4th Annual SAPB Build’n’Fly Event - the Lee Moore Memorial

Yesterday the San Antonio Prop Busters held our 4th Annual event for modeler built models. Our thought was that by encouraging modeling we would get people deeper into the hobby. For a small club, I think we’ve been pretty successful. This year we had great weather and 17 registered pilots, who averaged two planes apiece. In the pictures below you’ll get a taste of the variety. It wasn’t like the typical fly-in where you see same, or similar, factory built planes, one after the other.

The event is now dedicated to the memory of the master modeler Lee Moore. A mainstay of the early days of a Bomber Field and similar events, Lee spent a good portion of his last years flying with us and inspiring us. One of the delights of our club meetings was when Lee would show up with his latest creation. He was super supportive of this event and helped several members get over the hump of their first builds to be able to participate.

We thank our friends with the Tri-City Fliers who stepped up and helped us out when we lost our field (as reported previously in this blog). They have a beautiful site about 50 mi East of San Antonio co-located with a vintage aircraft museum. This distance may have cost some attendance but I als noted that Oct 19th was a very busy day in Texas for sanctioned events.

A special thanks to Jim Rice, Former AMA Dist VIII VP and recently retired chair of the AMA safety committee. He was responsible for a number of the excellent prizes we were able to award. We love building, true, but we love to see them fly. Our raffle scheme was one ticket for registration and one ticket for each flight.

The future of the event is up in the air. We hope that we solve our field issue soon and we’re able have an event next year. Meanwhile, we’d like to encourage other clubs to consider a similar event. We think it’s a good way to transition people from the sport of model flying to becoming true hobbyists.