AMA Fun Scale
July 14, 2001
The Newport News Park RC Club hosted our first AMA Fun Scale event on July 14. This was an entry level scale event with the main emphasis on flying rather than fidelity to scale. Models with documentation for the paint scheme were given five points. The rest of the score was from flying.
We had eight contestants. Most were from NNPRCC but there were three with joint membership with other clubs and one from Colonial Virginia Aeromodelers. Four rounds were flown. Each flight consisted of mandatory maneuvers, five optional maneuvers, and up to ten points for Realism of flight.
At nine AM, the field had
a very festive look. Almost everyone set up
a shelter to provide some shade.
The Mundays wasted no time in setting up the concession stand on the
new concrete pad. Looks like they are about ready for business (Donations only).
The
contestants
 |
Bill Hamby flew an Extra powered by the Moki 180. Bill has been competing in IMAC events and needed a round to get used to the relaxed nature of this event. |
| Bruce Utne flew this nice little Bell P-39. It's painted like the one hanging in the Virginia Air & Space Museum in Hampton. |  |
 |
Eddie Israel had his giant scale J-3 Cub. This model really looks real on final approach when it's slowed down for landing. |
| Frank Orris's nice looking Lancair really didn't get a chance to show it's stuff. A wheel pant rotated and caused a noseover on his first takeoff. He broke the only prop he had with him. Sorry, Frank. |  |
 |
Club President Jay Jennings flew his Extra to a well earned Third Place. Nice flying, Jay. |
| John Ziegler came down from CVA with his nice Cub. The Navy scheme was used on J-3's at Fentress NALF. John flies DC-9's for Airborne Express. What a job! Nice looking Cub, John! |  |
 |
Mike Atkinson is
getting ready for his first round flight with his J-3 Cub. There were
four J-3's! The judges in the foreground are; Left, Ken Combs, in back, Charles Barnhart, and in front is Don Kohlman. |
| Larry Rash also flew a J-3 Cub. Nice looking model, but where are the struts? |  |
This meet was a great learning experience for everyone involved. It's a lot harder than it looks to make a Cub fly in a realistic manor. In many cases, scores were lower than they could have been due to flying too fast. Other common problems were rushing through the maneuver, or not starting in the proper location with off center maneuvers.
As the CD, this was my
first scale event. The judges had to be briefed as to how to judge the various
maneuvers, and I had to figure out how to set up the score cards so
the judges knew what maneuvers they were supposed to be looking at. After the
first round had been flown, everyone knew what we were doing and we had a great
event.
Four rounds were flown and the best two rounds were added to the official score. This gave everyone two throw-out flights. After the dust settled, John Ziegler finished in first place with 82.5 points. Larry Rash finished second with 81.0 points and Jay Jennings was third with 75.5 points.
I was disappointed in not being able to award one other trophy we had. We had a trophy for first place Junior/Senior division, but no one entered in either of those age groups.
John Ziegler receiving his first
place award from little Miss Munday.
She helped me keep score! CD Joe Lupton watches (Right).
Next
I hope we can do this again and maybe also hold a Sport Scale event.
Get your scale model ready. We will have a nice hard surface runway then. No
excuses!