Just another day at Nauticus

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Our local r/c scale model boating club, the Elite Fleet, again was hosted by the Nauticus museum in Norfolk last Saturday. We do this once a month during the summer. We use the facilities Koy ponds out in front of the building to run our boats; and set up display tables on the buildings outside deck, where we show off our models and answer questions of the many visitors there.

The Elite Fleet is most appreciative of the Nauticus staff for their generous use of the facility and boundless enthusiasm and support. We've been doing this for about five years now. I want to also thank the local AM radio station, WNIS-790 -- and specifically Tony Macrini -- for passing the word about our events to the general public. Thanks, Tony! (Why this guy is has not gone 'national' is beyond me -- he's like a well read, articulate, libertarian Howard Stern, but funnier)

We set up our display area on the main-deck of the Nauticus facility. Three foot bridges lead from the deck to the street -- under these bridges are the Koy ponds we use to operate our r/c boats and submarines. The foot bridges are the perfect vantage point from which operators and Nauticus visitors alike can see and enjoy all the action in the water.

Kevin Rimrodt, on the left. My model boating buddy of some three decades, answering questions from interested Nauticus visitors.

Kevin showing off his very nice looking 1/144 BURK class model. Runs great: fast, and very maneuverable. He's my nemesis when we're on the water. My submerged submarine playing hide-and-seek with his destroyer; near collisions (and the occasional paint-swapping) the order of the day. Always a crowd pleaser.

Paul Holloway showing off his fast-boat model. Another scratch-builder, Paul is another old timer of the club.

The guy to the right is Darrell Pederson -- one of the most talented model builders I know. His big model of a government survey ship has many practical features and is a perfect teaching tool for those wanting to know what you can do with r/c gear and some ingenuity. Working capstones, boat davits, anchor windless, radar antenna, etc. This thing even deploys and recovers a small r/c work-boat! An amazing piece of work.

Darrell's beautiful work on display. Working with Paul Holloway, Darrell came up with a true piece of art. Inside and out!

Employing the plank-on-frame technique, Darrell and Paul built the hull old-school fashion. The amount of thought and care employed on the outside of the model was also lavished on the inside, as you can see here. Simply .... Wow!

Yours Truly once again finds himself banished to the far end of the display area. Go figure. Me and just a few of my r/c model submarines.

"touch my stuff with your greasy, booger-picking fingers again kid, and they'll never find the body!"

Dennis Allen scratch-built his 1/96 BURK class destroyer. Ever the gadgeteer, Dennis made his models propeller blades movable in pitch. Without changing shaft rotation he can go from all-ahead to all-back-emergency in a heart-beat. You have to see this thing come to a crash-stop to believe it!

Dennis is the club's resident crazy-man. A fearless model building, there is no engineering challenge he won't take on. Sometimes, just for spite!

The USS JACK is the only American combatant type submarine to employ concentrically running, counter-rotating propellers. Good idea, but practical problems with the real boats shaft seals resulted in the feature being dropped in favor of the more traditional single propeller.

Dennis' model is fast and very maneuverable. He also uses this big r/c model submarine as a camera platform.

Dennis Allen showing off his very neat 1/48 USS JACK r/c submarine. It employs a CO2 gas type ballast sub-system and two practical torpedo tubes.

Dennis outfitted his boat with two practical torpedo launchers. The launching mechanism is pure genius: a piston type impulse cylinder, powered by a compression spring, shoots a medium pressure slug of water into the breech end of the torpedo tube, pushing the gas type torpedo off its retaining-charging nipple and it speeds out the torpedo tube and on its way. Very, very slick piece of engineering.

Dennis Allen's magnificent scratch-built PT-boat. This monster is FAST! And the thing even launches M-80 sized depth charges. How do I know? Well, years ago -- when Mount Trashmore was still friendly to r/c model boaters -- this SOB bracketed my submerged and unaware/96 SKIPJACK with a brace of four, perfectly placed, depth-charges that, after sinking about one-foot, exploded with four 'pop-pop-pop-pop's', the shocks literally blowing my precious model submarine to the surface!

*******!

You can make out three of the six depth-charge launchers in this shot. Each launcher takes the form of a spring,depth-charge cradle, and a below-deck Nichrome-wire and clamp mechanism.

