Dear PoPville – Looking for gyms or other high ceiling rooms to fly model airplanes

Float Documentary Trailer from Float Pictures on Vimeo.

Dear PoPville,

I have a request involving an esoteric hobby – extremely lightweight rubber band powered indoor model airplanes. Specifically, I am looking for gymnasiums or other high ceiling rooms that could be accessed or rented for low cost 4-6 times a year. To give you a better idea of the hobby, above is the trailer to a documentary some friends are currently making.

There are number of participants in the area (DC tends to have a good supply of retired military aviation/NASA engineers) and we are looking for spots to practice. We’ve made requests to DCPR but, for understandable reasons, they tend to favor using the gyms for athletic activities (as opposed to old nerds flying balsa and mylar airplanes powered by rubber bands).

If folks are interested in seeing these planes fly, we hold two public events at the Building Museum, the next one will be on April 7. We do model airplane building lessons for the cub scouts as part of the Building Museum program, and would be pleased to work with schools/church groups etc for some time in their gyms.

Any suggestions for low cost sites we could gain access to on weekends would be greatly appreciated.

The two limiting factors are that the HVAC needs to be off as normal heat/ac blowers are too strong for these delicate models, and we ideally need 3-5 hours as it is a slow moving activity.