AMA News - Flying Site Assistance
Consider how calling the police could affect the club's community relations. On the other end of the spectrum, consider the community's view of your club when the newspaper or local television station does a story about your club hosting a flight day for the local Boys or Girls Club, Boy or Girl Scouts, or other civic group. Perhaps club members could cooperate with local schools to develop an activity based on aircraft modeling. This kind of publicity can go a long way in your club's favor when a decision is being made about the future of your flying site.
A thinking club will recognize in advance the vulnerabilities of the club's flying site and will be proactive to protect the arrangement that allows the club's use of the site. Do you think that this all sounds like a lot of extra trouble? If so, just consider the loss of your site and what you would have to do to find a new one.
"The loss of existing flying sites is the greatest threat to our hobby because new flying sites are becoming so difficult to find. The 'creeping sprawl' of the suburbs has put most available land far from the city. As our society becomes increasingly litigious, landowners are much more reluctant to subject themselves to possible lawsuits. Environmental considerations and just plain engine noise can make the use of any site much more difficult to obtain.
"If you try to obtain the use of public land, you can be nearly certain of being required to provide some form of environmental impact data that can become complicated and very expensive. Currently AMA is preparing information for chartered clubs to help guide them through the maze of federal regulations.
"Finally, many governmental agencies that have in the past been model aviation's best friends are now constrained by budget pressures to cut back on recreational sites of all kinds. For example, the United States Army Corps of Engineers is in this situation. The nationwide flying sites they currently operate could gradually be lost if the situation doesn't change.
"It would benefit all of us if we would write to our United States congressional representative and senators to let them know that we don't want the budget for recreational facilities at federal parks cut. After all, our field could be next! It seems a shame to spend hundreds of millions of dollars or more to build a lake for water conservation or flood control and then not provide the small investment necessary for the additional benefit of recreational use.
If your club does lose its field, finding a new one can be a long and tedious task. Here are some thoughts that might be useful to those who are looking.
How Much Land?
When a club needs to find a new RC flying site, the logical question must arise about how much space is really needed. Negotiations with site owners will usually require this kind of information.
Having been through this process with our own club, here are some approximate numbers to help you determine the space required. In every case, it can be argued that much more land is required or that much less land can suffice, but here is a place to start.
Assume that your RC flying site will have a runway of 400 feet in length and 50 feet wide. A club will normally mow about 400 feet more on each end for approach and departure clearance.
To lay out a comfortable spectator area with a shelter, parking lot, a flight line, and pilots' positions, the runway and some mowed area on the other side of the runway, all laid out according to recommended AMA safety standards, will require a total field width of roughly 600 feet.
While some smaller field width might be possible, be careful to maintain an adequate and safe separation of spectators from flight operations and pilots from the active runway.
Using the dimensions above, a total of 16.52 acres is required for ground operations. In addition, an overlay area of 40 to 60 acres will be used by average fliers. You might note that a 40-acre square with its edge on the runway has a maximum flight distance over the ground of approximately one-quarter mile, or nearly the maximum distance most fliers will ever use.
Of course, with young aces and big airplanes, greater area may be desirable. Check your club's AMA charter. Are you aware that AMA flying site owner's insurance was recently improved? AMA Headquarters can provide information on the site owner's insurance policy that will greatly improve your chances of convincing a landowner of his protection.
Another source of available land is to contact your local railroads and utility companies. In their business each customarily buys land for future use that might make a marvelous flying site. In their own spirit of civic involvement, they might make a site available for no cost or a very nominal annual fee. In some cases, be prepared in advance to provide site owner's insurance information for their legal departments. If you are fortunate enough to obtain the use of such a site, be sure your club provides complete credit to the company for the use of the land. Prominent signs should be posted to accomplish this.
Consider also public lands and other options:
- City, county, state, and federal lands in parks or other reservations.
- Closed military airfields or emergency landing fields that are no longer in use.
- United States Army Corps of Engineers lakes or floodplain land.
These sites often have the biggest advantage of likely being available for years to come, although nothing is certain.
Don't fail to seek help from your elected officials. These people should want to help you, particularly if your club has paid attention to good public relations policies in the past. Often state representatives, city council persons, or other elected representatives will have knowledge and connections that can prove invaluable in your search for a place to fly. A request by them can carry much more weight than that from a club. Use this fact to the club's advantage. Ask for a meeting.
Your club should have an organized presentation and a package to leave with them so that they know exactly what the club's needs are and what provisions for the use of the land are normally made. Your club needs to make friends at these levels and to support those officials that prove beneficial to your efforts.
When seeking to find a new flying site, the most important piece of knowledge is to simply not give up. That sounds easy and obvious but too often it's easy to become discouraged. You can never know around which "corner" you will find success. The trick is to just keep more "corners" coming. If one approach doesn't work, find another.
"Don't ever accept the first 'no' as final. Any good salesperson will tell you to somehow keep the conversation going while you try to understand the objections that you must overcome. Always look for another way."
Register as an 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 one of the AMA Flying Site Assistance Coordinators.
Join this ambitious program as a service to your fellow modelers. If you are interested, contact the Flying Site Coordinator in your region.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
