This year your Rally was held at our National AMA Site in Muncie, Indiana and hosted by Chapters 48 & 651 -- (The Central Indiana IMAA Chapter 48) and (Henry County Right Flyers).

Over all we had 152 Registered pilots with 300+ aircraft and over 300 pit crewmen along with 17 Vendors on site. I can now breath a sigh of relief and the 2004 "Rally of the Giants" can go in the books as a great success. I personally wanted to hit the 200 mark on pilots and if the weather and the forecast had been better at the start of the week, I feel sure I would have made the mark.

I arrived at the AMA site Sunday evening June 13th., and got into a down pour. Monday brought more rain ---- at this point I was very doubtful that the "Rally of the Giants" would be any good at all and in fact would even take place with the current conditions. The weather turned a little better Tuesday morning when they set up the big vendor tent (40 ft x120 ft) but the rain returned again that evening. At this point I couldn't get much lower than the water I was standing in !

Wednesday morning brought the sunshine but the damage was done --- I had 2" of water running thru 1/2 of the big tent. Vendors started to arrive that afternoon had to set up in wet mush ---- they were VERY UNDERSTANDING and some of them waited until Thursday morning to set up. Steve Kaluf (the AMA Technical Director) would not allow any vehicles on the grass but did offer their John Deer "Gator" (a 4 wheel drive unit) to pull the vendor trailers into position.

Thursday --- (Opening Day of the Rally) brought more sunshine with 5-10m/h winds -- about 99% of the water had drained off but left the ground VERY mushy. Due to the wet ground the AMA would not allow the pilots put their trailers along the safety fence and made them stay in the parking lot. I had some unhappy flyers but they understood and went along with the parking lot plan. By the way ---- the parking lot was full by 12 noon and some even had to park in the RV camping area. All the flight stations were full and pilots filled the air with planes.

Thursday's wet mush didn't stop the people from visiting the vendor's tent and the vendor trailers out on the marsh land --- GRIN.

Friday --- the weather was even better with lots of sun and about the same light wind. Pilots were lined up to fly just about all day long. By mid day the water was gone and the ground was firming up but the AMA held fast and no one was allowed to park on the grass and once again the parking lot was full (this time) well before noon. The Vendors had cardboard walk paths and mats to stand on to keep from sinking in the yucky-muck.

Saturday --- brought a little more wind 10-15 m/h and a very cool morning. The Pilots were out in force again and the early morning cool air turned out to be a plus for the vendors as some of the pilots and people took cover in the big tent and the Vendors had a hay day and made up for the other two days of slow sales. By mid morning the air was full of planes of every description. After the flight line shut down for the day most of the pilots and a few of the 17 Vendors that were on hand for the Rally took to the road for home.

Sunday --- the last day of the Rally was of course the best day of all with a very lit 2-3 m/h breeze and lots and lots of sun. Only about 20 pilots were still on hand to reap the benefits of this great day. The "2004 Rally of the Giants" officially shut down at 1pm.

I want to make a special thank you to; Gary Bussell, (the event CD) and the Henry County Right Flyers (IMAA Chapter 651) for running the Flight Line, Steve Darlington (President of Chapter 48 and IMAA District VI Director) for Safety Inspection, Connie Bussell and Butch Hedrick - Pilot Registration, Jerry Riley for taking command of the Chapter 48 Raffle-IMAA booth, and Roger Seward and crew for Parking Control,, Corky Heitman & Greg Poppel for their work on the PA system, and last but not least, Ted Brindle for the pictures of the Rally. With out these people the Rally would not have happened and been the success that is was ! My hat is off to you all for a job well done, THANKS AGAIN !

I also want to thank the Vendors for putting up with the early wet conditions. Vendors on hand were: B & B Specialties, I4C Products, Kirbys Kustom Graphics, Composite Model Supply, Fiberglass Specialties, Great Planes / Futaba, RC Hobby Center, Air Flair, Flying Sons RC Hobby, DJ's Hobbies, Dynamic Balsa, TNT, RC's Hobbies, Balsa USA, SKS Video sales, Z-Planes and Robart Mfg.

Well, that just about sums it up. I had quite a few pilots ask when we were going to do the Rally again ---- that made me feel real good that they had a good time and want to return.

"On The Wing"
Ron Pierce, "2004 Rally of the Giants", Event Director.
AMA 1656 - IMAA 1646

2004 "Rally of the Giants" Photos by Don Thun

The following 90! photos were taken by Don Thun, IMAA # 5296, from Topeka, Kansas. Don was kind enough to store the photos on Yahoo, and will keep them there indefinitely. When you click on the link below, after the page loads, I suggest that you use the "Slideshow" to view the pictures. Thanks for some really nice photos, Don!

Photos by Don Thun

2004 "Rally of the Giants" Photos by Ron Pierce, Event Director

Photos by Ron Pierce