Author: R.V. Putte
Edition: Model Aviation - 1995/02
Page Numbers: 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
,
,
,
,
,

N-PAC

Ron Van Putte

Event Summary

The second NSRCA (National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics) Pan American Championships (N-PAC) was held August 15–19, 1994 in Tullahoma, Tennessee. N-PAC is the largest RC precision aerobatics contest in the world and is held in years that do not have an F3A World Championship. In 1994, 122 contestants competed in the following classes:

  • Novice: 8
  • Sportsman: 16
  • Advanced: 30
  • Masters: 32
  • FAI: 36

Venue and Locals

Tullahoma is a small town in south-central Tennessee near the Arnold Engineering Development Center. The competition was held on an inactive runway at the Tullahoma airport. Adjacent to the runway is the Staggerwing Beech Museum, where scoring was housed. The runway was smooth with few weeds and oriented southwest–northeast. Contest management was on the south side of the runway, which placed the late-afternoon sun in the left-hand turnaround area—a factor only on Wednesday when two AMA-class rounds were flown.

Flying Schedule

Flying was conducted from four flightlines, arranged as two pairs of lines on two sites separated by approximately 3,000 feet to avoid interference. Sessions were:

  • Morning: FAI (wheels-up usually at 8:00 a.m.; one round took about 1½ hours). On Wednesday the FAI start was moved to 7:00 a.m.
  • Afternoon: AMA classes (Novice, Sportsman, Advanced, Masters), nominally starting about an hour after FAI finished.

All transmitters had to be impounded 30 minutes before the scheduled start of a session; failure to meet that requirement resulted in forfeiting the round. Because of early starts on Wednesday, some fliers missed impound times and forfeited rounds.

Judging and Scoring

FAI:

  • Four sets of three judges judged FAI flights.
  • During the FAI session judges stayed in place and fliers rotated through the flightlines.
  • The best three normalized scores of four flights were used to select the top 20% of FAI fliers for the finals.
  • Because FAI fliers flew one round per day, normalized scores could not be computed until after the fourth round, which caused speculation among competitors about their standings.

AMA (Novice, Sportsman, Advanced, Masters):

  • Six sets of two judges rotated through the lines.
  • Only four sets judged at a time; when a set reached flightline D they moved off rotation for two rounds and another set started at flightline A.
  • This rotation pattern delayed the availability of normalized, computer-generated scores for some classes:
  • Novice and Sportsman: scores could be normalized after three rounds.
  • Advanced: normalized scores could be computed after Rounds 3–6, with three sets of normalized scores available after Round 6.
  • Masters: normalized scores could be computed after Rounds 2–6, with two sets available after Round 6.
  • Because of the way the scoring program and judging rotation worked, many fliers used hand-held calculators to track standings round-by-round.

Weather delays (fog, low clouds) affected many mornings and sometimes interrupted flying; fortunately FAI rounds were relatively short so some delays did not impact the afternoon AMA schedule.

FAI Competition

In the qualifying rounds the top performers were Bill Cunningham, Ivan Kristensen, and Jason Shulman. Kristensen won two qualifying rounds; Cunningham and Shulman each won one. Bill edged Ivan for the top qualifying spot with three scores averaging in the 997+ range. Jason was about 50 points behind Bill in normalized qualifying scores.

Finals:

  • Jason Shulman dominated the finals, winning all three final rounds. His performance was consistently scored high by all twelve FAI judges who had judged during preliminaries.
  • Bill Cunningham finished nearly 25 normalized points behind Jason.
  • Ivan Kristensen finished another 16 points back.

Notable final-related points:

  • Chip Hyde (defending N-PAC champion) did not attend, nor did other top fliers such as Dave von Linsowe and Tony Frackowiak.
  • Kirk Gray (Florence, SC) qualified fourth and finished fourth—his first time in the finals of a major competition.
  • Don Weitz and Chris Lakin qualified 11th and 12th respectively; both are normally finalists at major events. In Chris Lakin’s case, problems with the stall turn hurt his scores.
  • Todd Biloss (Waco, TX) qualified ninth, just outside the finals; he flew the finals “warmup” flight for the judges.
  • Rick Allison (Redmond, WA), president of NSRCA, qualified tenth.
  • Roy and Dorothy Speights (Santa Rosa, CA) brought three young competitors—Kevin Nibut (Clovis, CA), Jonathan Roberts, and Matias Sallar (Northridge, CA)—who all performed well.

