INDOOR NATS
JIM HAUGHT
Overview
The 1997 Indoor Nats and United States Indoor Championships were held May 28–June 1 at Gentry Field in the Memorial Center of East Tennessee State University. The multipurpose facility — home to the school's indoor football and basketball teams — has served the Indoor community well for a number of years.
Attendance was roughly on a par with 1996, with approximately 100 contestants. Competitors flew under a near‑continuous spate of cool, damp, overcast weather that kept things comfortable in the building but was not ideal for top‑level flight performance.
Overall Champion
Larry Coslick (St. Louis) was Indoor Category Champion, scoring a total of 91 points to easily outdistance Mike Thomas (56 points) and Jack McGillivray (50 points). Coslick’s placings included:
- Wins: Easy B, HL Stick, Intermediate Stick, Ornithopter, Bostonian
- Seconds: Manhattan, ROG Stick
- Third: MiniStick
- Fourth: Pennyplane
- Sixth: F1D
- Eighth: Limited Pennyplane
Notable Winners and Placings
- Gerald Plassman — 1st in Catapult Glider and Hand‑Launched Glider (Standard Unlimited category).
- Len Surtees (Australia) — big win in Hand‑Launched Glider (HLG) over perennial favorite Bernie Boehm.
- Ron Ganser (Pittsburgh, PA) — won Autogiro (12:58) and took first in Peanut Scale and Indoor Rubber Scale. The top three in both Peanut and Indoor Rubber were identical: Ganser, Jack McGillivray, Ken Johnson.
- Walt Van Gorder (Cincinnati, OH) — set a Manhattan national record with a ceiling‑scrubbing flight of 13:41.
- John “Doc” Martin (Coconut Grove, FL) — won Rubber Scale with a Messerschmitt M‑20 Lufthansa airliner model weighing 40 grams.
- Mike Thomas (Canada) — won Cabin with just over 28 minutes, edging Ohio’s Larry Loucka; Thomas finished second overall in the championship standings.
- Larry Loucka (Ohio) — won Helicopter and ROG Stick.
- Dan O’Grady (Canada) — won Pennyplane with 19:15, followed by Mike Thomas (19:01) and Peter Olshefsky (18:15).
- Nick Leonard Jr. — Best (and only) Junior in F1D.
Event Highlights
- Intermediate Stick required more than 30 minutes to place; Coslick won with 38:51.
- HL Stick also produced long flights; Coslick posted 41:10 and England’s Laurie Barr also topped 40 minutes.
- Easy B: the top six fliers exceeded 25 minutes, with Coslick surpassing the 30‑minute mark to best Larry Cailliau by about three minutes.
- MiniStick: Larry Cailliau won with 13:10, followed by Nick Walton (11:56) and Coslick (11:45).
- Limited Pennyplane: Coslick won with 15:53 over a field of 61 competitors — the largest single‑event entry; Easy B was the second largest with 40 entrants.
- Manhattan preps included a winning 13:41 flight (Walt Van Gorder).
- Jim Clems (Piano, TX) flew a Pennyplane featuring a variable‑pitch prop and placed seventh with a 17:07 flight; time 30:28 was good for sixth in that event.
Ornithopter and F1D
- Ornithopter: Ed Ripley (Knoxville, TN) pushed hard, posting a long flight (reported 14:44) that held up until Larry Coslick’s final flight of 16:07, giving Coslick the win.
- F1D: only a few competitors turned out, but the field was high quality (names included Hulbert, Underwood, Coslick, Doig). Richard Doig won with 75:12, about four minutes ahead of Bill Hulbert. Paul Underwood chose not to fly officially (to protect models ahead of Team Selection) and made partial‑motor test flights.
Other Notes
- A strong northern Indiana contingent (Bill Schlarb Jr., Bill Schlarb Sr., Keith Fulmer) and Wisconsin’s Bernie Boehm made the long drive (roughly 11 hours each way) and finished with multiple placings.
- Special thanks to Dave Thomson and crew for logistics and event execution — a thankless but essential job.
See the "Focus on Competition" results box for complete placements and times.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
