History:
Back around 1985 a handful of guys would fly their models in a dirt-patch within the town limits of Dewey Arizona — about 20 miles southeast of our current Chino Valley field. Other times they used flying sites in Phoenix, Prescott, Paulden, etc.. Well, after some chatting with a local land owner in Dewey, they managed a handshake deal for the use of some of his private property for a field. It wasn’t a very big area, but at least they had a reliable place to play sky-warrior from time-to-time. Unfortunately, the property became useful to the owner and the sky-warriors were once again without a field. So, it was back to hauling butts, planes, and equipment to other locations around the state.
Luckily, one of the members worked out another arrangement with so-and-so in Prescott Valley. This was also a fairly small dirt-patch, but it served as another home base for the band of sky-warriors, for a time. Yep, you guessed it, that flying site was also short lived and the gang were field-homeless once again.
Finally, the town of Chino Valley came to the rescue and the gang – now officially called the Chino Valley Model Aviators, Inc. – appeared to have a flying field that might last for a period of time… actually, this first Chino Valley field was not very far from where our present field is located.