Where to fly in SoCal? Fairview or El Dorado Park?

[PilotSmith]

The city park I occasionally used to fly has become RC hostile thanks to a class A a-hole who decided about 3 months ago that it would be cool to fly his extremely loud combat wing over the rooftops of the homes on the park's perimeter. He would also dive bomb the homes and fly early in the morning and early on weekends. Needless to say that started to greatly annoy the residents so now they call the police even if someone is flying a small silent park flyer. Don't want to end up with a $500 ticket so I looked around for geographically convenient flying fields.

I'm about 15-20 minutes away from Fairview Park and El Dorado Park. In addition to my heli I have a few electric airplanes I would like to fly. I've only seen the parks late in the afternoon when nobody was out flying. Fairview is for the most part a large dirt field so belly landing my foamies would be a bit rough on them. But it is free to fly at the park except for the $20 yearly permit. El Dorado is a much nicer looking park with grass in the flying area. But you pay $4 to get into the park which adds up if you go there a lot.

Other than for the cost, and the grass, are there any other differences in flying between the two fields such as weather, attitudes, crowdedness, etc?

[Finless]

Hmmm this sounds familiar.... I hate to be an ass but customers of a CERTAIN hobby shop in the area are causing this problem... I bet you a million dollars SAID A-hole that shut you down came in as a customer of THIS hobby shop.... THEY WILL get us kicked out of another park too because the OWNER of said hobby shop also doesn't give a rats arse about rules of a flying area.... He tells people to go here or there to fly this crap that pisses off the locals.... He just wants to SELL... Doesn't care if we have a place to fly... HE IS A DICK trust me.... Same story different month man...

Welcome to the "I don't give a crap" RC experience in our area and the hobby shop that promotes that attitude.... We never had a "flying field" problem until this hobby shop owner in our area opened shop! I ask that you NEVER shop there...

Personally... I would like to see that guy GO OUT OF BUSINESS as he is promoting people to abuse our flying sites we have had for YEARS and causing this kind of trouble...

PRIME EXAMPLE... Said hobby shop is selling Nitro heli setups to people telling them they can fly at Arbor park as LONG as they do it in the morning..... The POLICE have said... "we all can use the park for electric ONLY" But dork wad hobby shop owner is causing this controversy and causing a problem that WILL eventually cause us to LOOSE our great flying area....
Ask DORK WAD shop owner how many times he has been kicked off the field because the military MP's have told DORK WAD not to fly outside the perimeter? He is one of the LARGEST reasons the MP's have closed flying for the day because he CONSTANTLY flys outside the park and into the military area... When HE gets the park closed down.... then he will feel the business impact of sales... The bad part is he is to STUPID to know it yet...

If you know who I am talking about HELP STOP HIM by NOT supporting him and his practice.....

Sorry I got on a soap box... :soapbox

Only reason is I hate to see the cops toss us locals out of another flying area because of 1 or 2 dorks!

Anyway you want a place to fly E-helis? PM me and I will tell you...

Bob

[JaggedEdge]

:DOHIt's hard enough to find someplace safe to fly around here without this stupid crap going on..

[PilotSmith]

What shop is promoting that crap?

I didn't realize that in all of Huntington Beach it was illegal to fly in any park until the officer came to talk to me last week. The A-hole was flying earlier that morning. I have a friend that lives next to the park and he said the guy was driving him nuts all morning with the noise. When I got to the park it was empty. Within 10 minutes of flying my near silent foamy far away from the homes the police got called out for a report of an airplane flying over the homes.

I explained to him that likely the person that called in thought that a-hole was back and wanted to get at him. The cop told me it was illegal to fly but they don't enforce that ordinance unless they get a complaint call or observe someone being an idiot. He said I could keep flying. He watched me for a few minutes and left. He said the neighbors should get sling shots and shoot the guy's airplane down. I confided in him that the a-hole has already lost 2 airplanes due to neighbor induced frequency interference. He laughed as asked what the guy looked look to keep an eye out for him. Next day he was out there again being a butt head and 2 cop cars went out to him. Hopefully they fined him $500 for illegal RC flying plus $500 for noise violation.

First time I met the guy I noticed he was a newb to RC airplanes and I helped him out explaining to him why his LiPo packs were puffing, etc. I told him he needed to tone it down or else people who lived along the perimeter of the park would start to complain. He said he knew the law and his rights and they could go F off. That was about the end of our relationship. A few weeks later a friend of mine that lives next to the park went out to talk to him along with another neighbor and he got in their face and told them to go f off. At that point they started to talk to other neighbors and planning to go to the city, etc... I debated for a while if it was right to shoot him down. I figured it was okay as he regularly had been flying like an idot over homes and pissing off everyone with that and the noise. So I loaned my fequency scanner to my friend and my frequency programable radio. But after 3 months of his crap the neighbors are hostile so time to find a new place to fly.

