Absolut Yak

My Feedback: (4)

Are there any premium residential communities with a focus on R/C flying? and full scale aviation? I am asking this group this question because you are familiar with Pat Hartness' property and the Joe Nall/Triple Tree events. I would love to live at a place like his and have the ability to fly giant R/C plus light/sport aviation. There is a community in Florida which advertises, but doing a little research, the R/C side is more an afterthought rather than a central theme. There are plenty of pure aviation communities who don't cater to the R/C flier, particularly giants. How great would it be to live where you can fly without tearing your planes down daily or to be able to jump in your personal light plane and go flying on a nice evening or commute to the airport where you make your living flying heavies?

The question to pose is this. Does such a place exist? If not, if I build it, will you come? I have a property available and have a serious interest in developing it into a premiere community if I can spark enough interest.

Discuss.


Doug

Bass1

Well you've sparked my interest but my bank account needs to be sparked as well. If I win the lottery, count me in!!

Ken Bryant

My Feedback: (10)

With my lottery winnings I was planning on creating an RC Ranch. It would be set up fo allow all aspects of the RC Hobby to be enjoyed. Everything from Submarines to Large Jets. ... One small problem, I have to win the darn lottery first.

Oh and why does it have to be a premium community? I think an over 50 Trailer community in centeral Flordia would be nice Oh and I'm only 39 HAHAHAHA

captinjohn

I am sure if promoted good....it should be a great suscess. What do you think out there? Post your thoughts on this!!! Thanks Capt,n

Banker

My Feedback: (10)

See page 123 of this months Model Aviation.

AEROSHELDON

My Feedback: (99)

I am only 41 but am looking forward to a place like you describe. I have to say the one thing to watch for is that being a male dominated hobby, most of us will have to get "buy in" from our wives. The best way around this is to make the site central enough to have shopping/services (read groceries, hair styles, clothing..) and still have room to fly. That would be the tricky part, the actual location of the community. I think if you can pull that part off, you will have success.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!

Absolut Yak

My Feedback: (4)

Answering a couple things on this concept. I fully agree the wives have to be considered. My vision is to have R/C as the prominent, central theme. Light/sport aviation is secondary. Those places already exist and don't need to be reinvented. My concept is Joe Nall - Texas!

There needs to be other activities available as well. Right now, the property I'm considering has room for horses, miles of trails in adjoining Corp of Engineers land, room for community pastures/condo pastures. There is a suitable place to put in an earthen dam and have a man-made lake big enough to waterski and jet ski on. If you are into slalom and wake boarding or your kids are.

There needs to be A/C at the field club house. My wife will come if she can be cool and read a book. I'd like to see a central, community hangar with individual lockers so pilots who don't live exactly on the airfield can have a plane setup in the hangar and have a locker to put radios, field support stuff, etc. right there. I want RV hook-ups for guest pilots or the In-laws to be able to visit for reasonable periods of time. Haven't made up my mind on a community pool. I don't envision a community with hundreds of homes, and my personal experience with pools is they are enjoyed most in your own back yard and that they are not everyone's dream to own.

I would like to offer taxi-way home lots, wooded lots, pasture lots, and lots bordering on common areas. Generally, I expect most lots to be 2 to 5 acres, simply because that is enough property to have some breathing room without drowning the owner in maintenance. Of course, there will be an offering of select 10 - 20 acre parcels as well.

There will be dedicated frequencies to the owners. Ideally, 20 pilots would be allowed to have two dedicated frequencies each. Nobody would ever step on you. The remaining frequencies could be shared by those who liked to fly, but did not fly as often. Events, obviously would suspend that privilege, but we can all understand that.

I don't care what age lives here. It might be possible to have a portion of the development allowing 1 acre lots with 1,500 sq. ft. min homes to allow a more modest investment for younger or retired folks. I don't see trailers, and I don't see central Florida. Been there, done that. On Top of the World Communities which advertises in Model Aviation is a 50+ community with more focus on golf and shopping than R/C's. That rules me out on all accounts.

The focus for me really is to have a "Premiere" flying site. The "Premium" is not the push, but in reality, it will take 250,000 at a minimum to buy a lot and build a suitable home. More than likely, 300k with well above that easily possible. Like Pat Hartness' place, it will be out from town a ways. 500 plus acres does not exist unbroken, much less affordable closer in to ANY town or city. However, less than 10 miles to the mall, Home Depot, the hair salon, etc. is available, and a large, name-brand city is within 2 hours.

And the last bonus, Texas has no state income tax!

Chime in with more thoughts and suggestions please.


Doug

AEROSHELDON

My Feedback: (99)

Great thoughts, but I was hoping you'd stay in SC. Texas is too hot for me!

Absolut Yak

My Feedback: (4)

I won't rule out South Carolina as a place to develop this concept. The weather really is nice here. I liked the weather and area so much after visiting Joe Nall several times, I moved from Florida to upstate SC.

Two major factors lean me toward Texas at this moment. First, and foremost, a lifelong friend lives in Texas and has ties to keep him there. He will be the first resident. Second, I am looking at significant travel with my professional work and want to be home-based in a state without income tax. That doesn't solve everything, but sure helps.

A lesser issue is Triple Tree already exists in SC. I would like to draw people to an event in a different region of the country to offer the opportunity they miss at Joe Nall if they cannot travel that far east. Thus, though I don't want to rip it off, I offer Joe Nall-Texas as the easiest way to describe the concept.

