Everything Aviation Happens
in Urbana

MRFA was founded, providing an organization to promote model aviation, train newcomers to the hobby and supply a common ground for all hobbyist to share their love for aviation.

The Mad River flying Association is an Ohio based nonprofit organization that was conceived in 1993. Wayne Brunotte and David Millner were already involved in radio control, and made the decision to place an ad in the local newspaper to see if there was any interest in developing a club in the Urbana area. A meeting date was set. In this first opening meeting that saw 20 people in attendance, thus MRFA was born. At the following meeting a name was established, officers were elected, bylaws and club Constitution were written and adopted.

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With the basics defined and the new membership eager to fly, the next item on the agenda was to establish a flying site. With the help of Mr. Wendell Weller and his family, MRFA had a temporary home at his private full-scale landing strip. The club was in the air!  The club still needed to focus on obtaining a permanent site.

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The club approached the city of Urbana with a proposal to transform the old landfill into a model Airpark. After showing the city that several other communities had successfully done the same thing and conveying what this type of group could do to add to the city’s recreation base, they approve the idea and set forth with our plans. A local excavating firm was a major sponsor of the development of the site. They trucked in dozens of loads of topsoil and provided the grading of the runway surface. Working on the top of a closed landfill presents many challenges, shortly thereafter the runway was seated and prepared for use. In June 1994 MRF a moved into its current home located at 1217 children’s Home Rd. in Urbana. This site is still in use.   We are a fully chartered and insured club registered by the AMA (Academy of model Aeronautics).

Over the years. The membership has grown from 20 members to as many as 60 members at one point. Out of these members we actually have an active flying membership of roughly 25+.  In keeping with our membership growth. We have also tried to expand our commitment to the community and schools.

We reach out to teach and show modeling can lead to careers in Aeronautical Engineering and even several of our youth members have gone on to become commercial pilots! Some of these are “public days” where we engage visitors with demonstrations and some of these are “come fly with us days” where we invite and introduce the general public to try R/C flight.  Another outreach is our annual fun fly and Heli fly-in.  We have also been involved in sponsoring a local 4-H club, school programs.