U.S. Indoor Championships
Overview
It was 9 a.m. on Tuesday, June 17. Scattered across the vast 260 by 360-ft. concrete floor of the convention center, the nine Hand-Launched Glider contestants — busily hurling their sheet-balsa creations into the still air — seemed dwarfed by the great room with its arching 72-ft. ceiling. For the second year in a row, the glider fliers were leading off the U.S. Indoor Championships at Niagara Falls, NY.
The year's foremost indoor meet saw some of the biggest names in the sport going head-to-head at the Niagara Falls Convention Center to decide the USIC Champion for 1986.
As in past years, the Class AAAA USIC was co-sponsored by the National Free Flight Society and the National Indoor Model Airplane Society. Once again genial Tony Italiano of Brookfield, WI was at the helm.
Contest Director Italiano, backed by his traditional crew of assistant CDs Don Lindley, Charlie Sotich, and Gordon Wisniewski, supervised the running of 16 events over three days, and conducted a Delta Dart building/flying session Monday afternoon for some 200 Niagara Falls schoolchildren.
The traditional Peanut Scale Grand Prix, sponsored by the MIAMA club (Miami, FL), again was run in conjunction with the Scale events, conducted by Dr. John Martin.
Sixty-three contestants answered the call — entries down 11 from the 1985 meet. Some fliers were puzzled by the virtual absence of contestants from East Coast indoor hot spots.
Hand-Launched Glider (IHLG)
The kickoff competition quickly evolved into another shootout between the two best IHLG arms in the country: Bernie Boehm (Indianapolis) and Rudy Kluiber (Cleveland), with Toronto's Ron Higgs as a potential spoiler.
Boehm set the early pace with a 6:24 on his third effort. Kluiber increased the pressure, and on the fifth and sixth flights he rang up superlative flights of 6:58 and 6:56 to take the lead. Despite two later throws of 6:40 and 6:46, Boehm finished second with a total of 12:26 behind Kluiber's 13:14, a new Category III record. Higgs was third at 11:36. The lone junior entry, Don Slusarczyk, had 6:34.
AMA Stick and FAI Stick
High noon saw the small, film-covered ships of the 16 AMA Stick and 13 FAI Stick contestants take over the vast convention hall spaces. Heavy hitters included Pete Andrews, Walt VanGorder, Bill Hulbert, Ron Ganser, Larry Cailliau, Dick Doig, Dan Belieff, Larry Loucka, and Ron Higgs.
FAI Stick: Defending USIC F1D champ Ron Higgs posted a fine 32:37 on his first flight. Doig recorded 29:03. FAI flying closed for the day to be concluded on Wednesday. Doig's flights of 29:03 and 25:14 put him on the first-day lead in FAI, followed by Cailliau (25:36 and 26:32). Higgs had to fly again.
AMA Stick: Doig came on strong with a first and only official of 33:32, with Dan Belieff putting up 32:17. Doig's lead faded by mid-afternoon as Higgs, flying his F1D ship in AMA Stick, uncorked a dandy 33:56 that was not to be topped. Belieff put his big .315-sq.-in. model right up against the girders in an effort to overtake the leaders, but fell just short at 33:29 to finish third.
Later in the meet, in F1D competition, Dick Doig posted one of the highest single F1D times of the meet, an excellent 33:47. Ron Higgs floated to 32:41, giving him a winning two-flight total of 65:18, 1:16 ahead of Doig's 64:02. Merrick “Pete” Andrews was third with a total of 52:41.
Bostonian, Autogyro, Ornithopter, and Speed
The final three hours of the first day featured Bostonian, Autogyro, Ornithopter, and Speed events. Both Peanut Scale models and Unlimited designs competed in Speed; each type was required to ROG (rise off ground) and complete two laps of a 20-ft.-long course marked by strings supported by helium balloons.
Unlimited Speed: Ron Higgs' all-sheet Unlimited darted around the course at 14.5 mph to take first place. Defending champ Chuck Markos was second at 10.1 mph, with John Voorhees third at 9.8 mph. Doc Martin's Cessna AW was the only Peanut to negotiate the course, turning in 7.1 mph.
Ornithopter: Frank Kieser of Jacksonville Beach, FL demonstrated mastery of the Ornithopter as his graceful biplane canard design smoothly stroked under the girders en route to first place and a new Category III record of 8:16. Juergen Kortenbach was second at 6:21; Les Garber third at 5:28.
Autogyro: Larry Loucka needed only one flight of 10:18 to repeat his 1985 performance as Autogyro champion. Junior Don Slusarczyk finished second with 1:10.
Bostonian: Ten models were entered (four no-shows). Toronto's Jack McGillivray pushed his four-year-old Yeti design to first place with a total score of 467.28, including a splendid 3:29 flight (a 7-gram Bostonian record?). Ken Groves' Curtiss Robin look-alike scored 446.4 for second. Bob Clemens flew a new Don Typood Y-tail design to third with 379.2.
Day 2 (Wednesday)
Wednesday began with a long six-hour segment devoted to Novice Pennyplane, Pennyplane, and Manhattan Cabin. Entries were 35 in Novice Pennyplane, 23 in Pennyplane, and 19 in Manhattan Cabin.