Loading a fire-cracker/depth-charge Dennis does this: Through the center of the spring goes the fuse of an M-80 size fire-cracker. The fuse is pushed down to compress the spring against the fuse side of the fire-cracker. On the inside of the hull, the end of the fuse is clamped tight and a Nichrome-wire is placed onto the fuse. When the command to launch is give, current is sent to the Nichrome-wire which sets the fuse to burning. The Fuse and fire-cracker, now free of the clamp, permits the compressed spring to push the weapon out and away from the side of the PT-boat. Dennis weighs the depth-charge so it will sink -- the fuse is wax coated so it won't be quenched once in the water.

[redboat219]

Wow! Where can i find more info about Mr. Allen's works particularly the 1/48 Jack?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Had our last outing at Nauticus this afternoon. Good time had by all.

http://youtu.be/bo9Mp9nuoB4

[redboat219]

Who's that hillbilly?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Me...............................

[satlite440]

wish I could have gone..no clubs near me...booo

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

wish I could have gone..no clubs near me...booo

It all starts with ONE GUY!

Be that guy.

M

[Von Hilde]

must have been a warm day or did you just spill your drink? Yuo must know those Carp, pee and procreate in that pond. dont swalow the water. M-80 K guns? Hmmmm...I smell cordite and vivid picture picture a hang fire malfunction. You may have seen the video of the guy that had the bottle rockets on his distroyer and they all salvoed unintentionally. Some never got out of the rack before detonation. Kool stuff, Maynard. Or as my Dad would say "Evidance of a misspent youth" Referring to my afliction for pyro while in the worlds largest Nuke Navy. He was a Col. in the Army at the time and I was a lowley E5 sailor

[redboat219]

Real men don't use anti-perspirants!


Look at those evil looking eyebrows!

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

must have been a warm day or did you just spill your drink? Yuo must know those Carp, pee and procreate in that pond. dont swalow the water. M-80 K guns? Hmmmm...I smell cordite and vivid picture picture a hang fire malfunction. You may have seen the video of the guy that had the bottle rockets on his distroyer and they all salvoed unintentionally. Some never got out of the rack before detonation. Kool stuff, Maynard. Or as my Dad would say "Evidance of a misspent youth" Referring to my afliction for pyro while in the worlds largest Nuke Navy. He was a Col. in the Army at the time and I was a lowley E5 sailor

I was fresh from deep-water salvage operations (to the crushing depth of three-feet, performed on knees and hands) recovering the borken off stern plane and horizontal stabilizer from my stepped upon 1/96 SKIPJACK.

.... don't ask!

NEVER talk, walk around a shallow pool, and drive a submerged submarine model at the same time!

I'm such a dumb-ass sometimes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway. Boat is fixed and I'm getting the fleet ready for our big show early next month.

Yeah, I saw that video -- what a scream! Don't be that guy, is the moral of that story.

M

[Von Hilde]

"Vessel was dammaged during the heavy search" is how it should be written in the report. Dont throw yerself under da buss. It woud be fun to make a premeditated video with the pyro coreographed and some creative edditing. With todays video equipment and technology put a shame on the old WWII movies of the Jap destroyer layin a smoke screen with outa scale fire and water and the poorly detailed models of the period. Where and when is this next outing? Being retired and all I may be able to get away from the rock for a weekend. At least drop by and give you a right hand salute, and spend the day pickin your brain and help keep the kids of the toys. Im ready to put together a diver module or two. I stopped eatin the cookies outa the cookie jar and have been tossing the money in the jar. Boy, I sure miss my cookies and milk

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

"Vessel was dammaged during the heavy search" is how it should be written in the report. Dont throw yerself under da buss. It woud be fun to make a premeditated video with the pyro coreographed and some creative edditing. With todays video equipment and technology put a shame on the old WWII movies of the Jap destroyer layin a smoke screen with outa scale fire and water and the poorly detailed models of the period. Where and when is this next outing? Being retired and all I may be able to get away from the rock for a weekend. At least drop by and give you a right hand salute, and spend the day pickin your brain and help keep the kids of the toys. Im ready to put together a diver module or two. I stopped eatin the cookies outa the cookie jar and have been tossing the money in the jar. Boy, I sure miss my cookies and milk

