District III Report - 2009/10
Scholarships
While attending the Free Flight Nats, we had the pleasure of surprising Kyle Jones of Avon Lake, Ohio, with several AMA scholarships.
The total scholarship amount of $13,900 was generated from the Charles Hampson Grant, the Toledo Weak Signals Grant, and the Telford Grant. Kyle will be studying biomedical engineering at Boston University.
Kyle’s father, Charles, was a bronze medal winner in the recent Free Flight World Championship in Croatia. Congratulations to the Jones family.
The Academy is extremely proud of your accomplishments.
Buddy Box Day — Wing Nutz RC Club (St. Marys, West Virginia)
The Wing Nutz RC Club of St. Marys, West Virginia, held its annual Buddy Box Day on Saturday, May 30, 2009. Because of several schedule conflicts, turnout was lower than expected, with one notable exception: the Civil Air Patrol. The group arrived in a van with five young cadets and three senior leaders eager to fly.
After a brief ground school, club members began buddy-boxing the cadets — to the club members’ surprise, the cadets were very good. They picked up flying quickly. After talking with their leaders, it was easy to understand why they took to RC flying: they had extensive aviation training and already understood why and how an airplane flies. Several senior leaders also took turns flying; two were full-scale pilots.
A friendly competition between the cadets and their leaders followed — the cadets won. A couple of the cadets even landed the trainers on their own; with a little more time they could have easily soloed.
If your club has never contacted the Civil Air Patrol about buddy-boxing, I highly advise you to give them a call. They already understand flying, are extremely disciplined, listen to instructions, and frequently respond with "yes, sir" and "no, sir" — not something you hear much in society these days. Give them a call; you will be glad you did.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
