The 2024 Inundation

[Dave Hull]

The past couple of weeks have provided an overabundance of rain (and local snow). This last storm series really challenged the Los Angeles River control system. The San Fernando Valley Circle Burners home field is in the Sepulveda Flood Control Basin--we just call it The Basin. But when the downstream river (something less than 40 miles of it) can't take any more flow without overtopping the channel and wiping out neighborhoods, the water is held back in the Basin. The gates are set to limit the outflow to something like 16k cfm I believe. To do that during a heavy rain event, the normally dead dry, completely empty Basin begins to fill up. Our circles are in the 1% storm contour; said another way, a hundred-year event. We got our hundred-year event this past week. Of course, our previous one was only about 10 years ago….

Although the park was closed, and especially the Apollo XI Field, I got in on Friday to survey the situation. It was not good. Our circles are adjacent to Woodley Creek which overflowed. I think the water backing up behind the dam would have gotten us anyway. We had at least 4-5 feet of standing (flowing!) water over the top of the circles. It completely filled our storage shed. And it left between an 1/8" to 1/4" of very fine silt on top of everything.

One of the videos on the news showed a chopper rescuing a guy from the top of his car in the Basin--that may have been on Woodley Avenue next to the flying field?

I rescued some lawn equipment from the shed (need to flush, clean and try to restart the engine) on Friday, but today the club went out in force to start tackling the mud, now mostly dried to a state of impervious ceramic plate--until you break it up and get clouds of choking dust.... Believe it or not, it helped that a good part of the day it was blowing, with gusts in the 20-25mph range. About 8-10 guys cleared about a third of one circle (ok it might not have been that much, but felt like it!) We have a lot more to go, but are hoping for some help from the city with a water tanker with spray head. They were using that to try to clear the parking lot which is lower than our circle and had as much as 4-6" of silt in places. If they can get the bulk of it, we can spend the next few months trying to get the rest of the “fine lapping paste” out of the asphalt—and we’ll be back in business!

I want to thank all the guys who showed up and really worked hard!

[Dave Hull]

A couple more images after the work party got on it. Since we didn't have water available for a pressure washer--and there was too much silt to blast thru it with garden-hose-volume, we used a lot of square blade shovels. In some places the silt stuck to itself more than to the asphalt (a huge boon), but in most of the places it took a lot of effort to get the dried "ceramic" to separate from the surface. The large-wheel garden cart was critical. Dozens of loads were taken off the circles.

We even had one guy show up just because he heard the park was a mess. Not a club member; not a flyer. Just a guy willing to help clean up the mess. He had plenty of offers to teach him to fly before we finally packed up. New club members are where you find them, right?

[Dan McEntee]

   That is pretty much the same result at Buder Park after a big flood. The last two big floods were in 2015 and 2017. Buder is in a low lying area anyway and the Meramec runs right adjacent to it, and it's confluence with the Mississippi isn't too far away. Most "normal" flash flooding is usually a quick rise and then a rapid fall. The Meramec flood stage at Valley Park is 18ft or so. Water starts to get into the Eastern end of the park at 19 ft or so by coming up a small creek that feeds into the river. The R/C site gets covered first. The C/L sight is about 5 feet higher, and more often than not, the water creep stops, and the Parks Department just puts barricades up to close off the lower level and we can still fly. If the Mighty Mississippi is at normal levels it come up and goes down sometimes over night. I have been there before and watched the water come up and creep across the road and R/C parking lot, then stop, and start to recede almost right way as the river crested. If the Mississippi is high though, that keeps the Meramec level up longer. The problem these days is that in the areas up river in the Meramec, there are many, many more shopping centers, parking lots, wider roads, apartment and condo complexes, house roofs and drive ways, and water that used to percolate into the ground pretty quickly now runs off into the Meramec pretty quickly. The Meramec really snakes around 20 to 30 miles up stream with lots of hills. I have seen it rain just the right amount in just the right place up stream and not a drop in Valley Park and the river comes up to moderate flooding over night, then back down by the next evening. Under the worse case scenario like in 2015 , 2017 , and about 3 other times in my memory,  when the Mississippi is at major flood levels, and there is too much rain in central Missouri on already saturated soil, the water get to record levels where it can be 19 to  20 feet over the C/L circles, which was 44 ft, above flood stage in 2015 and slightly less in 2017. They have really changed the typography on the south side of I-44 that does not help at all, and about 15 or 20 years ago the city of Valley Park successfully talked the Corps of Engineers to built a levee on the south of the Meramec to protect it and minimize serious flood there. That just sends more water south as the river comes up with no where else to go. If it gets that high it can takes weeks or a month or more to get down to a level where they let us back in to the park. When the water gets that high it even gets across I-44. The speed circle cage acts like a sieve and the east and west sides of it clogs up with debris and has to be cleaned by hand. There is usually about the same amount of silt left on the paved areas and what you show in your pictures. The county will take a Bobcat and clean the roads by blading the silt off, but then let Mother Nature take care of the rest. They won't touch the rest of the paved areas like the circles or the R/C runways. Once we had a local guy volunteer to push the heavy stuff off with his Bobcat for us. Then it was snow shovels for the rest. We found a local guy that had a big water truck with a large 3" or so hose and pump that was like a fire hose and all he had to do was suck water out of the river, then sit in his truck while we took turns flushing the silt off. I tried a regular large, heavy duty power washer that had a high rate of pressure and it did the job but was slow and we had to beg the local fire department for water to fill the holding tank. The Parks Department would not even provide water for us. I think we are due for another "100 year event" and year now.  here is a link to the club web site and there are pictures posted in a section there of the last floods: https://lafayetteesquadrillecl.wordpress.com/   So, I can relate to what you guys are going through. Now the County is in dire financial straights and tripling our flying permit fees and charging outrageous rent to those that built the facility!! They say they are taking over all upkeep and maintenance so if a major flood hits again and covers the site. I'm just gonna call them every day after the water goes down and ask when I can fly my toy airplane again!!  Good luck with your clean up efforts.
   Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

