Rock River Aero Modelers Society

My name is Larry Nitz, I am the Secretary/Treasurer of the Rock River Aero Modelers Society. I am 76 years old, retired from Woodmans, where I was the Photo Category manager. I started the photo program at Woodmans and managed it for 23 years. Prior to Woodmans I was self-employed owning camera stores, a wholesale photographic business and a bicycle and ski shop.

The hobby of building and flying model planes has been a life long hobby. Within the hobby of model airplanes, I specialize in rubber- band freeflight models. That is to say I can’t make the planes come back to me like the RC guys do. I have to retrieve them myself.

Our club name is the Rock River Aero Modelers Society, RRAMS for short. I will be speaking about the history of our club and the challenges we have in the post 9/11 world and how technology is changing the nature of our hobby. The club has a flying site in Turtle Township on land owned by the township. This land was a dump/landfill and had limited repurposing options. We have been using the site now for about 17 years. The club just completed an overhaul of its site this past year and more projects are on deck for the coming flying season. We also support community projects throughout our membership area.