District V
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, US Virgin Islands
Welcome back, everyone! If you’re a regular reader, you know that I love Scale helicopters, and for many years, I headed to Dalton, Georgia, for the Southern Scale Helicopter Challenge. The event outgrew the venue in Dalton, so for the last several years, it has been relocated to the Heath-Green Skyranch in Hinesville, Georgia, just a short drive from Savannah. The 25th anniversary of the event took place this year in October and drew the largest number of registered pilots in the history of the event.
District V Associate Vice President Darrell Sprayberry was the contest director for the event. In addition to Darrell, there are several national champions who usually attend this event. In fact, there are a total of six Large Model Helicopter Program inspectors in the entire country, and five of us were present at the event.
A full-scale medevac helicopter operates from the field, and the event is a shining example of cooperation between the full-scale and modeling disciplines to ensure safe flight operations for everyone. Good communication is the key to this success, and all of the model pilots love it when the full-scale heli spins up and shows us how it is supposed to be done!
I love to hear from clubs that receive Flying Site Assistance or Take off And Grow (TAG) Grants and demonstrate what they did with the money that they received. I’m sharing one such case. The Hernando County Radio Control Club (HCRCC) in Masaryktown, Florida, received a
TAG Grant and a HobbyZone AeroScout trainer airplane. The public was invited via a social media campaign; 22 visitors showed up and received instruction on a RealFlight simulator. They then transitioned to discovery flights on the AeroScout. Three of them signed up for club and AMA memberships, and the club achieved the goals of both spreading the sport and making themselves a part of the community. Congratulations!