[Paul Smith]

Rouge Park in Detroit is in the flood plain, too.
If it wasn't a flood plain it would not be a flying field or a golf course.
Thank God for floods, or else there would be even more high density housing projects.

[Dave_Trible]

That is largely why we have our field as well.  We are up against the Kansas River levy and the land can never be used for anything much.  However the last time the area flooded (I am told) was about 1955.  Since, they have built up the levy.  Interestingly they are digging a huge recreational lake on the east side of the field (the river is on the west side).  If the levy ever was topped I guess the lake and river would merge.
Sorry Dave to see your field like that.  It's good though you will still HAVE a field when cleared.  I have to think all this water out there will have a major good outcome with the drought and fill the reservoirs.  Bad side I know is it will fuel fire season.  My sis lives in LaQuinta/Palm Springs.   Not much around there to burn though.


Dave

[Brett Buck]

The past couple of weeks have provided an overabundance of rain (and local snow). This last storm series really challenged the Los Angeles River control system. The San Fernando Valley Circle Burners home field is in the Sepulveda Flood Control Basin--we just call it The Basin. But when the downstream river (something less than 40 miles of it) can't take any more flow without overtopping the channel and wiping out neighborhoods, the water is held back in the Basin. The gates are set to limit the outflow to something like 16k cfm I believe. To do that during a heavy rain event, the normally dead dry, completely empty Basin begins to fill up. Our circles are in the 1% storm contour; said another way, a hundred-year event. We got our hundred-year event this past week. Of course, our previous one was only about 10 years ago….

      We drove through the LA basin on Sunday night. It was never raining that hard when we were there,  but I noticed that it did it for 3 straight days! Once you get it chipped off, might want to find a pressure washer guy to clean it the rest of the way up.

    The old Napa site was in a flood control plane, and it would routinely flood  a few feet deep. We never had anything like that much silt on it. But the pits were Shareen Fanchers former living room carpet. Didn't do it any good!

   The new Napa site is a relative high point and about 30 feet above river level. Nonethless, there was a pond there the other day when we went to fly, about a foot right next to the fence to get from the entrance to the the circle.

     Brett

[Dan McEntee]

Rouge Park in Detroit is in the flood plain, too.
If it wasn't a flood plain it would not be a flying field or a golf course.
Thank God for floods, or else there would be even more high density housing projects.

   Controlling the country's rivers, or at least trying to, has been a subject of great debate going back to the Civil War. One of the oldest, if not the oldest bridge in the country still in regular use is here in St. Louis, the Eads Bridge. The designer, James Eads was a self taught engineer of great repute at that time. During the 1993 floods of the Mississippi, there was a great article in the local paper about a report he filed with the Corp of Engineers before or during the Civil War regarding their plan for a system of levees that they wanted to build all along the Mississippi to "control the river flood stages." He warned the Corps then of exactly what happened in 1993 and then again in 1994, almost to the foot of where a flood of that magnitude would go and what it would do. You simply can not control that much hydraulic pressure., and there has to be some where for the flood waters to go as nature had intended. If you block off those flood plains, it will only cause bigger problems elsewhere. I wish I had saved that article, as it was very interesting and insightful if you live in an area near a major river, or two or three, like we do here in St. Louis. As more and more prime real-estate is bought up, lesser desirable plots of land become more of a target and developers will do anything they can to get their hands on it and do anything to make it more desirable. I would like to have the money that has been passed under the table to grease the palms necessary to get some of these projects rolling!! Buder Park is a natural flood plain for the Meramec and more or less a catch basin for all the surrounding hills to dump their run off into. If you have been to Buder, you may have seen a small office complex on the north side of the river bridge just off I-44. That is maybe a 3 or 4 acre plot that they raised up to above the record flood level. I'm worried that our recent troubles with the Parks department might be an effort to push us out, and then work to sell off the Buder property. It's an idiotic idea once you consider the flood ramification IF you were able  to fill in Buder Park. But politics is OVER LOADED with idiots these days and most of those just have the ambition to get rich off the tax payer like the Clintons, Obamas, and now the Bidens. The Busch family wanted to put their soccer complex there years ago, when they had much more influence and political pull, and they were turned aside then.  A previous goofball County Executive wanted to sell off park land to feed the treasury but was stopped by an ordinance that requires a county wide referendum by the voters to approve any sale. The general public has a pretty short memory. If all these impending changes go through, I'll start doing a rain dance every day to try and conjur up another major flood to remind the county counsel of just what Mother Nature can do!!
  Type at you later,
   Dan McEntee

[John Carrodus]

Question
                 If hot house gases, sorry- global warming, sorry climate change, apologies - climate emergency - is the reason for increased weather events- according to the greenies...........

