The F3L gang from 2025.
By Mike Bergerson
Well alrighty you glider guiders, here we go again! “Glider Camp” aka “The Academy of Model Aeronautics/ League of Silent Flight (AMA/LSF) Soaring Nationals,” organized by our absolute favorite Nationals event director, Wally “By Golly!” Adasczik, is set to begin with Cross Country. This event will take place just down the road from AMA headquarters at Monroe Central High School in beautiful Parker, Indiana on Wednesday, July 15. Open winch and electric soaring, vying for the coveted total distance prize, will run for three days ending Friday, July 17. Two 10-kilometer courses will be mapped out for those seeking their LSF fly-and-return distance tasks. The location also provides a fantastic venue to reach your LSF flight time goals, as well as a bit of practice for upcoming events. This is one of the best kept secrets of the Nats! Oops.
Saturday, July 18 and Sunday, July 19 will field Altitude Limited Electric Soaring (ALES), for those who love a classic format Thermal Duration (TD) competition. Contestants climb to an electronically controlled preset altitude within the 30 seconds allowed and fly a 10-minute timed task, avoiding that infamous “Muncie Madness," and conclude with a precision spot landing. The festivities will be presided over by your Contest Director (CD) Norm Poti and his crew with some super cool extra surprises… we hope! This is the competition event you definitely want to fly if you're a sport pilot or a pro looking for a very good time!
The AMA/LSF Nationals, getting serious but staying super-fun, is hosting two US Team Selects for the upcoming Worlds events. On Friday, July 17 through Sunday, July 19 are the US Team Selects for Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) F3K hand launch gliders. With Mickey Nowell as the CD, it will prove to be a well-attended and wonderfully exciting competition to find the next US F3K team. Every hand-launch pilot should attend and learn from the best pilots. It's a rare opportunity to have that much talent in one place. If you toss, be there to support your goals and your team!
That said, Monday through Wednesday (July 20-22), the US Team Selects for FAI F5J will immediately follow F3K to choose the next US F5J team to fly the Worlds at AMA Headquarters in Muncie, Indiana in August of 2027. These models have a 4-meter wingspan, 30-second maximum motor run, a 10-minute task with a scored precision landing and more points for launching lower than the next guy. Organized by Ed Dumas, CD Norm Poti and co-CD Jim Monaco, with kudos to the man behind the curtain, it will be nothing short of exhilarating! I, for one, am looking forward to flying and learning from the best pilots our land has to offer. If you think you don't belong, you are missing out on one of the best opportunities to fly, learn and live your passion as well as support your US F5J Team.
Whew! If that doesn't get your blood flowing, up next is F3L. For two days, July 23 and 24, Jon Garber will CD the event many consider to be the most fun competition of the Nats. If you're not familiar with this fast growing, enormously popular portion of the sailplanes craze, you gotta come and participate. You can fly, you can help out, you can watch, or you can do all of it, because there is nothing like a field full of dozens of pilots shooting 2-meter wooden gliders into the sky!
F3L pilots are limited to a 3-channel, rudder, elevator and spoiler (RES) format, a 2-meter wingspan, and an airframe made primarily of wood. Carbon is only allowed for the internal wing spar, a carbon rod style leading edge (a molded leading edge [d-box] is not allowed), and the fuselage boom. Jon will be allowing pilots to use their tow-hook-equipped electric fuselages with the props removed.
The goals are simple, yet extremely challenging. You have a timed 9-minute window to complete a 6-minute task and a scored precision landing. You may launch as many times as you are able to achieve your best time and landing. It is your last flight that counts and you must be on the ground before the buzzer sounds the end of the 9-minute round or you forfeit your landing points. Sounds easy… LOL!
It is a hoot to watch the comedic dance of the 4 to 5-man teams shagging tangled high starts, insanely running to retrieve planes and get their pilot back up as many times as necessary to keep their dream alive: possession of the #1 AMA/LSF Nationals Championship F3L Team Trophy! Go Teams!!!
The AMA/LSF Soaring Nationals will conclude with, dare I say it? I'm gonna say it, the “nostalgic winched events.” Behold, there's a new modern twist to this classic TD competition, with the addition of the newly-added AMA mixed launch rules. On July 25 and 26, CD Wayne Wimbish will oversee the “Bifecta.” This event combines electric and pure string-launched models for Unlimited TD and Nostalgia-class competition. Electrics will be limited to launch heights equal to the winched height. Yes, you can come fly anything you want in Unlimited TD and any Nostalgia ship as long as it conforms to AMA’s thermal duration and nostalgia class mixed launch rules.
Some believe that the winched sailplanes will have the launch advantage over the lighter electrics. Weather will always play a factor, but there is still the one universal truth about soaring, “Everything goes up in lift!”
Be there or be not there…
You should definitely be there.
Glider Camp rules!
Blue Skies!!!
