RCCA

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 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.

By William Drumm III

RC Combat started out with Slow Survivable Combat (SSC). SSC is the most popular class RC Combat has to offer. Only having a .15 engine and an rpm limit reduces the speed and the severity of the crashes that are bound to happen. With the current COVID-19 situation, only four pilots made the trek to Muncie, Indiana, to compete this year.