I, like so many of you, started with old Comet and Guillows kits as a third grader with 90% never completed mostly due to covering being a black art. When I did get covering down, nothing flew and the concept of trimming was to wind the motor tighter and tighter. Most human activity needs positive reinforcement to continue but there was zip, zero, nada, NONE in my model building but I had a lot of fun building, crashing and lighting on fire my creations. It actually wasn’t until I was in my 20s before I began to figure things out. Living in San Diego at the time I was blessed with a great club---the Scale Staffel---and some really fabulous flying buddies like Walt Mooney, Bill Hannan, Clarence Mather, Bill Noonan and a host of other now-famous names from the Flightmasters Club in Orange County like Fernando Ramos, Bill Warner, and Mac McJunkin. My model airplane world stretched from Mile Square and the Flightmasters contests in LA to the Scale Staffel festivities in San Diego to the Cactus Squadron contests in Gilbert AZ. It was a wonderful time and some great guys taught me a lot and I loved it all. In 1986 I went to my first FAC Nats and have never missed one (or a Non-NATS) since. Traveling to the East Coast is now a regular summer thing and I return blind with excitement over the fabulous models and flying that I see. I now live in Casper Wyoming and from the hotbed of model flying in Southern California; I am the only stick and tissue builder in this whole state. Contests and fun-flys mean hitting the road for me and I plan on wearing out a couple of cars before I stop. The last thing I want is to regret not making a favorite contest……so see you in Buckeye in 2017!
--------------Tom Arnold
Welcome Tom Arnold as Our New Commander
It is a real pleasure to get the baton from Roger Willis for running WESTFAC and I think I lucked out as he has done all the hard work. We have a phenomenal flying field----an ocean of soft alfalfa, a friendly landowner, beautiful weather in Arizona, a good time at the end of the summer flying season to close out the flying year, and the convenience of good lodging and food close by. I cannot ask for more except to have all my old flying buddies and new ones I have not met to experience those fantastic clear blue skies filled with models.
