The Fayette Flyers of Georgia

The Fayette Flyers of Georgia	NOW at http://fayetteflyers.com
The Fly Paper	Monthly Radio Control info for Fayette County Georgia. Remember : Man, Snow, to hail to rain to POLLEN! Now see Snow isn't that bad after all.

March 2003 Issue. Editor/ Webmaster Randy Hawkins - email ffly98@aol.com

Upcoming event days:

March 30 - Sat (Electric Class A Sailplane, Speed 400, and Sport Sailplane (Non-Sanctioned) Noon-till we quit. Intent is to learn more about the options of all types of Electric Soaring RC. Field closed to other forms of flying.

FUTURE EVENTS WILL OCCUR BASED ON FIELD LOCATION ALL FUTURE CALENDAR EVENTS ARE ON HOLD! With the Exception of SEFF to occur at Hodges Field, Americas Ga. see web site to SEFF.

PRESIDENT'S COLUMN

The club will cease all flying activities at our current location at the end of the day on March 31, 2003.

It has been a great location and will be hard to match. Many of you have never known anything else as far as flying fields go, hopefully our next location will be as good as this one. We will be organizing a work day shortly after the 31st to remove our fence, shed, and storage barn. Please be ready to help.

Your Executive team has been meeting weekly for the past several weeks looking over land plots from realtors, looking at parcels of land that you the membership has made us aware of, and talking with the land owners. As I write this article, we have not secured anything. We have a couple of "promising leads" and have been well received from the owners of the property. Keep your fingers crossed and your eyes open.

Tommy Vinci

Meeting Minutes for February 27, 2003 by Ernie Schlumberger

Vice President, Paul DeWaard brought the meeting to order at 7:35p.m. with 27 members and 4 membership applicants in attendance. Paul filled in for President, Tommy Vinci.

Officer Reports:

New Member/Training Officer, David Keller reported that there have been a lot of people flying at the field that have not renewed or are not members at all. All members must check the status of other Flyers (must have club 2003 renewal sticker) and if they have not renewed, request them to renew or not fly.

Treasurer, Dave Zeigler went over the Financial Report for the month of February. The club had $1083.90 in receipts from SEFF Pre-registration and Club Membership Dues Renewal and $814.00 in expenses for Porta Potty, Club AMA Corporate Renewal and SEFF Advertising. This leaves a total of $12, 289.82 in the account.

Vice President, Paul DeWaard gave a report on the status of the field. We will be off the field at the end of March when the bulldozers are ready to roll. We will have a Work Day to gather all the Club’s property from the field. A "Field Finding" Committee was formed to expedite the process of finding and securing another field. Tommy Vinci, David Keller, Ernie Schlumberger, Clare Schlumberger and Paul DeWaard were present at the first meeting. We need ALL MEMBERS to help look for possible land that an owner may be willing to sell or lease to the club. Club member, Josh Thorner mentioned that the Rock Quarry on Hwy 74 may have some land we could use since we had an option on some land there back at the time when our current field was secured.

SEFF Coordinator, Jeff Meyers had a meeting last month to set up Team Captains and areas of responsibilities for the upcoming June event. We need Club members to help plan and run the event. Several TOC (Tournament of Champions) Winning Pilots will be there for the Flying Demos.

Old Business:

The club Logo Design Contest has been put on hold due to the Field search and also no entries had been submitted.

New Business:

An idea was brought up to find a new place to hold our monthly meetings due to the limited parking and additional classes being added on Thursday nights at the Lafayette Education Center.

Club Member, Doc Richardson suggested making a Donation in the name of George Perryman in Honor of his passing in the last week of February. The amount was set at $50.00. The motion was seconded and voted on and passed. Treasurer, Dave Zeigler will handle the details. According to an Atlanta Newspaper, the AMA last December honored Mr. Perryman as one of the 10 most influential model aircraft designers of all time. He designed the Mini-Maxer that according to his son has sold 60,000. He lived in Smyrna.

Broken Prop:

No nominations this month.

New Members:

This month we had 4 new members join our ranks. Please welcome Brian Sorrell, Joseph Crawford, Mark and Patrick Zaharoff and Chuck Pinkston to the Fayette Flyers.

Sound Familiar by V.P. Paul DeWaard

The on-board meter on the airplane lit up the last green LED in front of the yellow "Caution" LED’s. I figured this would be enough for a quick flight before putting it on the field charger. Under ordinary circumstances I might have gotten away with this. However, I’d charged the airplane using the field charger the day before and had gotten impatient (as I’m apt to do) and took if off the charger without allowing the charge cycle to finish. I knew better, but told myself that I’d cycle the battery that evening. Unfortunately I got busy with other things and naturally forgot all about it.

Knowing all this, I took off anyway. Just moments later, I realized something was wrong when I tried to go to low motor and the engine didn’t respond. The airplane was at full throttle and making a right turn and totally out of my control. All I could do was watch it spiral downward and plow into the ground.

Things could have been so much worse. The airplane didn’t hit anyone or damage any property but that was sheer luck. The lesson might have come with a much higher price and I’m thankful it didn’t. Cycle those batteries. If there’s any doubt at all, keep the airplane on the ground. It never gets better in the air.