District II - 2006/12
The AMA Executive Council and AMA staff have been working together for the last several months on ideas to help promote model aviation to the general public as a recreational, family-oriented activity. These new programs, which we hope to launch at the beginning of 2007, will mostly involve partnering with our members and clubs to accomplish our goal.
The focus of much of what we're trying to accomplish is to simply promote model aviation in our local communities. The obvious link to those communities is you. While we intend to provide some incentive for our members and clubs to participate, we hope that you will want to become involved as a way to increase awareness among our friends and neighbors of the hobby and sport we all enjoy.
Virtually all of our associate vice presidents (AVPs) in District II are active in their areas, attending events. Space restrictions don't allow reports on every one of these events to appear in this column.
During the next several months I'll try to run a couple of pictures in each column that our AVPs send me. These pictures were sent by AVP Ernie Nikodem and were taken at the Flying Knights Scale Rally in Hamburg, New York, on August 5 and 6.
Fort Ontario R/C Fly-in — Tim Pease report
Tim Pease reported on a new event his club hosted earlier this year.
The Hawks R/C Junior Aviators and Oswego Valley Modelaires, in cooperation with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Central Region, hosted the first Fort Ontario R/C Fly-in on July 30, 2006. The fort sits atop a grassy bluff at the mouth of the Oswego River with nothing between it and Canada but air.
The required permit was signed four weeks before the event, so there wasn't much time to plan, and there was no way we could have put on a four-hour air show with only our small club. We wanted as many pilots as we could get to fill those four hours to entertain the public. We sent out numerous emails and flyers to all the Central New York clubs requesting pilots. What we found was that many pilots wanted to come but were already committed to other events.
It was starting to look as though the first Fort Ontario R/C Fly-in was going to be on the thin side until Pat Moschiano and members of the Finger Lakes Air Pirates (FLAPS), along with Dave Playfair and several pilots from the Rochester Aero Modelers Society (RAMS), stepped in to bail us out.
We had a flight line full of aircraft and the air was busy with many different types of models to wow the spectators. The people expressed their approval with rounds of applause after many flights.
The top four crowd pleasers, in no particular order, were:
- An Aeromaster with smoke.
- A World War II reenactment with military aircraft.
- Dave Playfair's helicopter flying.
- The flying lawnmower — from the gasps of the spectators, I don't believe most of them had the slightest idea the mower was going to actually fly.
The Hawks R/C Junior Aviators, a group of modelers dedicated to teaching R/C flight to local youth, brought the program's LT-40 trainers. The trainers with buddy boxes were in use the entire time, taking youngsters up to fly on this absolutely beautiful day.
We want to thank Pat and the rest of the Finger Lakes Air Pirates for their support during the fly-in. The RAMS members—well, what can you say about them? They made the show. We can't thank you enough. Word through the grapevine from the RAMS club is: "Just wait until next year."
Fred Ashby of the Hawks took hundreds of photos of the event and of this awesome location; they are posted at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fred082869/my_photos. Thanks also to the Fort Ontario employees who provided us with the huge tents, barriers, and electricity.
The employees have expressed that they would like us to come back next year during Harborfest and mentioned that we could use the facilities more often if we wished—and we do!
We're already planning an R/C youth day in the spring.
See you next time.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
