RADIO CONTROL AEROBATICS
Ron Van Putte
111 Sleepy Oaks Road, Ft. Walton Beach, FL 32548
F3A World Championships coverage
At the end of last month's column I wrote that I thought Model Aviation had no plans to cover the F3A World Championships, and I would try to make arrangements with Tony Stillman (USA's F3A Team Manager) to write a short article and include some pictures to replace my March column. Tony confirmed that he could do it, and also thought he could get some pictures from Greg Frohreich (Greg had been Tony Frackowiak's caller at the World Championships).
Unbeknownst to me, Model Aviation did have some long-standing plans to cover the F3A World Championships with a feature article. Then, through some glitches in communication, the magazine's effort to get a feature article fell through the cracks. It was just about that time Rob Kurek (Model Aviation's Publications Manager) called me to discuss what he had read at the end of my February column. He asked me if Tony could expand his coverage into a feature article.
After passing the request to Tony, he said that there were some things he hadn't been able to mention in the abbreviated coverage, so he expanded the article and sent it to me along with the pictures. Thanks to my wife, who did an Apple file exchange on Tony's disk (a 5-1/4" disk in DOS format) to put it on a 3-1/2" disk in Macintosh format, I got the article on my Macintosh. After including the photo captions and constructing the matrix from information Tony had sent, I put everything on a 3-1/2" disk in Macintosh format, and sent it and the pictures off to the magazine. It was a lot of effort on everybody's part, but worth it to have a feature article on the F3A World Championships. I hope you enjoy Tony's article, which is elsewhere in this issue.
Nostalgia and old-time Pattern
I've heard that nostalgia is a sign that you're growing old. That may be true, but it's certainly better than the alternative. Lately I've been nostalgic about old-time Pattern. As a member of the Senior Pattern Association (SPA), I've had a chance to do more than just reminisce about it.
Senior Pattern Association (SPA)
The SPA was started by Mickey Walker (3121 Northview Place, Smyrna, GA 30080; Tel: [404] 435-8158) about three years ago. The rules are simple:
- You must compete with an aircraft that was designed prior to 1970.
- The airplane's landing gear must be fixed, or locked down if it's fitted with retracts.
- The engine must be non-Schnuerle ported.
- Displacement limits are .60 cubic inches for a 2-stroke and .70 cubic inches for a 4-stroke.
There are a lot of fine airplanes that meet the criteria, for example:
- Kaos
- Kwik Fli
- New Orleaner
- Daddy Rabbit
- Flat Top
- Stormer
- Phoenix 3
- A-6 Intruder
- Taurus
- Orion
- Sweet Tator
If you don't have one of the old kits up in the attic, Bill La Rue of Classic Air Models (P.O. Box 784, Fruitland Park, FL 34731; Tel: [904] 787-7475) will be glad to make you up a kit for about $100 (some are more, some less).
You don't really have to dig up an old SuperTigre G-60 Bluehead, Webra .60 Blackhead, Lee-Veco .60 or other similar engine, even though you'd be surprised how many new-in-the-box (NIB) old engines there are out there. A modern K&B .60 satisfies the rules. A .70 4-cycle really makes those old airplanes perform, too.
Every year Mickey Walker has a two-day SPA contest near Atlanta, Georgia, that he calls the SPA Masters Tournament. Last year it was held the second weekend in September, after two years of holding it in the cool weather of mid-October. This year, all the effort that Mickey and the North Georgia Flying Circus (the host club) put out was rewarded with beautiful weather and lots of contestants.
There are several SPA chapters around the country, and each club sponsors a contest. This year the Knoxville, Tennessee SPA chapter integrated an SPA event into their club's regular Pattern contest. From what I've heard, it was a success and attracted a lot of contestants who had never heard of the SPA to the fine flying those old designs will do.
The Northwest Florida R/C Modelers and the Eglin Aero Modelers (my club) co-sponsored a contest in early October and also had beautiful weather and lots of contestants. I understand that there are at least two other chapters around the country that hold contests.
Why do we do it? Nostalgia — and the flying field trips that go with it. Some of the contestants will be flying Pattern for the first time in 20 years. Don't be fooled into thinking that those "old geezers" can't fly, either. For some reason their fingers remember making the airplanes perform just as well as they did years ago.
There are three SPA categories:
- Junior: under 45
- Senior: 45 to 60
- Super Senior: over 60
Surprisingly, there are a lot of Juniors in the SPA. Some of them were in grammar school when the airplane they fly in SPA competition was designed and flown for the first time.
Interested? Write or phone Mickey Walker and ask how to join us. However, don't be thinking of asking if I can sell you the NIB Taurus I have up in my attic.
NSRCA Pan American Championships (N-PAC)
Jim Graham's R/C City sponsors the NSRCA Pan American Championships (N-PAC). Held every other year, N-PAC will be August 14–19 at the municipal airport in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
If the location of Tullahoma isn't in your memory banks, it's roughly northeast of Huntsville, Alabama; southeast of Nashville, Tennessee; and west of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chances are you've probably heard of Lynchburg, Tennessee (the home of the Jack Daniel distillery), even if you don't know where it is. Lynchburg is only 11 miles from Tullahoma. If you attend N-PAC, be sure that you take a distillery tour. By the way, Lynchburg is in a dry county!
How did the NSRCA select Tullahoma as the site for N-PAC? It's really very simple. If you check out an ad for Jim Graham's R/C City, you'll get a good clue: Tullahoma is where R/C City is located. Jim is the person responsible for Tullahoma's bid to be the N-PAC site.
The flying will be done from a main runway (6,200 feet) and a taxiway. There will be two separate flightlines on the 150-foot-wide main runway, and one flightline on the 75-foot-wide taxiway, which is nearly parallel to the main runway and approximately 2,400 feet away.
If you do some figuring, you'll see that there will be about 1,700 feet separation between where the airplanes from flightlines one and two will actually be flying, and where the airplanes will be parked at flightline three. That should provide plenty of safety clearance.
Access routes to all sites appear to be plentiful.
We shouldn't have any interference problems with full-scale aircraft using runway 13/31, since there will be about 600 feet separating the right-hand end of flightline two and the active runway.
Tullahoma is very familiar to me. I've been going to the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) for more than 21 years to do tests at several of AEDC's wind tunnels. AEDC is only 10 miles from Tullahoma. I know all the good places to eat!
Mike Dunphy will be N-PAC's contest director. Mike was co-CD of the last N-PAC with Jim Fife, and was CD for the F3A Team Selection Finals last June, so he knows his way around the flightline. N-PAC will probably be the largest R/C Pattern contest in the world this year (as it was in 1992), so I'll be there, and hope a lot of you are, too.
NSRCA rule-change survey
If you are a member of the NSRCA, let me remind you again to get involved with the 1996/1997 rule-change survey and make your thoughts known to the NSRCA rule-change committee, which is made up of representatives from every NSRCA district. The committee will digest the survey results, and based on the consensus, will propose rule changes to the AMA by September 1, 1994.
As an AMA Special Interest Group, the NSRCA rule-change proposals will bypass the Initial Vote by the R/C Aerobatics Contest Board, and will move right to the Final vote. That means your participation in the survey is very important, because rule-change sponsorship by the NSRCA makes passage much more likely, since most of the Contest Board members are NSRCA members.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
