Flying for Fun - 2004/05

D.B. Mathews
F l y i n g f o r F u n
909 N. Maize Rd., Townhouse 734, Wichita KS 67212
A PROBLEM DEFINED: In part of last
month’s column I discussed some
social/economic factors that lie beneath the
nationwide shortage of flying sites for
model airplanes. My thesis was essentially
that because of the exploding population of
the US, more and more utilization pressure
has been created for the diminishing
quantity of suitable land.
Not mentioned last month, but germane
to the subject, is the rapidly expanding
number of modelers who are flying RC. All
too often I read about flying clubs that have
become so large that they have crowded
their fields to the point where they have
closed themselves to new members. When
this happens, newer modelers must locate
and secure alternate flying sites. And then,
most tragically, there are also those who
have lost their sites to urban sprawl in all its
manifestations.
There is a constant pressure to secure
new flying venues for modelers’ use. This
month I’ll look at some of the solutions that
have been devised across the country and
some of my thoughts on the subject.
Solutions: First I have some advice that is
often repeated but worth another mention:
Don’t be a single, faint voice in the
wilderness; join organized modeling! Join
AMA and strongly encourage others to do
so.
Be a part of our only national voice with
enough size, expertise, experience, and
Free Flight modelers enjoy the Kansas Speedway’s unobstructed spaces. This location
could also be used for electric RC events. Phelps photo.
Kansas Speedway grandstand and paved portion of parking lot in background. On the
grass area modelers prepare for flight and retrieval. Jack Phelps photo.
resources to help us nationally and locally. If
you don’t understand the impact of lobbying
by large groups, political action committees,
and campaign contributions, you’re naive.
Join a local club for many of the same
reasons. If your city has multiple clubs,
see what can be done to form a council for
negotiating with local governments. A
large, well-organized group will certainly
be more likely to get some attention at a
city council meeting!
Public or Private? When CL flying
experienced its explosive growth spurt in the
late 1940s, many communities built circles in
parks for the fliers. As a consequence, most
CL facilities are found in parks or on other
public land, such as fairgrounds. This may
well have set a damaging precedent in that
some modelers expect such easily obtained
largesse from municipalities today.
Remember that we are no longer a large
group of returning war veterans!
RC fliers started out sharing facilities that
FFers originally found and used. As the sport
has grown, more and more elaborate
facilities have been developed. Initially most
sites were on public or industrial land.
However, we are slowly seeing a shift
toward RC flying sites on private property
that is purpose built and modeler owned.
This shift of site ownership is directly
connected to the advent of fliers with more
disposable income, or at least a willingness
to pay for a place to fly.
A beautiful privately owned and
maintained flying site is Pat Harkness’s Joe
Nall/Triple Tree facility in Woodruff, South
Carolina. I mentioned it a few months ago in
a column. This is a stupendous
flying/convention facility. It is for RC only.
Lost Hills in California is another
modeler-owned and -operated facility. A
group of FFers own and maintain this
exceptional FF venue, and they rent it to
groups who are looking for contest sites.
Although I have not seen it, my FF friends
tell me that Lost Hills is the sort of thing
about which they used to dream.
May 2004 97
98 MODEL AVIATION
Then, of course, there is a magnificent
privately owned model-event facility for all
modeling disciplines (except indoor) in
Central Indiana. I’m referring to AMA’s
National Flying Site in Muncie, Indiana.
After decades of begging others for locations
for major modeling meets and always feeling
like guests, AMA members now have a
terrific property. We have “grown up” and
now have a place to call home.
You may be thinking, “Those sorts of
places involve investing big money, and
modelers would never put any of their
investment dollars in a flying site.” Haven’t
many of you thought that the large returns
investors make owning raw land look
inviting?
I’ll bet more than a few of us have
invested in REITs (Real Estate Investment
Trusts) through brokers or wished we could
have gathered up a limited partnership to
buy land. So what is so different about
purchasing raw farmland and leasing it to
ourselves and other modelers for enough
money to pay the taxes and interest, thus
allowing ourselves to fly essentially free
from a field within our control while
waiting to reap a respectable profit in a few
years?
