AMA Indoor Nats and NFFS U.S. Indoor Champs
This year the combined AMA and NFFS events followed hot on the heels of the important FAI World Champs at the Johnson City Minidome. The event attracted a record 142 entrants from 27 states and several foreign countries. The important, serious FAI World Championships contest had officially ended at 5:30 p.m. the night before. For the moment, the 65-centimeter microfilm models that had cruised the vast spaces of East Tennessee State University's great Minidome had been put back in their boxes. Now it was time for...Well, it was time for just about any kind of Indoor competition you'd like. The combined AMA Indoor Nationals, United States Indoor Championships, and Miami Indoor Model Airplane Association Grand Prix were about to begin. Easy B? Peanut Scale? Gliders? Helicopters? Ornithopters? Manhattans or Bostonians? Microfilm Stick or Cabin? Pennyplane? A special event for Rubber Scale models of President George Bush's Grumman Avenger? They were all here and more.
Indoor World Champs
In the near-ideal conditions of the Johnson City Minidome, the 15th annual F1D World Championship was dominated by the U.S. and Canadian teams and by the equally strong Romanians, who missed second place by a mere 15 seconds. Our own Jim Richmond became the unprecedented fourth-in-a-row, six-time Individual World Champion. Twenty-five contestants from nine countries - the cream of international Indoor fliers - were dwarfed beneath the arching ceiling girders that peaked 116 ft. above them in the East Tennessee State University (Johnson City, TN) Minidome athletic arena. Light from two rows of powerful lamps mounted over the two huge grandstands that flanked each side of the floor bathed the immense, windowless main floor. Over the next three days it would become a friendly battleground of intense international competition. The teams had gathered to hear their national anthems played and words of welcome offered by AMA Executive Director Vince Mankowski. Then, with a light hearted, "Let the games begin" from Competition Manager Ray Harlan, the 1990 Federation Aeronautique Internationale World Championships meet for F1D models was under way. It was 2:00 p.m. EDT Monday, June 4, 1990, and this was the 15th renewal of the FAI Indoor World Championships since the first contest was held in 1961 at the great dirigible hangar in Cardington, England.
Indoor Week: U.S. Indoor Championships
NOBODY SAID it would be easy, and it wasn't. Competition among the almost 80 contestants at the U.S. Indoor Championships held at West Baden, IN on June 14-16 was keen in all of the 10 AMA events as well as five additional unofficial events held during this Class AAAA meet. Fliers coming away from the contest with trophies knew they had earned them by flying against some of the country's best Indoor competitors at one of the best Indoor arenas anywhere. Site of the first-ever U.S. Indoor Champs was the huge atrium of the Northwood Institute. Built 80 years ago as a luxury spa and hotel, the main building of the institute is shaped like a giant doughnut, rising well over six stories high. The hole in the doughnut is the atrium, 200 feet in diameter and 100 feet high, topped with a huge dome. With its low-to-no-drift air conditions and generous expanse of floor area, the atrium is a Category III site virtually without peer. Enhanc-
Indoor week: U.S. Indoor Championships
IT WAS high noon on Sunday, June 12, 1983. Inside the mammoth atrium of the Northwood Institute at West Baden, IN, the Second Annual U.S. Indoor Championships was underway, kicking off a seven-day extravaganza of competition among an enthusiastic turnout of Duration and Scale fliers from all parts of the country. Contestants from Canada and England lent an international flavor to the excitement. Sponsors of USIC were again the National Free Flight Society and the National Indoor Model Airplane Society. A four-man team ably handled the dutues of Contest Director: Tony Italiano, Hardy Brodersen, Charlie Sotich, and Gordon Wisniewski.
U.S. Indoor Championships
LOOMING LIKE A GIANT, high-tech Quonset hut, the gray concrete mass of the Niagara Falls Convention Center stands only a few blocks east of the world-famous waterfall. A benchmark of urban renewal on the American side, it became the temporary nationwide capital of Indoor model aircraft competition for three days last June as the Fourth Annual United States Indoor Championships occupied the airspace of its huge 310 × 260-ft. arena. Contestants from 15 states and Canada had signed up with chief Contest Director Tony Italiano for the AAAA meet. Co-sponsors of the USIC were, again, the National Free Flight Society and the National Indoor Model Airplane Society. Assisting with the CD duties were Gordon Wisniewski, Hardy Brodersen, Charlie Sotich, and Don Lindley. Between them they supervised a total of 17 events, covering almost every Indoor class from F1D microfilm to Easy B, Peanut Scale, and Autogyros.
