It’s that time of year again rolling into the Holiday Season. Seems the older we get the faster time flies. Our Christmas Banquet is only a week away so I hope everyone has purchased their tickets. Its going to be a great evening.

The work on the new Valley Center field is in a holding pattern right now. We are waiting for some much needed rain to make the upcoming road improvements much easier to do........

A million thanks to George Dawe for all his efforts in getting the club FRIA approved on the first go around. Our second FRIA approval for the Valley Center field should be coming by the first week in December. With our FRIA designations come our responsibility to stay in compliance with AMA and FAA requirements. Everyone please make sure you have your AMA number as well as your identification information on or in your aircraft. Also, your FAA number MUST be visible from the outside of your aircraft. I’m sure that you are going to need to renew your FAA number in the near future. Please check to make sure not to forget.

It's that time of year again to gather together all the treasures and other stuff you have been saving for our annual club auction. After our Club meeting on November 18, George Dawe will be banging his gavel as our Auctioneer.......

At our next Club Meeting on Saturday October 21 we will be closing nominations for our 2024 Officer and Board election that will take place in November. If you are interested in serving the club in one of these capacities please let us know so we can add your name to the ballot.

We will also be voting on a bylaw change to allow us to conduct the election electronically by email as well as paper ballots. The following in Section VII paragraph B is proposed to change to…“ The Membership Chairman shall prepare a mail-in ballot or an electronic e-mail ballot to be received prior to the November meeting. The ballot shall list each position and the nominees and shall provide a place for write in candidates.”

​I’m writing this column with a bunch of thank- you’s to club members who go the extra mile to make PRCF such a great club.
Thank you to Charles Lewis and Larry Wall for repairing the broken container door and for maintaining our tractor and field. Thank you to Chuck Riley for fixing our loudspeaker. Thank you to Gary Marquardt for donating a brand new American Flag to the club....

After almost one year of delays, long waits, unanswered texts
emails and phone calls, we finally have a signed land use agreement with the Valley Center partners to use the 436 acres for a new field. A million thanks to all who tirelessly worked to accomplish our goal. Special thanks to Bill Hill and Steve Gebler
who have been at this for years, putting in countless hours of time and effort…We commend you all. We are now shifting gears to get some grading and road improvements done so we can easily access the important flying areas on the property, Also many thanks to Jim Christy for planning the preliminary maps so we can have a large buffer zone from existing homes and horse ranches while keeping our grading needs to a minimum. Over the next few weeks we will begin this process and there is still much work to be done.

Summer is here and with it brings our annual 4th of July barbe-
que and picnic. Come on out on the fourth for a great barbeque
lunch and some flying to go with it. The club will be providing
the food and drinks and everyone is encouraged to bring a favor-
ite dessert to share .

A big thank you to all the guys who came out last Saturday to do
some weeding and cleanup. Many thanks to Johnny Hartsell, Larry Wall and especially Charles Lewis for running the brush hog to clear around the field.

I’m sure most of you have heard by now that we will be able to
keep our field until the first part of 2024. This gives us a lot of
breathing room to make plans for moving to our new field sometime in 2024. We are waiting for the Valley Center partners to approve and sign a land use agreement to lock in our new site by July 1st.

In the mean time we will be working on some field maintenance, on going mowing and some ideas to improve the poor condition of our runway. A $5000 expenditure for re-coating the runway for only 9-12 months would not be smart so the idea is to use a power brush to remove the loose coating that keeps flaking off. The surface under the existing top coat doesn’t look too bad and is pretty much intact. It should serve us well until we have to move.

Our spring weather has finally arrived with warmer temperatures and longer days. Mowing and weeding are ongoing  chores from all the rain we’ve had. Many thanks to Charles Lewis for coordinating the effort as well as running the tractor and brush hog. Also, Don White has been rumored to have traded in his heli for a four wheeled whacker to help keep the dark side manicured.
Thanks to all who have helped out. Remember to keep an eye out for snakes as they will be making their presence known very soon.

Last Tuesday, April 25, our Honorary Member Royce Williams flew to Washington D.C. to accept a tremendous honor. He was the guest of the President of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, and was awarded the Taegeuk Order of Military Merit during a luncheon celebrating the 70th anniversary of the U.S. and South Korean Alliance. This was the South Korean equivalent of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor.

Field News…..
We finally had our meeting with Gary Romoff , one of the other owners of the Valley Center property. He seemed agreeable to us using the property but said he needs to get approval from the third partner to make it happen. As I write this column on Friday March 31, he has not yet been able to talk to the other partner to secure approval. Everyone keep your fingers crossed.

Tales from the Dark Side….
A strange thing has been happening lately. A few of our fixed wing pilots (me included) have been migrating over to the helicopter side to try our luck with a bird of a different feather. This
has been a very humbling endeavor as anyone crazy enough to try it will tell you.

Aren’t we all spoiled to the Southern California weather and complain when the rainy weather doesn’t allow us to fly all the time? Daylight savings time is just around the corner and with it comes longer days so we can indulge ourselves again.

With all this rain the grass and weeds will be growing nonstop. Charles Lewis will be coordinating a mowing team to tackle the yearly chore of keeping the grass under control. If you are interested in helping out with the tractor mowing duties, please let us know. We need the help.

Hal and Robyn Meeker will be leaving us in March to move to Texas. Hal, we will very much miss you and all you do for our club. Good luck and Godspeed on your journey. Come back to visit real soon.

The property owners of Johnson Field, Louie and John Pappas,
along with their property manager Thad Johnson came down for
a surprise visit last Friday. I have been trying for many weeks to
get an accurate timeline from them on how much time the club
has left at our present location. Here is what they told me. We
will have to be out by June 1. This includes the removal of all
shade structures, storage containers as well as the removal of
the asphalt and concrete runway..........

Happy New year to our Palomar RC Flyers family. Hope Santa also brought you a new bird and not just a turkey.

If you missed our Christmas Dinner you missed a great evening
of food and fun. Here is a list of our year end award recipients...

Special PRCF Medal of Honor...Capt. E. Royce Williams

Excellence in Flight Instruction...Doug Abel, Chuck Riley, Hal
Meeker, Dave Ellis, Vic Lerum

Student of the Year...MikeMajewski

Jr. Student of the Year...Finn Majewski

Trifecta Champion...Tim Hitchcock

PRCF Ambassador...Doug Abel

PRCFWebmaster Par Excellence...Richard Torres

Editorial Excellence "Transmitter "...Joe Buko

2022 Members of the Year...Steve Gebler and Lorie Azar.

Hopefully we will have an update on our field search the first part of January. Everyone have a safe and prosperous New Year. See you at the field.