Steve Campbell
Elite Veteran
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
| Good news, Chris. You guys have been downtrodden for too long...
I belong to two of the four clubs in the Baton Rouge area, and used to be a member of the third one. That one has run off most of the few heli pilots it had due to GOM (love that term; how appropriate), but the hard fact is it may not be long for this world. A new public soccer complex and subdivisions are crowding them pretty hard. The fourth is basically a Pattern club and never had any helis as far as I know.
The two I currently am a member of have no problem with helicopters. The larger one, Baton Rouge R/C Club, has even hosted several free heli fun flys- no landing fee, with a great jambalaya lunch provided by the famous Mister Blackie. The only reason it didn't have one this year is because none of us heli guys had the time to put one together. The other club is basically a private dictatorship (the President-For-Life owns the land); most of the members are big iron/quarter scale warbird types and actually enjoy watching us fly the helos. Of course, all of the helo pilots there are dual-rated; perhaps that's why they tolerate us.
Here's a run-down of the major clubs/fields in the state that I know of:
New Orleans- Forget it. They hate helos and don't allow them, period. Given their field, however, no big loss as far as I'm concerned. There was a club started out in N.O. East that was nice, but the city ran them off after less than two years; never heard why. You here, Fritz? What happened out there?
Slidell- Several helo pilots there; they have had a heli fun fly or two in the past.
Covington/Mandeville- Not sure about this area. Mainly electric guys, I'm told.
Lafayette- Gordon Mills is the helo straw boss there; also have had a few fly-ins.
New Iberia- Nice field, nice bunch of guys, heli-friendly.
LARKS (Sulphur/Lake Charles)- You've been there; good group of guys with a growing heli contingent.
Alexandria- As long as CJ Higdon is around, they will do helos. Dunno how many active flyers they currently have.
Monroe- I was a charter member of this club, formed in 1988. The only guy around with a helicopter back then was up in Bastrop. Never saw him fly it, though. The Flying Tigers has since gotten a nice new field and totally new "management"; I have no clue if there are any helos flying there today.
And, of course, you guys. I know you've gotten a new field since, but the last time I was at SHARKS they were still in the cow pasture with that NARROW concrete runway. A guy showed up with a Shuttle and was catching a lot of flak. Glad to hear times have changed...
Steve |
Well our club is pretty much falling apart do to the "grumpy old men" problem as well. The president is a dictator in practice, he organized the last fun fly( he has to do everything himself-not a team player in any sense of the word, then complains that he's doing everything himself!) and 9 pilots out of 45 members turned up. Needless to say none were heli pilots,(I was there but wasn't flying) the reason? At the fun fly before that NO helis were allowed to even hover on the 75' x 50' heli pad! If fact at every fun fly that we turned up to with our helis there was always a reason why we couldn't be part of the day. Why, the one guy who only shows up about 3 times a year said he couldn't hear his engine, and he was stationed 150' away from the heli pad. He claimed he was haveing trouble with his engine? So why the heck was he flying it at a fun fly?
The present executive is stepping down(thank goodness), no one is eager to step up and fill the posts because of all the bad feelings and agravation, so when the current pres. is gone maybe things will improve, but so far it doesn't look very good. I put together a document to be considered as a club constitution, it would have given every member equal status no matter what type of aircraft they fly. I brought it up as a motion and the pres read it out loud( I gave everyone a copy ) and after he finished glossing over it I wanted to have a vote on it and he just blew it off without any discusion! That's the type we have to deal with at our club.
Ya, if they are under a hundred yrs. old!!!
