AMA News
Flying Site Assistance
Joe Beshar Coordinator 198 Merritt Dr. Oradell, NJ 07649 Fax: (201) 261-0223 Tel: (201) 261-1281
Finding—Preserving—Maintaining
Don Ross, registered FSA volunteer, reports on how practicing persistence gets the flying site. He also cites his ambitious program for the future. You, too, can join the team of FSA volunteers. See the end of the column.
The Teaneck Armory Story
We first contacted the Teaneck Armory folks in May of 1992. The armory is in Teaneck, New Jersey, and is potentially one of the best indoor sites in the greater New York area.
About five miles from the George Washington Bridge, this seemed like a swell place to approach with our proposal. It has ample parking for 100 cars or more within a few feet of the door, is well supplied with rest rooms, good lighting, and breeze-free heating.
The armory floor is 100 x 60 yards, with stands extending another 10–25 yards on each side. The roof is over 55 feet high with steel beams starting at about 45 feet. Hanging lights create a mild and tolerable hazard.
At that time, we were told the armory, built many decades ago, was not suitable for public use and could not be so modified without considerable cost. By 1996, after a severe snowstorm destroyed part of the roof, reconstruction made the place accessible to the public.
We made a proposal in September 1996 for a "Model Airplane School" to be based at the armory. This proposal was favorably considered by the military folks and passed on to Trenton where the state controls all armories.
That's when we found out that the state's prime interest was to rent these armory properties as sports arenas, movie sound stages, or any other commercial use that would bring in revenue. The best rates we could get as a non-profit organization under the auspices of the AMA were still over $700 per day plus $29 per hour to the armorer in charge!
We continued to try to work something out until late 1997. By that time, the armory had already been rented to a rock star as a rehearsal theater and to a movie company as a sound stage. Joe Beshar had been following our efforts and had copies of the correspondence and proposals.
A soccer group had made arrangements to use the armory throughout the winter of 1998, running as many as four games at a time, seven days a week. I gave up then because I couldn't see how we could compete with these deep-pocket users. We asked them if we could simply come in and fly for a few hours on weekday mornings when the facility wasn't being used. Soccer doesn't start on weekdays until 3:00 p.m.
We never gave up. We would stop in every few days with a model in hand and offer to fly it to show what we wanted to do. We eventually got both Trenton and the Chief Armorer to agree that if the renters would let us in, they would forego all charges.
We appointed individual "Field Marshals" for each Wednesday and started flying late in January 1999. At first, the floor was divided by netting into four courts about 75 x 150 feet. We got the folks in charge to allow us to slide back one of the nets, opening the floor to 150 x 150 feet.
So far, we've had some wonderful flying at the site and have decided to very closely supervise all models and flyers to make sure we avoid any problems that could jeopardize our use of the armory.
The Metropolitan Sport Squadron holds the sanction and insurance at the Teaneck Armory. All inquiries should go through me at the address listed below. All indoor flyers in the greater New York area owe a big vote of thanks to Joe Beshar for his tireless efforts.
We are now in contact with several Civil Air Patrol groups in the area that regularly meet at these armories. We're going to try to work out a combined "Modeling 101" for the cadets and thus strengthen our ties with the state and the armory managers.
Don Ross 38 Churchill Road Cresskill, New Jersey 07626 E-mail: flywords@aol.com
Register as a FSA Volunteer!
The Flying Site Assistance Program consists of a network of volunteers who serve as the AMA's eyes and ears.
- These volunteers read newspapers and listen to and watch news programs to be aware of any activities that could impact an existing or potential flying site.
- It is just a matter of collecting information regarding flying sites, advising local modelers and AMA clubs in the area, and passing it on to the AMA Flying Site Assistance Coordinator.
Join this ambitious program as a service to your fellow modelers. Anyone interested, contact me at the address above.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
