Jet and Scale Nats postponed -- Paula Denysschen

URGENT NOTICE

As mentioned earlier regarding the problem with availability for Zwartkops the Nationals that were to be held over the weekend of 25^th to 28^th March has been postponed until further notice. As soon as a connection can be established with the airbase or alternative venue a date will be set for later in the year.

We apologize for the inconvenience but please understand that this was beyond our control.

SAMJA AND NASA COMMITTEE

Gliding Postals Feb. 2005 -- John Lightfoot

Results for Gliding Postals Feb 2005 (link to pdf)

More on servos from Louw Smit

Hi Claude

It was extremely gratifying to see the response provided by the team from Southern Hobbies. It would appear that here we have at least one hobby shop who seems to be prepared to stand up and be counted when the shit hits the fan. Hopefully more hobby shops will publically display this same empathy towards us 'mudllers'.

I would like to put a suggestion on the table in order to hopefully put this issue to bed. But allow me first to explain where I come from with my suggestion: I am currently busy building a new aerobatics kite for Josh, which is not only consuming a lot of time which I can ill afford, but certainly also a lot of financial and other resources. These resources include a set of five new 539 servos. Now, in view of this dilemma regarding the 539's, how do I go about keeping my effort and sanity intact? Do I take the chance of getting this new plane into the air, and hope and pray to the gods of aeromodel flying that the thing gets back to earth in one piece? I think not. And believe me, I am only one of probably very many out there who feel this way right now.

My suggestion would then be as follows: Firstly, JR, through their local distributor, will hopefully have enough gumption to stand up and admit that there was a problem on certain 539's, without admitting liability, of course. It is clear that one of the causes for reported 539 failures appear to be vibration-related, which suddenly mitigated against its use in choppers. And who is dumb enough to say that fixed-wing model aircraft are absolutely vibration-free? So vibration is an issue on fixed-wing craft as well. But hopefully the emphasis here is on 'WAS a problem' rather than 'still is a problem'. For JR & Co's sake, I sincerely hope that this is all past tense stuff.

Secondly, it is a fact that each servo has a number stamped on the casing, which means that the manufacturing batch/date can be traced by JR. What we then need, is for JR to say that batch 'XYZ' was suspect (which I am sure that they are aware of), and that any servo with this particular reference or batch number/s will be replaced, perhaps even irrespective of condition... Which then follows that if the 539's that I currently have, fall outside of the suspect batch/es, then I may be OK. If not, then they must be replaced with non-suspect stuff. Follow my drift? This exercise may (just) be slightly painful for JR, but take it for granted that it will not be anywhere nearly as painful as when a (hopefully not) fatality may occur that can be directly attributed to a (known?) suspect servo. And not to mention the pain of a modeler who has invested all his resources in a new kite, only to innocently see it being converted to matchwood instantly (twice in the case of one modeler that I know of...).

From experience I know that 'early' 539's have performed superbly to date, and it therefore follows that it should be possible again to have reliable units which can be used with confidence in future. But right now, we need JR & Co to stand up and state their case, and hopefully get this thing sorted out, one way or another.

Regards
Louw
PRF Cape Town

Feedback on servos -- Claude Mackrill

HI fellows got an e mail from Southern Hobbies Cape Town .......at least on shop that has a policy in place

Regards
Claude.....& I Quote
Claude,

The comments regarding faulty 539 servo's is noted with interest , and we have already expressed the concern from modelers to JK products .They have asked us to let them have the suspect servo's ASAP in order for this to be taken up with the factory.

Southern Hobbies policy is that we will replace any faulty equipment within a reasonable period of time after purchase and taking into account the specifics of the claim .In the case of servo's that have not been used and are found to be faulty , there is simply no question that we will replace them . Where servo failure is picked up during the first few flights , we will also replace the servo and claim it back from the suppliers . Where a servo is suspected of being the cause of a crash , we will return the servo to the supplier , who has in turn offered to supply a loan servo until the factory has had a chance to give it's report .

We have replaced three 539 servo's that were claimed to have been faulty and have returned them to JK Products .We received another one yesterday and apparently will receive another two today .

Although none of us at Southern Hobbies have personally experienced problems with 539 servo's , we are taking this matter seriously .We strongly recommend that thorough pre-flight testing is carried until we get clarity from JR on this matter.

If you have new unused 539's and you don't want to risk using the servo's we will gladly exchange them for another servo or something else.

