2020

By Fred Cronenwett

As predicted, the storms came in Friday and we were presented with very windy conditions and rain headed our way. It was decided by all of the pilots to call the CL Scale Nats after the two rounds that were flown the day before.

The 2020 Outdoor Nats took place July 12-August 5 at the International Aeromodeling Center in Muncie, Indiana. Although the pandemic made for an interesting and complicated year, several events still took place safely, allowing competitors and AMA members to continue to enjoy our hobby.

We have created a photo gallery for this year's event. Please feel free to like, share, download, and print a few!

By Mike Unger Tuesday: Day 2 and the final day of the Heli Nats is now in the books. We arrived at the field to low cloud cover and cooler temps than expected, so we delayed the start of the final rounds of competition a few hours. This gave everyone time to charge batteries, tweak helicopter settings, and mentally prepare for the final three competition flights of the 2020 Nats. Once the clouds burned off, we started with F3C flying the F schedule. The F schedule is not only another set of maneuvers to learn, but it is also more difficult than the P schedule.

By Mike Unger

Well its finally that time of the year again: the 2020 Helicopter Nats! If you are like me, given everything that is going on in the world, I never expected to be writing about Nats this year, but here we are …

By Ryan Woebkenberg

F3K wrapped up Wednesday. Five more preliminary rounds were flown followed by a four-round flyoff for the top six finishers. The 14 rounds from yesterday and today were used to determine the contest winner.

A total of 20 pilots competed in the F3K Nats this year. That is down a bit from previous years (likely COVID related) when we typically have about 30 pilots enter. This year, we had four Juniors enter, and two of them made the flyoffs.  F3K 2020 was won by Jason Cole, with second going to Nathan Bartley, and third to Oleg Golovidov.

ALES, or Altitude-Limited Electric Soaring, ran July 28-29 at the 2020 Nats.

First Place: Peter Goldsmith
Second Place: Richard Burnoski
Third Place: Robert Burson

See scores from all 2020 Nats RC Soaring Events at GlideScore.com.

See all 2020 RC Soaring Nats coverage HERE.

By Ryan Woebkenberg

Tuesday was day one for F3K (Hand Launch Soaring). Nineteen pilots were present and flying was conducing using three flight groups.

F3K is the FAI Soaring class for RC hand-launch gliders. The models have a maximum wingspan of 1.5 meters and are typically made mostly from carbon fiber. The gliders are thrown hand, typically by being spun around from a wingtip and release.

By Ryan Woebkenberg

F5J Soaring began on Sunday with the completion of six rounds. Monday we few three more preliminary rounds. Out of nine total flights, each pilot was allowed to drop their worst score.

There was supposed to be a flyoff comprised of the top nine pilots, but the rain showed up about 1 p.m. My daughter and I left for the day, I and I am not sure if the flyoff was able to be completed …

Today is the start of F3K and ALES, which will both run through Wednesday.

By William Drumm III

Well the first two days of RC Combat flew by. We were able to get all the classes finished early leaving only a demonstration event of E-1000. E-1000 is a class still being tested out by the Radio Control Combat Association (RCCA). The current rules we are basing this event off are working well, and a proposal has been submitted to get it into the AMA Rulebook. E-1000 is an all electric class with a maximum battery size of a 3-cell 1000 mAh battery. The entire design is left open as the battery size limits the performance of the plane.

By William Drumm III

We started out the second day with GNAT Combat. GNAT airplanes are easy to build and are quite rugged because they are built out of coroplast and are all of the same design. They use a .15 engine that is legal for SSC and use the same 8 x 3 propeller without an rpm limit. Electrics are also able to compete and be competitive.

Unfortunately, there were only three pilots left to compete. Bob Loescher was unable to compete with his bandaged right hand from the incident Friday.