District III
Wally’s Squadron 16th Annual Fly-In
CD Buck Hamrick provided this report on Wally’s Squadron 16th Annual Fly-In.
The skies over Phillips Run Road in Summersville, West Virginia, started filling up with the sights and sounds of model aviation a week before the event. What started out as a local picnic has turned into one of District III’s biggest and best events. One hundred and six pilots from seven states came to fly, eat, visit with friends, and have a great time.
Participating states:
- West Virginia
- Ohio
- Virginia
- Pennsylvania
- North Carolina
- Tennessee
- Florida
The event is free to all who attend—pilots and spectators. Free food is served on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, local Boy Scout Troop 107 of Summersville served the pilots and their families dinner; many thanks go out to them for a job well done. All of the pilots responded with generous donations to the Scouts for their work.
Thanks to our hobby shop sponsors and the community of Summersville, we had more than $1,000 worth of RC-related door prizes to give to the registered pilots. Hobby shops included:
- Apex Hobbies and Apex Hobbies II (Tazewell, VA and Princeton, WV)
- Toads RC Hobbies (Ripley, WV)
- J&C Hobbies (Pittsburgh, PA)
- T&K Hobbies (Daniels, WV)
Two raffles were held to help raise money to hold the event:
- A Hangar 9 RTF P-51 donated by Toads Hobbies
- A large stainless-steel gas grill
There were several hundred aircraft ranging from mini electrics to a 40% gasser, plus helicopters, a couple of turbine jets, and even a witch on a broom.
Next year we hope to be bigger and better and just as fun and relaxing as always. We will have slot times every hour for helicopter fliers so they can fly close without the fixed-wing guys buzzing them, and the fixed-wing pilots won’t have to watch for 3-foot blades coming at them. We are making plans to have a helicopter seminar by Jeff Sumey of Uniontown, Pennsylvania.
The 17th annual event will be August 16–17, 2008. We look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones.
For more information about Wally’s Squadron, visit www.wallys-squadron.com.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
