First State R/C History

FIRST STATE R/C HISTORY
by Elliott P. Smith

Do you know that our Club is twenty years old? It was founded during the Summer of 1974, the By-Laws were adopted in September and the Club received its original AMA Charter and Insurance in October. Since I was one of the founding members and continue active in the Club, I thought it appropriate to relate some of the circumstances that led to my introduction to radio control and the history of the First State R/C Club.

I moved to Delaware from New York in 1972 to accept an engineering position at Spitz Labs in Yorklyn. Their principle product at that time was the design and manufacture of planetariums. This is where I first became aquatinted with proportional radio controls since Spitz was experimenting with one to control special effects. I had been an avid model airplane builder from childhood through college, primarily flying U-Control, but also tinkering a bit with escapement radio control. After college, however, a tour with the U.S. Air Force, career and raising a family occupied my time (not to mention my boating activities) and I lost contact with the hobby for about fifteen years. The concept of proportional radio control of multiple channels observed at Spitz amazed and excited me and I knew it was something I had to get involved in. Soon I was the happy owner of a four channel Blue Max and some half-built models that I bought through a newspaper ad.

At that time, Delaware R/C Club was flying from a field on Limestone Road... where Goldey-Beacom College is now located. This was near my home and I often heard the distant drone of engines which I thought were chain saws in the woods when I first moved into the neighborhood. My experience at the Delaware flying site was somewhat discouraging. Although the members were friendly, none seemed to have the time, patience or interest to teach a beginner. As a result, I rarely got a chance to fly and felt uncomfortable whenever I asked for help or assistance.

After a season of frustration, I heard of another Club in the area called the Flying Blue Hens. Their field was located where the Christiana Medical Center now stands. The field was small and surrounded by woods and swamps (at least it seemed like that to me) but the fliers I encountered there were sociable, helpful, encouraging and I felt comfortable among them. What was strange is that most of the active fliers were not members of the Flying Blue Hen Club. It seems that the Club had a membership limit of 25 and the Club roster was completely full. Prospective members were welcometo use the field as long as they belonged to the AMA, but due to size limitations, could not join the Club. Some of the Flying Blue Hen members who regularly flew tried to change this rule, but were unsuccessful.

After awhile we started talking about forming a new club. This became a reality when we were able to locate a potential flying site. Colin Gregory, a beginner like myself, worked with a gentleman farmer at DuPont who had some acreage in the "farm bank". This was a government program that paid him not to farm his land and he was agreeable to let us use it as our flying site. The field was located in the Wrangle Hill area, near the intersection of Routes 72 and 71. Access to the field was alongside the railroad tracks for about a quarter mile. This was a great field with plenty of room for parking, orthogonal runways and you could fly there in the afternoon without blinding yourself looking into the sun. Unfortunately, it had the normal compliment of plane eating trees. We were fortunate to have this field for about seven years, however, in the Spring of 1979, the field was leased to a farmer who immediately plowed it under.

The first few meetings in 1974 of the new R/C club were held in members homes. An early order of business was deciding upon a name for the Club. Several names were considered and a final vote was taken to choose between The Diamond State R/C Club and First State R/C Club (frankly I personally preferred Diamond State). In January 1975, we issued our first newsletter and made plans for the year's activities, which included a Mall Show and Building Contest in March, an Auction in May and a Fun Fly in July. Club members were asked to submit suggestions for a logo and the one that was selected was designed by yours truly. The Mall Show was very successful and became an annual event until it was discontinued in 1990 due to a lack of member interest and insurance problems with the Mall owners.

The Club continued to hold monthly meetings wherever possible until June 1975, when we obtained our first regular meeting place at the Air National Guard Headquarters, located at the Wilmington Airport. We met there until February 1980, when we moved to our present meeting site in the DelCastle High School Aviation Shop.

In the Spring of 1979 we received the bad news that we could no longer use our Wrangle Hill flying site. This fact was made perfectly clear to us when we arrived at our field one day in April to find that it had been plowed up. About this time, however, we met with the County to discuss a flying site at Ommelanden. The County was agreeable, but the proposed site was being farmed and would not be available until the next year. In the interim, we used a field near Odessa that belonged to a farmer who was also a R/C enthusiast. This was hardly an ideal field, being small, rough and far away, but it served its purpose until we officially received a permit to use the Ommenlanden site in 1980.

The Ommenlanden site was almost perfect. We had more than adequate parking space and enough acreage to lay out an ideal field based on AMA safety suggestions. Our only drawbacks were field orientation, which made flying in the late afternoon difficult because of the sun and the occasional troubles with neighbors, who primarily objected to our noise and the infrequent errant plane that crashed onto their property. Our neighbor's protests sometimes took an ominous turn. Once we found roofing nails scattered along our entry way and parking lot and several pilots had trouble recovering their planes when they went down on private property adjacent to our field. It was unproved, but, there was always the suspicion that some unknown source of radio interference from our neighbors caused several crashes.

When we were given permission to use Ommenlanden, we were cautioned by the County to keep a low profile. They were concerned that they would be criticized for allowing a relatively small special interest group exclusive use of some of their acreage. We complied with their wishes and did not even put up a sign to identify our field. This may have contributed to our loss of the field to the Kirkwood Soccer Club. After the fact, several County officials reportedly claimed that they didn’t even know we were there.

For ten years we pretty much had an ideal flying site at Ommenlanden with plenty of room for parking and flying. The runway was smooth , long, and flat and our problems with the neighbors kind of settled down to merely a mutual dislike. Routine events at the field included monthly Fun Flys, Quickie 500 Races, and our Annual AMA Fun Fly, usually held in August of each year. This was our big event of the season and usually attracted a substantial number of competitors from surrounding Clubs and some terrific demonstration flying. One of our favorites were the Malchiones, who always put on an exciting show. The Club was also active with demonstration flying away from our field. The Water Festival in Northeast, MD, was an event that several of our seaplane flying enthusiasts attended for several years and we regularly put on flight demonstrations for Du Pont at their Country Club and other sites. For a while, seaplane flying and RC boating was very popular with some of our members and weekends sometimes found our most active fliers over at the pond in the Carousel Farm area.

Several other annual events, which we no longer promote, were our Spring Building Contest and Model Show, held at one of the local shopping malls and the contest for the Team Challenge Trophy with the Delaware RC Club, alternately held at each others field. Both of these events were dropped due to lack of Club interest.

In November 1982 we elected Art Shindel as Club President. Art was one of the founding members of our Club and an avid modeler. He also owned Blue Hen Hobbies and was active in all Club activities. Regrettably, he was killed in an auto accident that month. In his honor, the Club renamed the Ommenlanden flying site, “Art Shindel Memorial Field”.

In the Spring of 1990 we were greatly concerned about where we could find a new field to replace the Ommenlanden site, which we had to give up in June. Several leads were pursued without success. John Stare and John Harrison prepared a video tape showing our Club activities and made a presentation to Texaco, but they were not willing to let us use any of their land (if we let you use our land we will have to let every one use it). Bob McDonald contacted Du Pont, Chris Harkeli contacted Senator Biden’s office, Carl Witt and others actively checked out possibilities. In May, Roland Dewey was able to introduce us to Greggo & Ferrara. They were receptive to letting us use land alongside of their gravel pit and thanks to Dewey and John Stare we had a new field. Once again, however, we were faced with the task of developing a suitable flying field out of undeveloped land.

Last Modified: February 27,2006
Created/Maintained by: Timothy I. Mihalski
Please drop me an E-Mail note if you have any comments and/or suggestions (good or bad) on material presented.

You can reach me by e-mail at: mihalski@comcast.net

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