Free Flight: Duration
STAYING UP with Quinn. Now that it's spring, the Free Flighter's fancy turns to thoughts of knee high grass, blue skies, and in anticipation of the summer contest trail, the opportunity to bring out all those new-machines confined to the basement or garage. Even in Southern California we are blessed with the legendary tall green stuff, a thousand acres of it on my border area field, thanks to recent monsoons. My winter building frenzy yielded two Coupes, a big Mulvihill, a P-30, and BoomBox No. 5, so I'm as anxious as anyone to get out for serious testing.
Bean Box 5
WHEN the late Walt Mooney wrote his rules for West Coast Bostonian, he innovated an event that suits just about everybody. The models designed for this Free Flight category tend to be robust, semirealistic, could-be-Scale types that fly well and provide great fun in competition. Bean Box 5 meets the West Coast Bostonian regulations to a tee and performs with the best. Some say it has a lot of cute, too. I build a couple of Bostonians every summer just before the Mooney Fourth of July contest and picnic held at a beautiful field just a half mile or so from the U.S.-Mexico border. Two Bean Boxes were completed for the 1990 meet. Carin Howard flew the prototype pictured in the photos and plan, averaging over two minutes per flight and taking third place on an official duration of about 4:29. Off the record, a spectator had the diminutive ship in his binoculars for over 10 minutes. That's fine performance for any Free Flight model.
U.S. Free Flight Champs
Despite unusually severe weather conditions, the 20th of these competitions, and the first at the new Lost Hills site, came off splendidly. Nine new national records were established, and the consensus was that the Free Flight community would have little trouble making a home out of its new house. Rcordbreaking performances, big numbers, and a dash or two of adverse weather highlighted this year's U.S. Free Flight Championships at Lost Hills, CA. The venue is new for the Nineties as a replacement for the vaunted Taft Field, now facing bulldozer fever. Very much up to the task at hand, Contest Director Bill Booth Jr. and his business manager, Bob Beecroft, oversaw the arrival of 600 to 700 competitors, spectators, and family members intent on pursuing the delights of truly unfettered Free Flight activities on this Memorial Day weekend classic. The holiday onslaught of modelers effectively tripled the population of the tiny namesake community nearby.
Boom Box
FIRST CONTESTED in 1928, the Wakefield Cup for Rubber-Driven Aeroplanes has a long and storied past. Eventually this competition became the modern FAI event that biennially yields a World Champion in the FIB category. Asked to list standouts among U.S. team participants, anyone who's attuned to the mystique will mention names like Gordon Light, Dick Korda, Chet Lanzo, Herb Kothe, Joe Bilgri, Joe Foster, George Reich, and Robert P. White. With airplanes of astonishing performance, aesthetic appeal, and competitive challenge, these gentlemen were prime developers of
U.S. Free Flight Champs
TO CATCH the spirit of the 19th running of the USFFC, we go back to Sixties vernacular and tag this one definitely a "cool" happening in every department-from the especially pleasant and cooperative weather, to the cool and expert management, great field food, heightened and record-setting competition, benign site (a.k.a. "Mecca"), down to the several hundred happy campers in attendance. The ubiquitous Steve Geraghty bundled it up succinctly at the awards gathering-in fact he couldn't have said it better: "This is the Free Flight event by which all others will be judged!"
