President's Perspective
Dave Brown, AMA President
"What do you do about unavoidable incompatibility between types of models?"
The Nats are over in Muncie, Indiana, and it was a great year. Pre-entry was down slightly; we surmise this might be because gas prices were near a peak around the deadline for pre-entry. Late entries seemed to balance the loss, so the overall entry level was relatively normal.
I attended a number of events, including a couple of new ones such as Cross-Country Soaring with big scale sailplanes. Windy days plagued much of the contest, including this event, but the people persevered and everyone had a great time.
Site closures and competition overlap
As the Nats grows in size and length, a recurring problem becomes harder to solve: closing the National Flying Site to all flying except for the particular Nats event scheduled creates animosity among AMA members who would like to use the national site for sport flying. During the actual competition, closing the site seems acceptable, but what if the scheduled event is CL (control-line) and someone wants to fly RC (radio-control)? Realistically, the problem is focused on RC flying; only occasionally is there an issue for FF (free flight) or CL.
Generally, Nats events use assigned frequencies to allow multiple events to take place simultaneously. The original frequency-assignment scheme divided the available frequencies into three groups, but those groups have not been kept "pure" over the years. As a result, the frequency distribution varies daily during the Nats as events begin and end.
Events generally run 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the evening hours are usually inactive except for practice flying. Part of the problem is that events do not necessarily end at the same time. It's common to see one event end at 2 p.m. while another runs until 7 p.m., so converting the field to open flying is not as easy as it seems.
It has become easier for those who run the Nats simply to leave the field closed to anyone except Nats competitors. Competitors are allowed to practice into the evening on the site they flew on that day. This has proven safe because those competitors are flying on frequencies assigned to that particular event and site, so there is little likelihood of interference with other events still in progress.
Frequency control on a particular venue is fairly easy and can be self-policing because competitors are aware of the frequency assignments. Consider the circumstances of an AMA member who comes to the Nats as a spectator or shows up and wants to fly, not realizing the Nats is in progress. Most would accept that they could not fly during the competition, but why can't they fly in the evening?
It sounds simple: let them fly wherever the frequency they are using is located for the Nats event. But how do we ensure they know where that is? What if the site to which their frequency is assigned has a competition course set up on it? This would make the site inappropriate—or even unsafe—for sport flying. What do you do about unavoidable incompatibility between types of models? Can't you just see the chaos if a modeler tried to set up to fly his hi-start glider in the middle of the pylon course while the pylon competitors were practicing?
Practical challenges
Key challenges include:
- Overlapping event schedules and different end times.
- Frequency groups that have become mixed over the years.
- Incompatible model types and facility configurations (for example, launching a hi-start glider on a site set up for pylon racing).
- The need to make the site available to the maximum number of members while maintaining competition operations.
What we tried and the way forward
This year we tried using frequency boards: a modeler reserved a frequency by inserting his or her AMA card for each venue at the flying site. (For those who may not realize it, we have four RC locations at the Muncie field.)
This may be better than closing the site to all sport flying, but it is not the best long-term solution. It requires daily effort to prepare the frequency boards in concert with the day's frequency mix, and it does not resolve the issue of incompatible model types or facility configuration. For example, if a flier who wanted to fly a hi-start glider would be flying at the 600 x 600-foot grass site, but his or her frequency was assigned to the pylon site, you can see the problem.
The obvious long-term solution is an integrated, automated frequency-control system, but that will take time to develop. In the meantime, we must do as much as possible to ensure a member who travels hundreds of miles to the Muncie site has the opportunity to fly at the field if he or she wants to. Until an integrated system is developed, this will involve considerable work. Some members may be unable to sport-fly certain types of models on certain days, but we owe it to the members to do as much as we can to make the site available to them whenever possible.
Dave Brown AMA President [email protected]
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
