Suburban Aero Club of Chicago 2019 Year in Review

Established in 1962 and an AMA Gold Leader Club

 

Club Meetings, Members, and Meals

- 12 plane raffles $1500 value (12 x $125)

- 24 gift card raffles $600 (12 x 2 x $25 each)

- Info sessions: electrical, transmitter programming, new ideas, EDF afterburner, and new product info

- Scale Plane day which brought members out in full formation with 14+ aircraft on display with historical background (free gifts and $75 total in gift cards awarded to pilot participants!)

- Mary Jensen of Bestitched Embroidery Lifetime member award for the years of SAC support and donations provided to the club, she provides custom embroidery for club apparel, patches, etc.

- Banquet at Chef Klaus: Beer, Bratwurst, and Flyers, What else do you need!

- Club Family Picnic: great food, friendship, and our families seeing our hobby. There was Great flying entertainment including a death spiral of the flying lawn mower!  Power on Rob!

 

Fun Flys

- 8 events / 11 participants, too many flights (and bounces) to count.

- Competitive flying at all levels with LOTS of “body language” to get better flight scores!

- $100 cash prize awards at the Turkey Shoot

- Over $100 in plaques for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and the Turkey Shoot winner!

- Participants are all entered in the year end ARF plane raffle

- Thanks to Greg, Al, Rob for the event ideas, Ann’s hard work, John York’s photos and all the volunteers!

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Float fly’s: April thru September

- 12 Friday & Saturday events

- Special Memorial and Labor Day events with food

- 100+ participants from local clubs and states!

- Included planes, power boats, sail boats, cruise liners, and little

- Thanks Ron Wegrzyn for all your hard work to make these very successful events

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Cub Scouts pack 237 aircraft display and flight demos at Meadow Creek Airpark

- over 100 Scouts, parents, siblings, and Meadow Creek residents

- 20 RC aircraft on display and included full scale planes

- RC flight demos including Tom Lustig’s great aerobatic flights

- Fantastic full scale Pitts acrobatic demonstration by Meadow Creek resident Pilot with full smoke (see the videos)!!!

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VFW flight introduction

- Intro to Model Airplanes teaching families of VFW Post 311 - Benjamin O Davis

- 30+ VFW family members attended to get youth and families involved

- First Flight training to youth and adults which included lots of smiles!

- Small Drone raffled off

- Thanks to George Nichols for arranging the event which also included members from other local clubs

 

Public Relations

- Dolphin Lake Park Float Fly hosted by the with Homewood-Flossmoor park district

- Dailey Center: Represent SAC to public and government agencies which is more important than ever these days

- Food drive Nov / Dec: Over $300 in food donations help our local community people

- 1-on-1 flight training by SAC members to interested people and those just getting started

 

Auctions April & October

- 100+ attended on Thursday evenings

- Lots of RC hobby items sold during and after the auctions

- $100 total in raffle prizes ($50 cash each auction)

- Lots of bargains & laughs!  Always a great time!

 

WARBIRD DAY!

- Veterans and Battle of Britain tribute

- Many great scale warbirds displayed and flown!!!

- Free food and leading fees this year!

- Many great and awesome flights from screaming warbirds including Tom Lustig’s P-51 and Zero!  (See videos online Facebook and FLICKR)

- Great flying despite the rainy weather in the morning.

- Thanks to all who attended and helped including cook master Frank!

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AeroSTEM Expo 2019 @ IIT 3/30/19

- Introduces inner-city youth to the aviation and aerospace fields and mentors career aspirations

- 100’s of youth and parents attended

- RC aircraft display

- Partnered with Chicago Model Masters members

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Web Presence

- Website updated for content, events, information and links

- FLICKR photo sharing implementation now has over 2000 pics and Videos of this year’s activities!  Thanks to all who contributed. More to come!

- Facebook SAC community and SAC group pages reinvigorated to included events, meetings, photos, club info, and more. It’s a great way to keep up to date quickly inside and outside the club.

- Thanks to Devin for restarting SAC’s on-line signature out there on the internet

 

And many other things which have made the Suburban Aero Club of Chicago a great organization.  Thanks all the members who have helped in past, 2019, and years to come!

Now you know why you’re a SAC member!