2003 Nationals Report

Eric Henderson
303 Shady Lane
Marlton, NJ 08053
FAX & Home (856) 988-9184
E-mail eric.henderson@comcast.net

The 2003 AMA Precision Aerobatics National open contest was my ninth consecutive nationals attendance, the eighth at the AMA headquarters site in Muncie, Indiana and my eleventh in total over 21 years. This was to be my second one as the Model Aviation columnist covering the event. A new transmission, two oil leaks, a leaking power-steering box and one bent 16” rim later, we were on our way again… The drive to the Nationals cannot help but bring back a myriad of memories. The miles in your mind are filled with the anticipation of reunions and contest challenges. You wonder what you forgot and what would be new when you get there! There is a degree of magic associated with any national event. Some entrants are there for the experience itself and can easily be identified by the number of hats and shirts that they buy for their “friends” back home. Some are definitely there for the social interaction and will spend the week reveling in recalling the stories of yesteryear’s nationals. All are there because it is the “Nat’s”. There is a large contingent that has come to seriously compete. They have a desire to be the best in the in the US open nationals. They have practiced every week since the Nationals last year. They have practiced everyday for weeks right up to the event and some even came out a week early to get acclimated and, of course, practice.

The precision aerobatics Event Director was Jeff Hill, for the third year in a row. Four classes compete (402, 403,404 and 406). They are called Intermediate, Advanced, Masters and FAI, respectively Jeff’s plan required the use of three flying sites on the AMA site. Each site had two flight lines that were used in both the morning and the afternoon for three days in a row. Each site used twelve judges per day. Six judges in the morning and another six in the afternoon. That’s a total of 108 judges in the first three days and 10 for the finals. Add to that a scribe for each judge, per half-day. I’ll wager that Jeff can spell ‘logistics’? FAI and Masters used a league system for three days to select finalists for the fourth day. The formula is that they were divided into four groups each, per class. The Masters pilots flew in the morning and the FAI pilots in the afternoon. Each group was seeded based upon last year’s performance. In Masters there were 10 pilots per group. In FAI there was only 6 pilots per group. Eight top-seeded pilots were distributed over the four groups so that no group would have a bias of “dominant” pilots. After three days, the top 20 percent would then fly in a final of three rounds. In actuality they selected 10 pilots for FAI and 10 for Masters to be sure that the league system and groupings had not unfairly kept “bubble” pilots out of the finals. For Masters, they would fly the second year of the 2002-2004 schedule. For FAI, they would fly the last year of the P-03 schedule in the qualifying rounds and a different schedule called F-03 for the FAI finals. The pilots would carry their best scores forward to finals day, where three flights would be flown. The league is used to select finalists by taking one best score from each day plus a fourth, remaining best result from any day. Thus, it was vitally important to fly very well every day and in every round in that day.

Arrival - Joe Lachowski, Michelle (my better half), and I set out for the Nationals at 7:10 AM on Friday morning from Cherry Hill, NJ. We arrived in Muncie at 8:30 PM, which was 7:30 local time. Just as we arrived there was another of those heavy rainstorms that have been drenching and flooding the Midwest area for weeks. We found Tom Weedon and his trailer and headed (waded) out for a meal. Tom had volunteered to not fly and do the scoring on the Intermediate and Advanced site. We had the customary reunion-steak-dinner and were then treated to the most spectacular rainbow that I have ever seen. The colors were so strong that there was shadow, second rainbow. All the hotels in Muncie were full that night so we headed up I-69 to Marian, IN, for a good night’s sleep. The next morning we drove to Fort Wayne and were later joined by Earl Vincent who drove in from Myrtle Beach, SC. I can't begin to tell you how gracious and accommodating the Fort Wayne Flying Circuits guys were. Instead of feeling like intruders on their site we felt much more like honored guests. I had more fun there than in the rest of the week! In the evening we headed back to Muncie and participated in my favorite part of the Nationals - the reunions. It is just the greatest experience to see people with whom you have been bonded by this great sport of ours. We first ran into Dorothy and Roy Speights, then Ken Velez and Myra, Jim Woodward and so on. Gary Harris was there with the North and South Carolina crowd. Many of us headed off for yet another steak dinner!!! Most of the folks mentioned were staying in tents, trailers, or RVs. The AMA has laid on power and water so now quiet a big community is building up there every year.

