Mise à jour:

02 janvier 2012

An Electric Day in Quebec
Une journée électrique au Québec

Louis Dionne
Septembre 1998 September

On August 22nd, the C2VM R/C club had its first electric meet. The meet was attended by people from the club but also from the MATS club, from Shawinigan and even from Quebec city which is two hours and a half away.

The format was quite informal but my goals were well achieved; 14 pilots showed up along with other visitors, the weather was great, we had a number of nice giveaways and everyone had fun. Great day indeed !

This was definitely not in the league of KRC or the Mid-America in term of size or attendance but definitely a very good start. Everyone had plenty of time to fly, talk and see what the others are doing. The event was held at the thermal site of the C2VM club which is a sod farm just outside Montreal in Ste-Julie. The sod farm has lots and lots of nice grass that is maintain by the farm employees. No gas powered airplane is allowed on site.  

Paul St-Arnauld made his third outing with his Super Sportster. This is a scratch built airplane and his 4 or 5th Super Sportster, but all the others were gas powered. This last Sportster has a very good power to weight ratio, came at the upper end of the recommended weight (for glow) and apparently behave as good as the others he built.

Jean Segers builds very light. The Mirage he built has been greatly modified with a lot lightness 'added'. I believe the weight is around 35oz. He made a flight of 17 min with plenty of aerobatics and impressed everyone. The Electrocrow also flies nicely. I missed the flights of the Sun Riser but I believe that there was a problem and the prop took off for a ride of its own.

Paul and I did an intermission demonstration with dual lunches of our DAW Me-163 slope soarers made of EPP thrown with half of his hi-start each. After that Paul test flew a variation of his Me-163 with 7 cells and a cheap can motor in a pusher configuration. It flew very well and I think we'll make a couple of WWII airplanes and have some AMA 704 Combat activity for the next year's meet with quickly made EPP airplanes and will chase each other's streamer without the fear of breaking an airplane.

Etienne and I also made a SPEED 400 pylon race simulation with his nice and light little racer and my old and battered Yellow Jeep. I really should finish the design and construction of the racer I wanted to build for quite a while; that Yellow Jeep is way too heavy with it's thick fiberglass fuselage, and 36" slope wing.

Denis Robillard had his trusty biplane. That is quite large for the Astro 05 used. It flew very well as I could see for myself. I have been building mostly small airplanes and recent meddling with the Super Sportster and this fairly large biplane are making me think seriously about building larger. I actually bought a HOB Extra 300L kit at the closing sale of Indy R/C during my last trip to Indiana. Denis added several nice details to his biplane, like the side door opens to change the pack and locking the door activate the receiver's circuit. Denis also showed us what a real flight demonstration was about with the use of a smoke fuse. The fuse was very effective and the airplane left a thick white trail behind while performing nice aerobatics.

During a break, I decided to test fly my just completed Katana. The Katana is an ARF kit with a very nice and light fiberglass fuselage that will be provided by Icare Sailplanes. The kit still has to improve on the documentation side but should be very good once the details are worked out. The first hand throw by Etienne was not of the Tom Hunt caliber. Barely any damage. Second and third throw showed a number of additional adjustments were needed. Nice little low wing scale motor glider. I hope to write an article on it once all the little quirks are resolved.

It was time for the day's drawing and everyone left with something from our sponsors. I did minimal preparation for this day since I was going through a lot already; new job, selling the US house, finding one here, the kids and new school (my wife says not to forget the mistress) and basically living in suitcases during the whole process. But still pretty much all manufacturers of electric related goods I contacted responded nicely and offered something. At the end of this you will find a list of the sponsors and I hope you will remember them the next time you want to buy things. Thanks again to our sponsors.

After everyone left, Denis and I stayed and we flew in the nice evening. I took out my edgy Hurricane and had a bit of time on Denis' biplane.

I took a number of pictures during the day and what follows is the pictorial representation of the day.

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