District V—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, US Virgin Islands
Bob Brogdon
Vice President
r.a.brogdon@comcast.net
5251 Hermitage Dr., Powder Springs GA 30127
Tel.: (770) 421-8838; www.amadistrict-v.org
Hello, District V members and guests. I hope all is well with each of you. My how time flies!
As I write this article in August for the October issue of Model Aviation, the kids are starting back to school, and the summer is winding down. I hope you got in plenty of flying this past summer. Of course, maybe the best time of the year is upon us in District V. You just can’t beat this district’s fall weather for flying and other outdoor activities.
Well, the gremlins have struck again and dashed all hope of doing well! For those of you who read my article last month and are wondering how I did at the Nats this year, all I can say is that I didn’t embarrass myself, but I didn’t do as well as I had hoped. I encountered a few problems and finished in the middle of the pack.
The good thing was that I got to visit with many good friends, and the weather was the best it has been in many years. One other bit of good fortune—I returned with all of my airplanes intact and ready to go again. Maybe next year!
This month I want to recognize the following people for accepting the duties of being a contest director, event manager, or AMA Leader Member.
New contest directors include Gregory Byington of Fleming Island, Florida; David Millonig of Palm Coast, Florida; Michael Gardner of Gainesville, Florida; and Michael Stanley of Jacksonville, Florida.
The district’s newest event manager is William Moffett of Pensacola, Florida.
New Leader Members are Thomas Miller of Niota, Tennessee; Randy Miller of Cleveland, Tennessee; and Tony Bosco of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
I continue to be impressed with all of the people willing to make the effort to make our sport better, from club officers and volunteers to each person willing to do a little more by contributing wherever he or she can. I thank you all.
It is with great pleasure that I share the following good-news story presented by Dick Maltby, president of the Seahawks Flying Club in Cape Coral, Florida.
I thought it would be appropriate to let you and the rest of AMA know that when one works closely with the local organizations where we fly, good things tend to happen.
The Cape Coral Seahawks Flying Club uses a park provided by the city. We have approximately 50 acres with a paved runway and a parallel 50 x 600-foot grass runway. The paved runway was purchased by club members 25 years ago and was certainly showing its age.
During a discussion with city officials about the condition of the runway, we were pleased to learn that they were willing to replace the old runway with a new paved runway at no cost to the club. In return, we work closely with the city, and we have an agreement to manage the park for them.
Anyone wishing to fly at our site must be a club member (we have more than 320 members), and a full member of AMA. Visitors are welcome at our field and as long as they have full AMA membership, they may fly at no cost for up to two weeks.
Additionally, we donate to the mayor’s scholarship fund to help people obtain a higher education, we work with the local schools and the Boy Scouts, we donate to help feed the hungry, and we donate to the local war museum. We are active in our community.
We host an air show every March, attracting approximately 4,000 spectators. We welcome you to visit and see our facility. It is a great show, and for the last two years, the mayor of Cape Coral has flown (via a buddy box) the candy drop airplane for the kids. She and the kids get a kick out of this.
Continuing with club activities and neat stories, here is a story from George Ash of Odenville, Alabama.
The accompanying photo shows the latest “Girls Day Out” project. A group of us “ol’ phartz” meet each Monday and work on a group building project. Shown is the right wing of our 12-foot flying wing. The design is by Doug Smith. Doug is shown in the picture. Because we have appetizers, food, beverages, etc., it has become a meeting similar to a women’s club event. Hence, we are known as the Girls Day Out group, or simply GDO. Each person takes rib set plans home and cuts out ribs for us to use when we get together to assemble the wing sections.
We plan to have the first flight in October. A half-size foam prototype was built, flown, and became our proof-of-design, center of gravity, thrustline, and control systems test bed for this wing.
Once again, I’m running out of space. I need to close for this month. I hope you enjoyed the reports from Dick and George. I certainly did. Meanwhile, make sure you are being a safe and responsible modeler, and don’t forget to call out your intentions: “takeoff,” “landing,” etc. Of course, no taxiing in the pits!
