Posted by Felicia Frazar, Seguin Gazette, Tuesday, October 2, 2012
The Academy of Model Aeronautics District 8 Celebration of Flight and the 12th Annual J.H. Rice Memorial Fly-In was held this past weekend at the Kingsbury Aerodrome.
Brian Strachan, 15, was one of the attendees who flew in memory of his grandfather who taught him to fly when he was 6 years old. “My grandfather was a full-scale pilot. We actually came here (the Kingsbury Aerodrome) for a full scale air show and there was someone here with a remote control airplane,” he said. “They let me move the controls and I just said ‘I want to do that.”
Event Coordinator Gary Rice said the annual event honors the district’s pilots who have died in the past year, as well as create an open fly-in.
“Guys from across the district — which houses Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico — come to this event and they bring names of people who have passed on throughout the year,” he said. “It is not a competition. We just get together and we fly and have a good time.”
Brian gives a lot of credit to the hobby: “I have learned mechanical skills, technical skills, a lot of it is discipline, working with people, working with airplanes,” he said. “It is an unreasonable amount of knowledge that has gone through my mind. It has been a great experience. I can’t think of anything else that I love to do more.”
More information on the local AMA Charter can be found on the Tri-City Flyers website at tricityflyers.com.
To learn more about the event, and to read the entire article click here.
