Bill Hughes holding Dave Rigotti’s 21 Sport Speed plane in the takeoff dolly. The dolly drops away when the plane gets enough speed to fly.
We had a total of 17 planes entered in Perky Speed alone. So, we knew we were going to be having a lot of flights today. There were also six entries in FAI/F2A Speed and four in 21 Sport Speed.
We had outstanding weather for combat in Muncie. There were lots of great matches today. Dave Edwards, Arlene Mears, Matt Brown, Jerry Sabin, Arnie Delgado, Fred Quezada, and Chris Gay all did an excellent job of officiating our combat events.
Expert pilot and world F3C judge, Gordie Meade, in his first scale competition.
Today began with a gloomy gray sky and ended with sunshine after a very short downpour around mid-day. Again, we were able to get three rounds of AMA/FAI competition, as well as one round of Scale flying and the static portion of the judging.
Monday July 7, 2025 was the first day of Control-line Speed. We flew ½A Speed and ½A Proto Speed. The difference between the two events are that ½ A speed is timed for five laps after the plane gets up to speed. Proto, however, is flown from a standing start and is timed for 10 laps total.
The top five Intermediate competitors posed for a photo.
Beginner and Intermediate classes of Control Line Precision Aerobatics were flown on Sunday July 6th. There were two entrants in Beginner with seven in Intermediate. These events were flown on the grass circles. Grass is much more forgiving, than asphalt in case of an accident.
Nick Maxwell discussing the freestyle maneuvers for F3N competition.
Most of the competitors arrived bright and early (8:00am) for our pilots meeting by the Event Director (ED), Chris Goodin, for the AMA and FAI classes. Scale helicopters, due to slight miscommunication, will have its official pilots meeting on Monday morning.
Simply put, Control Line (CL) Precision Aerobatics is an event where a builder of a model airplane is judged not only on how well they build their plane, but also how well they fly it in a prescribed flight pattern involving aerobatics.