Focus on Education - 2003/12
Jack Frost AMA Education Coordinator Tel.: (765) 287-1256 Ext. 274 [email protected]
Free Flight (FF) is attracting youth. The number of youth participants is up and the quality of these young fliers is often incredible.
A stroll through the flightline at the National Aeromodeling Championships (Nats) last summer painted a completely different picture of Free Flight than that of five years ago. Then you would have seen mostly retired folks. Today you see kids and families everywhere. The Free Flight Nats is not the AARP convention it once was.
Much hard work by many individuals, the dedication of the National Free Flight Society (NFFS) and its leadership, and a number of dedicated youth programs have contributed to this rise in participation.
These youth programs include:
- Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Junior National Outdoor team
- FAI Junior Indoor team
- National Model Aviation Program (NMAP)
- Junior National Cup
Together these programs offer leadership and support for young fliers throughout a child's modeling growth.
FAI Junior National Outdoor Team
The FAI, the world-level aviation organization, has held the Junior World Outdoor Free Flight Championships for roughly the last 20 years. This competition is held every other year, is separate from the Open Championships, and attracts approximately 100 competitors from about 20 countries.
Competitions are held in three events: Towline Glider, Rubber, and Gas Power. The United States has always sent a team although it has rarely sent a full team with three competitors in each event. Although individuals have done very well, the United States has seldom been competitive on a team basis.
That situation has changed. Approximately eight years ago, George Batiuk and others launched a major effort to attract and develop youth for our national team. We were only attracting sons and daughters of FAI fliers, and that was identified as a major problem—the system was too "ingrown."
Steps taken included:
- Identifying young fliers active in all areas of FF and inviting them to participate in FAI flying
- Establishing a mentoring system to support youth involvement
- Holding seminars before the Nats to train new fliers and mentors in the intricacies of top-level competition
The results have been dramatic. More than two-thirds of recent team members have parents who do not fly FAI events. Even more dramatically, some team members have parents who are not modelers at all. That indicates we are attracting lifelong modelers from outside the modeling community.
Qualifying for the Junior team is a competitive and challenging endeavor. In the last cycle, competitors had to perform exceedingly well in two major Open competitions and compete in a two-day, head-to-head contest at the Nats. Included in this contest was one day of competition without adult assistance. FAI airplanes are complex and sophisticated; the 23 fliers who competed last summer without adult assistance are testimony to their skill and the fine work of their mentors.
The result is a world-level caliber team. In each event we have half a dozen fliers capable of placing at the World Championships, but only three can make the team. The members of the United States team will do well at the Junior World Championships next summer in France. They may not win, but they will be prepared and competitive on every flight in every event.
FAI Junior National Indoor Team
The FAI World Indoor Junior Championships has only been held three times. The Junior Championships is held concurrently with the Open Championships on a biannual basis. The United States sent one flier three years ago and a team of three last year.
To say that the American team won the Junior World Championships does not give full value to the team members' talent and accomplishment. Because the Junior event is held concurrently with the Open event, comparison to the performance of the Open fliers is valid. At the last Indoor World Championships our Open team won. The second best team in the world proved to be the United States Junior team. Our Junior team members had beaten every other nation's Open team—an absolutely incredible performance.
Our Junior Indoor team is strong because of the leadership of one individual and the dedicated work of many mentors.
Science Olympiad and Wright Stuff
Science Olympiad is a national science competition for middle and high school students. Tom Sanders worked with the Science Olympiad organization several years ago to develop a flight event for its competition called Wright Stuff. That event has proved popular with students at schools throughout the country.
Roughly 30,000 students have been introduced to aeromodeling through this competition. The strength of our Junior team is anchored in the skills these students have learned in Science Olympiad.
Wright Stuff works because modelers have stepped forward to mentor students in schools across the country. These dedicated AMA members have spent time teaching youth everything from simple building skills to sophisticated trimming techniques.
Although the long-term success of this program is reflected in the national team's accomplishments at the Junior World Championships, the greater value is in the growth of young people throughout the country and their shared experiences with coaches and mentors.
Junior National Cup
The Junior National Cup, run by NFFS, is a competition that tracks the performance of Juniors (under age 15) in contests throughout the United States during the year.
Events used in this competition are the simpler AMA events (as opposed to the sophisticated FAI events). These events include two FAI Power events, P-30 (a novice Rubber event), Hand-Launched Glider, and Catapult Glider. The objective is to attract and encourage younger and less-experienced fliers. Many of these individuals may later aspire to compete for places on the national team.
Although this program is only in its second year, participation has grown to approximately 150 individuals. It is part of a foundation that will attract and support a large number of young fliers entering Free Flight.
National Model Aviation Program (NMAP)
NMAP recognizes the importance of grassroots mentoring and teaching for young modelers. NMAP sets goals for young fliers, rewards their achievements, and establishes programs and mentors throughout the country.
NMAP is only in its first year, but already a number of programs have been formed and are bringing more people into our hobby.
Outreach and KidVenture
Regular readers of this column will remember that last year a youngster named Ionut "Nootz" Kuhls visited the KidVenture venue. He was enthralled with aviation in general and model aviation in particular. I predicted that Nootz would probably be flying his own CL aircraft by this year.
Not quite. However, a great friend of model aviation in Brookings, Oregon, sent Nootz a .60-size Almost Ready-to-Fly trainer, complete with radio, servos, adhesives—everything. In addition, the volunteer staff at the CL venue presented Nootz with a Ready-to-Fly CL model during his visit this year.
My current quest is to find a modeler from the Fond du Lac Aeromodelers Association, connect him with Nootz and his family, and get this youngster into the air.
To know Nootz is to understand that the sky is no limit.
Why is the Free Flight youth initiative successful?
- Structure — programs, coordination between groups, clear objectives
- Mentoring — large numbers of individuals spending time with kids
- Leadership — NFFS wants to change the future of Free Flight modeling
- Identity — youth need their own programs
- Access — youth outside the modeling community need access
Model airplanes are cool. It should be no surprise that today's youth think so, too.
—Art Ellis AMA Education Committee member
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
