Executive Vice President
Contact
- Name: Mark Smith
- Title: Executive Vice President
- Email: [email protected]
- Address: 75 Largo Dr., Hot Springs Village, AR 71909
- Tel.: (913) 568-4347
Hi, folks! As you may have noticed, my wife Ruth and I moved to the beautiful state of Arkansas. We had been planning this move when she retired earlier this year. We were fortunate to sell our home in Shawnee, Kansas, and buy a three-year-old home in a retirement community in Hot Springs Village.
We left some great friends in Kansas, but we will be visiting often and are making new friends here in "The Village."
There is plenty of golf, boating, fishing, and yes — flying! The first check I wrote on my Arkansas bank was to the Hot Springs RC Club. We meet every Tuesday morning for breakfast and then head to the flying field.
I included a shot of my new club members at the field for your enjoyment because we all know the best part of this hobby is the friendship among modelers. These guys have really made me feel at home!
I have been enjoying this wonderful hobby for almost four decades and always said, "You can never have too many airplanes." Sprint moved us around the country and I never had any problems with broken planes, but this time the move was totally my responsibility.
It took me as long to pack my planes and workshop stuff as it did for Ruth to pack the entire house! I was really questioning my saying about too many airplanes.
My good flying bud Mark Dennis came to the rescue because he has experience shipping planes around the U.S. with his eBay sales and taught me how to go about packing. Wings are usually no problem since they will fit in closet packing boxes after you pad them, but the problem is those darn fuselages!
The trick is to keep things lightweight yet structurally strong. For those of you contemplating a move or shipping an airplane for any reason, I recommend building "coffins" for your fuselages. I had 30 models arrive with no damage!
How I built fuselage "coffins"
- Go to Lowe's, Home Depot, etc., where they sell refrigerators/freezers. Get the empty boxes and haul them home.
- Pull the staples and tape from the boxes and flatten them.
- Measure your fuselage to determine the dimensions of your "coffin" and use a heavy piece of metal to make the folds.
- Use 1-inch-thick blue Styrofoam (insulation foam). It cuts easily with a carpenter's knife. Cut braces around the fuselage, hot-glue them in place, and zip-tie your landing gear to the bottom of the box.
- Depending on the distance you need to travel, beef up the coffin with additional Styrofoam.
My little trailer is packed as tightly as possible. Ruth and I worked the Red Bull event in New York City in June. Although we didn't see much of the flying, we had a ball helping kids build and color airplanes.
We had five flight simulators going and were busy all day long. I think this will be a premier event for our brand.
That's it for this month. Keep in touch and don't forget to slather up!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