                     WHY AREN'T THE REST OF THE WORLD
                     SENDING THEIR CLEANUP BILLS TO
                     THE TWO OR THREE MAIN OFFENDER NATIONS
                     INSTEAD OF BILLIONS IN AID?

Just asking!

[Brett Buck]

Question
                 If hot house gases, sorry- global warming, sorry climate change, apologies - climate emergency - is the reason for increased weather events- according to the greenies...........

                     WHY AREN'T THE REST OF THE WORLD
                     SENDING THEIR CLEANUP BILLS TO
                     THE TWO OR THREE MAIN OFFENDER NATIONS
                     INSTEAD OF BILLIONS IN AID?

Just asking!

    Because it is not about climate change. It's about wealth redistribution. That's why *every single perceived problem" has exactly the same solution - reduction of Western standards of living to atone for our prior "sins" and to send the results of our fantastic success to those who have perpetually failed.

    In other words, a classic shakedown.

     Brett

p.s. I note that the Sepulveda Dam and associated flood control measures were installed in **1941** to control the floods of the time - long before any concern about global warming and long before even the craziest global warming loonies say the evidence was available.

[Dick Byron]

Bret,
      You have never been mor right in anything you have spoken. Thank you.

Dick Byron

[Brett Buck]

Bret,
      You have never been mor right in anything you have spoken. Thank you.

Dick Byron

  You're welcome! 

    In case anyone doubts my conclusion, here is a UN IPCC official in 2010:

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL):First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

and

Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.

NZZ Online interview (now deleted, mysteriously) November 2010


   I note that a similar note was struck in the actual UN IPCC report of the same era, I will let the intrepid dig through it themselves, I feel dirty enough having read what little I did tonight.

     Brett

[Dave Hull]

We are hoping the city will follow through on their scheduled job order to wash off the runway and the circles. Hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday. If we can get a lot of the baked on ceramic plate shoveled off first, the washing will be a lot more effective. As Dan said, it takes a lot of water and some serious pressure if the silt is thick, and especially if it has dried out. A drag mat behind a truck wouldn't cut thru it, but it did generate a lot of dust!

This is at least the third or fourth time in club memory (going back to about 1950) that we have been flooded out. Somewhere in the 1960's(?) it flooded and silted so bad that our circles were abandoned (never dug out) and more were put in a bit further from the dam. I have helped clean up twice now in the last 15 years or so. It was late and I was tired and I misspoke in my original post: in the current study for the new land-use master plan it shows we are within the 10-year contour. Most of the golf courses are as well. Virtually all of the USACE land falls within the 100-year contour.

It isn't surprising that a good number of our flying fields have only survived because the land is in the floodplain, and hopefully managed by the USACE. In the past year, we have gone thru a new planning cycle for the leased recreation land. That was pretty painful, but we were left mostly intact in the final draft. We are still waiting for the released plan. Our biggest opposition came from "urban wildernessers." They would prefer to see as much as possible of the land "rewilded."  That leads to some pretty surreal discussions.

What is amazing to me is how quickly the river system drains. The concrete channel that is the LA River downstream of this flood control basin was running only a foot or two below the lip of a square channel. That, in my view, is dangerously close to flooding neighborhoods. But it runs incredibly fast. I don't have a number but 25-30mph wouldn't surprise me. The wider sections of the river as it starts to go past downtown are more reasonable, with shallow trapizoid construction. With a few feet of freeboard, you can still take a huge amount more water.

Hopefully our club will get this cleaned up and get back to some flying soon. Thanks for the comments and support.

Dave Hull
President, Valley Circle Burners, AMA Club #4406

[Dan McEntee]

What is amazing to me is how quickly the river system drains. The concrete channel that is the LA River downstream of this flood control basin was running only a foot or two below the lip of a square channel. That, in my view, is dangerously close to flooding neighborhoods. But it runs incredibly fast. I don't have a number but 25-30mph wouldn't surprise me. The wider sections of the river as it starts to go past downtown are more reasonable, with shallow trapizoid construction. With a few feet of freeboard, you can still take a huge amount more water.

Hopefully our club will get this cleaned up and get back to some flying soon. Thanks for the comments and support.

Dave Hull
President, Valley Circle Burners, AMA Club #4406

      I have never seen the LA River system in person, just in movies and such, but I would guess that having it all paved is by design for the reasons you state. If you suddenly get huge amounts of rain, you want to get rid of it in a hurry!! I would hate to get caught in there in a flash flood. You would just be along for the ride!! We have something similar here. it's a "river" that is mainly for storm drainage in the City of St. Louis, called The River des Peres. It doesn't have any significant water in most of the time. It has sections that are paved, and some sections that are lined with stone, a project that was undertaken during the Great Depression as part of a CCC or WPA program. My Mom told me that her Dad or Grandfather worked on it. It runs for about 9 miles and is fed by several; large creeks, and as it approaches the heart of the city it goes under ground until it dumps into the Mississippi. There have been people that got into it one way or the other during a storm , discovered that they couldn't swim against the current, and were never seen again. Cars and such got into and were washed away. Too much Mother Nature and hydraulic pressure.
  Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

