Hello again from the great cold north. The indoor season for many is in full swing and the rest of us are just keeping warm by getting new models ready for the 2016 outdoor season. Fab February is now in the books with some very ood flying—congratulations to the SCAT group and all its supporters for another well run week plus of flying.

Lead by Yuan Kang Lee and Bud Layne, a bid has been put in to sponsor the 2018 Indoor World Championships at West Baden, Indiana. This has been accepted by the AMA and has been sent to the FAI for consideration. Once this has been approved, it will be up to us to help support this effort. It is a big thing to have a WC in the US and I want to thank Kang, Bud, and the rest of their committee for this commitment. Good luck all on this!

The 2016 Outdoor Nats is now in the capable hands of Ed Carroll. He will be looking for the normal multitude of volunteers needed to run the event. Please provide whatever support you can to this as it is the behind the scenes people that make a NATS run smoothly. Ed can be contacted at <ec31133@aol. com> for more information or to offer your services. Thanks Ed and looking forward to another fun Nats.

The Indoor Nats is also proceeding nicely with the Bud Layne as the Contest Director. The NFFS Indoor Committee has promised a great contest, this year held at Rantoul, Illinois on July 20-24. Rantoul is well within driving distance of Muncie  (Mapquest shows it to be 177 miles) so it provides the opportunity to fly both Indoor and Outdoor. This hasn’t happened in decades so hopefully many of you can take advantage of this. Once again, if you can provide support contact Bud at <Bud_Layne@ spantechllc.com> to join the fun.

The 2016 Symposium book is going quite well. Sergio Montes and his group of associate editors have it well in hand and it will be a great addition to your library. From the list of articles I have seen it should be good reading. I want to thank all that are making this happen.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of NFFS. Nine years ago it was announced that NFFS was 40 years old. However, after looking at the history of NFFS, I found that in actuality the initial board of directors and acceptance of memberships was in 1966. Here is a quote from the NFFS history initially compiled by Jim Haught:
“The Board meeting was held, but ‘through a misunderstanding,’ a number of non-Board members attended. A ‘permanent Board of Directors’ consisting of Dick Black, Pete Sotich, George Murphy, and Carl Fries, was established, although Fries also asserted that this Board would serve ‘for an interim period.’ The Board’s first directives were to establish a NFFS constitution and establish articles of incorporation. Dues were established as $3.50 per year for AMA members ($4.50 for those who did not belong to AMA), and by late 1966 NFFS had 350 members.”

There is work going towards celebrating the 50th at both the Indoor and Outdoor Nats. Keep an eye out for some pretty cool specials (like T-shirts and decals) as well as other goodies.
NFFS has plenty of interesting and exciting things going on for our membership. There is a lot of work ahead but it should be a lot of fun.
Thanks to all for their work so far and as always, “see ya downwind!”
John Lorbiecki, Hubertus, Wisc. lorbieckie@sbcglobal.net