The Fayette Flyers of Georgia NOW at http://fayetteflyers.com

 
The Fly Paper Monthly Radio Control info for Fayette County Georgia.

Remember : Schools out for the Summer. Ohhhhh   Noooooooooooo!!!

May 2002 Issue. Editor/ Webmaster Randy Hawkins - email ffly98@aol.com

Upcoming event days:

June 21,22,23 -Fri/Sat/Sun -(AMA Sanctioned) First ever Southeast Electric Flight Festival (SEFF) electric fun fly. Hosted by Jeff Myers, This should be a large turnout event. The field will be closed to all other flying.

June 29-SAT- Kids Spring Fling Hotdog cookout (Non-Sanctioned) -3 pm Annual King Peach Junior HLG and Rubber Free Flight event. Rain day June 30. See Dave Zeigler for details. Calmer winds in the afternoon and hotdogs provided by the club bring the family. Field closed to other forms of flying.

PRESIDENT’S CORNER

Okay, the KING PEACH contest is over and once again the winds did not cooperate at all. Friday was blustery, Saturday was down right miserable, probably blowing 20MPH constant and gust were killers. I was fortunate enough to get two third place finishes out of the five contest that I entered, Clare & Ernie Schlumberger took a couple of first each and some other places as well (Randy still looking for his!). I want to thank Mike McGowan for all the effort he puts into this competitive event. There were numerous incidents which might be nominations for the "Broken Prop" this month!

We had people from Tennessee, North Carolina and all parts of Georgia attend the KING PEACH. Our Executive Vice President of the AMA, Doug Holland,

was in attendance and brought along a columnist from one of the major electric magazines [Sailplane and Electric Modeler] and we had another columnist there from Model Airplane News as well. Everyone was impressed with our facility and is looking forward to the "SEFF" event coming up next month.

The "SEFF" is surpassing anyone’s wildest expectations. There are already over 75 pilots registered to attend, numerous large name vendors, and lots of spectators expected. We are expecting somewhere around 1,000 people over the three day event total. Which leads me to this … WE NEED HELP!!!!!! Please, we need more volunteers to help with everything from parking to taking up money. Give Jeff Myers a call and help.

See you at the field!

Prez -  Tommy Vinci

Meeting Minutes for April 25, 2002 by Ernie Schlumberger

President, Tommy Vinci brought the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m. with 29 members and 6 membership applicants in attendance. This meeting was held at the flying field.

Officer Reports:

Vice President, Tom Huckaby told the club about a phone call he received from the County Parks and Recreation Department for a survey. At the end of the survey, he expressed his opinion for a need for a County Flying Field and urged other members to respond to the county’s survey if they call and you too will a chance to express your opinion.

Treasurer, Dave Zeigler, went over the finance report for April. The club had $901.00 income from Membership dues and SEFF event registration, and $2313.34 in expenses from Tractor and Field maintenance, Field Structures, Internet and SEFF Advertising. This leaves a total balance of all accounts in the amount of $9449.05.

President, Tommy Vinci, said the club still needs a volunteer to head up the Christmas party for this year. He also mentioned that David Keller (New Member/Training Officer) has set up Tuesday Afternoon/Evenings as Training Days. Tommy then talked about the upcoming King Peach Event (Sailplane Competition) on May 17, 18 and 19. This is a Class AAA sanctioned event with many flyers coming from out of town.

Dave Zeigler announced that Jim Duckworth (fellow R/C Modeler and one of the founders of the Perry Swap meet) died on April 17th. Jim made the drive up to our field several times for events. He will be missed by many.

Dave also reported that he sponsored an event at Delta Airlines’, "Bring a Child to Work Day" in which 540 kids built and flew Balsa gliders/rubber band powered planes.

Old Business:

Club Member, Josh Thorner, handed out and discussed his proposal to the By-Laws regarding Club Expenses. After some discussion as to what limit to set, the proposal was motioned and seconded. The proposal will have its final approval vote at the next meeting. The proposal will read as follows: "The Executive Committee shall propose to the membership a budget to be voted on, by the November meeting of each year. This budget shall include the coming year’s expected operating expenses as best as can be determined by the Committee. During the year, any expenses over the sum of $100 and not included in the budget, will be submitted to the membership for approval."

VP, Tom Huckaby, then went over his proposals to be added to the By-Laws concerning Dissolution, Disciplinary action, Expulsion and Grievance Procedure. A handout was given to all members present and they are on the club website in the membership area for viewing for the rest of the club. The proposals were motioned and seconded and will have a final vote next month for approval.