Can I suggest that the emails regarding this issue are forwarded to JK products so they can also be kept in the loop .

We welcome any constructive criticism .We hope however that this will go some way in assuring you that we are not simply shrugging-off the issue as some may imply.

Regards
Rene and the friendly staff at Southern Hobbies

Jet Newsletter 24 Feb. 2005 -- Paula Denysschen

JET NEWSLETTER
24.02.05

NOTICE OF SA MASTERS AND NATIONALS

Due to some unforeseen circumstances a problem arose in confirming the use of Zwartkops Air Force Base. The present base commander has only been in charge of the base from the first week in February 2005. The acting commander that was there for December 2004 until Januaury 2005, as well as the outgoing commander passed the application backwards and forwards amongst themselves and neither was interested in filling out the necessary application forms to forward to AFB Waterkloof for approval. Our application was sent through in October last year. The new commander has indicated that he is not familiar with the procedures and that there is not enough time left to obtain permission from Waterkloof. To add to it all the officer commanding Waterkloof who is the one to give approval is also a new person in charge. So it seems we have to start all over again to build a relationship with the officials from the Museum.

SA MASTERS
The Masters will still take place on the same weekend that it was originally planned for. The only change will be the venue.

Saturday 5th March
Static judging will take place at X-Tream RC Academy followed by flying for F4C as well as Stand Off Scale. The Saturday evening braai will be held in the Lapa at X-Tream.
Sunday 6th March will be for flying of all the Jet classes this will take place at O.D.I.

NATIONALS 2005

The SA Nationals that was to be held from 25th to 28th of March will possibly be moved to a new venue. A few possibilities are being looked into and all will be notified in due course. A second option is to cancel the Nationals and re schedule it for a later date in the year once we know what is happening with Zwartkops.

Claude MacKrill asks a question about servos

Just a note from Cape Town............

It has come to my notice that the JR servo the 539 5 Kg servo has been giving some modellers problems.......now I wish to raise the point......A fellow modeller bought a new 9x ...'State of the art' outfit with the 539 servo system. Of the 5 servos that was supplied with this kit 2 failed during flight, as this is a beginner the hours of use that was clocked up was minimal....in the region of 7 X 10 min fights, luckily the servos were not on elevator or ailerons......but if they were exit one very pretty Ultra stick........the cost of around R1400.00 .....But what if this was a new pattern ship that u had just invested 40 or 50 hrs of building, the cost in time is enormous.....this begs some comment.......
After some asking around I found that there has been a few other modellers who have suffered the same with these servos,....Now I want to know if u know of anybody that has been using JR 539's & had failures please let me know.
I feel we always think that if a servo goes it's an isolated incident, & nothing ever gets done or said to the suppliers or the manufactures, because it was just me.............the manufactures will tell u that they have supplied 10000 of the units and only had trouble with a few, but how come 2 in one kit?.........
But it seems as if it is the latest batch of servos that seem to be problematic...as I have been flying with some 539's & have clocked up some serious time on these units without ant problems, but (hearsay) since they moved the factory to another location there have been more failures (hearsay).....any truth in the matter...I wonder.....please let me know......
Now if we find that ENOUGH OF THESE UNITS have been proven to be faulty, I don't think a mere replacement of these servos is enough, I feel that if the servo's were the cause of a crash the manufactories should compensate the modellers....i.e. pay for all the damages......what do u think.....if we keep in contact with each other we would be able to correlate all this information & not let these manufactures get away with just replacing a servo, we the modellers need to stand together & force their hand after all it's us that keep them very comfortable............
PS if u know of any other equipment that u think needs a mention, let me know & I will send a memo such as this around & we can then see how bad the problem is........We have to stand up for our rights.

A year or 2 ago Kurt my son had the misfortune of crashing a new ARF that he had just bought from Southern Hobbies ...it was a structural failure. Rene the owner of Southern hobbies on his own bat replaced the aircraft free of charge & without any argument, he then took up the issue with Smitties in Vaalie-land, who then replaced Rene's kit, this just goes to show that many of our hobby dealers are not out there just to Rake in the cash but do look after us meddlers, so don't be to hard on the dealers just make sure that they take up your cause with the suppliers.....Three cheers to Rene of Southern Hobbies
Regards to all

Claude MacKrill Cape Town

2005 Art Adamisin Cup -- by Keith Renecle

The 2005 Art Adamisin Cup this is a 400K pdf.