July 13, 2024: CL Scale

By Fred Cronenwett

Since we finished Round 1 on Friday, July 12, there were three rounds left to fly. The remaining flights were flown on Saturday, July 13, allowing the Control Line (CL) Scale portion to come to a close on Saturday afternoon.

1/2a Scale proved to a bigger challenge than we first thought. Dave Betz had to tune his engine yet again to get his Pawnee flying, and he took third place in 1/2a Scale with his grandson, Christopher DeGroff, getting second place. Mike McHenry took first place and Allen Goff won the Top Static award.

Christopher first started flying 1/2a Scale about 5 years ago at the AMA Nats, and he has come a long way. He got his first solo flight in today! In the past, Mike has coached him through the flights. While flying his F4F Bearcat, the motor hit a bump, the propeller reversed direction, and the model backed up instead of moving forward. The motor was restarted, and he got a full flight in.

Frank Beatty from St. Louis came by and visited with us. Frank is a longtime Scale modeler who has had articles published. He’s also drawn many of his own plans. He has flown Sport Scale and 1/2a Scale at the AMA Nats. He was with his daughter, Valerie Schaefer, George Schaefer, and Frank Beatty Jr.

With two entries in Team Scale, Allen Goff (builder) and Mike McHenry (pilot) overcame a challenge to hang on to the first-place award by one point. Ed Mason (builder) and the author (pilot) flew Ed’s B-29 and won the High Static award for Team Scale and second place overall. Both teams flew all three rounds on Saturday, but the Goff/McHenry team maintained the first-place position.

Fun Scale was won by Pete Mazur, who flew a foam F8F Bearcat with flaps and retractable landing gear. The author flew an RV-4 with electric power and flaps but could not catch Pete. Pete put in two flights with 94 points or higher to secure first place.

Bob Whitney brought a new CL handle with 2.4 Ghz built into the handle for three channels. More details on availability will be announced. Contact the author by emailing clscale7@gmail.com for more information on this handle.

Peter Bauer was inducted into the CL Scale Hall of Fame during the National Association of Scale Aeromodelers Scale Banquet on Saturday night.

The results from the 2024 CL Scale AMA Nats can be found below.

Note from AMA: Do you have photos from the Nats that you’d like to share? If so, email them to Clarissa Poston at clarissap@modelaircraft.org. Please include a brief description in your email, naming any individuals pictured in the photo(s), the name of the event that the photo(s) were taken during, and the name of the individual who took the photo(s). Your submission(s) might be posted on AMA’s Flickr page, which can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/modelaircraft/albums!