Sunday, is when the event starts to take shape. The AMA site was open for practice and many pilots converged on the three sites to get in just one more flight and get oriented on their flight lines. It was one of those “Bill Murray groundhog days” that you would live again and again. Some good and some not so good! The temperature was just hovering below 80F, very light wind and hotel-picture-perfect puffy clouded skies. While a questionably merry band of pilots were being judge-schooled by Don Ramsey at the AMA HQ, the rest of us settled in for some practice flights at the sites. The frequency pins were allocated to the sites the way they would be allocated on Monday. My travelling buddy, Joe Lachowski, was a casualty of failed-elevator-syndrome and created a new “box-marker” on the left of Site-1. That was tough to watch. We gave Joe some room to mourn the loss of his new TEMPTATION. We were rewarded with him pulling out his backup FOCUS and proceeding to fly some very nice stuff. This sport really does test you and Joe passed the test this day. Meeting the faces is always a rich “take-away” from the Nationals. Chip's bi-plane was on our site, as was Dave Villwock's. Chip answered many questions about his plane, which is called “Double Vision”. It was great to be able to take pictures of two Double Visions together. Andrew Jesky scared us all when his ailerons went nuts. He chopped the gas and landed very quickly. Seemed like a problem with vibration when the engine was opened up. He was last seen pulling out his backup plane to fly as the sun was setting. Lee Davis had the prototype FOCUS 2 on display. So new--that it had no equipment in it. It looked right, and I can't wait for mine. I promise not to change this one at all....! The pilots meeting was held at 5 PM. Mickey Losardo again gave us a terrific live rendition of the National Anthem. My youngest son had signed up for the Navy the week before the event and I had many, many mixed feelings as I gazed at our flag fluttering in the breeze. He is into Naval Aviation and our sport influenced his decision. Jeff Hill also asked us to remember Bill Bennett for all of his contributions to our sport. My day closed with a pre-contest sound tests which were available to all contestants. Most took advantage of the service. (My TEMPTATION with an OS 1.60, ES carbon pipe and 17 x 13 APC got an 86 dB rating over grass. That really made my day!) Donny Wright was doing a roaring trade selling some very neat stretch plane covers. He ran out of them very quickly and was last seen ordering a fresh Fed-Ex batch for Monday.

On Monday - July 14th, the flying began at 8 AM with ALL transmitters required to be in the impound by 7:45 AM. No engine runs before 8 AM. Masters and Intermediate had the morning slot last year so FAI and Advanced got to fly in the morning this year. After lunch, Masters on flew on sites 1 and 3 and Intermediate on site 4. The first day began with a slight breeze and was only blowing a little harder by mid afternoon. (I had FAI flights that were about an hour apart so I was able to scoot over to the other sites to get some pictures of the groups who were flying.) I actually beat Chip, as did everyone else, for about an hour. He had to abandon his second flight due to non-starting engine. He had his first score removed for not wearing a contestant tag. His protest was upheld when it was revealed that as a late entry he did not have a tag in his packet. (It would not be a Nationals without something to debate.) In the AMA classes 402 to 404 you get three minutes to start your engine and then you fly the flight. In FAI you get ten minutes to get it all done. (The watch is stopped for interruptions such as sound tests or planes landing, etc.) The FAI pilots took from 8 AM to 10:30 AM to complete their two rounds. Forty Masters pilots made for a really big group to process and took the whole afternoon slot. The league system does not make it easy to see who is winning until Wednesday. In Intermediate, Kris Kovanda won two rounds and set the standard for his class. In Advanced, Michael Hill took round one and Robert Fortino took round two. The battle lines were drawn.


Tuesday - July 15th was a weather day in terms of some rain and big winds. It was a whether day in the sense of whether you would make the finals or not. If you got the slot before the storm you had a chance. If you got the flying slot after the storm you flew sideways and your chances of a good Day Two score were slim--to say the least. In FAI the work done by Lamar Blair on the new 1.6 DZ prototype paid off for Chip. He won a round, but elected to not fly in the gale after the mid morning storm. This left him with a situation where he had to fly two stellar flights on Wednesday or he was out of the running. The wind was so strong that several pilots elected to not fly. Some low clouds also tested quite a few. My hat is off to the guys who handled the wind and the clouds and scored well in their rounds. (We probably need to look at the wind limits again. The ones we currently use were relevant to an entirely different type of flying 15 years ago.) Kris Kovanda dropped a round to Joe Dunnaway in Intermediate, and a diminutive A. C. Glenn kept chugging away in second place looking for a round to win. We were worried that the wind would blow him away J. Michael Hill and Robert Fortino took a round each with Robert mathematically in front.

