Edition: Model Aviation - 2005/04
Page Numbers: 149,150,151,152
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FREE FLIGHT INDOOR

John Kagan, 20100 Killians Grv., Strongsville, OH 44149; E-mail: [email protected]

COMPETITION IS the heart of Indoor FF Duration. There are more than a few who fly just for fun (I'll visit some of those topics in upcoming columns), but most compete in one form or another.

Whether it's a local, national, or World Championships event, or it's working to improve your personal best, Indoor FF Duration is all about learning and growing, and then putting the results to the test of a stopwatch. For many it is not about the end point of winning or losing, but the journey of practice, preparation, and improvement.

This month I'll explore some competition-oriented events with a report on the 2004 F1D World Championships held in Slănic-Prahova, Romania; an announcement of the new National Free Flight Society (NFFS) National Cup program; and a look into the New Jersey "Local Scene."

2004 F1D World Championships

This is a duration contest. And I'm not just referring to how long the models stay up. I mean the physical and mental endurance required: years of working to earn a spot on the team, months of preparation and practice, days of airline and bus travel, hours in the creeping cold of the mine, and agonizingly long minutes stressing over competition flights.

This is supposed to be fun? You bet! Welcome to Extreme Indoor: the F1D World Championships!

The big news of 2004 is US contestant Jim Richmond's repeat of the previous year's win to take his eighth World Championship title. This amazing feat started in 1968, with a period of four consecutive wins from 1984 to 1990.

These, and his many other victories, lead some to believe that Jim can just take his models out and win effortlessly whenever he chooses. Having flown with him, I know the truth to be more impressive.

In addition to the requisite perfection of process and elimination of weak points, Jim has—through countless competitions, test flights, and experiments—accumulated a vast mental database of all kinds of conditions and techniques.

It makes me think of Tiger Woods propped up at an awkward angle on the face of a steep sand trap, chipping perfectly onto the green. How many times do you face a situation like that? But Tiger probably practiced it hundreds of times.

In a similar way, when the going gets tough, it seems that Jim frequently has some experience or test results that he can call on. It doesn't always spell out a dominating advantage, but it usually provides just enough edge to come out ahead.

Further, it certainly isn't effortless but rather the result of quiet but dogged determination. Case in point: the morning after Jim lost the first two World Championship rounds to hang-ups and launch problems, we noticed him missing from our regular team breakfast. There were no answers to loud knocks on his hotel-room door.

It turns out that he had eaten early and was already down in the mine, hard at work to correct the previous day's problems. This ended up being the day he put up the two flights that took home the trophy.

A moral is that no matter how good you get, you always have to work to keep your competitive edge. I also like the implication that our activity is complex enough to provide continuous challenges. Winning one day, in one site, and in one set of conditions doesn't mean you'll be able to do it on another.

Jim, for having a talent for pulling out wins under trying conditions, I salute you!

USA's Doug Schaefer also repeated his previous year's victory as Junior World Champion—the only Junior ever to win more than once. He showed fine form despite having his preparation time limited by schoolwork, band practice, Eagle Scouts, and college applications.

To make matters worse, he suffered through a severe bout of food poisoning that forced him to miss a round on the second day of competition (and generated a great amount of concern for his health). However, he showed youthful resilience and bounced back for the final day.

Doug led the US Juniors to their second consecutive team title. His teammates were first-time World Championship participants Brett Sanborn and David Rigotti, who are also top-notch students and Eagle Scouts. In addition to performing well, these young men carried themselves in a mature and respectable manner. Well done!

The US Senior team (Steve Brown, Tom Sova, and I) placed second behind the Romanians. Tom was remarkably well prepared for his first World Championship. His nicely built model box contained five thoroughly tested and trimmed models, and his flights were strong and consistent, earning him a respectable eighth-place finish.

Steve Brown, a three-time World Champion, suffered the effects of a lack of practice sites. His models had launched properly at the Moscow, Idaho, contest, but frustratingly tucked and rolled under the higher power required in the salt mine. He was forced to back off tons of torque at launch and was only able to climb two-thirds of the way up. His models still cruised beautifully and produced times of just less than 30 minutes.

I was involved in some interesting controversy on my second-round flight. My model landed with a leading time of 36:27, but the motor had dropped off in flight somewhere near the end. The rules state that timing stops when the model drops a part, but the timers hadn't seen it and timed the model all the way to the ground. Another team protested the flight, and the FAI jury was convened. They couldn't agree on a resolution, and I was forced to refly the round.

The reflight launch had a small stall and didn't get all the way up but still ended with a 36:02; it won me the Ernest Kopecki Longest Single Flight perpetual trophy. Unfortunately I was unable to put up a decent backup flight (ask me sometime and I'll tell you the whole sob story), but I ended up in an acceptable fourth place.

Special thanks to Rob Romash, who did a bang-up job as team manager for the Senior team, the Junior team, and the defending World Champion. Many "invisible" hours of work went into ensuring the trip went off smoothly.

Rob was a one-person assembly line during the meet, ushering one team member after another out to the launch area, counting down the initial minute of flight, holding a steering balloon at the ready, and clearing out the launch setup. He calls himself an "F1D caddie," comparing the task to those of his high-end PGA counterparts.

It certainly helps to have a knowledgeable assistant at the ready. Thanks, Rob!

