After reading the AMA Foundation's strategic plan, Isaac Zelazny, a member of the R/C Fliers of Venice, reached out to AMA Foundation Executive Director Steve Haston to share information about his club's community outreach efforts. Hosting two airport-related community events, Isaac and his club have done a fantastic job of introducing their community to the joy of flight through a combination of both model and full-scale aircraft. Isaac provided the following write-up about his club's community outreach events:
"Our Venice, Florida, RC club is very active year-round, catering to residents and the seasonal folks coming to Florida for the winter. We are located in a remote area, actually, the Sarasota County landfill facility. Access to our field is restricted by the county, so we do not get any guests other than invited ones. In the past, we have arranged Open House events to allow the community to visit. However, with all of the hurricanes in the past few years, the landfill became too busy, and it was difficult to have an open house event.
"We always look to include our community at our field and in our events. I came up with the idea of combining interests as an RC flyer and also as a full-scale private pilot into single events. I am an active Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Young Eagles volunteer and also a member of the Venice Airport Support Group (Venice Aviation Society, Inc. [VASI]). I approached both groups with the idea of having our RC club display and participate in the monthly Young Eagles events, as well as the VSAI-supported Airport Open House event. Both organizations were very supportive and loved the idea to include our passions with the community.
"I then approached our club during the monthly meeting to present the idea. We enthusiastically agreed to support these events, and our club voted 'YES' to the participation. We would only do a ground static event. No engine or motor running. All demonstrations would be done on the ground. We selected one large gas-powered aircraft (since the motor would not be able to be started) to demonstrate the control surface movements with the transmitter. We had multiple volunteers bring their planes, helicopters, and drones to the events.
"EAA Young Eagles cleared us for the events. We then set up an area on the side next to the full-scale planes and invited the families to view and understand our RC models while their young flyers were up in the air.
"Similarly, we set up 3 open tents at the Venice Airport Open House event that was open to the community the entire day. This truly was a major event for our club, and we are looking forward to next year to repeat it."
Thank you, Isaac, for sharing your club's community outreach with us! We at the AMA Foundation thoroughly believe that there is a strong connection between model and full-scale aviation, and we're thrilled that members of the R/C Fliers of Venice were able to highlight that connection in such an impactful way.
