I understand your concerns with flying at the Saratoga field. However, even though I have also landed a couple of planes in the river, I have enjoyed hundreds of flights without mishap and a few crashes in retrievable locations. The river doesn't cover as large an area as you might think and sometimes the mud of the riverbank and marsh cushions the force of an errant aircraft. In addition, it is so nice to turn on final and know the runway will be clear instead of having a van full of soccer players pull in and park right square in the middle of the runway to watch you land, which I have had happen frequently at Art Dye. I guess most flying locations have pros and cons. I agree with Russ. If the go kart location is viable or if we could find another better place, I;m sure a majority of the club members would be happy to lend a hand to clear trees and brush or whatever. I'm always looking for an excuse to fire up my chain saw.

Lynn,

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Art Dye either for anything but park flyers or combat, and only in the cold months. It's not an ideal location for most flying activities, although it's a great place to fly night combat because there are fewer bugs and nobody uses the park at night.

I wish we could put in a paved runway at the sod farm and put up a Covered Pit area for shade. That'd be amazing. No river, no traffic, no pedestrians or children, just open sky and lots of room to crash safely.

Sadly, in the summer months, especially in the evening, that place becomes unbearable with bugs.

Here's a link to the Go Cart Track so you can check it out.

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=...47c23db9e804e6

It's a mess right now. Unfortunately I didn't notice until now that are three power lines running alongside it, two to the south, and one to the north, so I'm not sure how you could make that work. It'd be a great place for a heli club if you pulled out trees in the middle. You could land a heli anywhere on that pavement without hurting anything.

Cool go kart track!

Who owns the go-kart track? I've thought about that more than location more than once. I don't think the power lines would be in the way, especially the ones behind as you're not supposed to fly behind the flight line anyway.

I don't know. I spoke briefly with the guy who owns the farmland next to it. He saw me eyeing the go-cart property and came to yell at me. Evidently a lot of local residents use the property as their personal dumping ground. Saves them the $5 entry fee to get into the city dump a few blocks south.

So he thought I was there to litter. Anyway, I asked him about the guy, and he knew who owned it, but I can't remember the name he told me. Sounded like maybe the two are not on the best terms given the tone of his voice.

Hey guys. The Logan AMA club is hosting their annual electri-fly this weekend at the bridgerland club field. Anybody that can make it up should take advantage of the opportunity to fly at their awesome field.

Also, don't forget the St. George Warbird event on October 12-13.

Couple of upcoming flying events some of you pilots may want to be aware of:

September 1 - The Monticello, UT club is hosting a first annual fly-in event. The local general aviation airport is being offered to the club as their airfield, and they want to throw a big shin-dig. They are asking, begging, pleading with any pilots from the state who can make the drive down to come support the event. It could become a premiere location for interstate contest events if there's enough support from our community of flyers. http://www.monticelloutah.org/FlyIn.aspx

September 7-8 - the Grantsville Non-Event Fly-In out at the #2 Salt Flats flying site. This one is a great open-sky anything goes event. No rules, no food, no toilet... just a lot of great guys having fun. I've gone to this the past few years and it's very casual and relaxing.

September 15th - Farmington Fly-In (just across from Lagoon). They will be doing a combat session. I don't have an address for this field, but Duke from Logan told me he'd been attending this the past few years and really liked it. Another no-cost casual event that's gotten fairly large.

September 22nd - UNCIVIL WAR! Orem Sod Farm by the Lake. Be there or be LAME! Combat, Limbo, Bowling, Pizza, Prizes, Fun!

October 11-14 - WARBIRDS over ST. GEORGE!
An event worth getting in the dog-house with the wife and family over!

Another one.

Everyone is invited to participate in the RC demonstration flying from 9:00am to 11:00am at the Spanish Fork/Springville airport this Saturday. (flyer above) Those who participated last year said it was a lot of fun. This is an opportunity to fly those planes that like a long runway. Come on out for a great time.

I'd love to go, my jets love a nice run way, but I've got 4 boys in sports (3 football and 1 soccer) and Saturdays are taken in the fall.

That Spanish Fork event was a blast last year, although it was a bit stressful to have a chopper fly a pattern directly over the flight line every ten minutes, with full scale planes coming and going the whole time.

I think I'll skip bringing any big planes to it this year and maybe just fly something small, if I can make it out.

I wasn't there last year. With the choppers and full scale planes do you feel it was a dangerous situation? They have indicated they would separate us further from the full scale planes this year and have tighter controls, but I'm curious about your perception from last year.

I don't think it was particularly dangerous because we had spotters at all times, but it was a bit "unconventional", as it were. We're trained in the AMA to stay away from full scale aircraft and airports at all times, so to be invited to fly off the taxi-way was just weird. I went just to be sure it didn't get out of hand, and I think it was fine. I think the people at the event were just as much interested in the RC stuff as anything else. I had my Pilatus PC-21 there and the kids loved the animated pilots. I flew it a couple of times and everything went pretty smooth, except on an approach where one of my flaps didn't deploy properly and it keeled a bit to one side, so I landed without flaps and the plane rolled-out farther than it normally does with flaps.

There weren't that many RC pilots there, so it wasn't a big deal.

Greater separation will be good, but I don't think it'll change anything. There will still be full scale planes landing & taking off, and the guys giving chopper rides will probably still approach from behind and over your heads every 10 minutes, so you'll need to be pretty organized and have two dedicated spotters, one for each pilot that is flying and one for the full scale airplanes who'll be more of a flight boss. You'll need to stay close enough that you can hear each other, and your flights will be short.

I would NOT recommend letting any novice RC pilots fly at the event, or anybody that's prone to "accidents" as it were.

Which makes me lean towards going to Grantsville... I can fly whichever direction for however far and long I want Got two planes that need some good space.

Todd
I sincerely hope you will join us. Your leadership and experience as well as your fantastic flying skills would be a great asset. I'm not sure how many are planning to attend and the event organizers were so pleased with the performance last year. They say this will be a larger event with many more spectators and are hoping for at least a repeat of last years RC show.