I just got back from another week at the Nats and want to share a few of my thoughts. Nothing about who did what in which event, the ever-changing Muncie weather, etc. but more about some of the background stuff.
AMA has provided a first class site. The field was in great shape and has matured into a wonderful venue to hold the Nats. My only complaint is the schedule shift that caused hand launch to move to the leading Friday, and the prospect of more schedule shifting in the future. The lack of a regular, fixed set of dates makes it very difficult for the 100+ competitors that come to the Nats to plan, and having events across two weeks makes it tough for working types that have to use vacation to participate. Nostalgia was not flown this year. I hope this doesn't become the next casualty event. Time was found for XC and Scale aerotow, even though Scale aerotow only had a handful of participants. Doesn't the history and evolution of modern soaring deserve better than half a day once every two or three years? I can't say that I personally like what RES has evolved into. Its now an event for hand launch airplanes on steroids (the AVADannySoprano and clones). The older, traditional RES planes "compete" at a serious disadvantage. The new winches provided by the hard work of the LSF working with AMA were fabulous. They are McAnn (sp?) winch kits, with first class foot switches, turnarounds, etc. The Real Balls bearing ends were recovered from the old winches and installed on the new ones. A couple of brushes were burned during the week, but overall they worked very well. My heroes of the Nats. Everyone hears the names of the people that run the various work areas (impound, flight line, scoring, etc.) at the pilots meeting and banquest. There are lots of others that really make the event work. Six really impressed me this year, three in impound whose names I never learned, one in scoring, and two in my area at the flight line. The impound folks who worked with Marna tirelessly and skillfully got the transmitters into groups, kept the flow of pilots moving, and checked everything back in to do it again. In scoring was a lovely lady by the name of Barb Steifel. She has been at the Nats supporting her husband Jeff for years. She always is working, either at impound or this year, in scoring. At the flight line Brent Hoover has been coming for years and spends almost all of his non-flying time helping tap lines, fix lines, setting up and tearing down. This year he also took over running the line when all of the primary flight line directors were not available. Tom Koszuota is another who showed up for the first time 3 or 4 years ago and offered to help. Now he is flying the events and has become a regular out on the flight line working whenever he isn't flying. These 6 people are my Nats heroes, they are the ones that make it a priviledge and a pleasure to keep going back and spending my Nats vacation week working the flight line and supporting the Nats. We need more of these selfless individuals who are willing to work without complaint, simply because it is there and needs to be done. Jim Thomas, tired Flight Line Director 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
