High School Control Line Flying Club

Allen Loveless started a skeet shooting club 7 miles from town. He got all the local schools to start a shooting club. Each school started its own shooting group sponcered by a teacher at each school and each group shoots sheet every weekend. They all have an assigned time for each school group to shoot. My son shoots at 10:00 am every Saturday. Allen went to several other near by towns and started clubs in those schools too. He opened another skeet shooting range in another town. School sizes range from 800 students to 2000 students. 20 to 50 students from each school, 30 schools is a lot of students.

This is a great idea for Control Line. Start a Control Line Flying club in every high school and middle school. This could be great. The kids would love it. I talked to the principle at one of the schools and he thinks it is a great idea. A teacher has to sponcer the club. We can use the Gym or cafetera to build airplanes on Saturday. If I spend 1 or 2 hours every weekend with the kids we can build airplanes this winter and have them ready to fly in a few months.

The school board says, no flying on school property. They do not want to deal with legal issues. We need a place to fly. I am looking for 5 acres but property is not cheap anything within 15 miles of the city limits is $10,000.00 an acre.

I thought this might be of interest to others because someone might want to use this idea to start a school control line flying club where they live. This might help make control line flying popular again. This is only an idea at the moment.

Rex Abbott, who frequents this board occasionally, started a flying club at Mt. Pleasant High School in San Jose. He received permission from the school to fly on Friday afternoons. All the kids joined AMA so there were no insurance problems. I was so jazzed about this that I gave a bunch of my older gear to the club to help out. Motors, retired planes old lines and such. I would come out for their flying sessions to help out, so the school let me fly as well. Rex has since left Mt. Pleasant and is teaching at another school. I hope he starts another club. The kids he involved really had a blast and they would have building sessions in his classroom after school a couple of time a week. Good on you, Rex !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great to hear something good actually happened in California. Down here in LA-LA land (Long Beach, California to those who didn't know) they don't allow flying in the schools. But drive by shootings are quite popular.
If there are any newspaper articles on that club you could send to me, maybe that would be a start.
Thanks Larry,

Hey John, no news articles but when Rex gets back from Alaska I'll have him comment on this board, how he put it together. Since he was a teacher at Mt. Pleasant High School he had a little pull.

Wait till you see the Mini-Chizler I built for leprechaun. I got a big thumbs-up from Mr. Renger at Clovis.

Well, Gary - I was thinking of posting something very similar. So, if your thread gets hijacked, I apologize in advance.

Frankly, I would be shocked if you got enough interest from a single school to form a club. I was thinking the better way might be to find the site and the club area first. Many municipalities offer public space for clubs in local libraries. You might try that first, and arm yourself with some sample video to see if you draw any interest. Sometimes, the schools themselves provide the public space.

Once you got some attendees, you could get a sign-in list. After a few signatures, the local government may actually agree to grant you some park space. In the old days, they actually built the fences and the center pads, but that's wishing for way too much these days. Use the AMA Insurance requirements to assuade any liability fears.

It will still be a tough row to hoe.

BLACK HAWK

I am currently working on starting a Junior Flying Club in Long Beach Ca. I have a local hobby store willing to give building space with adult supervision and a meeting area. We will start flying at city parks as the only restriction is noise. We will fly only 1/2A planes as space is limited. We have worked on this for several months and expect it to take several more but we hope to get the city to set aside an area for model flying.
For clubs that want to use school grounds I recommend that they start out with Whip Powered Models, they make no noise and can even be flown indoors and they are U-control. After the school starts the program it is easier to ease them into gas powered. For more info call Black Hawk Models (562) 728-5661 or E-mail [email protected]
This is a wild idea, how about flying where they are shooting skeet, if there is enough room behind the shooting area and the owner will agree?

