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 make the competition first rate and worthy of the "Nationals" label.
- Wakefield: 21 entrants (an event making a nationwide resurgence)
- Coupe d'Hiver: 34 entrants
- P-30: 42 entrants
- Mulvihill: similar number (exact tally unavailable)
Some less-than-ideal downwind chase conditions, created by an unrelenting westerly breeze, made retrieval difficult and pushed competitors to their best.
Mulvihill
A unique feature of Mulvihill this year was a self-imposed "sudden-death" rule to limit routine loss of airplanes in the bayou bushes. The assumption was that everyone had maxed out and reached the flyoffs, producing an incrementally progressive flyoff schedule: first flight—three-minute max; second flight—3½-minute max; third flight—four-minute max; and so on. Dropping a max put you out.
A participant commented, "It'll sure separate the men from the boys." George Perryman added, "And the boys from the airplanes." Later, when asked why he hadn't flown yet, Perryman quipped, "Did you ever hear of anyone jumping into an electric chair?"
Results:
- Fred Blom (Timonium, MD) — 1,113 seconds (Open-class hybrid winner)
- Guenther Nowak — 900 seconds (observed to drop a part during a five-minute flight)
- Jim O'Reilly — 518 seconds ("It's hard to fly a four-minute max in two-minute air," he said)
- Dan Isaacks — best of the Seniors at 239 seconds
- Dana Wile — best of the gals, 180 seconds (beat Aaron Markos for second)
- Junior sequence: Rod Loerger, Matt Gagliano, David Brown
Wakefield
Wakefield offered some out-of-the-rut flying with two familiar names emerging as first-place winners. Fred Pearce and Jim O'Reilly posted identical scores of 1,350 at the end of regular flying and three progressive flyoff flights. Rather than risk losing their ships to an additional flight into the Louisiana jungle, they agreed to a tie and shared first place.
Other placings:
- Tom Loerger — 892
- Fred Blom and Bob Sifleet — tied for third at 888
Coupe d'Hiver
Coupe d'Hiver is popular with Open fliers but only managed four entries in the Junior and Senior age categories.
Results:
- Junior: David Brown — 159
- Senior: Dana Wile — 448 (beat the guys)
- Open: Chris Matsuno — 930 (winner)
- Frank Parmenter — 903 (second)
- George Perryman — 869 (third)
- Other trophy winners: Bob Hatschek (fourth), Chuck Markos (fifth), Kenneth Grubbs (sixth)
P-30
The P-30 event (John Oldenkamp's progeny) continues to maintain and perhaps even gain in popularity now that several kits are on the market.
Results:
- Junior: Jay Horn — 219 (first), Rod Loerger — 217 (second)
- Senior: Dana Wile — 283 (first), Melinda Anderson — 183 (second), Charles Gagliano — 173 (third)
- Open: Fred Pearce — 510 (winner), Matty Richardson — 349 (second), C.A. Schuchman — 331 (third)
NFFS Unofficial Rubber Events
NFFS (National Free Flight Society) unofficial Rubber events such as Embryo Endurance and Unlimited Biplane were ably handled, though the unofficial-event scores were not on hand for this report.
Nats FF Out. Scale / Kruse
Everglades' own Terry Rimert is back with us and doing well after some serious midwinter doldrums. My profoundest apologies for not having the NFFS unofficial-event scores on hand; I hope they will be covered elsewhere in the AMA section of this issue.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
