View From HQ
Southeast Electric Flight Festival (SEFF) — Americus, Georgia (April 30–May 3, 2009)
If the recession has hit southeast Georgia, you couldn't tell it by the 487 pilots participating in the Southeast Electric Flight Festival (SEFF) held April 30–May 3, 2009, in Americus, Georgia. The Fayette Flyers of Atlanta, Georgia, and volunteers from many other clubs put on one of America's premier electric-flight events.
Held at event director Mac Hodges' field—of B-29 and Bell X-1 fame—outside of Americus, the venue features a flat, 1,700-foot Bermuda-grass runway. Mac's field also includes a full-service hobby shop if you need a replacement part while flying.
All aspects of electric flight were represented during the event, including sport aircraft, park flyers, 3-D, Giant Scale, slow flyers, gliders, pylon aircraft, ducted-fan jets, helicopters, Scale, and F5B.
The festival was primarily open flying with noontime demonstrations by accomplished electric-flight enthusiasts, sponsors, and show teams. Horizon Hobby, JR, and Sport RC Flyer sponsored SEFF.
SEFF events and highlights
One of the many events during the festival was the SEFF Foamy Challenge. The challenge was to build the most unusual "flying thing" from foam. The rules were simple:
- Must be made from foam.
- Must demonstrate safe, stable, controllable flight.
- Must have flown before SEFF; no maiden flights.
More than 30 "flying things" took to the sky and the judges selected a Star Wars starship as the winner. One had to look hard to see if Luke Skywalker might be on the sticks.
Another twice-daily crowd pleaser was SEFF's Extreme Speed demonstration. Open to aircraft 100 mph and faster, all disciplines of flight were represented—from turbines to propeller-driven models. All pilots received a briefing on the rules for extreme speed and a flight path was altered to ensure sufficient separation from the crowd.
SEFF's Ultimate Destruction Combat was—as it could only be—a one-shot happening during the festival. Any airworthy model could fly in the event, with a battery limit of two or three cells and a 1320 mAh maximum. More than 50 models in the air made the flying site look like a swarm of mad hornets. After 15 minutes of continuous mayhem, approximately 10 survivors were judged winners for their aggressiveness and number of "hits." Some spectacular impacts brought applause and laughs from the large number of spectators.
No fly-in would be complete without a Saturday night barbecue dinner that featured its own special SEFF minibrew. The bottles, complete with the SEFF logo, are collectors' items.
AMA presence
AMA set up a booth to distribute literature and answer pilots' and spectators' questions. Steve Berhm of Rhode Island, a District I associate vice president and a frequent flier at SEFF, pitched in to lend a hand at the booth and was a tremendous help. Also helping staff the AMA booth were Mark Smith, AMA's executive vice president, and Jack Kallevang and Jim McCarthy, both of Detroit.
Along with the Joe Nall Fly-In, the Southeast Electric Flight Festival is one event that every pilot needs to put on his or her "Bucket List."
Membership drive
The Membership Drive is in full swing. You can check its progress at www.modelaircraft.org/membershipdrive/leaders.aspx. If you're not yet involved, there is still time to win prizes and special recognition for your club and district. The top individual producer will win an AMA Lifetime Membership.
In the spirit of flight.
Jim Cherry Executive Director [email protected]
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