Shares would be issued in an LLC
(Limited Liability Corporation) and be
offered to members. If a stockholder wants
to withdraw, or even expire, these shares
could be purchased by present members or
sold to newcomers. Surely as simple as this
concept is, some are already using it. Write
and share with me, please.
The site I have used for the last 17 years
is a piece of grassland that 20 of us lease
from the owner, keep mowed, and carefully
control numbers to satisfy him. The farmer
could not have placed enough cattle on this
grass to generate as much income as we pay
him in rent, yet the rent is not high. We
collect enough money yearly to cover the
rent, mower upkeep, and liability insurance
for the landowner. This approach is well
within most modelers’ means, and I highly
recommended it.
Urban sprawl is about to crowd us out of
our “special place,” but we have found a
replacement farther out of the city. Some of
us wish we had purchased our site as a
limited partnership years ago by merely
adding to the annual dues. The value of that
little piece of land has increased to the point
where we could sell it now for a nice gain
and invest in property farther out, while
having profits to distribute.
Long before CL came along, those with
an interest in FF usually obtained permission
to fly on private farmland or occasionally on
grass-strip airports. Because of the large
spaces required to safely fly competition FF,
it is rare to find a public park large enough.
The exception is sport (rubber- and enginepowered)
FF designs that are set up to climb
in sharp turns and glide down quickly. FF is
generally flown on private property that is far
removed from the edges of most cities.
However, there are several exceptions.
FFers have used military facilities, ordnance
ranges, and buffer zones for many years. I
have attended contests at an abandoned Nike
missile site, in buffer zones, around nuclear
plants, on range land belonging to a state
agriculture farm, on undeveloped land
awaiting park development, on Bureau of
Land Management sites on floodplains, and
in areas around public works. Now the
hottest property for flying sites is capped
sanitary landfills.
The strangest FF site was a place in Fort
Worth, Texas, many years ago called
Pyramid Acres. It was a housing
development in which the streets, curbs and
guttering, underground utilities, and even
street signs had been erected, but not a single
house had been built because the developer
had gone broke. I’m sure that site no longer
exists, but have you ever retrieved a model
by driving down a street to an address such
as 12th and Plum? Great fun.
With ingenuity, persistence,
determination, and AMA’s help, there are
still many potential flying sites. A beautiful
example is that in the last several years the
Heart of America Free Flight Association has
been holding contests in the parking lot of
the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City,
Kansas.
Hardly a common venue, yet well suited
for this use, the area is large (consider how
many cars would be parked at an event that
thousands of people attend), paved, unused
except for racing (NASCAR, trucks, and
open wheel) a few weekends per year, and
essentially unobstructed by buildings or
trees.
Aren’t those FFers clever? Consider how
many other “super tracks” are scattered
across the country. One can only wonder
about parking lots for other large facilities
such as football and baseball stadiums. Has
anyone checked?
Sure they will charge rent, so pass it
through the entry fees; only a few modelers
are not going to be willing to pay their share
to use a top-notch facility (like golfers do).
Because of noise issues (except for
Electrics), I seriously doubt that this venue
would be available for RC or CL use, but
what a dynamite location for FF contests.
Hey you FFers! The precedent has been
set! Contact Ed Wiley, 2503 Atchinson Ave.,
Lawrence KS 66047; Tel.: (785) 842-1308,
for information about how his group went
about securing the use of the Kansas
Speedway.
As I was completing this month’s column,
by coincidence I learned about three cities in
which modelers are flying small electricpowered
RC models in parks that were
previously closed to internal-combustionpower
flying, with no complaints. Like it or
not, noise is our problem and electric power
is our answer.
Be proactive. Don’t wait for some
government agency or someone else to find
you a flying site; take care of it yourself. MA
Bill Schmidt has drawings for this El En Gone that he built. Olson
and Clark kitted it long ago. See April column.
Tommy Protheroe designed Veco Navajo kit. Has Wen-Mac first
edition. It’s covered in Polyspan and domestic tissue.