AMA Nats: FF Indoor Duration
INDOOR flying at all levels has seen a resurgence in the past several years, and the activity at this year's Tidewater Nationals exemplified the trend. Scheduled less than two months after the successful FAI World Championships and the well-attended U.S. Indoor Championships held in Johnson City, TN, this year's Nationals had a respectable 170+ event entries preregistered and scheduled to be flown by 58 individual modelers. The cancellation of the Nats Outdoor FF events meant that several fliers, who ordinarily would have come to compete in the Indoor events as well, did not attend at all. As a consequence, the 58 individual entries in Indoor compares favorably to last year's 64 modelers entered in the highly successful Indoor competition in Lincoln, NE.
AMA Nats: FF Indoor Scale
INDOOR SCALE had a slightly different feel to it this year due to a rule imposed by AMA specifically for this Nationals. The rule simply states, "The same model cannot be entered into more than one event, except in Free Flight Indoor and Outdoor Peanut Scale events." The net effect of the rule was to eliminate what has been the common practice of entering a single aircraft (ordinarily a Lacey or Fike, for some reason) in four events: Indoor Scale, Outdoor Scale, Indoor Peanut Scale, and Outdoor Peanut Scale. Whether it is a good rule or not remains to be seen, but it did relieve the judges of the monotony of judging numerous versions of the same aircraft up to four times, which can be a mind-numbing experience. It also eliminated the rather opportunistic "trophy collecting" practices evident in past contests by a select few individuals. It may also have had another effect (which I'll address later).
Kansas Wakefield Champ
OVER A HALF-CENTURY ago, Ernie Linn's first attempt at a Wakefield design ultimately evolved into the Kansas Wakefield Champ of 1938 and 1939. Although the design was never formally published as a construction article at that time, sufficient photographic evidence and drawings existed for the plane to be certified legal by John Pond for today's SAM contests. The story of how this contest-winning airplane came into being is an interesting trip down nostalgia lane in itself, and for those who flew during that era it's bound to stir up memories. Here is Ernie's account of those events and times:
Tomahawk II
With borrowed lines and color scheme from the 1950s Veco Tomahawk kit, this model just had to turn out to be a natural beauty. Below: Even though all the elements of this model say "trainer," it's still easy to see the Stunt lineage it inherits from Veco's Chief. Smoothie, and their immortal Thunderbird.
AMA Nats: FF Outdoor Glider
SPREAD OUT over the week, the Glider events appeared to have every chance of enjoying at least one decent day for flying. Except the best day was Wednesday, and as fate (and random scheduling) would have it, no Glider events were scheduled then. Beset with rain and shifting winds on Tuesday, A-1 was flown intermittently between showers in the morning with more than one chaser finding himself in need of shelter midway through a retrieve. The technique seemed to be to watch as far upwind as possible in order to pick what looked to be a pocket of rising air coming downwind fast, get the plane up quickly, and pop it off the line. There was very little opportunity for kiting the ships into lift or circle towing. A-1 Towline was a bit like Hand-Launch Glider: Pick your air and get up in it before it gets away.