[Brett Buck]

      I have never seen the LA River system in person, just in movies and such, but I would guess that having it all paved is by design for the reasons you state. If you suddenly get huge amounts of rain, you want to get rid of it in a hurry!! I would hate to get caught in there in a flash flood. You would just be along for the ride!! We have something similar here. it's a "river" that is mainly for storm drainage in the City of St. Louis, called The River des Peres. It doesn't have any significant water in most of the time. It has sections that are paved, and some sections that are lined with stone, a project that was undertaken during the Great Depression as part of a CCC or WPA program. My Mom told me that her Dad or Grandfather worked on it. It runs for about 9 miles and is fed by several; large creeks, and as it approaches the heart of the city it goes under ground until it dumps into the Mississippi. There have been people that got into it one way or the other during a storm , discovered that they couldn't swim against the current, and were never seen again. Cars and such got into and were washed away. Too much Mother Nature and hydraulic pressure.
  Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

  One thing you might not fully appreciate about it is that the average slopes are very high compared to the midwest. It will rain X inches, and it will all run off in a hours, because on one side there are huge mountains (10,000 feet) and the other side is the ocean. Go north a few miles from 500 foot elevation Pasadena, and it's 8000 feet high.   The basin is like a funnel and there are just a few low spots like the LA river where it has to go. If it wasn't paved and there weren't basins to pool it, it would come pouring down the mountain and  take out some part of town in every rainstorm.  All the flood control projects are there to slow this down to something that they can handle.

 All the rain off the ocean gets dropped on the windward side (south and west) because of orographic effects. On the other side - deserts, including Death Valley. So just about every drop of water that comes onshore from all the way across the Pacific ends up falling into the basin. The "atmospheric river" (which is a silly name) is not just nothing, a low will drag hot moist air all the way from Hawaii in a stream, then it gets near the coast, comes over the very cold ocean currents coming down the coast from the gulf of Alaska, then ashore where it gets pushed up over the mountains. All that moisture in now cold air condenses, and it just rains and rains.

      Brett

 

[Howard Rush]

Oh.  Saw the title and thought Ted Fancher had a new plane.  Never mind.

[Dan McEntee]

  One thing you might not fully appreciate about it is that the average slopes are very high compared to the midwest. It will rain X inches, and it will all run off in a hours, because on one side there are huge mountains (10,000 feet) and the other side is the ocean. Go north a few miles from 500 foot elevation Pasadena, and it's 8000 feet high.   The basin is like a funnel and there are just a few low spots like the LA river where it has to go. If it wasn't paved and there weren't basins to pool it, it would come pouring down the mountain and  take out some part of town in every rainstorm.  All the flood control projects are there to slow this down to something that they can handle.

 All the rain off the ocean gets dropped on the windward side (south and west) because of orographic effects. On the other side - deserts, including Death Valley. So just about every drop of water that comes onshore from all the way across the Pacific ends up falling into the basin. The "atmospheric river" (which is a silly name) is not just nothing, a low will drag hot moist air all the way from Hawaii in a stream, then it gets near the coast, comes over the very cold ocean currents coming down the coast from the gulf of Alaska, then ashore where it gets pushed up over the mountains. All that moisture in now cold air condenses, and it just rains and rains.

      Brett

 

   Oh, I understand and appreciate the "gravity" of the situation, or the effects of it. Like a really big syringe plunger pushing down on everything. The first thing a plumber learns is that sh*t runs downhill. In my profession, I have installed miles of waste water drain lines from sumps that have to pump the water up to the ceiling of the building. Sometimes 40 feet, Once you make that turn to where it's going, you need to try for as much "drop" in the line as you can get away with in the specific situation. I tried to keep 90 elbows to a minimum. Once the line turns back down to the sewer, you are home free., but then you have to make sure everything is vented correctly. If you have enough volume of water coming down it can create a vacuum that sucks what ever is in the horizontal portion right along

   We had had the " atmospheric river" effect here a time or two. The last time was in 2022. I had just got to Oshkosh to work KidVenture. I woke the next morning to a picture my nephew texted me of some trash dumpster floating around the shopping center near my house! That system wasn't very wide, but it was really long and Mother Nature sort of pin pointed where the rain was going fall, and it was all in the general area of Lambert Field and that system ran the entire length of otself right over that spot!! Places out in St. Charles County and on the east side of the river never got a drop unless they were in line with it. Lots of highways surround the airport, and who know how many acres of the airport is paved runways, taxiways and ramps, and just one little old creek to handle all that run off. I forget how long it rained, almost 24 hours I think. It started just as I left home but I never looked at the weather reports. I called my wife and woke her up. She had no idea what was going on. The water from Cold Water Creek (famous for allegedly being contaminated with radio active waste from the manufacture of the plutonium for the Manhattan project in WW-2 that was stored at Lambert Field and other spots in the area ) had over flowed worse than it ever had. It runs about 1/2 mile behind my house. Lucky for me, the typography on the west side of that length of the creek is just low enough than the east side, that that is where the water went and flooded a major road (Lindbergh Blvd.) and closed off about a mile of it through Hazelwood and Florissant. Water got to about 100 yard of my house. About  1/2 mile to my north is a storage facility that I have a storage locker at, and I lucked out again.  Since it was built it had never flooded any of the units. This time it got about 3/4 of them. My locker was JUST high enough that the edge of the water got to it but only about an inch deep. I had everything in there at least a 12" off the floor, just in case, when I moved stuff in there!  I can't believe I got that lucky and may never be that lucky again!! We tend to get it all here in the Midwest, but I think you were originally from Arkansas so you probably have experienced some of this fun yourself. Believe it or not there are some people that blame our strange weather patterns on the Gateway Arch!! I know it does make one hell of a lightning rod!
  Type at you later,
   Dan McEntee