A few years ago in Hoquiam, Wash., a high school teacher used CL flying somehow as both a curricular and extracurricular subject in a class related to aviation. Some sort a shop or science class I gather (poor memory has lost the details). Anyway, he got a dozen or so very enthusiastic teenagers out flying regularly on the school fields, and it was a going concern for several years. A few became active competitors for a while, mostly in racing. It can be done if someone has the enthusiasm.
We've had a couple of other examples in the Northwest. A guy in a small town in Eastern Oregon, Madras, had a church group of kids flying mouse racers for a few years. Also, Dave Shrum, an occasional poster on this board, at one time had a large group of kids flying in Roseburg, Ore.
All of this is fairly recent -- in the 90s.
The main thing it takes is an experienced modeler willing to devote lots of time to helping the kids.

--jt

John Thompson

Well, they announced a new club yesterday at my daughters' high school: GLASS - "Gay, Lesbian, And Straight Students"

I will make no other comments other than to say that a Control Line club will have a lot of competition.

Just a quick note here. If you have an active group of kids flying I would be glad to send them a free copy of "Kutting (Foam) Is Simple", a two hour video on cutting foam wings. Just drop your snail mail address to [email protected]. It covers everything from finding foam locally to coring a wing to save weight. If you are not working with kids but would still like a copy drop a line to [email protected] and inquire about the cost.
Bob Furr

Bob Furr

Point out to the school that if the club gets chartered as an AMA club, the school will be covered by AMA's insurance policy. The coverage in this case will be PRIMARY (unlike members' insurance, which is secondary coverage). All the kids and the teachers involved will have to enrol as AMA members, which shouldn't be a big deal, since junior/senior membership is $1 per year. Point out that a magazine comes when you sign up for an adult membership, and this can go to the school library.

What are whip powered models??? I've seen that term a couple times. I felt dumb asking, but this dummy needs to know. If that is a real thing can it be used to start a person flying? Please explain the process. Thanks.

BLACK HAWK
Whip Power was invented by Jim Walker in the 1940's, kitted and sold; in the 1980's Frank Macy kitted and sold some whip Powered models, and now Black Hawk Models produces 5 Whip Powered Control Line Models. They are basically a 1/2A size profile model without an engine (weights are added to replace the engine weight). The control lines (from a control handle) travel up a 6' to 8' fishing rod to the belcrank on the model. With the lines at 25' to 30' you need someone to launch the model (same as any control line model needs) the launcher gives the model a little assist as he releases it into the air. The flyer simply turns with the model, using the fishing rod to pull the plane through the air and the control handle to control the up and down movement. You can perform stunts and several tricks with the model. The advantages for a new modeler are that when they become dizzy they simply stop, no need th wait for the engine to quit. The pilot goes at their own speed and crashes are easier on the model without an engine driving it into the ground. Of course then too there is the cost, no expensive engine, fuel, battery, any paint or glue will do and you can fly it anywhere (no noise) you can even fly it in side. On shorter lines (15' to 20') you can launch it yourself; holding the rod high so that the plane dangles off of the ground, just start turning and the plane will begain to fly. After a few flights with a Whip Powered model the begainer has no trouble moving on to a gas powered model. For more info E-mail me at [email protected]
Larry

Would you believe? That right here, in this small Southern Town I live in...There are several Elementry Schools that are individual "Theme Education Curriculums," i.e. Medicine, Science and yes! Aviation. They even have a Cessna 150 (full scale) mounted on a pedestal, in front of the Aviation School. The hallways and class rooms are covered with...nothing, but aviation pictures and literature. Talk about being "blown away." If I had went to a school like this when I was a forth grader...I probably would be running NASA. Anyway...I've got a Guillows Trainer III, in the works and hope to introduce some of these kids to some REAL! hands on.

BLACK HAWK
The Gillows Trainer III was a nice kit, Black Hawk Models produces one like it in two sizes (.15 to .19) and (.29 to .35) both are very good trainers too. For info contact me at: E-Mail [email protected] or (562) 728-5661
Larry

Where is this located?

Thanks, Steve