I've heard there was some hostility between glider pilots and pilots flying electric airplanes and helis. Not sure if that is true or nor.

[Finless]

So Pilot SMith.... You live in OC and never been to Arbor park?

Anyway this is typical out here... ONE DORK can take a local school or park people have been flying at for YEARS, and make it non-flyable.... When you get a hobby shop that tells new people to "go here and fly" then the site grows and if you get DORKS... Well it gets shut down due to the problems you just talked about. The real problem is the local flyers that have flown at this spot for years DO NOT have the power to TOSS the dorks that show up and DON'T CARE and tell them they cant fly....
If I had that power at Arbor park... I would have tossed MANY guys after repeated attempts to keep them in the rules the Military have given us.... Unfortunately since it is a OPEN park... No one can do that :(

Bob

[Sircrashalott]

I used to fly at Arbor Park 3-4 years ago till the guys at --b's took over and acted like like they owned the place.....When I started flying there I would be the only one there most of the time, I taught my wife and son in law to fly there.........I lived right down the street,were no helis there at that time, all planks, mostly of them had 100 mph combat wings and would fly pack after pack

I went to fairview park after that

Fairview is a nice place to fly but stay far away from the houses on the left , They will call the cops too........

Since I live in Elsinore now there are tons of places to fly out here....I found a nice field out of the way from everybody and have a Blast

[PilotSmith]

Today was the first day I went to Arbor park. (I'm assuming it is the area inside El Dorado park adjacent to the police academy with the yellow wind sock.) That is a very nice park! It was dusk so nobody was flying today. Reminds me a bit of Mile Square Park but larger and a little more natural looking. I lived about 1 mile from Mile Square and used to fly out there until they closed it down for the golf course. That is when I got out of the hobby for years and got back in a couple years ago when I discovered the quantum leap that electrics made over that time.

I was just wondering what the politics were are each park (Arbor and Fairview) to know ahead of time what to watch out for. More than likely I'll start going to both. Fairview is a little closer and free so for heli flying that may be better for me. But Arbor has grass so it would be more gentle on my foamies when landing. I have not flown at either park yet or been there when others have been flying.

One reason that I've avoided looking for an official field was that I didn't realize that there were any so close by, and I never cared to fly when there was a lot of traffic in the air. Brings back memories of Mile Square on weekends and waiting a long time between flights to have a turn. Guess 2.4GHz has eliminated the waiting issue but I'm still not so sure I want to fly with the distraction of a lot of other aircraft flying at the same time. Although I have to say that my mid air crash at Mile Square Park was rather dramatic and spectacular. The airplane an instructor had me using as I was learning a few things was literally turned into confetti by a huge airplane. Noting much was left of mine and the other large airplane landed safely with only a damaged prop.

[Sircrashalott]

actually Arbor Park is in Los Alamitos,could be Cypress right behind the Fish and Game headquarters

[Sircrashalott]

Small world I raced 1/4 scale cars at Milesquare till it closed down

[PilotSmith]

actually Arbor Park is in Los Alamitos, right behind the Fish and Game headquarters

Small world I raced 1/4 scale cars at Milesquare till it closed down


It was too bad that they allowed a golf coarse to kill the hobby area that had rocketry, RC cars, RC flying, control line flying, wind sailing, off road bike track, etc... Even more so given the park already had 2 golf courses!

I was driving by El Dorado Park late in the afternoon and detoured to look inside. I asked a couple joggers if people flew helis and they said a bunch of people flew helis in the park. I passed a sign in the park that said Arbor something. I assumed I was in Arbor Park but admittedly was a little confused what there was another name for part of the park!

So how does Arbor compare to El Dorado and Fairview for flying mix of heli and fixed wing? Dang, I am now up to 3 fields that are close to me!!! :YeaBaby:

Arbor
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54364&d=1215699752

El Dorado
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54365&d=1215699752

Fairview
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54366&d=1215699752

[PilotSmith]

I used to fly at Arbor Park 2-3 years ago till the guys at robs took over and acted like like they owned the place.....

