBB and that was communicating to a ground station that I was operating at CMAC. In parallel to that the BBB had a 3G modem which Tridge was connected through and he was also operating a ground station in San Jose, CA. Tridge also had a shell login to the BBB. The plane was configured for auto takeoff, fly 3 circuits and then an auto landing.
For demonstration purposes Tridge set the Linux kernel compiling on the BBB and I then threw the plane into the air at which point the autopilot detected it had been thrown, started the motor and ran the mission.
We had Darrell Burkey and Charles Wannop there as well who are both professional videographers/photographers and they used a professional-grade video camera to film everything at CMAC and stream that live via Skype to Tridge so the audience could see everything we were doing.
It was great fun. No commercial involvement or gain - just pure open source, open hardware and open skies.
Notes:
To see a copy of the video produced by Darrell and Charles - the one that was streamed live to the DroneCode Conference audience - click Flying Remotely at CMAC
Tridge delivered a similar talk to the Linux Conference in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2015. Click Flying with Linux to see a 45-minute video of his presentation, which includes a Trans-Tasman Skype session of the Skywalker flying remotely at CMAC.
CMAC congratulates Andrew on his appointment as founding chairman of the new Dronecode’s Technical Steering Committee.
Sunday 22 March 2015 - Plucka takes Gold
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At the annual ACTAA Scale Rally, held this year at the BMAC field in Mitchell, CMAC's Andrew Doré (aka Plucka) took out both top ARF Military and Best Flight with his scale P47-D "Jug" tail number 228878. We understand that he built up the winning model from the 0.60-sized Top Flite P-47 kit. Congratulations Andrew, especially for pulling off that 10 out of 10 landing despite an electric retract issue. Outstanding :o) Read more about it all in the CMAC Facebook Group column. |
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Friday 27 February 2015 - Taipan Challenge Event: April 2015
From Gowrie:
Hi CMAC folk,
Here is Update No. 3 for the Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge.
Cheers
Gowrie Waterhouse
For the full set of Taipan Challenge documents see Coming Events > Calendar
Sunday 22 February 2015 - Multicopter camera platforms
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Photos at right show Darrell Burkey pre-flighting then test flying his hexacopter at CMAC, with Greg Oakes as his observer. Darrell told CMAC: "The FPV hat is from the training course I did that John Fleming offers at FPV Australia. A friend and I recently did the course to obtain our CASA UAV operators license. We are both in the process of obtaining our CASA Operators Certificates for our businesses as well. "I’m also a member of the Canberra UAV team. You probably know Jack and Tridge quite well and know about the Outback Challenge etc. My role in the team is to provide photos and videos when needed. Regarding a recent flight of his octacopter at CMAC he reported: CMAC wishes Darrell a successful outcome for the CASA Operators Certificate course and every success with his challenging new business venture as ProUAV Australia. |
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Wednesday 18 February 2015 - SEEING DOUBLE ON THE HILL
Ray Murray reports:
Quite a few months ago I took twins Jeffrey and Duc Mai (or is it Duc and Jeffrey ?) out to Lake George to give them their first attempt at slope soaring. The only plane they had was their ‘Apprentice’ electric powered trainer.
Well with the motor turned off we launched the ‘Apprentice’ into the 20kph wind and away it sailed quite nicely. They were quite surprised (and so was their dad Lam!) that the model could keep flying with only the wind coming up the slope for lift. They were soon looping and rolling the ‘Apprentice’ and having a great time!
Now landing on top of the slope is no easy task on your first try, so we turned the motor on to help steady the model to a very controlled slow approach to the landing site. Success was ours and a pair of very happy boys wanted to do it all again and again!
They were hooked on slope soaring!
It is a very good way to reach people to fly, as the model will stay up as long as the wind blows, so you can have quite long flights and the model is always in front of the student and can be safely flown close enough for the student pilot to see the control surfaces actually working.
I took the boys out again some weeks later, this time with some more suitable aerobatic gliders, my ‘Solarium’, Tom Ruut’s foam ‘Fox’ and my 2chn glider for Lam to try his hand at radio controlled slope soaring. For a cheap foam glider the ‘Fox” has amazing performance, it is not electric powered, just a pure glider.
Well with better more aerobatic gliders a great time was had by all.
May the easterlies keep coming!!
Can you guess which is Duc and which is Jeffrey?
by Ray Murray
Wednesday 18 February 2015 - The Quest for Bronze
Ray also reports:
The pictures shows young Lawson Black with his instructor Ray Murray going through the manoeuvres for his Bronze Wings. This he did quite comfortably to the satisfaction of tester Terry Griffith. So now that he has his Bronze Wings he is quite keen to practice for his Gold Wings.
Lawson will be 13 on June 3rd and his dad Simon has bought him a ‘Super Sportster’ for his birthday (he has to wait till the big day before getting it!). The kit is not an A.R.F. but has to be built up and covered and all the necessary gear installed.
Lawson is quite keen to build, so I gave him a kit of a Top Flite ‘Elder’ to put together, this will be a challenge because the design is a semi scale ‘Bleriot’ type old pre WW1 aircraft, this also is not an A.R.F.
I believe his dad has bought a ‘Calmato’ and is in the process of recovering it. It will also have an updated radio system. Lawson is a very capable and smooth flyer and with the ‘Calmato’ and later on the ‘Super Sportster’ he will quite easily achieve Gild Wings standard.
He is very well supported by his father Simon and I am very sure all the Club members will follow his progress with interest.
by Ray Murray
Tuesday 03 February 2015 - Visit from Canberra Air Scouts (Cub) Group
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Paul McFawn reports: A group of CMAC members hosted the Canberra Air Scouts (Cub) group on Monday evening ( 2 Feb) at the field so they could learn about aero-modelling. We received the following from the Cub Leader Martine Pekarsky.
Just wanted to write and say THANKS A MILLION for your warm hospitality last night, it was a terrific evening. Here are some of the photos taken by one of our dads. Please feel free to use them on your Facebook page. I’m going to put them on our website too. We really appreciate all your help, I’ll be in touch about the glider building exercise but I would think that Monday 16th March from 6.45pm-7.00pm is the most likely time at this stage. Thank you!
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Monday 26 January 2015 - Taipan Challenge Event: April 2015
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Hi CMAC flyers Five or more people are currently assembling a Taipan for the Challenge. More still are getting other types going, and quite a few others are already flying. Here is Update No. 2 for the Taipan Beyond Gold Challenge. It covers important info about the Challenge, including the basic rules. Also attached is a smaller Call Card version of the manoeuvre schedule. Cheers For the full set of Taipan Challenge documents see Coming Events > Calendar
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Monday 05 January 2015 - CMAC completes transition to MAAA Member Register
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CMAC is now using the recently introduced on-line MAAA Member Register system
for direct affiliation of new members and for re-affiliation of existing members.
This is a web-based system developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional and ASP.NET 4.0 technology. Among the benefits of the new system are:
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