Novice Pennyplane: Ken Groves of Toronto took only one of his five allowed officials to put the open title on ice; his 11:46 withstood repeated assaults. Chuck Markos was second with 11:12 on his third flight. Don Steeb of Rochester, NY took third with 11:12 (a personal best).
Junior Novice Pennyplane: Don Slusarczyk won with 7:13, followed by Richard Smith at 5:17.
Pennyplane: Slusarczyk also won the open Pennyplane with 6:05; Smith was runner-up with 5:41. Bob Skjranec took Senior with 7:55. Veteran pennyplaner Gordon Wisniewski took Open with 13:01, besting Walt VanGorder (11:37) and newcomer Dick Miller (11:17).
Manhattan Cabin: Close finishes — Chuck Markos clocked 8:45 for first; Walt VanGorder was second at 8:37; Ron Ganser third at 7:56.
FAI Stick resumed at 2 p.m., along with Indoor Cabin. Larry Loucka cranked up a lone official flight of 20:11 to win Indoor Cabin. Ron Ganser's Flying Disc stayed up for second with 17:42; Dan Belieff was third at 15:01 in the four-plane field.
FAI F1D: Dick Doig posted the single highest F1D time of the meet with 33:47, but Ron Higgs' combined two-flight total (65:18) beat Doig (64:02).
The second day's flying ended at 7 p.m., and contestants adjourned to the Ramada Inn for the traditional USIC banquet. Master of ceremonies Tony Italiano thanked Jack Brown of Grand Island, NY for securing the use of the convention center and arranging hotel discounts. AMA President John Grigg and Doc Martin (who presented MIAMA trophies) were introduced. Jack Beilman of Calspan Aeronautical Laboratories presented an audio-visual on the lab's R&D activities.
Final Day (Thursday)
The final day was frantic. Easy B and Intermediate Stick filled the air from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. with 41 entries in Easy B (the highest single-event entry) and 21 in Stick.
Easy B: Pete Andrews put in 14:22 on his fourth official; Walt VanGorder did 14:05 on his fifth. But Gerry Nolin of Fairborn, OH, the current Category IV record holder (22:01 at the Akron Airdock on May 18), flew his 18-in. ship to an outstanding winning time of 16:36. Nolin's airplane uses a “backwards” 6% airfoil section on the stabilizer and has its center of gravity located 7/8" behind the trailing edge of the wing.
Junior/Senior Easy B: Bob Skjranec won the three-flier field with 12:01; Don Slusarczyk was second at 10:24; Richard Smith third at 9:14.
Intermediate Stick: Official since January of this year, the 18-plane Open field at Niagara Falls was mixed — plastic-film-covered designs and condenser-paper holdovers from Paper Stick. Dan Belieff flew a paper-covered model to first with 19:31. Larry Loucka was second at 19:24. Jack McGillivray's new film-covered model took third at 18:56.
Junior/Senior Intermediate Stick: Skjranec, Smith, and Slusarczyk finished in that order with times of 8:09, 7:45, and 4:05.
Peanut and AMA Scale: Peanut and AMA Scale flying took over at 2 p.m., along with the MIAMA Peanut Grand Prix.
AMA Scale: Jack McGillivray, flying his venerable Peanut-size S.E.5a, posted a best-two-flight average of 1:27 and a static score of 84 to total 171 points and take first place. Ken Groves flew a Dream Fike to second with 170.5. Les Garber's lightly built Fike finished third with 161 points; his model had two max flights of 90 seconds.
Peanut Scale: When the 51 official Peanut flights were over, Jack McGillivray and his S.E.5a had won again with a two-flight average of 94.8 seconds. Jim Miller of Cincinnati, OH flew his Santos-Dumont 14bis biplane canard to second place (best single flight 1:31). Don Steeb, flying his 1985 AMA Nats outdoor-winning Fike, was third.
MIAMA Peanut Grand Prix: Out of 25 models entered, 20 made official flights. Jack McGillivray's S.E.5a won both the overall and biplane categories. Don Steeb's Fike finished second overall and won the Fike/Lacey class. Don Lacey's Pistachio-class Lacey (8-in. span) placed fifth overall with a best single flight of 1:20. Lacey's Wright Flyer won the Multi-engine class; his Kimberly Skyrider won the Ultralight category.
Other Scale winners: Doc Martin's Voisin hydroplane took first in the Unorthodox class. Bob Clemens took the Monoplane event with his Found Centennial.
As the final Scale ship touched down about 7 p.m., the 1986 U.S. Indoor Championships concluded.
CD Comments (Tony Italiano)
"We were very disappointed by the decrease in attendance. We expected 100 contestants, based on comments from the 1985 meet and the early advance notice plus the hundreds of mailings that were sent out. There's no doubt we missed the eastern fliers, and our mid-week scheduling has perhaps been a factor. Maybe indoor activity has passed its peak; maybe it's just plain apathy. Who knows? It seems we're not."
"We're looking for a higher-ceiling site, also considering having the contest run over a weekend. I'm open to ideas and suggestions."
"How about it, Indoor buffs? It would be a real tragedy to let a good thing like the USIC slip away. What do you say, Dan Domina, Ray Harlan, Ed Whitten, and all you guys who fly at Columbia University, Lakehurst, Glassboro, M.I.T., and Glastonbury?"
"Is anyone out there interested?"
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
