RADIO CONTROL AEROBATICS
Rick Allison, 26405 SE 160th St., Issaquah WA 98027
As this issue lands in your mailbox, the 73rd edition of the AMA Nationals will be just about six short weeks away. You should go.
I wanted to write this column a month or two ago, but more-pressing matters held me up at idea point and demanded column space. However, this isn't too late. I'm sure that entries are still being accepted for the Pattern events, which will take place July 18–23 at our very own AMA National Flying Site in Muncie, Indiana.
You really should go.
Why you should go
If you've ever been to a Nats, you already know why you should go, even if you can't quite put it into words powerful enough to convince the employers, parents, dependents, and/or significant-other stars of your personal heavens to grant you the time or means to attend. Doing that is a tall order, but I'll try to help.
If you've never been to a Nats and don't understand why you need to go, here is the main reason:
It's fun.
There are plenty of other really good reasons that we will get to in the course of this column, but that is the main one: fun. Of course, if you are constructing an argument to convince someone in one of the above-classified categories to let your particular person go, it might not be the reason you would want to present at the beginning of the discussion.
Education is probably the best choice. As far as what you get out of attending the Nats, education is right up there with fun, tucked into a really close second place. And in our society, educational experiences don't come equipped with all the pejorative stigma that are still attached to fun.
You can use that. Just kit-bash it a little until it suits your particular situation.
This harmless scam isn't cheating, by the way. It works because it is true—fun can be (and very often is) educational. The entire hobby of aeromodeling is based on this bedrock premise.
For the last half of this century we've developed other techniques for justifying time away from regular duties. Most of them amount to substituting another term for the actual fun, such as:
- self-actualization
- locating our inner child
- letting go
- relearning our play-selves
- smelling the roses
- recreation
All of this is good stuff, sells lots of books and articles, and used properly can also help bust you loose for a week or so at the Nats—a week that you really, really do need.
However you sell it, getting to the Nats is the main idea. Fun and education are abstract concepts, but the AMA Nationals proper is a specific, tangible, and unique social happening. It is both a Woodstock-like gathering of the balsa tribes and the combined World Series/US Open of model aircraft. Being part of it will change you, and you may even change it.
The Nationals then and now
In the old days the AMA Nationals were a little different than they are today. It was a combined event, with every type of modeling discipline stacked, slotted, and compressed into the minimum amount of time and space. The sites rotated around the country, and each year the flying circus came to a different town and was reinvented over a few days.
For those few days, the Nats was an instant community, brought to life overnight somewhere in America, then folded and put away until the next summer. When you attended you expected constant motion, bustle, and confusion, all overlaid with the smell and sound of model engines.
Everything was a little larger than life, with as much flitting, buzzing, roaring, whistling, droning, and blatting as you could ever hope for. The wind always seemed stronger, the rain wetter, the clouds more ominous, or the sun hotter than wherever home was. It was the Nats, and you were there.
As the events multiplied and the available time and site space shrank, problems became a big part of the Nats—sometimes big enough to be remembered right into legend and become a source of pride. You still hear about the half-trained (but always willing) sailor judges and timekeepers of the many Navy Nats, the wind in Lincoln, the heat in Lake Charles, the blowing grit in Reno, or the radio interference in the Tri-Cities. People still wear the ragged old T-shirts, hats, and badges like medals and souvenirs from wars fought long, long ago and far, far away.
The Nationals has a permanent home now, right in the actual, physical backyard of the Academy of Model Aeronautics headquarters in Muncie, Indiana. The number of events simply grew to the point where they had to be spread out over time. Each modeling discipline now has its own time on center stage. To see and be part of it all, one would have to stay at Muncie for a month.
The AMA Special Interest Groups are now heavily involved in the conduct of their own events. The time and attention of AMA staff are far more focused on each event, and the available equipment and space are much better utilized than before. The Nationals is now a much-better contest. The pageantry of the old Nats has given way to a real National Model Airplane Championships.
Some of the old flavor is gone, but almost all of the confusion left with it. What is left is still larger than life: still hotter, colder, wetter, cloudier, or windier than home, and still full of most of the good stuff listed on the old label.
Seventy-three years is a lot of competitive model airplane history, and the weight of it is there on the flightlines.
What you'll gain
You still get to make or see friends that you'll only see once a year. The air is still full of models from dawn until dusk, and the sounds and smells of model engines still rule the atmosphere. You can learn more about your event in five days than you can in five full summers of not showing up. You can sign up and measure your skills against the best modelers in the country.
If—no, when—you attend you will meet some of the people you've heard about for years in these pages and in other publications, and some of the people you haven't heard about yet but will hear much about in the future. You will see the latest modeling technology in use, the newest designs in the air, and the prettiest finishes on the flightlines.
Now that the Nationals is in Muncie, you also get the bonus of the AMA Museum. The museum not only goes a long way toward making up for the missing pageantry of the old combined Nats, it will give you direct insight into the history, diversity, and complexity of our hobby. Visiting the museum is worth the trip all by itself. And it's fun and educational!
You will learn exactly where you are on the skill ladder, relative to the competitors in your event from other parts of the country. You will learn what you know, what you don't know, and what you need to work on. I often hear competitors say that they "aren't ready for a Nats" or they "aren't good enough for a Nats." This is seven different kinds of wrong.
The best way (perhaps the only way) to really get ready to compete at a Nats is to actually go to one and compete. It is also the fastest way to improve—much faster than staying home and practicing alone. The intensity of the experience drives home the lessons learned like nothing else can.
As for not being good enough, the odds are excellent that you will not win the Nationals on your first attempt, no matter how good you think you are. They are also excellent that you will not finish last. Even if you do, all that matters is that everybody who showed up had a better week competitively than you did—and you will still have had a better time and learned more than all of the people who stayed home.
About competition
Some of you will notice that I haven't talked glowingly about the joys and virtues of competition. That's because you already know something of such matters; if you didn't, you wouldn't be reading this column in the first place. If you are flying Pattern, you are already pretty well hooked and aware that there is no 12-step treatment program.
For serious adrenaline users and competition thrill-seekers, the Nationals is a big step up from the local stuff. If your knees knocked before, the clutter will positively deafen you when you step up for your first Nationals round. Even if you no longer get nervous at most contests, you will at this one.
And whether you win, lose, or place in the middle of the pack, you won't forget it. You will be back. You might hold out for a year, or two, or ten, but you'll be back. You can't get this unique experience anywhere else, and all the model airplane roads in America eventually lead to the AMA Nationals in Muncie, Indiana.
Did I mention that you really, really should go?
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
