Flying Site Assistance - 2011/06
Never give up! You could be on the verge of victory!
Hi again! Here in the Southeast it is warming up. As I write this column it is still early April, but the temperature is expected to be in the 90s here today.
I know everyone is starting to fly, because I am getting more and more calls and emails about club flying-site issues.
I received the following information from Cecil Collum, an avid AMA member.
Obtaining Federal Land for a New Flying Field
In 1995, a Base Realignment and Closure board selected a World War II–era U.S. Army post, Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, for closure. Fort Chaffee is located about a dozen miles east-southeast of Fort Smith, Arkansas—an old frontier Army fort—and on the eastern border of Oklahoma.
Once the decision was approved to close the fort, approximately 6,000 acres were placed in trust and a federal entity was created to return the acreage to the local tax rolls. The remaining 66,000 acres were placed in the care of the Arkansas Army National Guard and are used by thousands of active and reserve soldiers annually for various training.
The federal entity created to return the land to civilian use is known as the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority (FCRA), and the area itself is known as Chaffee Crossing.
Interstate 49 is currently under construction, beginning in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area and continuing south through Missouri and Arkansas into Louisiana where it will terminate in New Orleans.
Unfortunately for our RC club, the Flightmasters MAC, Charter Club 742, the access ramps will be within a short distance of our current field, so we began a search for a new field in June 2009.
We will not be forced to vacate the field until construction crosses a line of low hills just to our north, but construction could begin in possibly two to five years (2011–2014). It is now at those low hills and we expect construction to start sometime in 2012.
At our July 2009 club meeting it was proposed that we select a new-field committee to begin a search now before we lose our current field. Three members were asked by President Josh Price to serve on the committee, and we were off to the races:
- Ron Roberts
- Tom Minton
- Bill Womble
This shouldn't take long, right? Dream on, Horatio!
The first task the committee set for itself was to learn what property was available, who owned it, and whether it had any potential for acquisition by the club.
At this point I must digress and back up a few years to lay out a very large problem. Our club normally has 60–65 members; therefore, we are not an affluent club. Having lost a field in a county park several years previously, some members pooled resources and created a New Field Fund CD and appointed trustees with the stipulation that the funds could be used only to purchase a field or to improve a field purchased by the club. In other words, a leased field gets no cash. The trustees have informed us that they will abide by these stipulations even though the members who set up the CD have passed away.
The committee drove over the county and found little land that satisfied our needs and was priced low enough for our purchase, so the search was expanded to include land in the Chaffee Crossing area. A meeting was arranged with the executive director of the FCRA, Ivy Owen, and Director of Chaffee Crossing Larry Evans, and we pitched our case.
The FCRA folks suggested a 30-acre site that seemed suitable and we began work to acquire it. Then we learned it was in a 100-year flood plain.
That isn't exactly self-explanatory. It does not mean that it may flood once in 100 years, but that there is a 26% probability of flooding in any 30-year period according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
In April 2010 the area was subjected to heavy rains for several days, so Tom Minton took his four-wheeler and checked the proposed location. It was a lake!
Needless to say, we shifted our focus, located another plot, and furnished GPS coordinates of the second site to the FCRA. They also looked and agreed the first site was unusable, so we moved forward on site two.
After furnishing multiple business plans, PowerPoint presentations, and letters justifying our request, the matter came before the Real Estate Review committee. The people on the committee were friendly enough, but said they couldn't donate $300,000 worth of land for our purpose.
They asked our committee to present a counterproposal with twelve acres to be deeded by donation and a long-term lease for eighteen acres. All of the former documentation was discarded and we began again.
Letters, PowerPoint presentations, etc., were once again forwarded to the FCRA and we prepared a flying demonstration for the FCRA board of directors and Barling, Arkansas, city officials on the former parade grounds to acquaint them with model aviation. The demonstration was a rousing success, with several guests flying trainers on the buddy box.
It seemed we hit a wall after the demonstration because there was little activity and we began to think that we were forgotten. However, the FCRA folks had been very busy bringing several new industries into the area, along with upgrading the infrastructure, so we just hung on, hoping that one day the dam would break.
On March 17, 2011, the dam did break. In a board of directors meeting that day—members Ron Roberts, David Turley, and I attended—our club was informed that there would be no donation by deed. However, FCRA extended an offer of a five-year renewable lease for 30 acres at "no fee," which is a hard deal for a poor club to beat.
We accepted the offer and are now awaiting the survey, legal work, and tree removal so we can get our hands dirty.
Was it disappointing to get only a lease? Yes, but we learned at the meeting that the FCRA sometimes uses this method to check the fit of a new tenant and, if it works well, they will award that tenant a portion of the property at the end of the first lease. This was done for a Master Gardeners group at that meeting, so we are very encouraged. We may get our own field yet!
— Submitted by Cecil Collum, Flightmasters MAC, Fort Smith, Arkansas
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
