District IV—Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia
Jay Marsh
Vice President
jaymarsh@ama-d4.org
3227 Pine Needles Rd., High Point NC 27265
Tel.: (336) 687-0973; www.amadistrict-iv.org
www.facebook.com/amadistrictIV
The following report comes from District IV Associate Vice President (AVP) David Trogdon.
On Saturday, September 2, 2017, the Tarheel R/C Flyers club of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, held its annual fall fly-in, and was not going to be outdone by the remnants of Hurricane Harvey, which had reaped so much devastation along the Gulf Coast. With a three-hour drive to cover the event, I even had Contest Director A.B. Gentry, Jr. give me updates as to whether the event would continue in light of the fact that all weather information said it wasn’t going to be a good day.
Not hearing anything from him by my 5:30 a.m. departure time, I struck out for my drive surrounded by brilliant displays of lightning with no rain almost all the way. Within a few miles of the field, a dense fog became visible and I could tell that they had experienced a heavy rainfall the previous evening.
Upon my arrival at the field, I don’t guess I should have been surprised that there were already a dozen or so pilots gathered ready for whatever the day was to bring. The event, which was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., was delayed until the fog had lifted enough to be able to safely fly. Some brave souls did give the early fog a trial with their foamies, but quickly decided to wait when they almost disappeared into the fog.
Pilots from eastern North Carolina are a hardy bunch, and I should have known that a little (lot) of fog would not
keep them grounded. As do the clubs in that part of the state, they always come out and support each other’s functions. By the end of the day, they had approximately 29 fliers registered. This was down a bit, I’m sure because of the inclement weather.
AVP Nic Burhans visited the Baltimore area’s Southwest Area Park Modeler’s Charm City Memorial Fly-In on September 23-24, 2017.
The club changed its outstanding directions/advertisement road signs from “Model Airplane Show” to “R/C Aircraft Show,” and credit it with increasing the attendance to 200 Saturday, and 150 Sunday. The last time I visited, they were the first to receive an DC-SFRA notice (during the event) from the FAA. The club has not had any problems since AMA got things coordinated. The club members are appreciative of the AMA’s work in getting them back to flying.
On another front, the Maryland State Police are still having problems with the drone flyers in the observation parking lot at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport. They monitor the lot almost fulltime and confiscate anything that gets above the four-foot fence. The club is not having any problems and we had visits from two troopers who came by to watch.
The club site is in a big park situated on an old landfill. The field is well set up with two hard fences separating the spectators from the flying on its parallel hard-surface and grass runways.
Pat Murphy, club president, and a large crew of chefs kept everyone well fed with the usual burgers, hot dogs, and drinks, as well as chili and chowders. As usual, they had a large display of vintage to jet aircraft for all to see up close and watch fly.
This year, the club added a publicly judged builder’s contest and held two raffles. One was for a trainer and one-year club membership with instruction. The second was a three-winner raffle for large foam aircraft [choice by order of the draw].
Club members held two buddy-box training sessions with three trainer groups. They flew with moms, dads, children, and grandparents. As usual, a well-orchestrated candy drop was set up for the children. For the very little ones, they had a helicopter on a stick that the children could make go around.
Club members conducted several jet demonstrations that were crowd pleasers. Art Vail again did an outstanding job spearheading the two-day fly-in. In all, the event was well organized, crowd pleasing, and a successful growing fundraiser for the Club. It was fun with a lot of smiles.
Go fly and have fun safely.
