Ron Duly releasing Wesley Smith's Class I Carrier model.
Wednesday was Scale Class Carrier day. The day started with cloudy skies and the threat of rain, but the clouds cleared off and the sun came out. This will go down in history as the year that the wind did not play a major factor in the outcome of the events.
Glen Van Sant ready to launch his Formula 40 plane while his Son James is all set to fly it for him.
On day 3 of the Control Line Speed Nats, we flew Formula 40 Speed, 21 Profile Proto Speed, and Fox 35 Stunt Speed. There were a total of four flyers in 21 Proto, three entered Formula 40, and 11 flew Fox 35 Speed.
Today we flew the AMA Fast 2D class. It was another great day of combat! There were several really good matches, and several poor ones. There were pilots from all over the USA and we had zero altercations or complaints.
On Wednesday, the contestants were greeted with cloudy skies, light winds and mid to upper 60s for temperatures. The winds, once the official flights started, stayed in one direction. So in the words of Sergeant Shultz from Hogan's Heroes, the day was Be-u-ti-ful!
In this episode of Nats Newbs, host Terry Dunn dives into the world of helicopter competition at the AMA NATS — experiencing it all for the first time. He’s joined by veteran pilot Mike Goza, who walks him through the details of F3C precision aerobatics and his high-performance SAB Genesis helicopter.
The final day of flying began again at 8:00am. Unfortunately, the fog was way too dense to begin flying on time, but it did not take long to burn off. I was elected to test the ceiling height with one of my models and we got started about 30 minutes later.
Lynn Boss flying his Top Flite Gold Edition P-47 Thunderbolt that uses a modern 2.4 GHz radio for throttle, flaps, retracts and bomb drop. OS-91 four stroke for power.
There are multiple Control Line (CL) events at the Nationals. They all share a bellcrank to control the elevator and fly in a circular pattern. But each CL event is very different in its purpose. The goal in a CL Scale event is to build a smaller version of a full-size aircraft in appearance and flight qualities.
Bill Hughes holding Dave Rigotti’s 21 Sport Speed plane in the takeoff dolly. The dolly drops away when the plane gets enough speed to fly.
We had a total of 17 planes entered in Perky Speed alone. So, we knew we were going to be having a lot of flights today. There were also six entries in FAI/F2A Speed and four in 21 Sport Speed.
David Betz judging Everet Shoemaker's low speed flight.
Both Profile Carrier and Electric Profile Carrier were flown on Tuesday. The Profile Carrier events are divided into two categories; Sportsman Carrier and Open Carrier. Sportsman Carrier is intended for those who are just getting started in the carrier events, while open carrier if for those who have been flying Carrier for a while.
We had outstanding weather for combat in Muncie. There were lots of great matches today. Dave Edwards, Arlene Mears, Matt Brown, Jerry Sabin, Arnie Delgado, Fred Quezada, and Chris Gay all did an excellent job of officiating our combat events.