raptureboy

So after 18 years of having a great place to fly we got the boot by the new landowner and we are now looking for a new Field If your club lost a field what methods did you use to find a new one? I.E word of mouth, advertisements, etc. Did you apply for an AMA grant to help with costs, and if so how much did your club receive. Thanks.

JPMacG

My Feedback: (2)

Here are some ideas:
Use Google Maps satellite view to look for suitable locations
Look into local parks. Two field in this area (Bucks County PA) are based in parks.
Members of your club or other local clubs may be able to help - guys who travel a lot locally like landscapers.
Talk with farmers - they are sometimes willing to rent land.
Look at industrial areas. Try to avoid residential areas if you can. It is best to be far from houses, like at least half a mile.

Down here in Bucks Count there is very little land available for flying fields. You may be better off where you are. If your club would be satisfied just flying electric and small glow then finding a field is easier. It is difficult to find enough space for large gassers.

beepee

Good suggestions JP. I will add to check on former land fill locations. They cannot be used for much else and I know of a few clubs that have located in such places.

Good luck,

Bedford

raptureboy

Good suggestions all. We were on farm land but the new owner lived close by and she didn't like the noise. We have mostly farm land around us but a lot of new homes and not much zoned industrial. Just wondering if anybody has placed an ad in a newspaper or posted even on local bulletin boards and had any success. Too many of us flying glow/gas to just give it up right now.

DocYates

My Feedback: (102)

If you have a local farmer's co-op you can call them and they may be able to put you in touch with some farmers who might be willing to sell or rent you a place on the edge of pasture land. one of my clubs year's ago managed to get some funds from the AMA to build a new flying site. They will assist you with about 10% or so of the funds. Be prepared to give a detailed report of what you want to do and how you plan to accomplish this.

Jennifer Curtis

Kempton PA is pretty close to where the
Farview RC Flyers field used to be. Maybe
a good idea to contact them and possibly
join forces to get a long term field together.

Jenny

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Any chance there are closed refuse/garbage dumps in your area? I've flown at two fields this year that were on the property of the town dumps that had since been closed. The fields were in fantastic shape, nice and flat and level, and even the methane vent pipes were aligned nicely. Neither had odor or varmint issues either. It's a long shot, but it just might work. You'll need to "sell" the town on why it would work, the club takes care of the field, mowing etc (saves the town money), and maybe even work out a rent/lease proposition (what town doesn't want money coming in). Do you have any members that are big business guys or are wired in to the local town politics?

On the other issue, if someone offered your club land to fly but limited it to electric, would you take them up on it? I've read about that in many states/cities. I know it would suck. At the main club I fly at, we fly everything from multirotors, turbines, giant scale, and IMAC aircraft. We follow noise protocols even though we are a bit off the beaten path, but we're also right behind a very high end retirement home. A very particular and very wealthy group of folks. Every now and then an issue comes up and I do whatever I can to resolve it, asap. Someday they might complain to the town, and we might find ourselves having to do away with nitro and gas if for no other reason than to keep the field. I would hate for that to happen, but I know the membership would go for that.

Whatever you decide to do, best of luck. Get in touch with your district VP, or perhaps a more local AVP, you have 5 of them in your state. They might be able to help, and if need be involve National AMA resources.

raptureboy

Unfortunately Farview just lost their filed also. The district judge ruled in favor of the Township and shut them down. Nicest jet field you could ask for We don't have any landfills near by but lots of farm land and the co-op idea is a good one never thought of that. Keep the ideas coming, as we are just getting going on our search. It's pretty rural where we live but also very rolling topography so flying flat land can be a bit of a problem. We would certainly go for a place to fly even electric as it would satisfy the needs of most of the club (only 50 members)

RC_MAN

My Feedback: (11)

see if you can fly from a small local airport with their permission.

rgburrill

The Navy uses OLFs (Outlying Landing Fields) for training but often only during the week. They could let you use them on the weekends. There were at least two clubs using Pensacola based OLFs in Alabama when I lived there. Nice, big paved runways.

raptureboy

Wow, this has made the front page. Thank you all for your help and suggestions. I wish we had a private airport or military installation but no dice on those. Keep the ideas coming and make sure you stay on top of your own clubs flying site. When the previous owner told us he had cancer I suggested we form a committee, to start looking at a possible future site in case his family would change their minds about renting to us. Got shot down on that by club officers on that idea. "Oh we don't need to worry about that". Now guess who gets to be the head of the search committee

jwrich

My Feedback: (17)

Our club lost our flying field in 2012 also. After 30+ years of flying from our old field, the farmland was sold. The new owner gave us 30 days to remove our property and shut down flying. At the time I had serious health issues, I was in the hospital with a mild heart attack. The word was sent out to the member to look for a new field. In Oklahoma farmland is very hard to lease just a small plot of land. All these suggestions are good, you need to try everything to find a new field. We did all the above suggestions

I was the web master for the SPADS RC Club for years, but health issues caused me to turn it over to another club member. Our web site (http://okbarnstormers.com)is still up but different format. My original site is at the top of the page. On the original site, check out the story of how we got a new field and all the very hard work we had to accomplish to turn it into one of the best flying field in the state. On the original site, click on the Boomer Field page, I documented our progress with photos. (Notice the dates on the pictures, they tell the time line of our accomplishments.) When we first looked at the property, the grass was waist high and several trees covered the 10 acres. This page tells the story better than I can tell it again here. Also click on the Boomer Field Grand Opening page, this was a proud day for all of us.

