AMA Nats: FF Indoor Scale
AN IMPORTANT PART of Indoor competition, Scale brought out over 50 entries in Rubber Scale and Peanut combined, very much indicative of the return of Indoor flying to the National Contest scene. When the numbers from the unofficial 14-gram Bostonian event, run concurrently, are dumped into the total, over 70 aircraft took to the air with multiple flights during the five hours allocated to Indoor Scale. There was no lack of planes in the air, and the appreciative audience broke out in spontaneous applause to reward exceptional flights. Enjoying a goodly share of the applause was Canadian Ken Groves' meticulously-crafted Fike Dream E, built over drawings authenticated by the builder of the full-scale ship. A max with the Dream was simply a matter of cranking in enough turns and letting it go-as close to automatic as you can get. Ken won Open Peanut with the ship and flew it to second place in Rubber Scale.
AMA Nats: FF Indoor
THE YEAR 1987 has proven to be an exceptional one for Indoor model flying. From the Johnson City experience under the 122-ft. minidome to the rebirth of true Nationals competition at Lincoln, 1987 has marked a renaissance of micro-gram models and those who fly them. Literally returning from the near-oblivion of Lake Charles, Indoor became the crown jewel of Free Flight at Lincoln. We witnessed a larger turnout, a better site, and more records set than at any time in recent history of the National Contest. Pershing Auditorium was a very user-friendly site this year. Although Indoor has been held within its confines on two previous occasions, this contest was marked by a noticeable absence of the large suspended scoreboard, a usual feature of the building. This lack of center obstruction gave fliers full access to the 49-ft.-plus arched ceiling and recessed lights. Hanging up on obstructions, a usual concern of Indoor fliers, was not a problem. As a consequence, ceiling scrubbing was commonplace.
Champlin Fighter Museum
A chance to see the stuff that legends are made of doesn't come around all that often, especially when those legends are the deep rumbling, piston-powered flying machines. There's a museum in Arizona that will let you vicariously live with some of the greatest aviation combatants the world has ever known.
Scorpion 60
A BRIEF GLANCE at this year's AMA sanctioned contest calendar is sure to point out a definite trend that began a number of years ago-an increasing number of low-pressure competitive events generically thrown together under the heading of "fun-fly." From a pressure standpoint, fun-fly events are to Pattern con-
1986 Nats: FF Outdoor Scale
FF OUTDOOR RUBBER was without doubt the most broadly-based segment of Free Flight, numerically speaking, at this year's Nats. All of the Open events had significant enough numbers of fliers to cause the competition to be first rate and worthy of the "Nationals" label. Twenty-one entrants in Wakefield (an event which seems to be making a nationwide resurgence), 34 in Coupe d'Hiver, 42 in the ever-popular P-30 event, and a similar number in Mulvihill (sorry-I don't know the exact tally) helped spur contestants to do their best, even under some less-than-acceptable downwind chase situations.
