RCU Forums - View Single Post - It's looking good.
View Single Post
Old 11-15-2004, 08:29 PM
  #4  
khodges
My Feedback: (1)
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: newton, NC
Posts: 5,538
Received 12 Likes on 12 Posts
Default RE: It's looking good.

ORIGINAL: GrnBrt

I have noticed that a lot of clubs are losing their flying sites and that's really sad but up here we are putting in a new one and it is looking really good. It's just outside of the city of Arlington and the land is agriculture and owned by the school district and we are charged nothing for using it. the runway is grass and it's like a putting green with a 3 degree crest so no water will puddle in the center, 70X400 feet of it with a 50' runoff at each end and it's laid out East to West. We have a total of 140 acres to fly over with no buildings, no trees or power lines to worry and oh that is so sweet. I was out there yesterday to take pictures but the weather was way to bad so will have some at a later date. We are charging a one time fee $175 to join to give us some money to set it all up and then $25 a year after that. Oh ya next year will be so sweet to fly!!!! YEE HAW!!!!!!!!

Rub it in Rub it in. Sounds perfect, the kind of field every club dreams of. We have a pretty good place, it was a 1/8 mile drag strip back in the 60's; paved runway is over 1000 feet and we dressed up the field next to it and have a parallel grass strip, so you have the choice. Our flying area is over pastureland, has some clumps of trees and the land is obscured in places (over the crest of rolling ground), so if you get too low away from the field, you can lose sight of your plane and still be flying (you hope). There is also a no-fly zone immediately off the north end of the runway (oriented 17-35) due to houses and trees, so if you take off from 35 you have to immediately turn right, and if you approach on 17 it's a steep curving approach to the left, plus 17 is down hill about 4-5% Think carrier approach in a Corsair, and the deck is pitching. But it's easy to get used to, and rarely does a model need that long a runway.

I was in Ohio on vacation this past summer, got to fly at Miami Valley RC Club field in Otterbein, between Dayton and Cincinatti. Your field sounds like theirs, Grn Brt, they lease from a Senior care Center that owns 1000's of acres of cropland in the area, they put in a paved runway and have several hundred acres of either soybeans or corn to fly over, nearest tree is a 1/3 of a mile away. Thought I'd died and gone to R/C heaven, was like being at a country club. I just hope that as civilization encroaches on these last bastions of open country, that more and more of us cna manage to keep our flying sites intact.

Out field, and the surrounding pastureland is owned by a family whom we have managed to keep good relations with. One of their siblings was a LHS owner, his store was 100yds from the field. he was murdered in a robbery at his store in 1999. Our club named our flying field in his honor (Bob Wilson Memorial Field). Every year before Christmas we get together and deliver poinsettias and cards to our field neighbors, promoting good will, and Sundays we have quiet hours until 1pm due to a couple of churches close by.

Recently we've had a nearby club lose its field, but they recently managed to acquire rights to an abandoned landfill in an adjoining county, and another club reacquired the old landfill they had used and lost due to hazardous waste concerns, so our local situation has shown some improvement, since these sites are all within about 20 miles of each other.