Indoor National Cup

Indoor FF does not revolve around F1D alone. There are many different categories that Indoorists (a term for those who fly indoor FF models, coined on the Indoor mailing list by Italian F1D champion Fabio Manieri) enjoy and many contests in which to fly them. In support of this, I'm helping announce the new Indoor National Cup sponsored by the NFFS.

This program mirrors the successful Outdoor National Cup, and its goal is to foster competition and participation at contests, large and small, by awarding points for placings in sanctioned events and recognizing an overall annual champion.

  • Four cups will be awarded:
  • Indoor Glider cup (Juniors)
  • Indoor Glider cup (Open/Seniors combined)
  • Indoor Rubber cup (Juniors)
  • Indoor Rubber cup (Open/Seniors combined)
  • Glider events:
  • Indoor Standard Catapult Glider
  • Indoor Unlimited Catapult Glider
  • Indoor Hand Launched Glider (IHLG)
  • Senior/Open Rubber events:
  • Mini-Stick
  • F1L
  • Limited Pennyplane
  • Junior Rubber events:
  • Science Olympiad Wright Stuff Division B
  • F1L
  • Limited Pennyplane

Certificates will be awarded to the first five places for each cup, and there will be a perpetual trophy for each champion. The awards ceremony will be held during this year's US Indoor Championships/Nats. Contest Directors (CDs), please sanction your contests via the procedure described in the program. The more contests that participate, the more fun this will be. CDs and competitors can find the complete official program on the NFFS web site (listed at the end of this column).

Recognition goes out to NFFS Indoor Committee Chairman (and IHLG world-record holder) Jim Buxton for spearheading the effort; Larry Coslick (Indoor FF Duration legend) for hashing out the rules and program document; and Don Slusarczyk (multiple National Champion) for taking on the assistant-administrator duties.

The New Jersey "Local Scene"

Rob Romash, MiniStick National Champion and president of the East Coast Indoor Modelers, said:

"The New Jersey indoor scene has several nice sites to choose from. First off is Hangar #1 in Lakehurst. This site, hosted by the East Coast Indoor Modelers (ECIM), is the oldest flying site in the country—in continuous use for the past 78 years. The hangar is 175 feet high, 240 feet wide, and 800 feet long, and offers the only Category IV site in the world in which you can fly every weekend, all year long.

"Hangar 1 is now, in large part, an Indoor RC site where the boys with radios show up like clockwork every Saturday morning. This site provides fantastic visibility to the base. Don't worry: there is plenty of room for both FF and RC, and their batteries start to run down about noontime—right when the air starts getting good.

"ECIM has record sanctions every other weekend from May until September. There are also three AA contests in the hangar every year. The first is the Pete Andrews Memorial Contest, held on Memorial Day weekend—a good last practice for USIC.

"The second, and largest, is the Super Spectacular Indoor Blowout, held during the Fourth of July weekend. At this contest you will find the biggest names in the hobby such as Walt Van Gorder, Ray Harlan, John Kagan, Max Zaluska, Alan Cohen, Stan Chilton, and Jim 'the Man' Richmond, just to name a few. Heck, even I will be hanging out. To help attract more contestants, I am attempting to have the local Hooters girls assist with timing.

"The last contest is the Labor Day weekend contest—a nice last event before the winter building season sets in. Flying in the hangar is a bit dependent on the weather outside, but if conditions are right, monster times are the norm. ECIM membership is mandatory for access to the active military base. You will need a current ECIM ID card as well as an active AMA membership.

"Another South Jersey site is a small but tight and sweet gym in Marlton. The South Jersey Silent Flyers hosts an indoor fly-in every 3rd Wednesday from 7 p.m. till whenever, during the winter months.

"This group is headed up by a very enthusiastic John Jenks. Rumor has it that he has secretly been working on his indoor building skill set and will trounce anyone who challenges him in this space. This gym is 22 feet high with a close-set wood truss ceiling that only a MiniStick can get through, so it is like a flat-bounce type for anything bigger. There is an indoor RC presence here, too. They alternate every 25 minutes between FF and RC and it works very well.

"The final site is the Teaneck Armory. Here you will find Don Ross, of Flying Models' 'Cross Files' fame, and a great bunch of guys every Wednesday from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m. This site has a 35-foot girder ceiling and the floor space of a full soccer field. FF flies on one side and indoor RC on the other—again a good compromise."

"There is an indoor RC presence in all of these sites, and as this side of our hobby has increased in popularity, it has helped open up flying opportunities for the FF crowd. The savvy Indoor FF guys see this as an advantage and make sure the right people get on board to get and keep FF in these sites. That about wraps up the main scene here in the lovely Garden State."

Spectator FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

This quarter's question: "What are all the balloons for?"

Although the big, bright balloons add to the festive atmosphere of an Indoor FF contest, they are not just for decoration. They are used for two important functions: retrieval and steering.

Most big sites have open girders which can snag models that are flown too high. Balloons are used to nudge models free. This sometimes requires intricate contraptions taped to the balloon to cut strings or reach into remote crevices.

The balloons are also used to steer models in flight. Using the string holding the balloon, a competitor can "catch" a model behind the propeller, but in front of the wing, and move it to a new location. This is done to avoid drifting into a wall or to prevent a midair with another model. There is a set of rules that governs steering and its timing implications.

Thank you to those who wrote me kind messages about my first column (there was only one person so far who was dissatisfied). As I continue, I know it will be impossible to hold a 99% approval rating—I will surely write things that some won't agree with—but please trust that my heart is in the right place.

'Til next time. MA

Sources

New Jersey Local Scene contacts:

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.