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Model plane club faces turbulence
By RICHARD RAEKE, Times Staff Writer
DUNNELLON -- It's a geek thing. That's the joke among them, the one they tell in between war stories of crashes, near misses and the guy who once tried to fly a buzzard. That's a true story. As his plane veered away and wrecked somewhere beyond the pine trees, out of sight, a man kept working the radio control, not comprehending why the buzzard wouldn't respond to his commands. It just kept circling and circling while his prized plane waited to be cleaned up with a vacuum cleaner. But that was a bad visibility day. For the 120 members of the Tri-County Radio Control Club, telling stories and trading jokes is just as important as flying model planes. At least a few members, mostly retired men, practice their maneuvers and swap stories every day at the club's airstrip, located off Bridges Road and State Road 484 in Dunnellon. They host model plane meets, Christmas toy drives and, last Wednesday, Bob Martin's aerospace technology class from Inverness Middle School. This is their social circle. "Not everyone plays golf," Dave Small said. But no one jokes when the talk turns to the club losing its lease. The 78 acres where the club members hone their barrel rolls and loop-de-loops belong to the Florida Office of Greenways and Trails. The state plans to bring back the original sandhill ecology of the area, complete with longleaf pines, hiking trails, deer, squirrels and gopher tortoises. "We're just trying to follow our legislative mandate of restoring the ecological corridors," said Mickey Thomason, the manager of the Cross Florida Greenway. The restoration was still in the planning stages when the state first granted a lease to the club five years ago. "We're not trying to put a hardship on them," Thomason said. "It's a legitimate recreational activity." So in return for not renewing the lease, the Office of Greenways and Trails offered another state-owned field in Dunnellon, along with the labor and materials to clear it, level it and build a well. Meantime, the state offered to give the club a one-year extension on its lease, which ends in June, said the club's president, Tony Prieboy. "Although the club has been a wonderful steward of the lands they have leased and provided many important services to the community, we must relocate their activities in order to proceed with our mission," wrote Jena Brooks, director of the Office of Greenways and Trails, to Prieboy. A losing battle to save their home Since the club obtained its $400-a-year lease on the current field, its members have cleared brush, built a flight shack and set up a snack bar. They cut the grass with a team of four riding mowers. Don Adkins estimates that the club, whose members come from Citrus, Levy and Marion counties, has spent "thousands and thousands of hours" working on the airstrip. How often are they out here? "Depends on how much trouble you get at home," Bill Adams answers. They're confounded by their eviction from the property. They have written Gov. Jeb Bush and their state representatives and created handbills with the line, "Not everybody rides horses, bikes or hikes." So far they have little reason to hope they might keep the field. "They want to make it completely natural, which is commendable, but they should keep some for recreational purposes," Small said. Club members say the proposed field simply won't suffice. It is bordered by a lumber yard on one side, power lines on the other and live oaks at both ends of the proposed strip. Not to mention the nearby houses. The neighbors will surely not approve, and who can blame them, Small says. Their current airstrip is far away from residents who might complain about the buzz, buzz, buzz of dive-bombing model planes, and it's long enough for an ultralight, or perhaps a bonafide emergency landing. Learning the ropes, and taking the falls Wednesday morning, as a blue and silver plane death-spiralled toward the earth, Gene Heldmann coached the newcomer. "Up! Up! No! The other up!" Finally, Adams took the controls and sent the plane skyward once again. "Remember, altitude is your friend," Heldmann said, the plane controlled again by experienced hands. Such near-crashes might result in near catastrophe at the new field, members fear. There's no buffer zone for when you mistake a buzzard for your model B-17 -- the one with the hand-painted rivets and miniature flight crew -- and it, well, "lands" elsewhere. "It's never our fault," club vice president Jim Bryja said. "It's always something that went wrong with the plane." -- Richard Raeke can be reached at 564-3623 or rraeke@sptimes.com.
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