July 31, 2024: RC Precision Aerobatics (Pattern)

By Justin Wells

The flying for Wednesday started on schedule as planned. By noon, we had a rain delay, but the flying on all sites, aside from Site 4, started again at 2:30 p.m. Flying on Site 4 resumed at 1:45 p.m. Joe Winterrowed, the Site 4 director, said, “We are tough and wanted to get back to flying.” The well-planned contest continued into day two, running smoothly. All of the rounds were completed by 7 p.m. The National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics (NSRCA) invited all pilots and volunteers to a social hour at Buffalo Wild Wings.

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) pilots completed their last rounds of preliminary flying. On Thursday, they will fly the semifinals schedule, which will determine who will fly the Unknowns in the finals rounds on Friday. On Thursday night, after all rounds have been completed, the finalists will be announced. They will receive the schedule of Unknowns for Friday. Their equipment will be impounded, so no one has a chance to practice before Friday morning’s finals rounds start.

This is a team selection year, so the top three pilots have the added pressure of making the US World Team for 2025. Best of luck to everyone!

The Masters class pilots will fly their final preliminary rounds on Thursday, and this will determine who makes the finals on Friday. They will continue to fly the same schedule that they have been flying all week.

All Advanced, Intermediate, and Sportsman pilots will get normal finals rounds on Friday, flying the same schedule as well.

As the contest comes to an end, the pressure rises for the top pilots to do their best work.

Current contest results for all classes can be found at www.nsrca.us/documents/nationals/2024/Day2/contestResults.xml.

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!