New Ally for Indoor Fliers
Paul McIlrath
Anyone who has attempted to secure a large building, such as a gymnasium or armory, for indoor flying will appreciate the information in this article.
"If they can find places for scuba diving and square dancing classes, why can't they find a place for us to fly indoor models?" That's the question we came up with in our annual frustrating search for an indoor flying site.
We are a small group of would-be indoor fliers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The answer to our question turned out to be the Community Services Department of Kirkwood Community College.
All over the country, area colleges like Kirkwood are expanding their educational and recreational services to the public. The staff of the Kirkwood Community Services Department reaches out, even into small rural areas, to recruit instructors, organize classes, and arrange local meeting places for those classes.
It was their success in finding suitable meeting places for their widely varying activities that attracted the attention of our little group of homeless fliers. It turned out that they could help us in many other ways as well.
Members of the Skyhawks RC Club did some groundwork and found out that I should talk to Mr. Dennis Usher, director of Community Services.
In our discussion I admitted that I had no experience as an instructor and that the "class" would definitely be more recreational than educational. Nevertheless, just a few days later Mr. Usher called back to ask, "Would Saturday morning meetings in Kirkwood's new gym be satisfactory?"
To us, "unbelievable" would have been a more accurate word than "satisfactory," but we tried not to be too optimistic. In the past, great-sounding plans like this almost always went awry: the building custodian would forget to show up with the key, or a volleyball game would be scheduled for the same time as our session.
This time, unlike the others, we had the help of experienced professionals. Community Services staff publicized the meetings, scheduled the gym, handled inquiries and registration, collected the tuition, and showed up on schedule with the key. Theirs was a quality operation from start to finish. During a winter of flying we hit some snags, of course, but when there were problems the staff handled the phone calls and knew the ropes for locating an alternate site on short notice.
As for the "students," I think they appreciated this rare opportunity, and they responded with enthusiasm. I didn't even hear any arguments about the rules or complaints about the quality of judging. That's quite incredible.
Message to other clubs
If you have potential indoor fliers in your area but are stymied by the lack of a place to fly, investigate the adult education facilities of your nearest community college. (The name of your local organization may be different; those with names of junior college, area college, adult education, and extension service are all worth checking out.) Whatever their name, talk it over with them. You might find the best friend a homeless indoor flier ever had.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