The bottom line, it will take a lot of hard work and money. Luckily we had some money in the treasury and many of us kicked in as well. AMA helped out with a grant which was greatly appreciated. But we were up and flying in a very short time, I took over head picture with my 1/4 scale Cub. Boomer Field has electrical power, water well, a large concrete pad for the buildings, control tower over the pump house, and a petomat runway. We are continuing to make improvements, a sprinkler system and more sod grass is next. I can't say enough good things about Mr. George Tritscher the land owner, he is a very special man.

Here are couple pictures from the beginning to a good flying day in October.

From Google Maps




Good Luck
Rich

DESERT RATT

My Feedback: (7)

If you live in a rural farming/ranching area there is usually a Crop Duster in the area. I've been given permission from my local cropduster to fly anytime I wish. Look in your local business phone book for "Cropduster" Good luck

Desert Ratt.

raptureboy

Wow Jwrich, thank you for all that information. You guys sure did a bang up job. if go to our web site www.tcws.org you can see what we had. We had to tear down our kitchen and burn it along with all our flight stands. We moved the shed to my property but left the carport in exchange for not having to remove the foundation of the kitchen and shed.

raptureboy

well everything is moved and we had our last flight on the 31st. The search continues for now but we are looking at 2 potential sites. One being a 27 ac.superfund site and another at a full scale grass strip.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

That's great news. One of the nicest fields I fly at is an old town dump. The full scale place sounds great too. I don't recall, but are you in touch with anyone at the AMA who is helping with this?

raptureboy

Yep been in touch with Tony Stillman. Thanks for checking in.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Good news, hope more is coming in the near future.

scottrc

If on a Superfund site, make sure the owner is up to date with all his monitoring. We were about 90% done with construction of a new field on a Superfund site when it got audited and we got shut down by the EPA and state because the owner was 5 years delinquent on soil tests. When a site is not in compliance, no one can be on it. And only the registered owner or steward of the site can do the compliance.

I also fly off a few small airports, and am really concerned about the latest developments on the regulations the FAA is sending out with restrictions on flying near airports and airfields, so stay abreast of this issue as well. It seems to change daily. Good luck.

marksz1

My Feedback: (2)

Keep in touch with your local county parks officials, they can be your best friends. Here in western PA we have most of our fields located in county parks. In one county the clubs help with fundraising for the parks and the parks have given more back to us than we raised. 1 runway was repaved last year. In another park, the runway was extended and new parking areas and restroom facility was added and now we are headed towards electric service being added to our field, a great help for keeping food warm during fun flys, using quick chargers etc.

raptureboy

Thanks for the tips. Hoping to here some news soon on a superfund site 27acs and a pond on site for float flying.

raptureboy

Well after 6 months of fruitless searching, we have found a new location for our club. A local farmer responded to a flyer we posted at the local Agway store and we are now in negotiations for what will be perhaps the best site we have had in 50 years. I'm a little disappointed that the AMA does not do a better job pre qualifying EPA sites before sending folks on a wild goose chase. We chased down 3 leads provide by the AMA and all of them were former superfund sites that were off limits to any type of activity. we spent a lot of time hunting down EPA contacts who either did not respond to or requests or had no idea that such a program existed between the AMA and the EPA. Also saddened by how some of the other local clubs in the area gave a lot of our members the cold shoulder about joining their club so they could keep flying. 2 other clubs within a 15 mi radius with facilities big enough to support a few new members and both of them told us we don't want any new members. When the ink dries on our lease I will post again with the details and location. Yes we will be excepting new members, even from those clubs that shut us out. Thanks to all who provided suggestions and encouragement.

rcmiket

Great to hear you guys worked it out. I'm very disappointed to hear about the "dead ends" the AMA provided and I would have expected a bit more from them. The other local clubs shutting you guys out is also disappointing to hear. We were fortunate to have access to a field while we raised funds to build a new one after lost ours.
Good luck with the new field and keep us posted on your progress.

Mike.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

What a shocker, you expected more from the AMA. Of course the notion that the AMA might have been given bad information about the superfund sites would never enter the discussion right? It's weird how people want or expect the AMA to do so much for them, yet in the next breath talk about the fact that the AMA is there just for insurance, that's all they provide. LoL.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Glad to see it worked out. At the end of the day it might have been pure luck that someone saw the flyer.

As for the info the AMA gave you, I can only assume they relay the information given to them as well. Sounds like they got bad info, and even the EPA doesn't seem to be aware of the program although they are the ones feeding the info to the AMA. The AMA is there as a resource, I don't think they are staffed to do most of the legwork that clubs should be doing to get a site up and running, and that includes per-qualifying sites. Did you circle back with the AMA to let them know about those three sites? Perhaps they can use that info to update their files.

As for the clubs in the area circling the wagons, it's unfortunate, but to some degree understandable. The clubs might be at or close to "capacity" and not want to get a huge influx of people. That being said, I think "not wanting new members" is a slippery slope to a club becoming obsolete, or "exclusive". They might find themselves losing members and then not having interest from new members. Then they scratch their heads and wonder what is going on....duh.

Anyway, congrats on your new location. Get pics and info up when it's ready to launch. Can you get local news/ civic groups involved for your inaugural event or even just normal operation? Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, CAP folks etc?