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General control line discussion => Open Forum => Topic started by: Joe Ed Pederson on July 01, 2020, 07:40:23 PM
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For what it is worth, I got a letter from the AMA today announcing that the National Free Flight Society (NFFS) has cancelled the Free Flight Nats scheduled for July 27-31 due to COVID-19.
My $10.00 pre-registration check was returned with the letter. Obviously, the AMA staff didn't check my pre-registration form very carefully since I had pre-registered for the unofficial event of Beginner Stunt and had not pre-registered for any Free Flight events.
Joe Ed Pederson
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For what it is worth, I got a letter from the AMA today announcing that the National Free Flight Society (NFFS) has cancelled the Free Flight Nats scheduled for July 27-31 due to COVID-19.
My $10.00 pre-registration check was returned with the letter. Obviously, the AMA staff didn't check my pre-registration form very carefully since I had pre-registered for the unofficial event of Beginner Stunt and had not pre-registered for any Free Flight events.
Joe Ed Pederson
I suppose that of all the stunt categories, Beginner is the most likely to become free flight.
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Hey Joe;
This one should get filed under "You only had one job to do and........"!!! this just keeps you bad luck streak going! Muphy's Law has taken up residence at your house!! But hang in there and keep punching. Just do it all for the fun of it now!
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
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I suppose that of all the stunt categories, Beginner is the most likely to become free flight.
Ouch
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My money would be combat ships being most likely to go rogue. Many years ago at the SIG contest, Dad and I watched a combat flyer, whose thong broke, let go of the handle. Handle acted as a counterweight and model climbed out, and thermaled OOS. Saw it gliding back down about 30 minutes later east of the field. Wildest thing I ever saw.
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My money would be combat ships being most likely to go rogue. Many years ago at the SIG contest, Dad and I watched a combat flyer, whose thong broke, let go of the handle. Handle acted as a counterweight and model climbed out, and thermaled OOS. Saw it gliding back down about 30 minutes later east of the field. Wildest thing I ever saw.
I posted this here somewhere in 2007. My favorite combat flyaways:
1. In Alton, Illinois, about 1968, I was flying against Jim Flynn, one of my KC pals. I went at him head on and decided I'd better stick my arm out so I'd get a cut and he wouldn't. We passed a little too close, and my plane was gone. It came down on the concrete median strip of the nearby road. It was interesting to see how many pieces a G.21 could break into.
2. At the 1972 Nats, I was flying Richard Stubblefield. I got cut loose, and my plane vanished in the direction of the base golf course. It ran out of fuel and landed without breaking the prop. A gang of kids went after it and returned it. That's when I decided that combat is better than free flight. In free flight, you have to retrieve your own plane.
3. At the Golden State Cuts & Kills a few years ago in Vacaville, CA, I got a kill just after the start of the match. Immediately thereafter, my lines were cut, and the airplane headed up. It went out of sight overhead. We saw the little puff of fuel at the end of the engine run, but the plane didn't reappear for a minute or so. It drifted in different directions and landed in the circle as my match timer was beeping five minutes, so it must have been flying for 4:40 or so. I ran toward the plane as it landed, but didn't quite get to it to catch it. That would have really been cool. I patched the kill mark in the LE and flew it in the next round. I ended the day winning $1,000 and a case of microwave popcorn.
4. At a Bladder Grabber in Marymoor Park in Redmond, WA, my airplane took off toward McDonalds. I followed through blackberry bushes. I ran through the briars and I ran through the brambles, and I ran through the bushes where a rabbit wouldn't go. There was no plane at McDonalds, but a witness said that it almost hit a car, and the driver picked up the plane and took it away. I walked back to the contest by a less direct route. When I arrived, my airplane was there. The guy who picked it up had noticed that there was a contest in the park and returned the plane.
5. Bill Maywald had a flyaway at a Bladder Grabber in Shohomish, WA. I gave chase by automobile, having been eliminated several rounds earlier and having not much to do. His airplane selected the softest spot in Snohomish county to land: a sod farm about two miles from the contest. The airplane was unscathed and much cleaner than it would have been had it landed as planned.
6. I was flying FAI at the Northwest Regionals in Eugene back in the days before a flyaway gave you the choice to continue the match or call a rematch. My plane got cut loose and flew into a parking lot with Bob Carver, my pit crew, in hot pursuit. I had to chase down Bob. He had the spare streamer in his pocket, so I had to fetch either him or the flyaway to get a streamer for the second plane.
7. My last flyaway at the Northwest Regionals passed through the stunt circle at about four feet altitude. It was amusing to see my now-fellow stunt flyers hit the deck. The airplane landed at full speed in the field beyond. The funny part was how the streamer bunched up in a wad behind the wreckage, like in a Road Runner cartoon. I think that was the flyaway that got us banished from Eugene.
