2004 Southwest Regionals

THE SOUTHWEST REGIONALS
contest has been held in Arizona
throughout its existence—for 54
years. It has traditionally been a
Free Flight competition, but
through the years Control Line and
Radio Control events have been
added, which has imparted a unique
flavor to this gathering. Each year
the contest is held on Martin Luther
King Jr.-day weekend in January
(17-19) so that many attendees can
make a three-day weekend of it.

Searching for Free Flight - 2004/05

FOR MANY YEARS we Free Flighters have been wandering
around trying to find our airplanes on foot or atop small dirt bikes,
following what we hope are the “lines” the models took during their
flights. Most of the time we try to get visual lines or fixes on the
directions our airplanes take by sighting in on a mountain, a tree, or,
here in Arizona, a cactus. We are usually successful, and we get our
models back to fly again.

One Whole Day: World Record RC Endurance

SUCCESS! At 12:06 p.m. on June 3, 1992, at the Pegasus RC Club field near Hagerstown, Maryland, a radio-controlled aeromodel, designed by Maynard Hill and developed by a team that included Paul Howey, Tien-Seng Chiu, and M. Scott Hill, was launched on a flight that lasted 24 hours, 4 minutes, and 15 seconds. The model was certified to meet all the regulations of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, and the data has been submitted for homologation as a new world record for FAI category F3A-20, Duration.