Next Club Meeting Date

Update: 1-24-2021

Only paid members who also have a current AMA card will be welcome to fly at the field.

2021 paid members will receive an email with the new gate code. DO NOT SHARE THIS CODE, NOR OPEN THE GATE FOR ANYONE.

We are down to about 35 paid members now. This is understandable, given the uncertainty about the field. Once we know what will happen with the Land Swap we will do a membership drive. We will either have a new facility to fly out of, or we'll do some fantastic upgrades to the existing field to encourage new and old members to return. For those who joined or renewed: Thank you for sticking with us through an uncertain time!

NOTE: We only accept dues through the PayPal link on the home page... please click here and look to the left side of the page. Note that most clubs in our area are charging $75 or more for membership, but we have kept our dues at $60 or below, and recently added a Senior level of $40 for members over 65 years of age.

Dekalb / Blackhall Land swap

Currently the status of the swap is that we know the Dekalb commission approved it in the fall, but there are conditions that must be signed off by the Trust for Public Lands, including providing a flying site for us, that have not yet been met.

There will be a meeting regarding the Dekalb / Blackhall Land swap on Monday 1-25 at 6PM. Public is welcome, please join via zoom at this link.  This meeting should shed some light on what's next.

Notes about the field

• Please note that there are no longer trash cans at the runway nor at the Heli area. Please use the can provided at the walking trail near the gate for regular trash.  If you have a crash, please collect all the pieces of your aircraft that you can reach and pack them out with you.
• We will post the members list at both the Heli area and the runway: If you find someone flying at the field who is not a paid member, nor guest of a member, please ask them to leave and reach out to one of the club officers to let us know.
• We are working on restoring the port-a-john to the field. Stay tuned for news about this.

Next Meeting

The next Atlanta RC meeting will be held Sunday March 7th, at 2PM at the field.

Free Trainer Plane donated to the club, first come, first served, who would like it?

A gentleman named David Grosskurth from Austell, GA has donated his trainer to the club. It's an older Goldberg Freedom 20 and while it needs a little TLC, it's in pretty good shape. It comes with an OS .20 engine, and a 72Mhz old school radio. This would be an easy upgrade to modern radio and electric flying, or you can try to get the vintage gear working. If you are interested in picking it up and getting it flying again, please let us know and it's yours.

FAA remote ID Rule
The FAA has released the final rules documenting their new Remote ID regulations. This will impact us, but not soon. Even then it's manageable, and we should be able to fly pretty much as we always have, with a couple of new wrinkles.

The AMA did a fantastic web seminar review of the new rules that we strongly urge everyone to watch on YouTube Here.
Here are the important points to know:
1. It will be 24 months before these rules take effect. They really won't impact us until 2023.
2. The FAA has included provisions for community organizations like ours to designate their flying area as an FAA-Recognized Identification Area ( FRIA) where Remote ID won't be required. We don't know the details yet for how the application process will work, AMA is looking into it.
3. They have added a provision for an ID Broadcast Module that will be lightweight, low-cost (around $50), and can be moved from one model to another.  (it's likely that new ARF models will soon have the module included out of the box).

There were over 50,000 comments sent to FAA during the comment period (some from our club) and these changes to the original proposal came as a result. Good work to those who commented!  So, overall, this new Remote ID law will not be a big deal, and we have some time.

Happy Landings!

Regards,

Atlanta RC Board of Directors.