Von, it would be a blast to hook up with you for a meet. Last weekend was our last-of-the-year show at Nauticus. But, you're in luck -- first weekend of October (next month) is the two-day Fall Festival of Folklife at the Newport News City Park. A solid weekend of model boating with the Elite Fleet. Here's the dope on the event:

http://www.nngov.com/parks-and-recreation/fallfestivalgeneralinformationpage

As it's about fifty-miles from home-base we will be staying at a motel Friday and Saturday. But, if you want to stay the week, bring an air-mattress and you can camp out on our living room floor. I'll introduce you to the mad-lab. Mike Caswell will be there too.

M

[Von Hilde]

Von, it would be a blast to hook up with you for a meet. Last weekend was our last-of-the-year show at Nauticus. But, you're in luck -- first weekend of October (next month) is the two-day Fall Festival of Folklife at the Newport News City Park. A solid weekend of model boating with the Elite Fleet. Here's the dope on the event:

http://www.nngov.com/parks-and-recreation/fallfestivalgeneralinformationpage

As it's about fifty-miles from home-base we will be staying at a motel Friday and Saturday. But, if you want to stay the week, bring an air-mattress and you can camp out on our living room floor. I'll introduce you to the mad-lab. Mike Caswell will be there too.

M

thanks for the Info. Ill have to pass for this one due to commitments that weekend. When I do come, I could get a cot at Fort Story. Shouldnt be to far from your place. Ther may be a possibility out of one of my Daughter's conventions being in Va This Fall. In which case, I may be able to fenagle a way to get payed while Im there. She is the head of the American Needlepoint Guild and has a needlepoint accutriments business. I tag along on some of these conventions as chief cook and bottle washer, chauffeur,pilot and bodyguard. Actual tital is VP of production according to the CPA. Thats a first class ticket and new CRX Caddy at the terminal to get around.Kinda a toss up, Ya think? Picture me snoozin on a pallett of stankey seabags in a freezin cold C-130 and a box lunch from the galley. Balloney sandwitch with an apple and a 4 oz carton of OJ. Then I go bunk down with a bunch of crippled old retired guys, and wait in line for the head. Then eat at the mess for breakfast for a buck sixty nine. Continouls flowing cold milk fountains with piles of scrambled eggs sides of bacon, buckets of gritts.Dont forget my favorite, shredded carrots and rasin in salad dressing to see at night. Because when you eat breakfast there, it is still night, for awhile. Either way Ill get up there soon.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

thanks for the Info. Ill have to pass for this one due to commitments that weekend. When I do come, I could get a cot at Fort Story. Shouldnt be to far from your place. Ther may be a possibility out of one of my Daughter's conventions being in Va This Fall. In which case, I may be able to fenagle a way to get payed while Im there. She is the head of the American Needlepoint Guild and has a needlepoint accutriments business. I tag along on some of these conventions as chief cook and bottle washer, chauffeur,pilot and bodyguard. Actual tital is VP of production according to the CPA. Thats a first class ticket and new CRX Caddy at the terminal to get around.Kinda a toss up, Ya think? Picture me snoozin on a pallett of stankey seabags in a freezin cold C-130 and a box lunch from the galley. Balloney sandwitch with an apple and a 4 oz carton of OJ. Then I go bunk down with a bunch of crippled old retired guys, and wait in line for the head. Then eat at the mess for breakfast for a buck sixty nine. Continouls flowing cold milk fountains with piles of scrambled eggs sides of bacon, buckets of gritts.Dont forget my favorite, shredded carrots and rasin in salad dressing to see at night. Because when you eat breakfast there, it is still night, for awhile. Either way Ill get up there soon.

The local Navy Lodge at Little Creek is closer. Check it out. Anyway you make it (yeah, I caught a few MAT flights -- 141's and even the upper deck of a C-5 out of Guam and Hawaii), you have an open invite at base-camp Merriman.

Ah ... the things we do to keep a reasonable fraction of what we earn. Thank you IRS! ... thank you sir, may I have another?

M