District V—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, US Virgin Islands
Andrew Griffith
Vice President
barracudahockey@aol.com
11064 Stutz Ct., Jacksonville FL 32246
Tel.: (904) 993-4956; www.amadistrict-v.org
Welcome back! There’s a lot going on around the district, but I don’t have the room here to include everything, so please bear with me on getting stuff in the column.
I attended the last Executive Council meeting of the year in Muncie, Indiana, and had an extremely enlightening meeting with the leadership group of the FAI. It was quite an eye-opening experience to find out what is going on internationally in regards to air sports and aeromodeling competition.
If you ever feel that any restrictions that we live with here are onerous, you should educate yourself about what is going on in other countries. If you ever have a chance to support one of the US teams entering international competition, give it some thought because they really do represent us on the world stage.
Each time I make a trip to Muncie, I never miss a chance to go through the National Model Aviation Museum. I’ve served on the committee for the museum, so I’m more than a little proud of it. If you are ever in the area, any modeler could easily consume a few hours wandering the exhibits, many of which are or are becoming one of a kind. Museum Director Michael Smith and the staff are friendly and do a wonderful job of speaking to guests and talking about the exhibits.
Although I couldn’t make it to the District V Airfest (it was the same weekend as the AMA Executive Council meeting) but our associate vice president, Bill Barbee from Savannah, Georgia, attended. Bill reported that, despite the wind picking up, there were 50 registered pilots flying everything from a humongous 1/2-scale Hempel Cub to smaller nitro and electric models. A separate area for helicopters was well attended and Clint Akins from Castle Creations set up an FPV course.
Thank you to several people who stepped up to make this happen. I want to thank Darrell Sprayberry for taking the reins to act as contest director (CD) for this annual event. Dave Burrow was to be the CD, but if you read my column last month you know that we lost Dave way too soon. Also, thank you Helen and BL Prosser of Helen’s Hobbies in Statesboro, Georgia, who hosted and sponsored the event at the field behind their shop.
Gateway RC Club President Mike Odom and the club’s members in Jacksonville, Florida, hosted their annual Toys for Tots benefit fly-in on December 3, 2016. The event attracted 30 pilots and many more spectators and guests. A new toy was the entry fee with special raffle tickets given to those who donated the most-requested toy on Santa’s list—bicycles.
Gateway RC is typically the largest single supplier of bicycles for the local U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots effort. When they were young, I would have each of my stepdaughters choose a bike for this event so they could learn about giving and charity.
As they so often do, modelers stepped up big time. The club collected $700 in cash donations, a 2 x 2 x 3-foot box full of toys, and 24 bikes! That’s a lot of Christmas morning smiles to go around. While they were there, the Marines even took some time to get in a buddy-box flight or two.
Great job to everyone for making the Toys for Tots fly-in another great success.
Associate Vice Presidents: Alabama: Rick Grim, (256) 502-5847; uavpilot@bellsouth.net. Florida: Andy Bowen, (386) 736-1688; abowen27@cfl.rr.com; Keith Hall, (813) 928-3861; wing-man@verizon.net. Jose Melendez, (321) 412-3078; rcjets12@hotmail.com. Georgia: Bill Barbee, (912) 660-2155; awbarbee@hotmail.com; Bob Dixon, (478) 960-5200; rldixon3@cox.net; Nick Ray, (865) 368-3820; lasray@gmail.com; Dave Wenzel, (912) 754-9619; davevfrguy@hotmail.com. Mississippi: Paul Verger, (228) 826-4892; cpaulverger@yahoo.com. Puerto Rico: Edwin Medina, (787) 525-7768; captmedina@gmail.com. South Carolina: Robert Blackwell, (803) 317-9431; reblackwell2@gmail.com; Don Wise, (803) 534-8164; d7wise@cs.com. Tennessee: Scott Anderson, rcfroamy@hotmail.com. Dick Tonan, (615) 995-6291; dtonan@mac.com; Charles Anderson, (423) 892-3998; canderson9898@comcast.net. Safety Coordinator: Red Scholefield, Newberry FL; (352) 331-8410; redsch@cox.net. RC Sanctioned Event Coordinator: Dick Tonan
