Airspace was busy Saturday on the Missouri State Fairgrounds as aircraft took off and landed during the Radio Control Fun Fly and Swap Meet hosted in Parking Lot 9 by the Sedalia RC Flyers Club. Dan Piscopo, club president, said he hopes to get more young people involved with flying radio controlled planes.
According to the club’s website, it was established in 1990, under the Academy of Model Aeronautics charter No. 2818, and incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2014. The club consists of both new and experienced flyers, which fly all types of airplanes, helicopters and quads.
“We’re a local club and we’ve been out here since 1990, flying here at the fairgrounds,” Piscopo said Saturday morning. “We have 17 members right now of all ages. Our youngest member is 14 and our oldest member is probably in his upper 70s.”
The club’s youngest member Krish Patel, 14, a freshman at Smith-Cotton High School, was busy Saturday working on his RC plane, an Extra 330L, with his father Vipul Patel. Krish said he’s been with the club for four years and enjoys flying.
Piscopo added that the club offers free flying lessons and free youth memberships to children ages 15 and younger.
“We are all about wanting the community involved,” he noted. “A couple weeks ago we did a big display at the J.C. Penney’s parking lot. We are trying to really grow the club and bring more youth in … that’s our goal. We want to get kids away from tablets and TV. This is a good outdoor activity that makes you work a little bit harder than a TV or a tablet.”
Sedalia RC Flyers provide the equipment with their free flying lessons.
“There is no start-up costs,” Piscopo said. “We’ve got two club trainers that we let the students use. We let people get their feet wet without them having to spend a dime.”
He said members from different clubs were attending Saturday’s event. Besides Sedalia club members there were members from Warrensburg, Eldon, Slater, Kansas City and Lebanon.
“We’re just all out here, pilots sharing stories about things we’ve learned, and things we’ve done and crashes we’ve had,” he said. “It’s just a way to get together to support other clubs. We have very limited forms of income as a club, so this is a way too for pilots to go to other events and they pay a pilots fee and they buy a raffle ticket. “
Piscopo said some pilots build their own planes and some of them purchase their planes.
When asked what he likes about the hobby, Piscopo said he always wanted to be a “real pilot.”
“I was for a short time,” he noted. “Until I found out that my eyesight wouldn’t let me do it any longer … So, this is a way for me to still be off the ground.”
The club’s newest member John Davis, of Sedalia, said he began flying because it’s fun.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I started playing the piano at 65 and flying at 66.”
Member Daren Nerad, also of Sedalia, agreed that the hobby is fun and he wants to pass the enjoyment of it down to his son Caleb, 7.
“I like to follow the technologies as they come out,” he said. “This is one way that you can kind of tinker around with stuff (and) I got into it for my children. I have a son that’s coming up and hopefully he’ll be into it.
“As you research this you’ll see the AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) come up, it’s a culture that we are moving to but we need to educate people. So, this is one way for them to come out and see what we actually do and learn about it,” he said of the Fly Run and Swap Meet. “We offered a swap today and there was a grandma and grandpa from Sedalia and their grandchild from Lee’s Summit who came down. He just bought a RC helicopter, and he’s getting the chance to talk to people about flying helicopters.”
For more information about the Sedalia RC Flyers Club visit sedaliarcflyers.com/wordpress.