New Business:

None

New Members:

This month the club had 6 new members join our ranks, which brings us to a total of 174 members. Please welcome Bob Rogers (father of member Mark Rogers), James Greene, Chris Savage, Daniel Echevarria, Dave Mason, and Matthew Klos to our club.

Broken Prop:

No nominations this month.

A letter sent to me from a new friend from GAMA

GAMA VP Allan Stowe and I (Kenny Bryant) attended the Fayetteville Flyers’ King Peach Electric Sailplane Competition, 17-19 May at Kathy field just north of Peachtree City. Events started on Friday afternoon following delays due to heavy winds. The first events of the weekend were the 1/2A Speed 400 sailplanes and there were a variety of types that flew. The most notable was perhaps the Helix designed by Mark Kummerow and flown by his grandson (Tony). Tony was the youngest flyer there and took the junior division with a respectable score of 1,297 points which was second highest of all categories of the day. In fact there were only three scores that broke the 1,000 mark. Winds and weather made for a difficult time of flying but these small sailplanes did quite a respectable job.

Being new to this type of flying kept my interest as Allan and I tried to gather all the information that we could and even thought the challenges of the competition seem quite simple, it wouldn’t be a contest if it were easy to accomplish. Basically all the events were variations of the same goal. Electric motors carried the sailplanes up to altitude, followed by a duration flight mostly for 8 minutes and spot landing challenges. It was interesting to see beautiful planes that could not penetrate the winds, and others that were not much different but climbed to incredible altitudes on the allotted 45 second engine run.

After the opening day of flying, as all began to leave the field, Allan and I visited with some of the local club members. They knew of the South East Model Show and were complimentary of our club. Several spoke of Jim Duckworth and had fond memories of this gentle man who was a giant in the hobby. Jim was a regular participant in this annual competition. In fact, Jim had taken at least two of our members with him to this event in the past. I am thankful for Jim Duckworth and all that he did for me. Once, following an extended illness, my wife, Gale drove me to the field to meet Jim. I sat in a folding chair in the middle of the runway while he launched one of his Hand launch gliders with a hi-start. I watched and we talked as he launched the little blue and yellow glider until it was too dark to fly again. That little glider is now a proud possession of mine. We all live with a great loss, but it should encourage us, as our "duty" to carry on the sport as he led us to do for these 25+ years.

After seeing the camper turnout at Mac Hodges’ flyins, I decided to camp at this event. To my surprise, I turned out to be the only camper. Allan helped me set up my camp, and encouraged me as he left for his motel room in Peachtree City. All wished me well, and left the gate open with directions to the local hospital (just in case). Should you not remember, this was the weekend of the GREAT STORM (well, it was to me) The storm began right on cue circa 12:30 with lightning that blinded and thunder that sometimes vibrated the ground beneath my tent. At one time, the tent was making great heaving sounds and lifting up against the taut ropes while the sides violently fluttered like wings, as if it would fly at any moment. The initial front passed and I settled in for a night of rain, wind and the great airliners leaving Hartsfield International, turning to make their departure directly over the center of my tent. There were never less than six in the air at one time, but I finally managed to get to sleep. At 2:30 I was startled awake by the silence. The last airliner had departed for the night and all that was left was me, my tent and the frogs. After that, it was a wonderful night of sleep interrupted by flurries of rain and at 07:30 Allan picked me up for breakfast and another day of flying fun. Although everything I had with me was cold, damp or soaked, my spirits weren’t and the beautiful high tech sailplanes kept us amazed by their ability, power, aerobatics and soaring skill.

The Fayetteville weekend made me aware that there is room in any club for gliders and the challenge of non-powered flight. The Fayetteville club accommodates all, fuel, helicopters, electric and sailplanes. I’d like to see us look into a sailplane weekend and see how it goes. In closing I’d like to thank Mike McGowan for an interesting introduction to competition sailplanes. Even though he was extremely busy as CD for the event and having his share of flying woes; he took time to show us some of the setup of the sailplanes and introduce us to new friends from around the southeast. All the Fayetteville flyers were friendly and courteous and it turned out to be a weekend that I will long remember.

 

[Thanks Kenny,

WE will remember Jim Duckworth he was a valued friend to the Fayette Flyers that knew him.]

SEFF

WE NEED LOT'S OF HELP for SEFF.

Contact Jim Beck for field helpers.

Randy Hawkins for Impound helpers.