1985 NATS: FF Outdoor Scale
Bob Clemens
Four days of sunny, warm weather had gone by. It was Wednesday morning, and outdoor Scale competition was scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. No sunshine greeted the early-rising Scale fliers as they headed toward the outdoor site, located on one of Westover's long asphalt runways about a half mile from the AMA headquarters building. The weather forecast called for rain, but not until late afternoon. A slight breeze drifted diagonally across the runway.
Many contestants were already on hand and making test flights by 7 o'clock. Wary of the weather, contest officials decided that official flights would begin half an hour earlier than planned, at 7:30. It was a fateful decision, although no one realized it at the time.
A CO2-powered Farman Jabiru flown by Bob Clemens lifted off the runway to mark the first official flight in Gas Scale. In this event, models are given stringent static-scale judging and are also judged for the realism of their flight performance through takeoff, cruise and descent. Flight duration must be at least 20 seconds, but there are no additional points added for longer flight times as in the AMA Rubber and Peanut events.
Dave Rees attempted to ROG his superb Short SD3-30 twin-engined transport, but the model curved off the runway onto the grass without breaking ground. Bill Bell's beautiful Stearman C-3B biplane, built from the Flyline Models kit, zoomed off in a series of power stalls that ended with the model hitting nose-first on the runway, resulting in a broken wing strut and damage to the scale radial engine. As Paul Gaertner attempted to trim the only electric-powered entry in the contest, he quickly determined that his Heath Super Parasol was showing stability problems that could not be easily corrected. He wisely chose not to attempt any further flights. The Heath, built from a Gene Thomas "kit/plan," featured pendulum aileron controls and was powered with a VL Hytork motor.
Flying in AMA Rubber Scale, Don Srull started quietly putting in hand-launched official flights (allowed for biplanes) with his scarlet Missel Thrush. The 30-inch Thrush climbed out in a steady spiral pattern, easily topping a minute in the heavy air. "We're fighting for our second today," noted Dave Rees, as he began taking officials' Peanut flights. Subtly, the breeze picked up. Overhead, the gray cloud deck showed no signs of breaking.
The flights went on. Don Steeb flew a Micro-X Fike in Peanut; Dave Rees flew a clipped-wing Monocoupe "Little Butch"; Nicholas Beazley Barling entered a low-winger; Tom Sandor flew a beautiful Ryan PT-21 in AMA. Then, over the growing crowd on the end of the runway came the purr of twin CO2 engines as Dave Rees' Short turned in a superb official flight, never gaining more than 15 or 20 feet of altitude. An all-red Cessna AW flown by George Meyers made a 90-second max in AMA Rubber.
The rain came about 10:30, much earlier than predicted. It sprinkled lightly for 10 minutes, then built into a steady, soaking shower that continued almost without letup for the next five hours. So began a bizarre scenario that saw stick-and-tissue Scale models bravely attempting to fly in the rain. Amazingly, a number of good flights, including several maxes, were turned in by the sodden, wrinkled craft. If there could be any comfort, it came from the fact that the air remained fairly calm during the rain.
At 3:30, with a scant half hour remaining in the contest, the showers virtually stopped. Frantic contestants emerged from their cars, winding their models in a last-ditch effort to complete their official flights. The results had already been pretty well determined, though, by fliers who had flown early.
- Don Srull — 1st, Open AMA Rubber
- Don Steeb — 1st, Open Peanut
- Dave Rees — 1st, Gas Scale
- Aaron Markos — 1st, Junior Peanut (three-plane field)
- Bill Bell — 4th, AMA Gas Scale (repaired his Stearman and finished)
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
