club scene

THIS IS A NEW feature, where you can tell us all about your own model flying club. Give us some idea of the sort of facilities you have, size of membership, flying rules, subscription rates, training facilities, types of model flown, social activities, site availability, guest arrangements, frequency of meetings, location, or anything else you can think to mention. Pictures will also be most welcome, and if you want to send me pictures by conventional post, e-mail me and I will give you my postal address.

Valley Forge Signal Seekers

Valley Forge Signal Seekers is a long-established club situated at Valley forge Park, near Philadelphia, USA. This is ModelFlight contributor Jim Webb's club (meet Jim on the personal profiles page) and here's what he has written about the club:

Some of our members are so old that they're rumoured to be Revolutionary War Vets that chased the Redcoats off our flying field . . .

The club's website is at www.netaxs.com/~mhmyers/vfss.html and on the site is this satellite picture of our flying field. One of the hazards flying at this field is the occasional hawk attacking a model; the other hazards are ourselves.

Though I rate myself an expert builder, I am a novice pilot in training. One must first be a member of the AMA to become a member of the VFSS, then be certified as a competent pilot. The AMA standards to be an r/c pilot is the benchmark with some local variants as to field operation.

I have great hopes of soloing this year, given the case of one of our new pilots is a retired US Navy fighter pilot and retired United 747 pilot that flew the drink often - so far, he's crashed several times.

My training aircraft is a SIG-KADET LT-40 powered by an OS-46, all controlled via a Futaba Skysport 4. I have two Skysport 4s, one for gas and the other electric.

Most of the instructors and club members prefer Futabas with the built-in buddy box system. What is frowned upon is the use of any over-the-shoulder harness or metal-framed radio support tray.

A large number of ARFs are starting to show up at the field with a high percentage of non-repairable crash damage. They're nicely build but not structurally tough.