Wednesday - July 16th was a big day for all of the contestants. Advanced was having a close-fought battle and would be decided in the last round. Intermediate was a dogfight for second place. By 4:30 PM, the 402 and 403 pilots’ contest was over. Their final results and awards now awaited them at the evening banquet. For Masters and FAI pilots, the day was going to be a long one. The higher scoring pilots basically knew who was going to be in the finals. Those pilots on the finals grouping cusp (the bubble) had to wait to see who would get another day of flying. A. C. Glenn was rewarded with a last round win and you could not get the smile off his young face. Chip Hyde came through and flew two very strong flights. He did not, however, have it all his own way and the “quiet man”, Don Szczur would not stop in his quest for a national championship and continued to fly like a true TOC veteran. As an aside, I took the chance to fly my number two ship--a Mintor 1.70 powered HYDEOUT--in the last two rounds. The engine started on the first back flip for each flight and is definitely a viable pattern power plant. It never missed a beat even though it was running rich on its 8th and 9th runs. The twin plug head does its job and the engine has the grunt! The NSRCA Banquet agenda consists of a meal, a short general meeting to report on the NSRCA Annual General Meeting and then the real fun begins. The NSRCA president, Tony Stillman, ran the show very well and kept us entertained with a raffle and auction. The Banquet had much better food this year and the auction and raffle raised about $5K. The trophy winners in Intermediate (402) were:
1. Kris Kovanda
2. A. C. Glenn
3. Joe Dunnaway
4. Michael Radeke

Trophy winners in Advanced (403) were:
1. Michael Hill
2. Robert Fortino
3. Tim Pazara
4. Brett Bowen
5. Terrence Brown
6. Michael Middleton Michael Hill had to win the last round to take the title from Robert Fortino. A great duel that was well fought. Look out Masters, here come the “kids” again! The big buzz on banquet night always is who will be in the finals? The names are read out in alphabetical order with no scores revealed so that the judges, for the next day, do not carry any precognitive notions of who should win. Master finalists: Jerry Budd Jeff Carrish Rusty Fried B. W. Ponder Dave Villwock Earl Vincent Joe Walker Jim Woodward Donny Wright Warm up pilot - John Fuqua Judges Panel Eric Henderson Charlie Barrera Lamar Blair Roy Speights Paul Nesbitt Earl Haury FAI finalists: Todd Blose Trent Byrd Peter Collinson Mike Harrison Bryan Hebert Chip Hyde Andrew Jesky Dave Lockhart Troy Newman Don Sczcur Warm up pilot - Raiko Potter Judges Panel Ron Barr Don Ramsey Greg Frohreich Bob Noll Juan Romero Luis Rodriguez

Thursday - July 17th - Final’s day had two events that were run in parallel. The scores show that a really close fought battle took place between Chip Hyde and Don Szczur. Don Szczur carried 1000 points into the finals versus Chip’s 988 points. Chip won two of the three final rounds, but Don finally won by a margin of 0.7 of a point out of a 3000 point pool. All Don could say when he received his plaque was “This is like magic” and just smiled--a lot. Masters was led all the way by Donny Wright who carried a 1000 into the finals against Earl Vincent’s 992. Earl had a balky engine that cost him a set of take-off points in round one of the finals and kept him pretty edgy for the next two flights. Donny surrendered the 1000 baton points in that last round to Jim Woodward who took home a winning round in a Masters finals on his first attempt. Significantly so was that 2nd to 4th was separated by only 7 points out of 3000. Trophy presentations were made by Jeff Hill on site-3 for both classes. In the interval before the presentations, Don flew a his FOCUS with 3-D wings and then Chip followed up by rolling his Double Vision bi-plane around the park at 4 feet above the ground, to relax his nerves! This made the US team manager, Tony Stillman, hold his breath more than a few times, to say the least. Trophy winners in Masters (404) were:
1. Donny Wright
2. Dave Villwock
3. Glen Watson
4. Earl Vincent
5. James Woodward
6. Jerry Budd

Trophy winners in FAI (406) were:
1. Don Szczur
2. Chip Hyde
3. Troy Newman
4. Trent Byrd
5. David Lockhart
6. Todd Blose
7. Andrew Jesky

So what was the “Big News” from this years Nationals? The Biplanes are definitely viable as long as you have the patience to screw in all of those fasteners! The YS 1.60 DZ is a big stump-pulling horse. Jerry Budd showed us the Webra 1.60 will launch anything vertically. The Mintor 3-M 1.40’s and 1.70’s are here as part of the 2-c’s resurgence. YS fights back very well with the DZ. The OS 1.40’s were back and running very well in deed. The OS 1.60’s will also get the job done. The biggest news is that a FOCUS and a ZEN 120 won the top classes and they are both ARF’s. You can say goodbye to the perceived price barrier! See you there next year with your ARF?