EastPac member Dick Bernier is also a staff member of the AAF Museum in Danville, Va.
Dick along with several volunteers have spent many, many hours for the past 8 months working on the East Coast's largest indoor 1/16 scale RC tank battlefield. The battlefield represents a small European village with a running stream of water from one end to another.
The size of the battlefield is 60 x 85 foot. There is an incredible 185 yards of dirt contained by 94 railroad ties that are drilled and anchored to the concrete floor. The building count at this point stands at 27 and more are planned. The building construction is plywood, each building represents about 20 hours of construction time. There is over 800 pounds of sawdust and grass mix laid over the dirt. The cobblestone road is over 45 foot and was painstakingly laid by Dick himself. Dick (or really his knees!) can tell you where every stone is in that road. The road is a marvel and one of the highlights of tha entire battlefield.
The river is a thing of beauty, the length over 126 foot. It took well over 135 bags of concrete at 80 pounds per bag to produced the river backs and holding pound at the end of the battlefield. The river is live as the water is pumped through the entire course of the river. Dropping a tank in the water will take you out of the game pretty quick. You quickly learn to use one of the two bridges for the battleground. The bridges are highly detailed and makes you almost not want to cross them for fear of damaged. But fear not, Dick and crew have made very strong bridges to take any damaged dished out by the tankers.
Tree, trees and more trees, there are over 200 artificial and live trees planted on the field of battle. Dick not being the type to leave something half done is also working on a 8 foot railroad tunnel along with a 48 inch railroad bridge to augment the 110 foot 1/16 scale railroad track laid out already.
So far Dick and the AFF museum in Danville, Va have spent in excess of 36,000 in time and material to produce one of the East Coast's finest 1/16 RC battleground.
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