US Indoor NATS
Event
The US Indoor Championships/Indoor Nats was held May 29–June 2, 1996, at the East Tennessee State Mini-Dome, Johnson City, Tennessee.
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The spectacle of indoor flying
Wonderful! An incredible thing to see: three hundred people in a very large building, with every third person doing magic. Each wizard's spell intertwined with the others in the still air of the building. The models floated around, hundreds of different designs, each one a slow‑motion artwork of the dynamics of flight.
Usually, when you can see how the magic is done, it spoils the whole effect, but these ultralight gems lost no charm while they displayed the magic of flying. The load distribution of a wing in flight is seen in the flexing of an EZB wing. Where to make the wing stronger is no longer a mystery; you can see where the stresses are. A broken wire on an F1D gives a perfectly visible example of wing flutter, without the usual horrendous effect flutter has on high‑speed RC models. A scale model with a bit too little fin area gives free Dutch roll lessons, teaching the relationship between dihedral and fin area.
It is like watching the beauty of flight under some sort of wonderful microscope. Every detail of the process of flight is right there, just a few feet in front of you. It presents itself at a rate that anyone can keep up with, like the world's best time‑lapse photography.
I fly all kinds of model airplanes, but I am fairly new to serious indoor flying, so everything I saw at this contest was interesting to me. One hundred and nine contestants, each bringing five to fifteen models, meant that I got to look at almost a thousand different airplanes — literally thousands of flights to watch over the four‑day period. Pennyplanes, EZBs, and MiniSticks in flight, 25 at a time.
It was not just the numbers of models to see; it was also the special ideas you could pick up from detailed examination of the more spectacular models. Free Flighters are always willing to share what they discover about how to build and fly these wonderful things.
When you see EZB or Pennyplane models in photos, they all look alike; but when you see them up close, you find a wonderful variety of different ideas. Scale models and their builders always have bags and bags of hints and ideas to show anyone interested.
Bostonian models are also a source of great variety in building and coloring methods. The rules encourage builders to design their models with "charisma," so the air was filled with very colorful models of many different configurations. You could get really good advice on how to get these models to fly, too. Those models must weigh seven grams without the motor, so flight times of around six minutes make you think of magic again. These magicians gladly told all.
Models and builders
Between the little Catapult Gliders and the magnificent F1D models, there were many other types to watch and marvel at, including:
- Ornithopters
- Helicopters
- MiniSticks
- Manhattan Cabins
- Pistachios
- Peanuts
- Coconuts
- and a bunch of other very interesting models
I soaked up all the good ideas I could hold and met as many of these magicians as possible. Best of all, I made a new group of friends that I am looking forward to meeting again at future indoor meets, including next year's Nats.
Youth participation
There was an important element missing from this Nats: the next generation was mostly at home instead of attending this wonderful event. Of the 109 contestants we had only one Junior and one Senior. We have to figure this thing out and fix it now. What is it going to take?
Most Free Flight people I know do spend more time with their kids than average, and this is indeed where the new Free Flighters are coming from, but it is not enough. There are a great number of kids whose lives could be enriched by free flight; so how do we get it to them? I know that the problem of getting kids interested in something worthwhile is not ours alone, but we are creative people and have a better‑than‑average chance to find something that works.
Organization and next year
There has been no offer as yet from anyone in the Indoor Free Flight community to run the USIC/AMA Nats next year at Johnson City. Abram Van Dover, Dave Thomson, Jim Miller, Mary Jane Barber, and their group did an excellent job this year, but they certainly deserve to be guests next time, not hosts. So let's get with it and find some heroes for next year.
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