08/23/2026
Club member John McCord, who works as the Associate Director for Education, Outreach and Communications at the Coastal Studies Institute in Wanchese brought his "drone camp" class of nine high school students to our field to learn about and get some experience flying fixed-wing aircraft.
His students, aided by three adult facilitators, arrived and quickly set up shade canopies and chairs to shield their group from the sun and stifling 90-degree temperature. Club president, Jim Davis then spoke to the students as a group about how airplanes fly and are controlled, and what each of them would be doing when it was their turn to fly.
Jim then commenced to let each each of the nine students and all of the adult mentors individually fly a plane, aided by his verbal instructions and the use of a "buddy box" transmitter when it was needed. Between flights, club member Robert Yanacek assisted Jim by recovering the landed aircraft and installing a new flight battery so that turnaround time was minimal.
All members of this group successfully completed their flight and hopefully departed with some good memories of their flying experience with us at our field.
