AMA Nats Lincoln '79: RC Soaring
Dan Pruss
If this column reads like an article on Club of the Month, I'll stand corrected because it should read as Club of the Year. This is a report on the soaring event at the AMA Nationals. As with past Nationals, the AMA relied on some good people to run the events. In this case, the Rocky Mountain Soaring Association (RMSA) was assigned the task of running the soaring event.
Site and organizers
Late last winter Dick Crowley and Jim Barr came from the Denver area and found what has to be one of the best soaring sites ever used for a major contest: acres of sod on a farm at least a mile square.
Key personnel included:
- Jim Barr — Contest Director.
- Dick Crowley — managerial tasks and other duties (also editor of NSS Sailplane).
- Roy Hogan (Iowa) — scoring assistance.
- Frank Girolami (Puget Sound Gulls) — tabulation, repeating his fine work from Lake Charles.
- Chuck Brannon (Wyoming) and Bill Hannah (Kansas) — kept all eight winches running.
- Larry Puls (Iowa) — impound area.
Final standings appear in the Competition News section of the issue and are not repeated here.
Contest format and entries
The contest task was a ten-minute max with a flat 50 points for landing in a 25-meter-diameter circle (Task 1 as it appears on page 51 of the 1978–79 AMA Model Aircraft Regulations). Classes were A, B and C, with D (Two-Meter) and Stand-Off Scale held as unofficial events the day after the scheduled contest.
Nine rounds were scheduled and flown as the weather cooperated. The 25-knot winds that whipped across Nebraska a week earlier subsided, and it was near-perfect thermal weather—for some.
Many contestants made the AMA Nats part of the contest circuit after the LSF Tournament five days earlier. Notable entrants included:
- Walt Hill, Ted Strohm and Bill Rohring (Michigan).
- Ron Stanfield (Arkansas).
- Dave Elias (Florida).
- Don Clark and Larry Rice (Rice flew the LSF Tournament in his Cessna 150 and won the award for greatest distance traveled — he was en route back to Anchorage).
- Gerry Epps and his son Allen (Illinois).
These are only a few who decided Lincoln would be a place for a little R & R.
Early competition and RMSA team
Thacker decided to give the troops a little to shoot for, so he simply maxed three for three, made his spot landings and called it a day. That put him in first place in Standard Class (A) in the retired-age division. John Gunsaullus, who usually flies planes with fuselages so thin they look like printed-circuit boards on a stick, had his act together and was in first place in Unlimited (C).
If the RMSA has a group of organizers — Barr, Crowley (who also edits NSS Sailplane), and Ray Marvin (who engineered the last FAI Team Selection Program) — they also have a group of fliers: Don Cameron, Bob Domer and Herb Smith (all made the FAI finals in Pensacola), plus Miller, who has a string of victories including notable fun-flys. Crowley, Smith and Miller had won the Best Team award a week earlier. The RMSA also brought other fliers, including South African transplant Tony Kay, who jumped to an early lead in Class B (Open age division).
Round-by-round highlights
Round four
- Round four suggested this might be an "all maxes to win" contest. If you were on your second "bust" flight, the victory banquet was likely to be just another late supper.
- Thacker, Kay and Gunsaullus maxed. Larry Jolly and Skip Miller also maxed, leaving only 68 points separating first from third.
Round five — a landing-zone incident
- Miller launched from the number-three winch zone; there were four zones using eight Hi Flight winches, and four landing zones, one for each launch area.
- During his 9-minute, 59-second flight, Miller was steered to the number-two — not number-three — landing zone. He stood there at least three minutes, working the countdown given by his assistant Bob Domer.
- Within seconds of landing, at least eight voices from the sidelines called the wrong landing zone. It is a zero score under the rules even if the timing scribe had been the one timing. Shockingly, no one warned him before the ten minutes were up.
- National championships? Too much at stake, you say? Bull—loney! Calls from the sidelines in such situations have happened in many big contests; usually they come from those in the lead trying to gain an edge. Fortunately, no Sportsmanship trophy had to be awarded at the banquet.
Standings after round five
- Jim Porter had a 14-point lead over Stanfield in Class A and a 50-point lead over Thacker.
- Chuck Pairett overtook Tony Kay by 54 points while Walt Hill moved to third in Class B.
- Larry Jolly led Class C by eight points over Miller and 115 points over Gunsaullus.
- Bob Domer achieved his fourth max and his sixth landing on his fifth flight.
Rounds six and seven
- Stanfield reclaimed the lead in his class; Kay did likewise in his.
- Bob Domer got his fifth max and sixth landing as he took over Unlimited class, 109 points ahead of Jolly and 110 over Miller.
- Miller’s fifth flight left Domer feeling exposed; Miller warned Domer that if Domer won, it had better be by more than 50 points — the value of a landing.
- The third day began with crisp clear skies and barely a breeze. Charley Spears ran into more bad luck: the previous day he lost a bird because of radio interference from the impound area. This day he launched the Aquila; shortly after launch the radio went dead. Because of the light breeze the Aquila didn't stray far from the winch area, but on the second landing the Aquila was lost for good. In the sixth minute of flight, Spears was feeling pretty good — he was getting four-minute flights when the radio was working — but the glider descended and hit a telephone pole square-on, demolishing itself.
- Round seven ended with Stanfield, Kay and Domer still leading their respective classes.
Rounds eight and nine
- In round eight Domer continued to max. Miller also maxed with his newly acquired Sagitta, a Standard-class ship; Skip chose to fly in Unlimited because his backup, an Aquila Grande, is Unlimited. Jolly kept pace in his Bird of Time, two points behind Miller. Stanfield widened his lead over Thacker by 270 points (4½ minutes). For Kay it was still tense as Justus (another competitor) was only 175 points behind.
- By round nine the wind had come up and maxes were harder to get. Some fliers rode lift downwind only to end up short on the way back; others plowed through lift upwind only to find none arriving later in the flight.
- Nothing changed in the final round without maxes. The pressure was on Domer; Miller and Jolly were only a point apart and both maxed. Bob Domer had to max to claim victory — and he did.
- Any hard feelings between Miller and Domer? None apparent. After the contest, Miller engineered the tossing of Domer (clothed) into the motel pool; Skip didn't even hold Bob's head under water. He had supported Bob throughout his last five flights with encouragement.
Results and club performance
The RMSA went out in style. Domer and Kay achieved first-place finishes. Miller had a second, and Don Cameron a second in Senior behind Bob McGowan. Not bad for a club that also had to run the contest.
Nats shortlines
- If a "best looking" award had been given, Dave Elias' Bird of Time surely would have won.
- Paul Byrum is active again: Paul, once an East Coaster, recently retired from the Air Force and is now living in Kansas City, spreading the soaring word again.
- With prearranged flight order, public-address chatter was kept to a minimum; fliers simply followed the printed order in most cases, resulting in a low-key contest atmosphere.
- The awards banquet ended the contest on a high note. Dick Crowley emceed, and speeches were kept shorter than most flights.
- Notable speed performance: Miller's new Sagitta was flown on an FAI speed course between the LSF Tournament and the AMA Nationals, clocking 9.39. Expect to hear more about that.
Closing thoughts
It didn't go unnoticed: for a sport that most closely imitates the serenity of soaring birds in flight, it's a shame some competitors' talons are more barbed than the birds'. There seems to be a correlation between low scores and bickering. Perhaps if those fliers spent as much time watching the air as they do policing fellow competitors, they too would know how it feels to stand in the winners' circle.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
