By Mike Unger
Day 2 of the Heli Nats was one of the best days weather wise we have had in years at the Nats. Temps in the mid-70s, low humidity, nearly clear skies, and low wind.
We started at 8:02 a.m. with the first flight of the Sportsman class and ended about 6:15 p.m. with the fourth round of the F3C class.
Day 2 also brought in the Scale helicopters, with one round of static judging and two rounds of flights. The Scale pilots put on quite a show with some very impressive craftmanship and impressive flying.
First thing in the morning Monday, we had a late entry to the Sportsman class, making the total number of new pilots 10!! It's great to see so many new pilots getting into the sport.
We had them spend some time discussing their flights with the judges before each round. All of them are learning quickly, and it is showing in their scores. After the day of flying, the Sportsman and Advanced classes flew 3 complete rounds.
After 3 rounds
Sportsman (dropping the lowest round)
Chris Goodin 2000.00
Cliff Lewis 1973.94
Charles Crespo 1879.32
Michael Lewandowski 1837.72
Richard Sowers 1663.26
Nathan Essex 1604.13
Geena Tucker 1495.50
Derek Townsend 1403.58
Advanced (dropping lowest score)
Daniel Tureac 2000.00
Peter Bisbal 1703.43
In the F3C and Masters classes, two additional rounds were completed, bringing the total to 4. This closes out the "Preliminary" round for the F3C class.
This means starting for round five, we with switch to a completely different set of maneuvers, adding more difficulty to an already very challenging class. The Masters class will continue with the Preliminary Maneuvers for remainder of the event
After 4 rounds
F3C (all 4 rounds normalized)
Nick Maxwell 1000.00
Clifford Hiatt 862.75
Yasunobu Muraki 856.62
Michael Goza 793.91
Timothy Diperi 757.60
Chris Diamonte 720.76
Robert Montee 678.16
Masters (dropping lowest score)
Gordie Meade 3000
Jim Hall 2804.60
Michael Parker 2591.18
Angel Rojas 2586.66
Lots of tight battles are still to come, as we are a still 3 rounds from finishing this event.
Day 2 also saw one static and two rounds of flying for the Scale crew. These machines are simply works of art sitting on the stand, but are even more impressive in the air. The pictures are impressive, but simply don’t do the aircraft justice.
At the time of this writing, scoring was still being done so check the summary for Day 3 for updates. As always, if you are in the Muncie area, feel free to swing by and see some awesome flying.
