AMA News Flying Site Assistance - 2009/02
A Sister Club Approach
Assisting and working with Dave Jones to get a flying field, I found him to be a persistent, determined, dedicated, and persuasive individual. Dave is a member of the Valkyries of Manatee Club in Florida.
Dave expressed an interesting idea about clubs cooperating in times of need that I would like to share. He suggests promoting interclub cooperation by forming "sister clubs"—clubs within 30 to 40 miles of one another—that work together to promote model aviation to local governments such as city councils and county commissioners.
If a model club is facing the loss of its flying site, all sister clubs within the 30–40 mile radius should pull together as one to help that club retain its flying site or to help find a new one.
One way to do this is to have members of the sister clubs attend city council and county commissioners’ meetings in the county of the club facing site loss. The group can appoint a spokesperson to present to the officials about the positive merits of having and retaining a model flying field in their community.
Most RC clubs are small—50 to 60 members—but if four clubs of 50 members each attend a city council or county commissioners’ meeting, that’s 200 people. If members bring spouses and children, the numbers increase dramatically.
There is only one thing that all politicians understand, regardless of political affiliation, and that’s numbers. Numbers are what got politicians elected and are what will help get them reelected. It doesn’t matter if the sister club is not in the same county as the club being helped; politicians will not be aware of where you live—they will see you as a number, and numbers are what concern them.
I would bet all of my models—and I have a lot of models—that if 200 or more RC model club members walked into a city council or county commissioners’ meeting, it would get their attention.
You might ask, "Why should I help another club? After all, our club has a great flying site." That may be true today, but what about a year from now or 10 years from now? We had our club flying site for 37 years and have now lost it; we are having a hard time convincing county commissioners to help us get a new site. Someday your club may find itself in the same situation and would welcome the sister-club approach for help and support.
Landfills Make Ideal Flying Sites
Waste Management, Inc. is the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the company’s network includes 413 collection operations, 370 transfer stations, 283 active landfill disposal sites, and 17 waste-to-energy plants. These assets enable Waste Management to offer a full range of environmental services to 21 million residential, industrial, municipal, and commercial customers.
Waste Management operates the largest network of landfills in its industry, with its 283 active sites managing the disposal of more than 125 million tons of waste per year.
Closed landfills have proven to serve ideally as model flying sites. They are well accepted by local communities and provide natural policing and relief to surrounding property owners when maintained and disciplined by modelers.
AMA has a partner-type relationship with Waste Management and a set procedure to apply for permission to use a Waste Management landfill when appropriate.
Finding a Waste Management Landfill Site and Applying for Its Use
- Visit www.wmdisposal.com.
- Click "Facility Directory."
- Click the applicable state on the map that lists Waste Management sites.
- Choose and visit the site of interest to be sure it is appropriate for a model field.
- As the contact person, submit a request to Joe Beshar to coordinate with Waste Management for permission to use the site.
Flying Site Assistance
Scene at the flying field: You can have confidence in your battery condition at the field before flying. The CellMeter-8 is like a gas gauge; it measures the level of charge remaining in your Li-Poly battery. An LCD screen shows the individual voltage of each cell in the pack at a glance as well as the state of balance. A second screen shows the number of cells, pack voltage, and percentage of charge. The CellMeter-8 is by Hobby Lobby International.
Write to me and share what you have seen at the flying field.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
