Flying Site Assistance
Finding—Preserving—Maintaining
Flying site priorities: First and foremost, it is necessary to establish the club flying site. This is the highest priority. The heartbeat of model aviation is the flying site and without it there is no aeromodeling and probably no club. So after sweat and persistence, hopefully a flying site is secured. Next comes the keynote—safety and training.
Last October I attended the AMA District II Fly-In, hosted by the Syracuse Thunderbirds Aero Radio Society (STARS) in Syracuse, New York. During my stay I was escorted by president Fran Worth, who briefed me about the club’s method of operation. He reviewed their field operation and the training manual against which the club operated. I was impressed with the completeness of the manual. Fran advised that the basic manual was established in 1990 and since has served as the bible of training. During these years of practice, revisions were made for improvement as experience dictated by Michael Graham, club editor. The STARS manual has been made available among the other training manuals on file with the AMA Education Department.
Aeromodeling is a fancy handle for something. It sounds juicy and it sticks to the wall. But what is it? Lexicography to the rescue — let’s snap this buzzword in half, perform an autopsy on its nose and rear end, and then paste it back together. By following these simple steps, we’ll all wind up singing from the same hymnal.
Aero: There are 74 words in Webster’s 20th Century Unabridged Dictionary beginning with the prefix “aero.” It simply means gases—more particularly, the air we breathe. But this unto itself is a vapid definition. Let’s hang four strands of tinsel on this prefix to give it some pizzazz and context.
- Aerodynamics: The science relating to the effects of air in motion.
- Aeronautics: The science or art of making flying aircraft.
- Aeroplane: An aircraft that is kept aloft by the aerodynamic forces upon its wings.
- Aerostat: A lighter-than-air craft: a dirigible, blimp, balloon (gas bag).
These four words should put us all in the same ballpark. Now, let’s sink our teeth into the word “modeling.”
Model: Do not envision the stereotypical individual showing off new gadgets or the latest fashion in clothes. Think of something far more noble, as in the following:
- Anything of a particular form, shape, size, quality, construction, etc., intended for imitation.
- An imitation or copy in miniature of something made or already existing in a larger scale.
Summary statement: Where Webster’s offers 2,129 pages of word definitions in this truly humongous tome, it is disturbing to note it has cheated us out of two word definitions—humongous and aeromodeling. We’ll let them stew over the first word; but we’ll define the second one for them.
Aeromodeling:
- A hobby and form of recreation whereby an object suitable for flight is designed and can be built for display or for actual flight.
- An often addictive form of leisure activity capable of inducing moments of unspeakable great joy, euphoric seizures, heartbreak, or financial ruination.
The Forever Field
Let’s talk a little about the forever field. Of course, there is no such thing, but let’s try to have at least a longevity field. Just how do we go about doing that? Almost every community has 50 acres, more or less, of nonusable land—swamps, lakes, parks, pristine areas, and of course farmland. These are all perfect flyover lands. A takeoff spot beside one of these areas is perfect for our purposes. After all, we only fly over these areas and if the occasion arises that we do have a rare set down in the area, we certainly won’t hurt anything retrieving our aircraft.
As a matter of fact, we could be guardians of these areas. Some can and should consider us as prime environmentalists. We are guardians of our environment and everything in it. We would never do anything to hurt our environment. We would also act as fire watchers. If smoke or anything out of the ordinary starts to happen, we would be on hand to report such things to the proper authorities. We are really an asset to our community and they don’t know it unless we tell them. Whatever animals live there we will do our very best to coexist with. Give us a job of watching over your lands and we guarantee you will like the results.
What farmer wouldn’t like an extra couple of hundred dollars each month? All he has to do is contribute a 100 x 500-foot area for takeoffs and landings. Sure, we would fly over his crops but we would never hurt them in any way. What a bonus to his pocketbook, and again, we would guard his precious land with our presence.
These are all win-win situations for us as well as the owner and the environment.
To those who want or are interested in studying our science, again, we are available. At the last fun-fly, we had an observer come over and readily admit that up until then he had been an extreme couch potato. He never realized that this science was available. He is now a hardcore convert. He no longer has time for his favorite couch and now has a well-equipped workshop that he spends many long hours in. He just didn’t know how interesting life could be. He may come down to the field and ask two million questions about building and flying, but we are only too glad to answer all these questions.
This is only one story of many I could tell you, but I would rather have your personal story told.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
