Ted Allebone’s magnificent SE-5 for FAC Power Scale.
By Don DeLoach
The closing day of the 100th FF Nats was basically a carbon copy weather-wise of Thursday: We had northeast winds under 5 mph, scattered clouds, and very comfortable temperatures only topping out around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The northeast wind meant that, again, the long direction of the field could be utilized for chasing. I had one huge non-DT thermal flight do over 7 minutes, landing just at the southwest bend of McLaughlin road. Overall, the maxes were pretty easy to achieve until about 11 a.m., when the boom/bust cycle started. After 11 you’d better be careful or you end up humbled… at the Nats, no less.
Friday was P-30 day. As usual, one of the simplest and most popular Nats events drew a big crowd: 20 Adult flyers and 4 Youth. In Adult, Dan Berry won by a comfortable margin, maxing his first three 120s then his 150 and 180. In Junior, Caleb Finn just edged out his younger brother Paul 334 to 325. Wes Reuter took Senior.
1/2A Gas was the marquee Gas event from Friday. Neal Menanno topped the field of ten in Adult with a massive 1050-second total. Caleb Fin was the sole Junior flyer.
F1S, the FAI version of E-36, had 12 flyers. Going into the fifth and final round, there were five flyers maxed out. Two flyers dropped their fifth round, leaving only three in the fly-off. A 5-second run and 120-second max was agreed upon for the fly-off which commenced at 2:15. By then, the thermals had weakened under cloudy and calm conditions, and were hard to pick. There was no long fly-off series today… nobody maxed! The finishing order was Don DeLoach, Jack Murphy, and David Sechrist.
1/4A Nos had six flyers and zero maxouts. Neal Menanno took first with 312, followed closely by Roger Erridge at 303, and Bob Hanford at 232.
The FAC event HQ was bustling on Friday with the ever-popular Jet Cat Scale, plus FAC Rubber Scale, Peanut, and several others. I narrowly won Jet Cat despite no flights over 46 seconds. Wally Farrell took Peanut with his pretty Waco SRE and a wonderful 88-second flight. Rubber Scale looked to be a sure win for Duke Horn with his Atalante and a beautiful max flight. However I came in rather late with my Fokker D.VII and managed a huge thermal flight of 7:19 (along with a slightly higher scale score) to win by just two points.
After the day’s awards, the category champions were announced and presented with their championship plaques. The winners were: AMA Gas - Ronnie Thompson; AMA Rubber - Don DeLoach; Nostalgia Gas - Roger Erridge; Senior - Wes Reuter; Junior - Caleb Finn; Glider - Stan Buddenbohm; NFFS Rubber - Glenn Grell; and AMA Electric - Bob Sowder.
The FF Nats ended on a very high note with the awarding of the prestigious Connie Perry Memorial Trophy to co-winners Bruce Kimball and Bert Langelius. This was followed by an inspiring speech by Event Director Jan Langelius. He got teary as he reminisced and reminded us all why we love the Nats so much.
I want to mention the many wonderful volunteers that I noticed working so hard throughout the week for us, the flyers. Without these folks there simply would be no Nats…no fun…no memories. I hope I don’t forget anyone, but I’m afraid I will (apologies in advance): David Lindley and the NFFS Board, Lisa Pacelli, Patti Lorbiecki, Geralyn Jones, Bert Langelius, Bruce Kimball, Chris Matsuno, Charlie Jones, Jim Parker, Katie Menanno, Dan Berry, George Bredehoft, Pat Murray. I know there were others - mostly individual event directors. THANK YOU ALL. And we’ll see everyone next year for the 101st Nats.
Jim Parker, 1/2A Gas launch.
Denny Dock, Jay’s Bird launch.
Chuck Powell (R) helped Denny Dock fish his Jays’ Bird out of the corn.
Friday Results