[Brett Buck]

   Oh, I understand and appreciate the "gravity" of the situation, or the effects of it. Like a really big syringe plunger pushing down on everything. Th

    My point was that those mountains are BIG and very imposing. Driving along the 210 by Pasadena, you look to the north, and to see the top, you have to look up at a 45 degree angle, and it's 4000 ish feet up. From near sea level to Denver in about 10 miles.  The entire LA area and inland empire has massive relief, all those faults running all over have pushed up huge mountain ranges.

    Brett

[Dave Hull]

Perhaps to add further nuance alongside Brett's comments, many of the mountain ranges surrounding the greater metropolitan area (and a couple that go thru it, separating it into pieces we have labeled as Valleys; eg. San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, etc.) are very young mountain ranges. Geologists say that younger ranges with the makeup of rock/dirt we have tend to shed material at a much higher rate than older mountains that have been worn down. Some of that is the steep incline, but also somehow the dirt is less amalgamated. This eroded material becomes the burden in a stream, creek or river. You can move an enormous amount of dirt and rock due to the high velocities.

One really interesting example is Mount San Jacinto. The peak is 10,834 feet or so (it changes with earthquakes) and a near vertical drop to the desert floor in Palm Springs at 476 feet. The horizontal distance ain't much! Maybe around 6 miles to the base of the tram. Along the north side of the mountain there is a pass called Whitewater. It is essentially a 1-2 mile wide dry river running between the San Gorgonio Mountain range and the San Jacinto mountain range. There are huge round boulders there, and every size/grade of gravel and sand. It all got there by rolling down the creeks and rivers during major rain events that seem infrequent based on human lifespan. So folks might assume these are in the "final" resting place. How could a 6' or 8' boulder ever move again? The same way it got 10 miles down river from the canyon it washed out of!

Closer to us, Mt. San Antonio is 10,064 feet and drops about 8,000 feet in 9 miles into the area above the city of Claremont. Again, some really huge rolling rocks have collected at the bottom.

The contrast with the Mississippi River for me was pretty stark. Here's a huge river that runs year round thru seemingly FLAT ground, as far as you can see! It is really wide, and has some current--maybe 3-5mph--so it looks ponderous and powerful. I found it silent and ominous. Not raging, but unrelenting. A totally different feel to me.

Gotta go shovel some more tomorrow. We have another storm coming this weekend. Maybe it will be strong enough to wash off some of the ceramic plate...? Sure hope so--I have a new airplane to fly!

[Dave Hull]

Oh.  Saw the title and thought Ted Fancher had a new plane.  Never mind.

Howard, I think he does. He was going new-school electric but since old habits die hard, he forgot and put an 8 oz. wide wedge uniflow on it. Even found a place to hook up the pickup to the flux-cutting device up front. And that resulted in Inundation....

[Brett Buck]

Perhaps to add further nuance alongside Brett's comments, many of the mountain ranges surrounding the greater metropolitan area (and a couple that go thru it, separating it into pieces we have labeled as Valleys; eg. San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, etc.) are very young mountain ranges. Geologists say that younger ranges with the makeup of rock/dirt we have tend to shed material at a much higher rate than older mountains that have been worn down. Some of that is the steep incline, but also somehow the dirt is less amalgamated.

     Old mountains (like the Appalachians, 270 million years old (long before the dinosaurs), worn flat once, then lifted again in the last 85 million years) have already had all the loose stuff run down hill, the San Gabriels (for example) are much newer and still rising, they still have the loose stuff and rapidly breaking down.

    Figure this, the altitude change from the headwaters of the Missouri/Mississippi river system to the ocean is about the same as from the San Gabriels to the ocean. Difference is the ~10000' drop happens in maybe 3000 miles for the Missouri and around 100 miles for the LA Basin. It's farm pond VS a fire hose.   Uncontrolled, a flash flood could come up in the LA river faster than you could run to the side of the channel, and used to, all the time. Even in the flat section where the 10 goes into the inland empire/basin, Beaumont, is 3000 feet, on a clear day you might be able to see the ocean from there.

      Brett

[Dan McEntee]

The contrast with the Mississippi River for me was pretty stark. Here's a huge river that runs year round thru seemingly FLAT ground, as far as you can see! It is really wide, and has some current--maybe 3-5mph--so it looks ponderous and powerful. I found it silent and ominous. Not raging, but unrelenting. A totally different feel to me.

Gotta go shovel some more tomorrow. We have another storm coming this weekend. Maybe it will be strong enough to wash off some of the ceramic plate...? Sure hope so--I have a new airplane to fly!