Earlier this week I asked at Rob's where was a good place to fly. I was told there was a parking lot behind Costco that people have been using to fly. Dave never mentioned any of the 3 fields listed above. Can't figure that one out. Why would you send anyone to a Costco lot when there are 3 large fields fairly close by? :thinking

[Gmoney]

I am just going to tell you to visit the OCMA site. The guys there are awesome, the facility is secure. yeah you need to join a club and have AMA but let me tell you its worth it to have the caliber of guys that fly there every weekend. They are looking out for the KOOKS and keep a handle on there little slice of heaven. You search is over.. One thing keep that to yousele I would hate to see that place get to busy:thumbup:.

Gmoney

This hobby doesnt need anymore A-holes..Why is I seem to run into every one of them? FOG's SUCK!!

flyingoldguys.com Just shoot me..

[PilotSmith]

Most of the time when I fly it is a spontaneous thing when I get some free time and not preplanned. I'd probably never make it out to OCMA at Irvine lake. I think it is about a 45 minute drive for me. I checked their site and they charge $200 to join, you must attend meetings, etc. If I was real close to them I would consider it, but for now I'll rotate among the 3 close fields and see which one has the fewest nuts flying and a decent atmosphere. I no longer have nice airplanes. For the most part my heli is the only expensive toy I own. My airplanes are foam and nothing special. If I had a nice airplane I'd probably want to fly at a place like OCMA where they have the nice runway and I'm sure a more professional group of people flying.

[Sircrashalott]

It was too bad that they allowed a golf coarse to kill the hobby area that had rocketry, RC cars, RC flying, control line flying, wind sailing, off road bike track, etc... Even more so given the park already had 2 golf courses!

I was driving by El Dorado Park late in the afternoon and detoured to look inside. I asked a couple joggers if people flew helis and they said a bunch of people flew helis in the park. I passed a sign in the park that said Arbor something. I assumed I was in Arbor Park but admittedly was a little confused what there was another name for part of the park!

So how does Arbor compare to El Dorado and Fairview for flying mix of heli and fixed wing? Dang, I am now up to 3 fields that are close to me!!! :YeaBaby:

Arbor
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54361&stc=1&d=1215699508

El Dorado
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54362&stc=1&d=1215699508

Fairview
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54363&stc=1&d=1215699508

I have not been to Arbor in a long time but I know that Finless flys there and in some of the videos he has I have seen planks flying around.....

If Finless flys there I am sure its better than it was years ago, Not sure if they still have soccer games there or not on the weekends, They used to be all done by 3:00 or so and then the Flying guys showed up...

Im sure Finless will chime in with more updated info

[Finless]

When soccer season comes (sept - Jan) we cant fly at Arbor on Saturdays until after 2:00. Sunday's are usually OK unless there is some kind of playoff...

In general if there are any sports it's a no fly zone.... However more Sundays are free to fly than not.

Rob and most of his customers have not been going to Arbor much anymore. Even then most that come from Rob's are now heli guys and the plankers are well behaved. We have another hobby shop owner now that is the problem. He himself consistently flys unsafe and is risking getting this park closed down for flying... Because of that the people that come from his shop as customer do the same thing because they see this guy fly that way....

I have been at the park when the military has come over and kicked everyone out for the day BECAUSE of these certain folks consistently are flying outside the park fence line or over 200' altitude. These folks have been told SEVERAL TIMES not to do that yet they continue and every now and then the military have to come pull the plug for the day! One day they are gonna get fed up and just end it forever :(

Bob

[BenHeli]

Milesquare was cool and it was shut down because the city is getting huge revenues from leasing the land to the golf course operator. El Dorado is real quiet but daily entrance fee is a bust (I think you can buy an annual pass which would be cost effective). OCMA is only $100 to join for the remainder of 2008 ($50 sign-up fee plus $50 annual due for the remainer of 2008). When down in Fountain Valley, I hovered and do gentle flying w/the shaver in a park behind my sister's house. I and a few members here in RB fly at a super secret and hard to find location.

[raylepper]

Hmmm this sounds familiar.... I hate to be an ass but customers of a CERTAIN hobby shop in the area are causing this problem... I bet you a million dollars SAID A-hole that shut you down came in as a customer of THIS hobby shop.... THEY WILL get us kicked out of another park too because the OWNER of said hobby shop also doesn't give a rats arse about rules of a flying area.... He tells people to go here or there to fly this crap that pisses off the locals.... He just wants to SELL... Doesn't care if we have a place to fly... HE IS A DICK trust me.... Same story different month man...

Welcome to the "I don't give a crap" RC experience in our area and the hobby shop that promotes that attitude.... We never had a "flying field" problem until this hobby shop owner in our area opened shop! I ask that you NEVER shop there...

