How to Secure an Indoor Flying Venue?

[Matchless]

Dan, thats a question I spent some time on in the past.... As you know it all comes down to wingloading and skill level and they are directly proportional to each other (higher wingloading requires more skill indoors)

Personally, I feel pretty comfortable in a half-court gym, but most people don't.....

Here's some of the guidelines I had thought of....

Half Court Gym- 2-3oz wingloading, intermediate or above skill level
Full Court Gym - 4oz wingloading and below, beginner to intermediate and above
Double Court Gym - 5-6oz wingloading and below, Beginner and above skill level

What does this mean? Most shockfliers with a reasonable build(6ozs like you said, not 9ozs) are very comfortable being flown by an intermediate pilot in a full court gym, however a Slowstick in a full court gym is not. SlowSticks and other foamy scale GWS airplanes typically feel better to almost anyone in a double court gymnasium.

Your milage may vary.....

[why_fly_high]

I thought it would be a good time to bump this back up. Anyone have some success stories they want to share or words of advice. I am working on trying to find a place locally. I have a couple possibilites. I just want things lined up and ready to answer any questions that might arise and find out the best approach. Like most things in life when you are asking a strangger for something, the easy answer is no. It takes much less effort on there part. I am trying to find someone that knows someone to have an in to lessen the chance of an easy no.

Dan

[SlowHuck]

	Quote: Originally Posted by why_fly_high
	I thought it would be a good time to bump this back up.

Thanks for that. I'd left this issue on the back burner due to more pressing issues. I.E: an established club with TWO great fields, declining membership and a bunch of OFs (old farts) who have no interest in expanding the offerings of our club.

There is the possibility of access to large, indoor recreational spaces at a local Army base (who is has been a benefactor of our best outdoor field for over 30 years), but the idea of tapping into the base as a HUGE potential membership pool is not gaining any support from the membership.

But that's another thread.

I'll be following and will contribute where I can. Good luck.

[why_fly_high]

Success! I went and talked to the principal of my my kids school. It is a small Catholic School but a decent single court gym. We can fly there for $25 per sesion. If we can pull together 5-10 guys that want to fly on a given evening or Saturday we can use the gym if there are no games going on. They don't ask for insurance or anything but I think we will require AMA just for good measure.

The public schools were receptive but had insurance requirements that would have required getting the gym sanctioned as a club field through the AMA to offer site owners insurance. There standard fee was $100 for 3 hours. The other place came through before I got to the negotiation phase with them. I think we could have gotten a break on the fee by explaining we were not using the gym for profit and also by offer to do some school demonstrations and learing activities with the kids.

Anyone else had some luck?

Dan

[pitviper51]

my club has access to a small gym by way of some one inthe club aranged it, its a tiny gym but it serves well for helis and SMALL planes haha,
mike