    The Mississippi has the reputation of being "la lazy river" in the songs and such. At normal levels, the current moves along pretty well. Today the level is at 8 ft and flow is at 174.00 kcfs. It's got all the pressure of the water behind it that just came past the the locks and dam near Alton. Even at normal levels, it's the irresistible force that will move just about any object. Think what it is at the 49 ft record flood levels??   There are 27 or 29 locks and dams on the upper Mississippi to help control the current and flooding. In a heavy rain up river in addition to a snow melt , think what that might be without the lock and dam systems? The Mississippi is probably at it's narrowest right in front of the Arch. Satellite pictures of the river front during the "93 Great Flood made it look like a stopper in a bottle!! There have been full scale airplanes, and helicopters crash into the river here, and never seen again. The same with boats and barges. Even the smaller rivers around here have bad reputations and seem nice and calm but they kill several people each year that don't take precautions. The Meramec, that flows by Buder Park, has taken a lot of people over the years. I read an article warning people about using these rivers for recreation, and a guy said he has seen the water look perfectly smooth on the surface, and then people just get sucked under. Then the water surface looks like it flows backwards for a while. it's not uncommon to find the body of a drowning victim miles down stream in a relatively short period of time. When it comes to water, anywhere, Mother Nature is a bitch !!!

   I don't know if they still teach geography is schools, but I remember learning about most of what Brett mentions, with the mountains and the run off from them, and the building of the the water control systems out there in my geography class in grade school. There were science classes along the way in grade and high school with lessons about it. It always has impressed me and when I hear of someone being caught and swept away even in a local creek during a storm, which happens all to often around here, I wonder if those people were ever taught to respect the power that fast moving water has behind it? It sure ain't like the attractions at the water park or Six Flags!

  Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

[bill bischoff]

Usually the simple mention of slip/trip/fall accidents is enough to get the property owner's attention. That tends to get things cleaned up quickly.

[Dave Hull]

Bill, a good suggestion but it hasn't worked. We have Grand Canyon cracks in the asphalt and had the park ranger out to look. He said he would write up a work order since anyone stepping in one would likely fall and maybe break bones. No progress on that front...and it's now two(?) years down the road.

We have mapped out the cracks in the 50-70' radius area, too. We lost one airplane into the Gulf of Lally. We got the plane back, but not sure if Jim ever found the landing gear that was torn off. Kitzes Canyon is a more dangerous hazard. It is right before our normal landing area. Kind of like getting in over that 50' obstacle on the approach end of the runway and setting her down. But come up short and you might drop the gear in--kind of like a ramp strike. Stan needed a new landing gear anyway. But he really didn't need to have the nose knocked off. Don't even get me started on the Bermuda Crackangle on the backside of the circle. You just shouldn't be anywhere near the ground over there. It should be obvious that if three big cracks envelop a portion of the groundtrack you oughten to stay out? In golf, my understanding is that a player should look at the course and the hole before you just pick a club and whack at the ball? On our field, you gotta look at the pavement and decide where you're taking off and where you are landing. Even stunt guys can learn how to whip to get back to the pit area, right?

Dave

[Brett Buck]

Even stunt guys can learn how to whip to get back to the pit area, right?

   Ask Dennis Nunes, David and I always give him grief if he comes up more than 3 feet short or long. He's getting there.

     Brett

[Dave Hull]

We call it "parking." Old guys don't like to walk very far to fetch somebodies plane....

We give more points for proper "parking" than any other maneuver during sport flying. Lots more clapping. Lots more comments and appreciation.

[Dan McEntee]

We call it "parking." Old guys don't like to walk very far to fetch somebodies plane....

We give more points for proper "parking" than any other maneuver during sport flying. Lots more clapping. Lots more comments and appreciation.

  We most certainly practice "parking" here!! Almost all of us have some sort of issue. I had a knee replaced last summer, and the two years or so prior to that I could not back peddle to effectively whip a model and park properly. Since the surgery and rehab, things are better but the other is on a short road to replacement also, but going to try and hold off on that as long as possible. Another guy just had a knee replacement the day after Christmas. Mark Hughes is a recovered stroke victim and has issues with hips and has had both knees worked for torn ligaments and such in the last several years. Now he is having some nerve issues in his lower back. Yes, proper parking is critical!!
  Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[Ken Culbertson]

  We most certainly practice "parking" here!! Almost al of us have some sort of issue.

This is so funny.  It is amazing that we can get more than 10 points landing at a contest after milking it on the verge of a stall for that extra quarter lap every flight in practice.

Ken

[Dave Hull]

Dan,

There is a pronounced difference in technique between a stunt guy whipping on landing and a racing guy. Racing guys whip while walking forward--not backing up. You could try that if it is better for balance and knees/hips. It is one of the hurdles that sport/stunt flyers have if they try racing. Get low, whip early (moving forward) and back off putting your arm into it only when the parking space is assured. I suppose for some stunt guys, they are so committed to holding the handle in the middle of the chest and squaring up their shoulders to the plane that the only movement left available to whip is to back up while turning. But if you can maintain altitude/attitude control with your arm extended out to the side, then walking forward works fine.

