Modeling Spoken Here
Bob Hunt — Aeromodeling Editor
I don't clearly remember attending my first national model airplane competition, or Nats. Hey, it was 1953 and I was only 5 years old! My father and my older brother attended the entire week, and my mother took me there to watch the last day of competition and the fabulous weekend air show, which featured the Blue Angels.
This was one of the fabled "Navy Nats." The venue was Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. In those days the Nats moved around the country, returning to a given region once every four years. Generally the sequence was Willow Grove Naval Air Station (NAS) in the east, to the Midwest at Olathe NAS in Kansas or Glenview NAS in Illinois, out west to Los Alamitos NAS, then south to Texas and the Dallas NAS.
In those days the Navy sponsored the Nats but the AMA administered it. The Navy provided lots of manpower, a venue that would allow all of the events to run concurrently (except for the Free Flight Indoor events, which were usually contested in a nearby blimp hangar), and even modest base lodging and meal services for those who were on a tight budget. The Navy also made available a hangar that was filled with workbenches so that modelers could work on and have a place to store their models for the week.
I was fortunate enough to have attended the Willow Grove Nats (the closest one to our home) five times—in 1953, 1957, 1961, 1965, and 1969. It is difficult to express in words the feeling of one of the old Navy Nats. Let's just say it was a magical experience for modelers young or old.
The original idea, as I understand it, was for the Navy to influence aeronautical-minded young men and women to join its ranks. The Nats was a great recruitment tool—or so it seemed for a while. Apparently a cost-cutting Congress began looking long and hard at such programs and expenditures in the early 1970s, and, tragically, one result was the loss of the Navy Nats.
From that point, the AMA tried hard to continue the practice of moving the Nats around the country. The venues were sometimes good and sometimes not so good, and the cost factor without Navy sponsorship made things increasingly difficult. During those years, each of the Nats held was run at a loss as much as $80,000.
When we acquired the land in Muncie and built our International Aeromodeling Center, it seemed natural to bring the Nats to our home. There are many advantages to this and certainly a few disadvantages.
We no longer have to rely on finding a suitable venue that is also available when we need it. We do not have to ship or transport the myriad items needed to properly run the Nats. We can maintain a site that is specifically designed for our purposes and continue to expand it as requirements of events and modeling disciplines change.
We can plan for the future, secure in the knowledge that we will always have a place to compete and sport-fly. And, this is very important, now we are not losing money. We either break even or make a modest surplus on the Nats.
The downside is that everyone has to travel to Muncie instead of waiting for the Nats to go to his or her area every few years. That seems like a pretty good trade-off to me. The other disadvantage is that we cannot host all of the events in a period of one week, as the Navy Nats venues allowed.
Times change, and we would be naive to think that the old Nats format could go on forever unchanged.
So here we are. The Nats is alive and healthy, and it is serving as a showcase for modeling technology and competition progress. It is a glowing showpiece for the AMA. It has survived change and grown to become one of the main and most revered cornerstones of our organization.
For many, competition is the reason they fly model airplanes. My very good friend Bill Werwage once commented to me about flying in competition, "It's the only time I breathe." I'm not quite there, but I'm close enough to understand what he meant.
Enjoy our annual Nats issue. Through the various event reports I'm sure you will find that this was an unusual Nats.
Aeromodeling Editor
In his column last month, Maynard achieved the feat of flying a model airplane nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. We held Dave's deadline for that column to the last moment before the November issue went to press to allow for the first model-press coverage of this event.
Dave was most honored that Maynard asked him to be on hand in Ireland to land the TAM (Trans Atlantic Model). This is a significant and historic achievement for Maynard and for the art and sport of modeling. It has received extremely favorable press in the "real world."
In his column last month, Dave promised that a feature article about the flight would be forthcoming. I'm pleased to report that Maynard has agreed to author this piece for Model Aviation. We should get some interesting inside information and a perspective of the amount of effort that is required to achieve such a goal.
It's important to note here that the record that was attempted falls under the auspices of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), and Maynard's model qualifies under the FAI rules as a model airplane. The article is scheduled to be in our hands for the February issue. It will be worth the wait, I'm sure!
The Model Aviation staff extends our most heartfelt congratulations to Maynard and his dedicated and capable team on their success.
As always, I can be reached via mail at Box 68, Stockertown, PA 18083. You can call me at (610) 614-1747, and if e-mail's your thing, send them to [email protected].
MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
