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March 2002 Edition
February Meeting
The February meeting of the Monroe County R/C Club was called to order at 7:00:20 (pretty darn prompt) by president Mark Sexton. The room was full of people but I forgot to count them. There were several visitors in attendance and one of them was voted into the club. Please welcome Yuri Zelinin, of Bloomington. Seth Teeters expressed an interest in our club & may join next month. Tim Mellott did the show & tell portion this month with his Topflight F4U Corsair, which is nearly complete. Nice job Tim!Brent Gleason made a presentation on the effort by some of the “Crippled Chicken” members to get a public flying site established in Monroe county. The proposed site is in their neighborhood, over by Ellettsville. The club’s consensus seemed to be that a public site would be nice for those people that refuse to join our club but try to fly at our site anyway. It would also be nice to have a back-up site when our field is flooded. There were several people who seemed interested in supporting their efforts with technical advice and such but there was no member who wanted to “jump ship” and head West for keeps. We have one of the best flying sites in the state and nobody wants to do anything to jeopardize our home field!
Swap meet details were discussed and several volunteered to come out early & set up the building on show day.
The issue of full size Para planes has come up several times over the last couple of years. These ultralights, that use a parachute for a wing, are becoming more popular & their owners are looking at our club field as a possible take-off & landing point. The club has decided that our official position would be to not allow this. Our AMA insurance could be in jeopardy and any unsupervised non-model activity could result in damage to our runway, problems with our neighbors, and other possible unforeseen problems.
Matt Fornefeld will be teaching a six week course at his church on model aviation, starting in March. Dennis Friesel will be doing the same at his church, in the near future. Hats off to these gentlemen for promoting our hobby! Be sure to give them your support.
Swap Meet Complete…
The 2002 Monroe County Swap Meet is history now. I don’t have any official report yet on if we made any money but everyone seemed to be having a good time. The buying & selling frenzy started early, which seems to be the current trend at most swap meets. Most of the activity was finished by 10:00 a.m. There were a few who waited until later in the day, to see if prices would drop, but most of the real bargains were snapped up pretty early. I believe Matt Fornefeld was the first vendor to clean his table. Someone said he was paying customers to take away his treasures. Don Hudson had some real bargains at his table too. As usual, I came home with more junk than I went in with.
Stay tuned for the official report or come to the March meeting & get it in person on 3/13/2002.
Newsletter Swap…
The Screaming Eagles R/C Club in Plainfield, IN has contacted me about swapping newsletters between our two clubs. We can share information about upcoming events and get the word out to more people. For the last couple of months, I have been sending our newsletter to the Screaming Eagles newsletter editor via e-mail and he has been sending me theirs via snail mail. They also have a nice internet web site that you can check out. I’ll pass the address along next month. I gave both of their newsletters to Mark (our president) to check out & forgot to jot down the web address. He should have them at our March meeting for you to review.
The national AMA newsletter is also available for you to view on the internet now. I gave the last snail mail copy of that to Mark also but will pass that address along next month too.
This e-mail & internet posting saves quite a bit on costs. Not only does it save on postage, but in printer ink, paper, labels, and other supplies. It also takes quite a bit of time to staple, fold, seal, stamp, & label the snail mail newsletters.
I believe this sharing of information is a good thing that should continue & be expanded to include other clubs in our area. Let me know what you think.
Trash Patrol…
The winter season is nearly over. It will soon be time to mow & roll. We’ve had a couple of floods at the field & some big winds. We’ve also had the usual number of inconsiderate litterbugs pass by the property and deposit their bottles & cans, etc.
Next time you load up to head to the field, don’t forget to include a trash bag or two. Take home more trash than you brought along. If everybody does their part to clean up a little, it won’t be such a big job for any one person. Take pride in your flying site & keep it looking good. Our neighbors and anyone traveling along Wylie Road will also notice.
Event Calendar
March 13 Monthly Club Meeting
April 5-7 Annual Toledo R/C Expo
May 4-5 Brazil IMAC Contest (Clinton, IN Airport)
June 22 Annual Club Fun-Fly
July 23-29 Oshkosh “AirVenture” 2002
August 11 Annual Club Air Show
August 25 Annual Club Picnic (club field)
September 6-8 Gathering of Corsairs at Mount Comfort Airport, Indianapolis (www.corsairgathering.com)
September 21-22 IMAA Fly-in at Harrison Ohio
