A Record-Setting Contest!

Indoor Free Flight By Don Slusarczyk | [email protected] As seen in the September 2024 issue of Model Aviation. DURING THE 2024 Memorial Day weekend, the Midwest Indoor Championships were held at the Kent State University Field House in Kent, Ohio. This site has always been a place where many Category II AMA national records have been set. This year was no exception, and, in fact, I think it might be a record for the number of national records set at one Indoor Free Flight event. Throughout the three-day contest, 25 AMA national records were set. Five were in Adult classes, and the remaining were Youth Senior and Youth Junior records. Some of the records were set the first day, only to be reset by another person or by the same person just a few hours later.

Coach Brian Turnbull and his group of students from Michigan set many new AMA national records during the Midwest Indoor Championships. Photo by Sarah Bossenbroek. The bulk of the Youth records that were set were part of a group of students from Michigan who have been coached by Brian Turnbull for the past several years. They had just competed at the Science Olympiad Michigan State Championships, and then they headed down to fly at the Midwest Indoor Championships. The models they were flying were based on Tom Sova’s Bad Penny design, combined with the carbon-fiber spar construction method from Bill Gowen’s Carbon Penny. They flew on 1.5-gram motors, so their models were able to fly as a Limited Pennyplane, Pennyplane, and F1M. With additional on-site coaching from Chuck Andraka, this group started setting records. As the contest director (CD), I had to keep a list of all of the records and the order in which they were set because the flight times kept going up hour by hour and by different people. Miles Polischuk started with the first record of this group, followed by Riley Zheng. By the end of the contest, Grace Jeong ended up on top of the Youth Juniors, setting the Limited Pennyplane, Pennyplane, and F1M record with a 9:53 flight. Only one second away was Guhyun Jeong; he set the Youth Senior F1M record with a 9:54 flight.

A view down part of the flightline throughout the competition weekend. In the foreground, Jessica Bossenbroek winds a motor before taking a flight. Bossenbroek photo. While the Michigan group was flying, there were other Youth records being set as well. Daniel Guo (the current F1D Junior world champion) put up a 21:41 the first day then came back with a 22:58, setting the Youth Senior F1D record. Caleb Finn put in a flight of 15:27 with his F1D, capturing the Youth Junior F1D record. On the last day of the contest, Ben Buxton flew his Hand-Launch Glider (HLG) and set the Youth Senior F1N record with a 42.5-second flight. He also set the Youth Senior HLG record of 83.6 seconds.

The record-setting model design flown by the group from Michigan used a 1.5-gram motor, making it legal for multiple record categories. Bossenbroek photo. Congratulations to all of the Junior and Seniors on a job well done! The Juniors and Seniors were not the only ones setting records. The contest started off the first day with a new Adult A-6 record by Tom Sova of 8:27, which was later surpassed by Hamish Christie, who ended up with a flight of 9:08. Brett Sanborn showed up with a new F1L model design that featured a curved wing planform similar to his F1D model. His model flew well and put up a 17:03 to set a new F1L record. Brett did not stop there. He also went on to set a new F1D record of 25:29.

Ben Buxton set two new HLG records. The large flying space of the Kent State University Field House can be seen from this viewpoint. Congratulations on these new, well-deserved records! Many thanks to all who attended the contest over the holiday weekend. I am looking forward to seeing you all next year!

Steering Rules

I want to take a quick moment and go over one aspect of the steering rules that I feel needs to be reviewed. The following two sections are from the AMA 2024-2025 Indoor Free Flight Competition Regulations rule book:

Steering is intended to alter the direction of flight and the general location of a model which is approaching the structure of the building. The intent of the rule is to avoid influencing either the altitude of the model or its rate of climb or descent during the period of steering.
Steering must only be used to avert collision with the structure of the building, its contents, or other models. Movements of the model must be primarily in the horizontal plane. Note: If, in the timekeeper’s opinion, a model’s altitude change is approaching one-half meter, or one (1) meter for each 25 meters of altitude (whichever is larger), he will warn the competitor. Continued disregard of the timekeeper’s warning will result in a terminated flight.

For a 15-meter site such as Kent State, only 0.5 meters or 20 inches of altitude change is permissible. As an example, if you launch a Limited Pennyplane and it climbs to the ceiling in one minute and starts banging around the lights and girders, you are allowed by the rules to use a balloon to steer the model from the light or girder or use the balloon to prevent the model from landing on the light or girder by letting it fly into the balloon. However, you must be very careful when doing this because, if the model bumps the balloon then loses altitude, the loss-of-altitude rule comes into effect. For Kent State, the loss must be 0.5 meters (20 inches) or less. What is not permitted is to have the model hit the balloon in such a way to cause the model to lose several feet of altitude then wait for the model to climb to the ceiling again, with it flying into the balloon once more to lose more altitude, and repeating this process until the climbing phase has stopped. This is altitude control of the model, and it is not permitted. If this rule is not enforced at contests, a person can purposely overwind a model and use the balloon to knock it down repeatedly every time it gets near a girder. If you see this happening at a contest on an official flight, inform the timer and notify the CD. If you overwound for the site by accident and wish to terminate an official flight with the balloon, please inform your timer that you wish to intentionally foul your model to terminate the flight. At Kent State this year, I know there was an issue with an F1D, where the VP propeller shifted right after launch. The competitor asked for help to balloon his model down to prevent it from hanging. Until next time, keep the weights down and the times up!