Welcome back! When I show up at events, I’m often greeted as “someone from the AMA,” as if that makes me special. The truth is, I’m merely a modeler who chose to get involved.
If you’re reading this, I encourage you to get involved. Volunteer to be a club officer. Become an AMA Contest Director (CD) or attain the new Event Director designation. Run an event. Find a way to volunteer and help out. I understand that many people simply want a place to hang out, fly, then go home, or go to an event to see their friends. Remember that those places and events were built on the backs of people who chose to get involved. Help them out. Trust me, they will appreciate spreading the workload and be more than happy to share the accolades. I found out a long time ago that the more you put into something, the more you will get out of it!
An event that runs for five or six years is usually doing pretty well, so how about one that runs for 25 years? Our newest District V Associate Vice President, Scott Anderson, who makes his home near Knoxville, Tennessee, sent me a report from the Chattanooga Radio Control Club.
More than 25 years ago, Mickey Walker, from Atlanta, was thinking back to his early AMA Pattern days and the good time he had with fellow competitors flying single-pass maneuvers.
To make a long story short, he got together with his friends and said if they can have a Senior PGA event, then why not a Senior AMA Pattern event. Originally, the intention was to have pilots older than 45 fly singlepass maneuvers with models designed before 1970. The first Senior Pattern Association (SPA) contest was held in the Atlanta area 25 years ago in 1991. The event was covered by Model Aviation magazine in the February 1992 issue. SPA became an AMA Special Interest Group.
of the SPA.
The idea was to keep things “simple and inexpensive,” meaning simple balsa and plywood models without tuned pipes or retracts—the way it was at the beginning of AMA Pattern’s “golden days” in the 1960s. Models flown by the world’s best pilots cost no more than the airplanes flown by an average flier at the field.
A few of the rules have changed. The 45-year-old rule didn’t last long because people of all ages wanted to fly. The time window was extended to models designed before January 1976, and finally, four-stroke and electric propulsion was added as a means to address noise restrictions. It turned out to be a good formula because SPA just celebrated its 25th anniversary during this year’s annual Chattanooga contest. Many of the original members still fly and were in attendance. The event was held June 11-12, 2016, at the Chattanooga Radio Control Club flying site.
Twenty pilots competed, braving heat in the mid-90s. With shade and invitations to share RVs with air conditioning, we made it okay. The contest finished Sunday after six rounds and many raffle prizes were donated by generous RC manufacturers and the local Chattanooga Hobby Town.
On Saturday evening, the Chattanooga Radio Control Club members set up a room at a local restaurant, and CD Scott Anderson put together a digital slideshow of past SPA events that ran on the TV during the dinner and meeting. The event was capped off with a presentation by Scott to Mickey Walker of a framed certificate and commemorative brick for the walkway at AMA Headquarters in Muncie, Indiana. It was a fitting tribute to a man with a simple vision a quarter century ago.
That’s it for this month!