Personally... I would like to see that guy GO OUT OF BUSINESS as he is promoting people to abuse our flying sites we have had for YEARS and causing this kind of trouble...

PRIME EXAMPLE... Said hobby shop is selling Nitro heli setups to people telling them they can fly at Arbor park as LONG as they do it in the morning..... The POLICE have said... "we all can use the park for electric ONLY" But dork wad hobby shop owner is causing this controversy and causing a problem that WILL eventually cause us to LOOSE our great flying area....
Ask DORK WAD shop owner how many times he has been kicked off the field because the military MP's have told DORK WAD not to fly outside the perimeter? He is one of the LARGEST reasons the MP's have closed flying for the day because he CONSTANTLY flys outside the park and into the military area... When HE gets the park closed down.... then he will feel the business impact of sales... The bad part is he is to STUPID to know it yet...

If you know who I am talking about HELP STOP HIM by NOT supporting him and his practice.....

Sorry I got on a soap box... :soapbox

Only reason is I hate to see the cops toss us locals out of another flying area because of 1 or 2 dorks!

Anyway you want a place to fly E-helis? PM me and I will tell you...

Bob

That was great!

[PilotSmith]

I stopped at Gyro Hobbies today. Been about 6 months since I was last there. Looks much nicer now and the heli section has grown a lot.

The new guy at Gyro said the old glider farts at Fairview park don't like people to fly helis over there. It is an open park for anyone and anything electric under 10 pounds is game by the city rules by what I read. Don't see how they can prevent anyone to fly there. But I think wind at Fairview may make it where it isn't good for helis.

I'll have to drive by Arbor park next time I am in the general area. I should start to carry my heli in the trunk of my car. But I worry that the heat may be bad for it. Guess I could always put one of those ice packs in my case to keep it from getting too hot in there?

[lowflyer101]

I stopped at Gyro Hobbies today. Been about 6 months since I was last there. Looks much nicer now and the heli section has grown a lot.

The new guy at Gyro said the old glider farts at Fairview park don't like people to fly helis over there. It is an open park for anyone and anything electric under 10 pounds is game by the city rules by what I read. Don't see how they can prevent anyone to fly there. But I think wind at Fairview may make it where it isn't good for helis.

I'll have to drive by Arbor park next time I am in the general area. I should start to carry my heli in the trunk of my car. But I worry that the heat may be bad for it. Guess I could always put one of those ice packs in my case to keep it from getting too hot in there?

give me info to get to Farview park, i will bring my shaver and bug them all day.. i am deaf, and don't give a darn how much nor how long those glider farts cry , they want complain , let them talk to my hand :YeaBaby:

[BenHeli]

give me info to get to Farview park, i will bring my shaver and bug them all day.. i am deaf, and don't give a darn how much nor how long those glider farts cry , they want complain , let them talk to my hand :YeaBaby:

too funny ...:rollingwe'd have to meet up with the shavers (Carson field may be) so you can teach me to fly.

[Aox]

I used to fly at Fairview all the time. There is a "heli area" that's ok, good enough for one person to fly at a time. You'll only get grief from the FOG's on weekend mornings, which is glider time. They take up the whole field and histart their gliders with a winch. It's home to the Harbor Soaring Society.

-Aox

[lowflyer101]

too funny ...:rollingwe'd have to meet up with the shavers (Carson field may be) so you can teach me to fly.
i got a buddy cord, maybe we can mess up your shaver, 2 grow men fighting over 1 shaver, now that is funny :lol:

[BenHeli]

i got a buddy cord, maybe we can mess up your shaver, 2 grow men fighting over 1 shaver, now that is funny :lol:

Just for that I'll bring the mutt 450! :wow2:

[whaleboy]

Where exactly in El Dorado park are you guys flying? Can you fly planes there too? Same area? Is it a semi dedicated flying area, or are you at the whim of whoever else is in the area at the time?

Thanks

-David

[PilotSmith]

Where exactly in El Dorado park are you guys flying? Can you fly planes there too? Same area? Is it a semi dedicated flying area, or are you at the whim of whoever else is in the area at the time?

Thanks

-David

Below is the field. The small circle is the frequency board. The large circle the flying area. It is a dedicated flying field. You need to have AMA insurance. I have not had a chance to go there yet during the day to see how busy it gets. But is looks like a nice large flying area. Plus it is legal flying field so nobody should give anyone any grief for flying over there. The flying field is next to the police academy that you can see in the n/w corner of the photo. I think it is $10 now to get in the park on the weekend so the $50 annual pass is a must.

http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=56026&stc=1&d=1216785622