8. At the first Duke Fox Memorial, I watched with amusement Pete Athans's plane fly into a cornfield, never to be seen again. In the next match on that circle, my airplane got cut away in the same place and on the same heading as Pete's. I had a shutoff, though, and my plane glided down nearby and unbroken. That's when I decided shutoffs are OK.
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Thanks, Howard.
It's stories like that that keep me doing Free Flight.
L
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At a Canadian Nats, late 70s a line cut led to the model flying into the roof of a nearby outhouse. The resident at the time was so shocked by the noise of reverberating Fibreglass outhouse that he popped out the door pulling up his pants. Never thought I would see that outside of the cartoons. Oh, and as it was before iPhones, no proof.....
G
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Howard, only someone our age would recognize some of the lyrics to Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans." Now, how about a few lines from Horton's "Sink the Bismarck"?
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I posted this here somewhere in 2007. My favorite combat flyaways:
Does this mean you weren't the guy who hit the high tension lines with the flyaway?
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I posted this here somewhere in 2007. My favorite combat flyaways:
Does this mean you weren't the guy who hit the high tension lines with the flyaway?
The video for that was posted on facebook not long ago. I heard they jumped in a car and split because the cops wanted to arrest them for knocking out the power.
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'87 Nats. Looked like a mini A-Bomb!
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Hey Joe;
This one should get filed under "You only had one job to do and........"!!! this just keeps you bad luck streak going! Muphy's Law has taken up residence at your house!! But hang in there and keep punching. Just do it all for the fun of it now!
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
Dan,
I think you may have misunderstood my post. I did NOT get a letter saying Beginner Stunt was cancelled. The letter, in an official AMA return addressed envelope, was written and signed by the president of the National Free Flight Society announcing the cancellation of the Free Flight Nats.
I was surprised to get the letter and the return of my preregistration check, because I did not pre-register for any Free Flight events.
Joe ED
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Howard - Didn’t you have a model fly away at Harvey Field that was never to be seen again? I think you may have rented an airplane to scout the local countryside for it? Or did I go looking for it in my Aeronca Champ?
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Dan,
I think you may have misunderstood my post. I did NOT get a letter saying Beginner Stunt was cancelled. The letter, in an official AMA return addressed envelope, was written and signed by the president of the National Free Flight Society announcing the cancellation of the Free Flight Nats.
I was surprised to get the letter and the return of my preregistration check, because I did not pre-register for any Free Flight events.
Joe ED
Are you sure you are still registered in Beginner? These are the same folks that lost my AMA number - twice.
Ken
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Howard:
THOROUGHLY enjoyed reading of your fly-away misadventures.
I was at the '72 Nats to see that fly-away. I still vividly recall the tight, inside loops it was doing as it climbed its way upward on its trip to "out yonder". I've told and retold that story many times over the decades since!
Thanks for sharing!
Andre
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My money would be combat ships being most likely to go rogue. Many years ago at the SIG contest, Dad and I watched a combat flyer, whose thong broke, let go of the handle. Handle acted as a counterweight and model climbed out, and thermaled OOS. Saw it gliding back down about 30 minutes later east of the field. Wildest thing I ever saw.
I had to fit it to Joe Ed's experience, so I qualified my answer to "in stunt". And yes -- combat's probably the most common event in competition where CL turns to FF; schlepping out to the field for some sport flying is probably where it happens most often overall.
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Are you sure you are still registered in Beginner? These are the same folks that lost my AMA number - twice.
Ken
You actually register for Beginner and Intermediate on site the morning of the contest.
Dave
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You actually register for Beginner and Intermediate on site the morning of the contest.
Dave
Thanks, Dave. Good to know.
This will be my first Nats, and I found the pre-registration form on the AMA website and wanted to make sure I crossed all my "t"s and dotted all my "I"s.
Joe Ed
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Yeah all the unofficial events are entered once you arrive ( Classic, N30 and Old Time during our Monday afternoon get-together). Beginner and Intermediate will be right on the field starting about 7:00 AM. Don’t sleep in!!
Dave
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I posted this here somewhere in 2007. My favorite combat flyaways:
2. At the 1972 Nats, I was flying Richard Stubblefield. I got cut loose, and my plane vanished in the direction of the base golf course. It ran out of fuel and landed without breaking the prop. A gang of kids went after it and returned it. That's when I decided that combat is better than free flight. In free flight, you have to retrieve your own plane.
Did not know WHO was involved but I remember watching this one. Watched it circle up til I could not hear the engine, Could tell when it ran out of fuel because it slowed down and circles got bigger. Circled down with a bunch of kids in hot pursuit. I'm sure he maxed out on air time that match...
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Well Joe now you can use the money to enter at the NATS. You guys talking about fly aways should have been at Buder Park when a Class II Navy Carrier plane left the circle, headed for the highway. There was a loud boom and a ball of fire. The pilot was still holding the Roberts handle minus lines. Plane was found in the grass below the power lines with no lines left. I was the one who launched the plane. He has not flown carrier since. H^^