Speaking of Indoor Flying Sites...
Jean Pailet
Indoor Ice Skating and Hockey Rings make a welcome place to fly.
TO EVERYTHING there is a season. A season of the sun: To play baseball. To fly outdoors. A season of the snow: To play hockey. To fly indoors.
At least, that's the way it is in most parts of the U.S.... so, we thought, why not capitalize on the existence of so many indoor ice skating and hockey rinks and try to combine the season-of-the-snow sports and hobby activities under one roof? That's just about what we've done on Long Island. The results has been a continuing progression of two annual Indoor Meets (plus practice flying beforehand) at two excellent (though, admittedly chilly) sites. While we don't actually fly off the ice, the L.I. Association of Model Airplane Clubs has obtained flying time at the rinks when they close down to melt off their ice for other activities or for routine and periodic maintenance and repair.
Given proper ceiling heights such sites are frequently preferable to a standard gym where so much indoor flying usually takes place. The absence of the usual gymnasium accoutrements, such as various hanging ropes, cables, nets, and other nuisances, all seemingly designed specifically to entrap the unsuspecting innocent model. Stick or Scale is a particular advantage. At our Nassau County Arena site in Long Beach, for instance, there is a flat, virtually unobstructed, 30-foot ceiling. Since AMA's Category I permits a height of 35 ft., ours is almost ideal and has produced a number of Category I records. Our other site at Cantiague Park in Hicksville does not provide as fine a record-setting capability since its 50-ft. height is well below the permissible 100 ft. for a Category II AMA site. Its dome-shape is also less than ideal since the maximum ceiling height is attainable only at the building's center. However, the shape does yield an originally unsuspected advantage in that virtually all existing drift is either toward the center or in a circular pattern around the periphery of the building. Apparently the round dome-shaped contours tend to discourage uni-directional drift-flow across the building. Additionally, while not flat, the Cantiague site is relatively obstruction-free.
Our purpose here is simply to relate our experiences and activities in hopes that such exposure will encourage others to seek out similar flying site opportunities and, thus, expand their own indoor activities. Obviously, such sites are not as readily or continuously available as your HLG (Handy Local Gym) but they do provide additional, and often excellent, sites thus affording additional opportunities to fly indoors. We have found the rink-operators (in our case, the Nassau County Recreation Department) only too happy to discover another worthwhile recreational activity to schedule into their facilities during what otherwise would be unutilized "down-time."
While it was mentioned earlier that we don't actually fly from an ice surface we did come very close to that in 1975. The Nassau County Arena happens to be the practice rink for the New York Rangers pro-hockey team. Unbeknownst to us when we scheduled our 1975 contest, the County had a commitment to the Rangers to provide them with the practice site for as long into the spring as the team required it. When the Rangers advanced into last year's Stanley Cup playoffs our contest date was put in jeopardy by the possibility of the rink having to maintain an ice surface for their practices beyond our scheduled date. Fortunately for us, and for all the local N.Y. Islander fans, while we were agonizing over a possible last-minute contest cancellation or postponement and trying to devise means of covering the ice with tarpaulins or dismantled cardboard cartons, the upstart Islanders eliminated the Rangers from further playoff contention and, literally, "saved the day" for us. Thanks to their timely trouncing of the Rangers the ice in the arena could be removed in ample time for us to fly off a dry surface, as scheduled. Thus our favorite local hockey team unknowingly cooperated with LIAMAC in ensuring our contest date, providing another successful day of indoor competition flying at our friendly local hockey rink.
Try it... you may find your local hockey/ice rink equally accommodating and suitable for indoor flying.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