Equipment note: among the FAI finalists, six of the top finishers flew YS 120 engines; the remaining two finalists flew YS 91 (Luke Christian) and YS 61 (Dean Koger).

Masters, Advanced, Sportsman, Novice Results

Masters:

  • The Masters event was tightly contested. Ray Meyer (Huntsville, AL) edged out Raiko Potter (Gulf Shores, AL) for the top spot.
  • Jonathan Roberts and Matt Klein each led at various times and finished third and fourth respectively.
  • Earl Vincent finished fifth after climbing from as low as 17th.
  • Each of the top five winners took at least one round.

Advanced:

  • Wade Matney (Ocala, FL) and Lonnie Martin (Greensboro, NC) took turns in first place during the contest.
  • Wade won two rounds and scored high in another.
  • Dan Hart (Hartsville, SC) finished third.
  • Bob Hartwig (Wausau, WI) won one round and finished fourth.
  • Rob Satalino (Hoffman Estates, CA) was as low as 30th after an aborted flight but recovered to finish fifth.

Sportsman:

  • James Griffeth (Gibsonville, NC) was consistent and never out of first place; he won one round outright and shared another with Steve Lelitos (Wendell, MA).
  • Mike McCormick (Clayton, NC) finished second and was never lower than third.
  • Matias Sallar (Northridge, CA) was in the top five for all four rounds and took third.
  • Paul Lachance (Virginia Beach, VA) climbed from as low as eighth to finish fourth.
  • Ted Palinton (Antioch, TN) moved from 11th up to earn fifth.

Novice:

  • Mike Neville (Birmingham, AL) won four rounds and took the Novice title decisively.
  • Don Shulman (Windermere, FL), Jason Shulman’s father, won the other two rounds and led after three rounds before finishing second.
  • Gary Courtney (Huntsville, AL) finished third and was never lower than fourth.
  • Dennis Jones (Trussville, AL) moved between second and fourth during the event and finished fourth.
  • Jim Covington (Huntsville, AL) was the most consistent Novice flier, holding fifth place through all rounds.

Equipment and Trends

  • Four-stroke engines dominated the winners’ list (with the exception of Novice).
  • The YS 91 AC was highlighted as a likely "engine of the future." Many pilots were moving from YS .61AR or O.S. .61 Hanno Special engines to the YS 91 in slightly smaller airframes than those previously powered by larger four-strokes.

Judges' Clinic

Ron Chidgey (Pensacola, FL) conducted a judges' clinic at the Tullahoma Chamber of Commerce on August 14 for N-PAC judges and others seeking NSRCA judge certification. The full-day session included a judging video produced by Chidgey and Jay Gerber of NFL Films, followed by discussion and Q&A. The clinic was well received.

Images and Memories

Several contest images stood out:

  • Bob Hebert and Tim Langlinais (both Lafayette, LA) “sat in” with the Jack Daniel’s Distillery band at the barbecue. The event ended with a wild bus ride back to the airport during a thunderstorm.
  • Charles Castaing (New Iberia, LA), N-PAC registrar, dubbed the scorer’s-area Port-O-Let “Charlie’s Cabana.”
  • Maureen Dunphy (Mike Dunphy’s wife) rode a small motorbike running scores to the flightlines; she and Tim Langlinais handled scoring.
  • Dean Pappas (Hamilton Square, NJ) was famously located in a Port-O-Let one morning when his name was called, producing laughter across the flightline.
  • Jason Shulman’s reaction upon realizing he had won FAI was memorable; his visible excitement was endearing if not “cool.”

Acknowledgments

Contest Director Mike Dunphy was a very visible and hardworking CD, handling numerous challenges and contingencies throughout the event. Thanks to Mike and all volunteers, judges, scorers, and competitors for making N-PAC a successful and memorable contest.

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.