Flying Thunder Air Field..Started at last

[gofer303]

Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Larry Pratt I live in Glenwood Iowa, work as a Friday night announcer at the Rolling Thunder Drag Strip.
I recently got real tired of crashing my small electric heli's and decided to try my crashing skills at airplanes. I signed up for the Park Pilot program after finding out that the same skills carried over automatically!!! I found an instructor about 25 miles away in Omaha Nebraska, when we talked about getting the first lesson in we decided to have it at the race facility because there is no trees,houses or anything except for the ground to obstruct flying. I flew his rapture 30 and did not do too bad (no crashes) with him on the buddy box it felt like cheating!
His first impression was what are you doing with so much empty air space? That started the process of putting together a new air field. It has been a steep learning curve even with the help of a lot of pilots who have worked or hosted events. The first open House / Fun Fly was October 31 winds were 8 to 12 mph and the temps were in the lower 50'. According to the sign in sheet there were 50 pilots there and every one of them had a good piece of advice for making this a world class facility. I hope to be able to host some large local and regional events in 2010 and have great hopes of trying to get the Rally of the giants here some day. If you are interested in looking at the facility go to midamericamotorplex.com and where the drag strip and road course meet there is almost a full mile between the two straightaways and I can even land my Slow Stick on either of them!!!!

[N726AC]

Way cool !!! Welcome to FG's and keep us posted on your progress and the happenings at the new Flying Thunder Air Field.