Keep talking! The input is great. Yes, I know this thread isn't related to any actual model, but sure does involve them.


Doug

Desertrat

My Feedback: (2)

Where in Texas?

While there is in fact no state income tax, it's more than made up for in property taxes. For example, your typical property tax for a $300,000 homesite will be in the neighborhood of $7000/yr (+- $1000 depending on the city/county - could even go as high as $10000 /yr in some places.) - $600/mo even after the mortgage is paid off [:@] .

That said, I'd be very interested.

Roger

mimhoff

My Feedback: (3)

I think it is a great idea. I made a post a couple of weeks back asking if such a place exits other than the community in Ocala Florida. I live in Texas and agree with DesertRat that the property taxes here are outrageous. I lived in Arizona most of my adult life and relocated here to Texas about 6 years ago. Everybody told me how great it was to live in a state without income tax. Now Arizona has fairly high Income tax and a very modest property tax. I would guess that it takes every dollar of my income tax savings to offset the TX property tax or more. So when I go to retire it won't be here.

When I do retire (unfortunately not very far off) I would very much like to have easy access to RC flying. The outfit in Florida sounds pretty good but what you described would be ideal. If something like your idea existed I would be interested. I also thought purchasing a home on a decent size lake that allowed RC flying would also be interesting.

Stuka Jon N

My Feedback: (33)

I live in Southwest FL. but for a setup as you mention we would be willing to move. The place near Ocala has RC flying as an afterthought, Golf is first priority. Have friends that live there. The RC dedicated life style is what we would be looking for. Thanks for the consideration Stuka Jon

Hammbone

My Feedback: (309)

This is a very interesting idea, but I think most people are tied to an area by their jobs and can't just get up and move unless they are retired. I would be interested, if it were in my area.

I'm not quite understanding how this has anything to do with the Joe Nall. The Joe Nall is a once a year fly-in, this is a live-in full time R/C community. I would think that once this community is established, you are not going to be inviting 1,000's of people to come and invade once a year. If you are saying that you are trying to form a permannent "Joe Nall" type environment, I think you are going to end up with more of an R/C Club type of environment. People will just live close to the field is all.

On a side note, there is a Joe Nall type of event in the west that happens every year now. It's called the Big Bird Festival. Here's a link with more info on the event: http://www.loveairrc.org/

Its not as big as the Joe Nall yet, but it is growing every year. Last year we had over 120 pilots from over 15 different states and over 3,000 spectators!

Jim

epc

My Feedback: (33)

If a place like this is located in Fl , a lot of International modelers can consider it as a Vacation place or 2nd home, a lot of Latin people have houses in Miami , Orlando etc. because it easy to fly from any country in America to Miami.

Just my thoughts , very interesting project I hope you stay on the East Coast.

epc.

GULFLYER

My Feedback: (16)

Well this is a suprise! We are right now talking with a bank that has forclosed on 853 acres here in southern New Mexico. The focus will be on a retirement community that is affordable to most of us. Recreation being 1st, RC aircraft every thing else like golf/horses will be there too.
Water is no problem! Weather is great! Taxes are low!
No full size aircraft due to Stealth 117s above as well as the German Airforce.
Once we close on the land then I will put together a devopment package with survey layout.
A local hobby shop has commited to building a shop and a rc fuel mfg. has also commited to move to the site.
Right now I am just waiting for the board at the bank to throw in!
Howard

Absolut Yak

My Feedback: (4)

HDR, sounds like you have a very similar idea. I hate to RE-invent the wheel and don't want to develop something which already exists. If you can get the concept developed, I'll come see you. If not, I just might do it myself. Glad to hear about your project.

Doug

GULFLYER

My Feedback: (16)

My wife and I have been traveling in the motor home around the states and visited several rc airfields.
We had started asking questions to all the RC pilots we would meet. What would they like to see come out of rc flying? The bottom line, they love to see places like Joe Nall all over the states. No clubs though, just great organisation of events done in a profesional maner.
There only seem to me one way to pay for that, realestate. Fotunatly our land prices are very low. So we can acomplish our task for a lot less than out there.

NdFrSpeed

My Feedback: (1)

HDR,,djccrn


Great idea for sure,,definetaly has my insterest,,,I didnt know Texas had such high taxes,,but New Mexico sure sounds nice to me,,,I'm defineatly interested in hearing how things progress,,in more ways then one,,By all means let me know how things progress,,


NdFrSpeed
Bob

famousdave

My Feedback: (61)

Its a good idea, but alas - rules, regulations, and bylaws and politics would soon destroy the fun, as is always the case. Do you really want to live with club rules in addition to having to fly by them?? I don't.

I have a 50 acre residential flying community near Palm Springs CA (not on the windy side!!) . Its called my property! I can do as I please, when I please and not have to deal with politics. Maybe some day I'll build a house on it even!

DP

P-51B

My Feedback: (5)

I have thought about a similar idea to those being discussed. But for me, I need a site that has greenery and preferably has some landscape surrounding it. Sage brush, rock, and flat sandy areas are really not high on my list of places to live.

So, location is key to interest levels.

LuvBipes

My Feedback: (4)

Doug, I would like the concept if I were retired, but since I still have to work another 15 years or so, I prefer the concept of an RC COUNTRY CLUB. A place you could go to (max 1 yr driving time) and spend the whole day w/ the family. For it to work, it would need to have enough ammenities/facilities to keep wife and kids interested like a playground, swiming pool, tennis courts, game room, etc.

I liked the idea of lockers to store planes and equipment, btw.