Something that, in my opinion, would help some stunt planes I see is to get rid of the noisy grinding sounds coming from the landing gear. Most of the time it is due to a loose fit of a plastic hub on the axle. Just bore it out and press in some K&S brass tubing! You go to all the trouble of having a smooth descent and gentle contact and then have the axles howl. That ain't a 40-pointer; or at least it is going to be harder for the judges to see it that way. The other thing is the "half lap roll." Those folks could add some friction to the system so that it doesn't roll forever. A fiber washer on the collar of the outboard wheel can help. Not so much friction that it is like slamming on the brakes, but enough so that the pilot doesn't get bored, forget to maintain tension and starts weaving around like it might turn into a ground loop at any minute. Judges don't like the suspense!

Ken--you got that right. We have a guy who fixated so much on parking that he lost the speed/altitude control part. That results in a lot of what we call "ploppage." The amount of ploppage you can get from a Pathfinder is amazing. Reminded me of the carrier plane drop test. Yes, the full scale fighters. They hoist them up with a crane some 15 feet or so and just drop them. GA-BOING! The solution for plop-n-drop is to just tell the guy you will walk to get it no matter where it is, so stop the ineffective whipping and glide the thing down with some speed! That cures the ploppage, but you gotta start learning the whipping all over again from scratch.

Right now with all the silt on our circles we may have to learn to hand-catch going upwind. (Well, maybe not. The combat guys get away with it, but...they're combat guys!)  This dirt is just like lapping compound and the wind is blowing it everywhere....

[Ken Culbertson]

  Racing guys whip while walking forward--not backing up.

I never realized that I was doing that.  My early years were dominated by piloting Rat,  Combat and some wind flying.  All require that form of whipping.  I guess it just carried over.  Thanks for the tip on the wheels.  I used to use a piece of soft tubing on the outboard wheel as a brake.  Stopped a couple of years ago but I have been bothered by the landing noise.  Never thought about the wheel hubs as the cause.  I will bush a set and give it a try.  I always thought it was the drum effect from the wings.

ken

[Dan McEntee]

Dan,

There is a pronounced difference in technique between a stunt guy whipping on landing and a racing guy. Racing guys whip while walking forward--not backing up. You could try that if it is better for balance and knees/hips. It is one of the hurdles that sport/stunt flyers have if they try racing. Get low, whip early (moving forward) and back off putting your arm into it only when the parking space is assured. I suppose for some stunt guys, they are so committed to holding the handle in the middle of the chest and squaring up their shoulders to the plane that the only movement left available to whip is to back up while turning. But if you can maintain altitude/attitude control with your arm extended out to the side, then walking forward works fine.

Something that, in my opinion, would help some stunt planes I see is to get rid of the noisy grinding sounds coming from the landing gear. Most of the time it is due to a loose fit of a plastic hub on the axle. Just bore it out and press in some K&S brass tubing! You go to all the trouble of having a smooth descent and gentle contact and then have the axles howl. That ain't a 40-pointer; or at least it is going to be harder for the judges to see it that way. The other thing is the "half lap roll." Those folks could add some friction to the system so that it doesn't roll forever. A fiber washer on the collar of the outboard wheel can help. Not so much friction that it is like slamming on the brakes, but enough so that the pilot doesn't get bored, forget to maintain tension and starts weaving around like it might turn into a ground loop at any minute. Judges don't like the suspense!

Ken--you got that right. We have a guy who fixated so much on parking that he lost the speed/altitude control part. That results in a lot of what we call "ploppage." The amount of ploppage you can get from a Pathfinder is amazing. Reminded me of the carrier plane drop test. Yes, the full scale fighters. They hoist them up with a crane some 15 feet or so and just drop them. GA-BOING! The solution for plop-n-drop is to just tell the guy you will walk to get it no matter where it is, so stop the ineffective whipping and glide the thing down with some speed! That cures the ploppage, but you gotta start learning the whipping all over again from scratch.

Right now with all the silt on our circles we may have to learn to hand-catch going upwind. (Well, maybe not. The combat guys get away with it, but...they're combat guys!)  This dirt is just like lapping compound and the wind is blowing it everywhere....

       Racing guys have to move out to the bigger circle at the center for pitting also, correct? That has to help some. I have read the term "towing" in place of whipping also , and I think that's a British or European term I think. Having to whip a stunt model for two laps if your engine quits right after the clover requires a lot of effort and is usually a combination of back peddling and doing it in a circle. A stunt model is more susceptible to wind when it is dead stick also. Back peddling is almost just a natural reflex action I think enforced by the ingrained knowledge that we need to keep the lines tight. I always time every flight, and pay attention to where the engine quits, so sometimes adding a few more drops of fuel brings it around the circle a bit more for a better touch down spot, and it doesn't need any help to get around. Usually having it quit right at the launch point or within the following 45 to 90 degrees of the circle will get you back to the launch point. If it is a little late in cutting out, some careful climbing and diving can bleed speed off. Sometime diving in for a hot wheel landing and then pinning it to the ground can you stopped in time. I've probably tried everything!! Pain and the desire to avoid it is a great motivator!

   I've bushed all my wheels since I was a kid and I learned how to cut tubing with a pocket knife by rolling back and forth on a table top. Even if the hole in the hub is 1/8". I always spend some time with any airplane I have working on how it rolls out. Tail wheels are important. If it's a wire tail skid, that is gonna make noise!! Plywood skids can be more quite but wear faster. Tricycle landing gear is the answer!!

