AMA News: District VI - November 2016

Written by Randy Cameron / John Cralley / Rege Hall Fly the famous fighter Product review Photos by the author As seen in the November 2016 issue of Model Aviation.

I’d like to thank the members of the Sentral Illinois Radio Society (SIRS) model club for its efforts in promoting our hobby. The following information was submitted by John Cralley, the club’s communications officer. Great job.

Celebrating National Model Aviation Day with the SIRS club

Each year the AMA designates a day as National Model Aviation Day and asks its clubs to do something to celebrate and promote model aviation. This year, Saturday, August 13, was selected for this event. For a number of years, the SIRS club has been assisted by the Bloomington St. Mary’s Church School Boy Scout Troop 20 in conducting Pylon Races. The races involve flying identical model airplanes at speeds sometimes exceeding 100 mph around a triangular race course at our airfield. The troop members serve as judges to verify that each model does not turn short of a pylon and instead flies around each one during the race. This is a somewhat thankless, but absolutely essential, task that I believe counts as a community service for the Scouts. This year for our AMA National Model Aviation Day activity, the SIRS invited the St. Mary’s Scouts to come to the airfield from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. for a fun day with us. We provided various models from Giant Scale down to mini models for demonstrations. The boys were able to fly our trainer models with expert instructors who can not only teach them how to fly, but can rescue them if they lose control of the model. In addition, we had various model rockets and held rocket launches.

Jerry Worden gives instructions before training flights begin.

Some of the rocket launches held during the SIRS National Model Aviation Day event.

Jerry and Paul Bessler with some static display models.

Bonus photos

Blacksheep R/C Modelers club National Model Aviation Day event supports Hoosier Veterans Assistance Foundation

Rege Hall provided the following information on the Blacksheep R/C Modelers club in Danville, Indiana, and its National Model Aviation Day event.
Our final total we are giving to the Hoosier Veterans Assistance Foundation (HVAF) is $6,030. Despite wet weather, we did get to fly for a couple hours. We started the day with a local Boy Scout troop raising the flag to the national anthem. Then came the rain.

(L-R) John Louden, Blacksheep R/C Modelers vice president; Debra Des Vignes, vice president of marketing/PR/communications for HVAF; and Bill Clontz, Blacksheep fundraising chairman.

The rain let up approximately 11:30 a.m. and we were able to get in a couple hours of flying, including demo flights. We had flight simulators running all day and lots of drawings. Nearly 90 items were raffled, including several ARFs and an RTF Apprentice 15E. Our team served 100 pulled pork lunches, sold 1,220 raffle tickets, and received monetary donations from several individuals and companies to make the $6,030 donation to HVAF. Other District VI National Model Aviation Day fundraisers that I am aware at the time of this writing include the Kansas City Northern Knights RC Airplane Club (Missouri) ($1,123), Ozark Mountain Barnstormers (Missouri) ($2,000), and the Bolivar Sport Flyers (Missouri) ($300) to the Disabled American Veterans. The Tri County Aero Club (Indiana) donated $100 to Wounded Warrior Project. Happy landing!