(L to R) Bill Hughes, Patrick Hemple, and Chris Montagino hold their F2A speed models
By John Moll
Welcome to the 2025 National Aeromodeling Championships for 2025. My name is John Moll, I’m from The St. Louis, Missouri area and I’ll be filling everyone in on Control Line Speed events for the week. Our event name says it all: “SPEED.” We try to make our planes go as fast as we can. We will be flying 14 different events during the week. I would like to invite anyone who has an idea of flying Speed to come by Site 2 at the International Aeromodeling Center in Muncie, Indiana and watch. Ask questions of any of the contestants. We will be happy to answer them.
We start out on Monday (7/7/25) with the 1/2A events and go bigger and faster as the week progresses. On Thursday (7/10/25), we start flying the Pulse Jets, They make a nice noise and can be heard from just about anywhere on the field. The really fast ones run on Friday. They usually go upwards of 175 mph. That is actual speed, not scale speed!
Another interesting event that will run on Tuesday (7/7/25) is F2A speed. These models run a 2.5 cc motor with a tuned pipe. When they get on the pipe, that is when they hit the speed. The motors will be operating at around 40,000 rpm. The models can reach speeds of 180 mph (close to 295 kph). Oh, and that is with a one-bladed propeller!
I invite everyone to come out and enjoy some speed flying.
