On Tuesday October 13, 2015 Arvada Associated Modelers visited Legacy High School. Pat Vachon, Dewey Louderback, and Ted Hughes met with teacher Al Godman’s aeronautics class and talked to the young ladies and men in his class about our club and the RC hobby. At the end of the class everyone went outside and we flew some airplanes. One student brought and flew his Stryker.
The Fall 2015 float fly at Standley Lake was a bit chilly, but still fun. The club-sponsored float fly raised about $300 for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation that raises money for childhood cancer research.
Photos by Lee Jay Fingersh. More photos here.
The Warbirds Over the Rockies 2015 event was superb as always. We had great weather and great flying although there were still a few mishaps unfortunately. Here are some of the highlights:
Images by Lee Jay Fingersh. More images here.
The spring float fly at Standley Lake. The weather was beautiful and we had a great event! The club-sponsored float fly raised nearly $500 for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation that raises money for childhood cancer research. Thanks to the 33 pilots with dozens of aircraft of various sizes and types, the many spectators, and the Standley Lake Park staff and rangers who helped with the event.
Photographs by Lee Jay Fingersh. More pictures here.
On Monday February 9, a group from Colorado University’s Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles, which is part of CU Boulder’s Aerospace Engineering Sciences department test flew a RC Pilatus. They plan to take the plane to Alaska to do an artic environmental survey and had concerns about carburetor freezing in the cold so they had converted it from gas to electric. They flew several laps, then flew a preprogramed pattern on auto-pilot, and had a smooth landing for a successful test flight.
James Mack is the pilot and an AAM member; Doug Weibel is a graduate research assistant; Tevis Nichols is a graduate research assistant; Gijs de Boer is with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences which is a joint institute between NOAA and CU; and Brian Argrow is a professor at Aerospace Engineering Sciences.
February 5th 2015, the Arvada Associated Modelers Club attended Legacy High School; in particular Mr. Godman’s aviation class. The class was made up of approximately 15 high school boys who are interested in aviation. On display we had numerous foam fixed-wing aircraft, a gyro copter, a quad-copter and a large scale aerobatics 28 lb. airplane. In addition Joe Falconer brought his hexacopter with a 3 axis gimbal and live feed camera.
ed started us off talking about the club and promoting our flight instruction. The class gathered around the large scale aircraft that Ted brought. The students asked relevant and thoughtful questions about Ted’s aircraft. We discussed how the plane works, the amount of electronics on board and approximate costs. He tied it into AAM’s training program and the students seemed very interested. Pat then talked about his aircraft and showed the functionality of his foam aircraft. There were a lot of questions for Pat about how much his aircraft cost and how hard it was to fly. Dewey then told everyone about his scratch built gyro-copter and explained how stable the design was. Finally Joe explained his hexacopter and how the 3 axis gimbal works along with an explanation of the future of UAS. A lot of questions revolved around cost.
Once we were done with the conversation portion of the demo we went to the gymnasium to demonstrate the capabilities of the multi-rotors. Pat went first and showed how stable his multi-rotor was indoors. Apparently if you can get the quad to use your head as a reference point it will follow you around as you walk. The students seemed to enjoy the demo that Pat gave. Joe was next to fly his hexacopter. He explained how he needed to calibrate the compass then gave a student a remote to control the camera. He also brought FPV equipment so the video signal was transmitted to a monitor the students could see. In addition Joe brought a pair of FatShark FPV goggles and the students took turns looking through the goggles.
The flight portion was uneventful and the students seemed to be enjoying themselves. Multiple people asked about the flight instruction that AAM offers. We expect we will see some of them at the field in the near future.
