In the mid 1980's our club "Lucerne Park Flyers"was allowed by the owner of some property to use it for radio control flying. The club installed an asphalt runway in the mid 1990's. The club paid rent, equal to the amount of property taxes every year for some 20+ years.  He was happy and we were happy.

​

 Eventually the owner passes away and the heirs informed us that we could continue to pay rent in the amount of the annual taxes but they were planning to sell.  Even though we should have, we didn't get real serious about looking for a new field right away.

​

 The next tax year the assessed value of the property mysteriously went up from $35,000 in 2005 to $470,000 in 2006. The property had not changed at all during this that time.  As you can image the taxes went thru the roof!  The owners contacted us to inform us that as long as we were paying rent in the form of property taxes our rent would go up to approximately $9000 per year.  This substantial increase (10X) was much more than our budget could handle.  In other words we would have to leave.

 

 Soon after that, we began a serious effort to find another piece of property.  We formed a site search comimittee and began to actively explore our options.  It became apparent that all of the sites that seemed to fit our requirements, either public or private ownership, the ownership had no interest in talking to us. We had close to 80 members and were running into dead ends whenever we approached anyone about property, public or private. We realized that we had to find someone that already had an interest in flying and owned some property.

​

 Right under our nose was "Fantasy of Flight". an aeronautical theme park right off I-4 near Aurburndale. Owner and founder, Kermit Weeks, is well known in the aerobatic aircraft aerna.  He also owns the largest vintage collection in the world.

​

 After about 4 months of talks with the principles of Fantasy of Flight we were able to arrive at an agreement to lease approximately 13 acres of their land about 1.5 miles northeast of the theme park. We would not be permitted to have an asphalt runway but we could grade, seed, roll to produce a good flat grass runway.  We then changed our name to "MidFlorical R/C Club at Fantasy of Flight" and took possession of the property on April 1, 2008.

​

 We had to removed about 17 trees that we knew if left would have sooner or later collected some airplanes.  We brought a bulldozer to grade the 100x600 foot runway, seeded, and had to water with a watering trailer pulled behind a pickup truck almost every day for about 5 weeks during the drought season.  We built a better shelter than we had at our other field, a new frequency board, installed some safety fence, gates, flight stations and we were done.  Belieive me "easier said than done". There were plenty of blisters and sore muscles to go around.

​

 We kept reminding ourselves during the process, that even thought the unknown is sometimes unsettling, "Change is good".  Especially when you have a good group of guys such as President Gary Driggers, Vice President Rick Driggers, Ron Gross, Don Hauenstein, and Mike McCarson that rise to the occasion and work together with a common goal of acquiring a field much better that the one we had become so comfortable with over the years.  I have heard the comment more than once "We have so much more sky out here".

 

 Bottom line, it was pretty unsettling when we realized we would have to vacate our field that we had so many good memories at and had become so comfortable with for some 20+ years.  After it is all said and dome, it was a "Good Change" for our club. We have a much better site and a much brighter future because of it.

​

 If any of the AMA members planning a trip to Florida, bring your plane and look is up. 

​

 Our collective suggestion to other clubs. Always keep your eyes open for other flying site options.  You never can get complacent where you are or you might find yourself without a flying field.