That picture shows Baylands on June 16, 1993, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey via TerraServer-USA.

Sunnyvale Baylands Park opened to the public a year later, showcasing 105 acres of restored wetlands and offering visitors a half-mile-long Great Meadow, a children’s playground and three miles of pathways.

In the fall of 1998, the Pioneer R/C Club lost its flying field in Sunnyvale, CA. The land was taken over by a developer.

Lloyd Pound, a Pioneer member, looked around and discovered Baylands Park.

”I’d always see the park when I was driving to work down 237 and think, what a great place,” remembers Lloyd.

”I called Julie Oliver, who was Parks Supervisor for the city of Sunnyvale, and I asked if it was OK to fly there. It was a new idea for her, but she said yes. She had only two concerns: don’t fly back over the roadway and don’t fly over the fence. I made those my rules.

”Soon, Courtney and another guy from the Pioneers came and started flying here, too. Later, when Courtney Bryant had started working at San Antonio Hobbies, I said, ‘Quit telling everybody!’ We used to have six to eight people, and it was good. Even up to 15 people, it was fine. But then it started to get crowded.”

Julie Oliver would stop by to watch the flyers and talk to them, Lloyd recalls. “She was really nice.”

Although park management has changed since those early days, the City of Sunnyvale has continued to support flyers and their ilk. “The Parks and Recreation Department encourages the safe, courteous use of model cars and airplanes throughout the City parks system,” announces a city web page. “Gas-powered cars and planes are not allowed. (Rockets, fireworks and firecrackers are prohibited.)”

Interestingly, the Pioneer R/C Club, which was formed in 1950, continues to meet, though it has no flying field.

A reflection in a warped Sunnyvale mirror, the free-range flyers at Baylands enjoy a flying field with no attached organization.

Soon after I discovered Baylands Park, a friendly flyer suggested that I might enjoy a website focused on flying in the area: BayRC.com.

Wow, what a find! The board was started in August, 2003, by Don Cohn and Paul Ferradas. I spent hours reading threads about combat flying, about exploding batteries, about lost planes and so much more.

My favorite was a thread titled “RULES AND REGULATIONS REQUIRED TO FLY AT BAY LANDS.” Latin Dave Melara posted a set of 14 sensible rules, and then all hell broke loose.

The discussion was reasonable, angry, righteous, absurd, passionate. One participant was kicked off BayRC. In the end, only 29% of those who took a poll supported the proposed rules.

The co-op of Baylands flyers functions with a minimal rule system. Don’t fly over the road. Don’t fly over the fence. Post your channel frequency. There are a few other conventions: airplanes fly here, helicopters fly there, gliders fly over there.

Remarkably, this group that so resists structure functions better than many organized systems. People call each other by name, they joke, they share the flying space amicably, they help new flyers and their disagreements are generally channeled into aerial combat or fierce discussions on BayRC.

I know of other flying sites where people aren’t so friendly, of clubs with irritating schisms.

Lloyd says that it was his early influence that makes Baylands such a great place.

Then he laughs quite hard.

Tags: Airplanes, Baylands, Flying, Radio Control.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 14th, 2007 at 5:44 am and is filed under Baylands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.