Please forward to your lists. Any current NFFS member may cast a vote
for President. Polls close at midnight, 12/31/15.
Thanks
Don DeLoach
NFFS
Ballot for NFFS President:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VL6KDQR
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (INCUMBENT): JOHN LORBIECKI
Well, never say never.
After much soul searching and looking at other considerations, I have
decided to run again for President of the National Free Flight Society.
By now, the membership has a good idea of my background. But for those
of you who I have never met, here is a brief rundown on my background.
I am a senior mechanical engineer for GE Healthcare, working primarily
on R&D projects used on magnetic resonance systems. I am a certified
flight instructor with a commercial and instrument rating. Our family
owns a Cherokee 180 which has been used for personal and business use
(plus, I trained my son John in it for his private pilot’s license; he
is now training in an F-16 for the Madison Air National Guard). Not only
do I have flying as a hobby but also I drag race. We have two dragsters
that run in the 7-second range at over 170 mph. I built everything on
these cars, from the basic chassis to the engines.
My modeling career started at the age of 5 flying control line models.
The original club I belonged was multi-functional, with members flying
control line, R/C, and Free Flight. I fell in love with FF and that
started a 50-year hobby. With folks like Dick Swenson, Gil Graunke, Bob
Whaley, George Versaw, Rol Andersen, Hardy Brodersen, Tony Italiano, and
many others I concentrated on FAI power and powered AMA events. I enjoy
towline and have flown it most of my life. HLG was a biggy for many
years until the arm went away. I even twisted a few rubber bands some.
As a long-time member of the Bong Eagles, I got involved in running
various contests. With Tony’s help, I was assistant to him in running an
indoor WC at Johnson City. I have been an assistant and overall CD of
multiple Nats as well as being a Sympo editor.
My son and I got involved in the Junior FF Team program and had good
success there, with him being the 2004 World Champ, 2002 runner up, and
a good showing in 2007 in F1C in the Ukraine. Through these
competitions, I have met many FAI fliers and made friends worldwide. All
of these relationships have helped me in the first four years of being
the NFFS President.
With the help of a great board and volunteers, we have moved NFFS ahead.
The Digest went to full color and we were able to actually save money in
its production. The plans service, which was losing money, was reworked
and turned into a money maker. Board members used to meet only twice a
year (with a cost of over $3000 for one of the meetings) and I changed
this to a minimum of monthly telecons. This improved the communications
between us and saved NFFS money. I set up multiple internet and email
specials for selling products to our membership. As President, I have
helped manage the Outdoor Nats all four years, running the banquet and
auction. Plus, we have had a balanced budget (thanks Frannie!) and have
not had to hit any of our savings. The website has been used more (with
Alan Peterson’s excellent work) and soon will have a new service to make
it even better. We have worked with AMA to promote FF and with their
help we have been able to change various systems in regards to the Nats
and other functions.
As with any organization, we do run into problems. One major problem was
the sudden death of our membership chairman. The board and I were able
to work through this in a very timely manner and minimize the impact to
our membership. The plans service was also an area in which rapid action
needed to be done and we were able to make this transition seamlessly.
But, there is always more to do. We have worked hard at improving all
our services to our members. We still need to continue to look at
increasing (or at least maintaining) our membership. We need to continue
providing the excellent Digest (big thanks to Don DeLoach and his
efforts) as well as making the Sympo an excellent resource for technical
and practical articles. The Indoor community is improving and I feel we
have some interesting things happening in the near future. Plus, we have
to keep the Nats the best run contest in the country. All of these are
just a continuation of what we already are doing.
So, I hope that you feel the way I do and want me to try and finish off
what I have started. It has been a great four years and I have met so
many folks that I never would have if it wasn’t for NFFS. I ask you to
vote and hopefully we can keep making NFFS an organization we all can be
proud of.
Thanks for your consideration.
John Lorbiecki, Hubertus, Wisc.
lorbieckie_at_sbcglobal.net
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: DENNIS TYSON
I would like to be able to start this off with a long list of how many
National Championships I’ve won but that’s just not the case. Instead, I
would like to share with you my passion for Free Flight of all
disciplines. I’ve been a member of NFFS for about five years now and
always look forward to the next Digest and tend to read them cover to
cover. Before I became a member, a nice gentleman in Indiana, who’s name
I wish I could remember, sent me a few back issues of the Digest and I
was hooked.
Here are some of the basics about me and my interest in Aviation.
I started flying RC when I was about 15 years old, wow; I guess that’s
36 years ago. I have flown all types including early ducted fan jets.
The most fun for me is just doing lazy aerobatics and old school pattern
maneuvers. I also love Thermal Duration glider flying.
I spent four years in the Air Force and 11 years in the Air National
Guard. In the Guard I was a fuel systems specialist on KC135, F-106, and
F-16s. If you love airplanes, there nothing like working on the military
ones.
I got my private Pilot’s License in 1995. I have been a member of the
EAA since 2001 and have built and flown a Minimax, and have been working
on a Sonerai 2 LS for the past six years. I also serve the EAA as a
Technical Counselor.
I got my start in Free Flight in about 2004 when I would take my
daughter Alexa to Grand Rapids to fly in a gym a couple times a month.
It was an amazing introduction and we flew the pants off of Right
Flyers. There were many mass launches directed by a gentleman named Karl.
Jeff Hood was the first major influence we had and due to him answering
all of my thousands of questions early on, we began to dig deeper into
the world of Indoor. Jeff hosted the first contest we ever attended.
Then it was Kent State, USIC at Johnson City, Lakehurst, Kent State, and
so on.
My son Parker was one of the Juniors competing in F1D in Belgrade,
Serbia in 2010 and placed 3rd. We returned in 2012 and both of my sons
competed and I was the Junior Team Manager. I wouldn’t trade the time
spent with them traveling and competing in Free Flight for anything. It
will be some of the best memories of my life.
We decided to give Outdoor a try a few years ago and competed at the
Outdoor Nats We flew HLG and P-30. This was another set of learning
curves that I am still learning. So now my fleet consist of a Super
Pearl 202e, another Pearl for A/B Electric, a Becker Nostalgia Rubber,
Gollywock, Senator, a couple of P-30s and a handful of planes for FAC
competition.
My contest flying has been scarce for the past few years due to a
college graduation of my daughter and high school graduation of my first
son, and now getting him settled into Embry Riddle. But I’m coming back!
One of my joys relating to Free Flight has been to find great items that
were no longer available to the Free Flight community and figuring out
how to make them, improving on them if possible and offering them for
sale again. I’ve built glue applicators, balsa strippers, winding
stooges, yellow winder brakes, and now torque meters for Outdoor Free
Flight. I really enjoy this process and am always happy to see them out
in the field being enjoyed. This was one of the ways we helped to fund
our two trips to the F1D World Champs.
In my professional career I have been the Director of Construction for
Family Christian for the past 16 years and have been with the company
for 24 years. I manage store design, construction, and facilities for
our chain of 250 stores. Our home is in Hastings, Michigan which is nice
as we only have a three-hour drive to Muncie.
So my interest in being the NFFS President is somewhat selfish. I don’t
profess to being an expert but instead am interested in broadening my
knowledge and understanding of Free Flight as a whole. I want to learn
more about the Outdoor FAI events, the FAC, and meet more of the
characters that I’ve only heard about. I’m good at asking questions in
an attempt to dig deeper into subjects. I like the idea of making a
contribution to move all of Free Flight forward and helping to secure
its future. I would like your consideration for this important role.
Dennis A Tyson, Hastings, Mich.
dennis.tyson_at_familychristian.com
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Received on Mon Nov 30 2015 - 20:04:55 CET