Thank God Fall is finally here!!
This past summer didn’t get as hot as last year, but seem to drag on forever. Even though cooler weather and even some rain is on the way, we still have to be careful about the fire danger in the outlying field area. Please keep your fire extinguishers handy If needed, and be ready to respond.
I won’t be able to make this months meeting due to an out-of-town event, so there are quite a few things I want to touch on in this article.
To start, I am still looking for a volunteer to help our treasurer, Quan, with event planning for our yearly banquet. We have some had some great end of year banquets the last few years, and I want to keep this positive trend going. Quan can’t do it by himself! If you have any event planning or just want to get involved, please let me, Tony, or Quan know. We need you!
As we finish of 2019, One task that needs to be completed is voting for board of director officers to take us into 2020. While some of our current officers have agreed to stay on for 2020, all positions are up for competition! If you want to get involved, if you want to show us the direction you think our club should go, or if you just want to see what the board is about, feel free to put your name in the hat for a board of directors position. For me, the last few years have been very rewarding, and I would like to pass that experience on to the next generation of directors. If you would like to nominate yourself, or if you would like to nominate someone else (with their permission), please send your or their name to myself or Tony and we will get it promoted to the club that you would like a position on the board. Voting for Officers will be held during the November club meeting.
Still no new news on our letter of agreement with the Air Traffic Control at Lindbergh. Sometimes no news is good news… For now we have not been told to stop flying, we have just been told to standby for further direction. The last actual response we received was that the FAA and Southern California Traffic Control centers were writing one letter of agreement to cover all clubs within 5 miles of an airport in SoCal. Thank you to Tony Quan Steve and Eric for keeping us abreast of any changes in our status. Along with this though, goes the current requirement from the FAA to register yourself as a pilot of recreational small unmanned aircraft, and put your registration numbers on all aircraft that you fly. We did have an FAA officer visit our site a couple of months ago, and state that he is authorized to write tickets and dispense fines for each aircraft that does not have a registration number. Nearly everyone here is an adult, and if you’re not an adult – you have an adult in your family that should be ensuring you’re following the current guidelines from the FAA.
As of the first week of September we were at 332 members for SCFSD. A little lower than last year, but not by much. For those folks who are still on the fence for joining for this year, we are still the best value in town as far as local clubs go. It still disturbs me when I go to the rotorplex and see past members flying with 2016 badges stating they didn’t know they were expired…
Something else we need to do at the end of each year is pick a new picture for the following years membership badges. I have asked George, Our membership coordinator, to receive and sort through picture submissions for the 2020 membership badges and pick one for use. I would like members to send aviation oriented pictures to george@oldharborvideo.com What I don’t want is George buried under gigabytes of photographs! if you have one or two favorites in a landscape orientation, please send them to George and you never know!
On September 27 we will have our monthly fun fly which is SCALE Day. Ken Dresser has volunteered to run our fun fly’s for the remainder of the year, and I believe he has a fun day plan for all. The only requirement is that your plane must be a scale model of a real airplane. Ken will state the event requirements to get a chance at the $150 worth of gift certificates for Discount Hobbies as the event starts Saturday at 10 AM. Between 10 AM and 12 PM flying will be limited to scale aircraft after which we will have our monthly club meeting at the field, followed by the hotdog lunch served up by Mark Davis. I hope everybody has a great month!
Brad