    I do not like "ploppage" at all!! Certainly not on my better models but even on what I call foo foo airplanes, it's just embarrassing!! It does happen occasionally, sometimes due to circumstance beyond your control. It's hard on wheel with plastic hubs. The wheels that come with the ARF Nobler are a great example of cheap, crappy wheels that the hubs can break on, especially when there is too many ploppages abusing them!!Decent wheels are another item that is getting difficult to find easily these days also. I agree with you that sometimes you just need to cut your losses, make a decent landing and do some walking, but being 180 degrees across the circle too often won't win you many friends or offers too retrieve for you in the future!!

  It's warming up today for a bit of false spring so I'm off to participate in more practice in "parking" !!!!

 Type at you later,
   Dan McEntee

[Brett Buck]

Dan,

Something that, in my opinion, would help some stunt planes I see is to get rid of the noisy grinding sounds coming from the landing gear. Most of the time it is due to a loose fit of a plastic hub on the axle. Just bore it out and press in some K&S brass tubing!

    For the mains the plastic is usually OK (see below) unless you drill/ream it out oversize. For the tailwheel we usually bore it out to fit the smallest-diameter silicone tubing, which turns nicely on a 1/16 or 5/64 tail wheel strut.

You go to all the trouble of having a smooth descent and gentle contact and then have the axles howl. That ain't a 40-pointer; or at least it is going to be harder for the judges to see it that way. The other thing is the "half lap roll." Those folks could add some friction to the system so that it doesn't roll forever. A fiber washer on the collar of the outboard wheel can help. Not so much friction that it is like slamming on the brakes, but enough so that the pilot doesn't get bored, forget to maintain tension and starts weaving around like it might turn into a ground loop at any minute. Judges don't like the suspense!

    You want "brakes" made of slices of silicone fuel tubing, cut using a brass tube that closely fits the OD of the silicone. For the NATS, I usually slice them thick enough to put just a tiny preload , and put them on the side of the wheels toward the leadouts. It controls the buzzing if it is too loose, and also puts a bit of braking in, controlled by pulling it sideways. A bit of static drag also reduces the tendency to bounce by giving a bit of nose-down torque.

     Brett
   

[Dan McEntee]

  Got a few flights in today  with the Ringmaster and attempted the racers whipping technique. The right knee has gone far enough that it did not like it at all!! The main issue is a stunt model , even a Ringmaster, is so draggy that it slows down way too fast. I have this airplane on Spectrum line now and don't know how much that affects it, couldn't tell really. Every airplane will be different, but will experiment more as opportunities permit.
  Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[Brett Buck]

  Got a few flights in today  with the Ringmaster and attempted the racers whipping technique. The right knee has gone far enough that it did not like it at all!! The main issue is a stunt model , even a Ringmaster, is so draggy that it slows down way too fast. I have this airplane on Spectrum line now and don't know how much that affects it, couldn't tell really. Every airplane will be different, but will experiment more as opportunities permit.

   I think that is a function of the Spectra  drag, because a stock Ringmaster is about the most easy-to-whip common stunt airplane.

     Brett

[Al Ferraro]

The past couple of weeks have provided an overabundance of rain (and local snow). This last storm series really challenged the Los Angeles River control system.

  Just saw the weather report for your area and it looks like you are going to get hit with another round of wet weather.  I hope you guys have a better outcome.
Al

[Dave Hull]

Thanks, Al. We are hoping for the best. It started raining here this evening and doesn't look like it will stop until late tomorrow night. And then a short break and then heavier rain. As long as the intensity stays low enough, our flying site may not flood again. It is pretty rare that it does...but boy what a mess when it happens.

I think the snow level is going up to 7,000' for this series. That means that the snow lower down will likely all melt and compound the flow rates. There is quite a lot of it; we've lost a couple of hikers in the mountains in the past month. Almost lost a group of Belarussian tourists last week. They found them before dark and choppered them off one of the high ridges.

The way the San Fernando Valley is drained is interesting. There are parallel "creeks" that run north/south, dividing up the flatlands between the mountains into sections. Right next to our circles we have Woodley creek, which joins the LA River just a stones throw to the south. Woodley creek drains somewhere around 7 square miles--including Van Nuys airport, which is nearly all paved, the rest being streets, apartments and single-family homes. In other words, a tremendous amount of urban runoff. The "creek" is about 35' across at the top, and is trapezoidal. But the flow is choked by a weir before it joins the river.... That might not matter since the water backing up behind the dam may backflood before the creek overflows. No one knows because no one can observe during a major rain event. I suppose the smart thing to do would have been to get permission to overfly with a drone from outside the USACE land during the flooding. I know the consultant working on the hydrology for the city--I probably should have thought of this before.

The club spent all day yesterday shoveling. This time we tried wetting the ceramic plate down so it would come off the asphalt. That was much easier, but the pavement is not properly crowned, and so the wet mud had to be shoveled off. There wasn't enough water pressure to really blast it off, just enough to wet it down for shoveling and rinse off the shoveled areas. But we had to resort to transporting the chocolate pudding off the pavement by wheeled conveyance. The second picture shows the "elephant poops" from that mud-sucking effort.

The R/C guys were trying to use a small rented backhoe to trench around their runway to that they will have somewhere for the washed mud to go. We are trying to get a power sprayer (Briggs and Stratton) repaired for our next push.