In 1974, I attended my first SOAR Nats and have attended either the
AMA Nats or the LSF Tournament every year since then except when I
couldn't get off from work. I retired in 1994 and bought a lap top
computer and a van for travel to contests. Since that time, I have
kept a log of my experiences at the Nats. This is a slightly edited
copy of my log from the 1994 LSF tournament. That was the first
contest held at the new AMA field at Muncie. I had just encountered
the first of my vision problems that had caused me to sell my Shadow
to Johnny Berlin and restricted me to flying a Sailaire.
Chuck Anderson
Monday.
Arrived at the AMA flying site at 1 PM. Hand launched was almost
finished. Found good tent site right next to Louisville Club. Right
at home since I was a member of that club briefly in the Mid
1980's. First impression of the site is good. Adequate gravel
parking lots in good locations. The glider site is on a small knoll
facing southwest. Wind is out of the southwest and forecast to
remain there. LSF crew is setting up AMA tent and putting out winches.
Tuesday First day of 2-meter.
Wind is out of north. Everyone is busy moving winches, tents,
etc. Decided to leave my tent setup since forecast is for wind to be
from the South. Did not start until almost noon but still managed to
get in 4 rounds of 2 meter. Had radio problems and did not fly 4th round.
Wednesday. Second day of 2-meter
Wind still out of north. Left tent on hill and flew out of
van. Radio problems appear to be fixed. Problem was in switch
wiring. Plugged battery directly into receiver seemed to fix
problem. Flew much better but still had problems seeing
model. Extremely cold so bought an LSF jacket. It was too big but
kept me warm.
HL Golf was held after flying at a golf course just east of the AMA
flying site. I was hoping to find something to eat as I was getting
very hungry. No luck. It was just a golf course without even a
snack bar. Decided to skip the golf and try to find a better place to eat.
Thursday. First day of Unlimited
8 AM Sitting in the van watching it rain and listening to the
thunder rumble. Ain't we having fun. Michael Selig is here. First
time I have seen him since he came to Tullahoma to fly in our contest
about 10 years ago. He was flying a prototype of his new Opus
Sailplane that Sal Defransisco will be selling. Looks very good but
almost anything Michael flies looks good. Talked to him briefly
about his new airfoil for RPV's. that was written up in Aviation Week
a couple of weeks ago.
Everybody leaving parking lot and heading back to Museum . Discussed
future of LSF Na;ts with Mike Stump. He will run LSF for another
year and hopes to have the LSF Nats firmly established by then so he
can turn it over to someone else.
10 AM. Everybody heading back out to the field.. Erected tent and
assembled model. Started raining just as I finished checking
in. Disassembled model and put it back in van.
1 PM Sitting in van watching rain. it has been raining for an
hour. Set up under tent and demoed plot programs to several people
including Skip Miller. Skip seemed interested but has a Mac. Moved
back to van when rain started blowing too much.
Don Edberg showed me how he converted a rental compact car into a
model carrier by folding down a back seat that didn't originally fold down.
Finally got in one round of 7 minute between showers. 7.03 and slid
out of landing circle.
Friday. Second day of Unlimited
Finally started almost on time. Cloudy with low ceilings but
flyable. Good zoom disappears in clouds. Sailaire disappeared in
cloud just after launch. Lost approximately 100 ft with spoilers to
get out of cloud. 6:47 and no landing.. Didn't make it back to
landing area. Contest went down hill from there. Landed out twice
because I did not allow for big sink on final. One nice thing
though. I flew with Fred Weaver in one round. Don Vickers later
told me that Fred wasn't happy about flying against that "Gas
Bag". He didn't know that I couldn't see the model well enough to
get out to where the lift was. I was launching high enough for an
easy max on all flights but there was sink around the hill near the
landing areas.
After the flying was over, the CD assembled all the models and pilots
for photographs by a flier that had an electric model rigged up to
take aerial pictures. This delayed trophy handouts for 15
minutes. After the camera plane landed, it was discovered that the
camera hadn't worked.
Banquet was held at the Roberts Hotel downtown. I was late and most
tables were occupied except for two that had reserved signs. The
Louisville club was also late but didn't let the reserved sign deter
them. When the waiter didn't know who the table was reserved for,
they decided that it was reserved for us. After the meal had
started, Luther Mitchell and Herk Stokely came straggling in and
decided to join us. Meal was prime rib that was way past it's prime
and some Yankee style vegetables.
Saturday. Nostalgia
Bad day for old timers with threat of rain and high winds. Would
have trouble flying a modern foam and fiberglass sailplane in the
wind. A few brave modelers were out hand gliding but they could only
hover into the wind. One modeler was checking out a Paragon that he
had just spent all night finishing. Shades of the old AMA-Navy Nats.
Just at the end of the pilots briefing, the rains came. Weather
service issued severe storm warnings just North of Muncie. At 10 AM,
the CD decided to cancel the old-timer event. Too bad but it means I
will get home before dark.
RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and
"unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe
messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email
such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
