2020 NATs Report

by Joe Daly

Daytona 500?

      Every sport has its Daytona 500—An event that defines the season. For us it is the Nats, which is held every year in early summer at the International Aeromodeling Center in Muncie, Indiana, before the contest season really starts. Especial this year. 

Most people cannot tell you who won a local contest a year after in happens; however, many can tell you who the national champion was! The NATS defines the season for most of us and can be the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat! 

      

The NATS is much like the Daytona 500 in the sense there are multiple events within that week to crown a National Champion. The anxiety starts on Monday with appearance judging. Where will you end up? Then you move on to qualifying and the emotional ups and downs of four rounds over two days. If you make the cut, then top 20 day is a real pressure cooker with two flights and no throwaways. 

If you get through that to make the top five, you are rewarded with another three rounds of flying to have a chance to be crowned the national champion. 

From a competitor’s standpoint, it is a grueling, emotional week with relief only coming after each phase ends then you start to worry about the next one. It is quite an accomplishment to just get through the week in one piece, and no matter where you finished, you should be proud!

Special Thanks

A very special thanks to all that volunteered their time to make this year’s NATS great! Without them none of this is possible! I would also like to recognize our Event Director Dave Tribe for leading this effort! Thanks Dave for steeping up!!! Usually we thank the volunteers at the end much like the credits at the end of a movie, well I decided to put them first. Here are the credits and note of appreciation from Dave Tribe.

Unofficial Events:  
Bob Brookins;  Intermediate, Old Time, Classic and N30 Event Director
John Paris:  Co-Director
Elaine Brookins; Tabulator
Mike Stinson; Beginners Event Director

Special Thanks

A very special thanks to all that volunteered their time to make this year’s NATS great! Without them none of this is possible! I would also like to recognize our Event Director Dave Tribe for leading this effort! Thanks Dave for steeping up!!! Usually we thank the volunteers at the end much like the credits at the end of a movie, well I decided to put them first. Here are the credits and note of appreciation from Dave Tribe.

Unofficial Events:  
Bob Brookins;  Intermediate, Old Time, Classic and N30 Event Director
John Paris:  Co-Director
Elaine Brookins; Tabulator
Mike Stinson; Beginners Event Director

AMA:
Yolanda Jones; AMA HQ..  She jumped to help in any way I asked from the planning stages.
Brenda Schuette; Nats CL overall Director-at beck and call for anything needed.

Monday Meeting and Appearance Judging:
Sheila Cranfill; contestant check in.
Wes Eakin; weigh in table.
Mike Stinson; forward usher and helper Mike Londke and Mike Eber appearance judges. Colleen Gilbert; score recording and usher to the field.

Qualifications and beyond: Judges, Wes Eakin; Head Judge, John Simpson, Steve Smith, David Fitzgerald, Darrell Harvin, John Paris, Joe Otto, Joe Daly Jr., and Mike Eber Sheila Cranfill; Tabulator 2020 PAMPA NATS Report

Colleen Gilbert; Tabulator Jean DeMauro; score runner, Melanie Goff; score runner, tabulations, scoreboard, Allen Goff; score runner, Joe Daly Jr.; scoreboard, Don Main; Pit Boss Brett Buck; Junior/Senior appearance judge Robert Storick; Junior/Senior appearance judge 

Special Thanks: Wes Eakin. Through the whole process Wes was a right hand to help get everything set up and prepared, usually on the field each morning before I arrived and got the pot stirred for the day’s work. Quite a few evening or early morning phone calls as well to keep up to date and rolling.

Derek Barry. We had a few challenges with the computer hardware and/or software which Derek answered the call and once even came to our hotel to work on something. Greatly appreciated.

Howard Rush. Although he was unable to attend, he had as much to do with the successful outcome as anyone else on site. Howard is the designer of the computer software we use. It works extremely well but like any computer program is only as good as the data fed into it. Working with the great volume of info we have to feed into it and an extremely short period of time it takes a millisecond to key in a macro out of sequence, skip entering a score value or entering something that doesn’t agree with something else in the data base. Or as happened we had a power outage which shut us down once without saved info and a computer, one of two used, wanting to be balky and had to be rebooted several times. Howard answered many phone calls from us. Twice we uploaded the program back to Howard in Washington. He spent the night fixing our problems and then sent the program back to us by morning which we reloaded into the computers and got going again. We actually finished the finals yesterday with something amiss, so Colleen and Wes had to hand-write some 36 score sheets for the Juniors and Seniors. Today I will get the program back to Howard for him to address whatever happened and he will provide me with a final report which I have to submit to AMA. Again, without his help we would still be back on Wednesday or Thursday someplace. Josh from the AMA maintenance crew; he responded instantly to anything we asked including our power outage. Mike Stinson; Key Grip-well sort of. He caught many of the loose ends from running errands to getting food for the Tabulators.

Sheila and Colleen. These ladies spent quite a few hours into the evenings getting things set up including printing score sheets for the following day. For both Wednesday and Thursday that was 490 score sheets…………… 

I’m sure I’ve forgotten another one or two but know the work everyone put forth made this unusual 2020 Nats happen and I think a success. Thank You to all! 

Dave Tribe 

Sunday

The schedule this year was like every year, the NATS starts on Sunday with unofficial PAMPA events Beginner (J&S), Beginner (A), and Intermediate on the grass circles. This year we had 8 pilots competing in Intermediate and Luca Alimov took first, Bill Duer second and Gabe Alimov third.  Here is the Beginner coverage report from Mike Stinson.

Beginner Stunt

As you all know, this is a very strange year for everyone.  No different for Control Line Beginner Stunt.  We had more volunteers than contestants for the first time I can remember.  This allowed us to finish before the predicted rain, which never came.  The event ran very smoothly because of the good help and cooperation of the contestants.  I have heard some very good comments about the contestants from the volunteers. We had six entries this year.  Two were Jr./Sr., four were Open/Adults.  The Jr. Winner was Daran Plunkett.  The Sr. Winner was A. J. Lee.  His father and Grandfather are both competing in PAMPA Stunt. The Adult contestants in the order they placed were Larry Hiller (1st), Dave Rigotti (2nd), Thomas Vieira II (3rd), and Dave Homeier (4th).  
We were lucky to have Shelia Cranfill and Joe Otto on Entries and Tabulation.  Matt Brown helped with Pull Test and as Pit Boss.  David Betz walked and took over as Runner.  That was really appreciated.  Kenny Stevens and Mike Scott lent their Stunt expertise as Stunt Coaches to critique each flight.  Wes Eakin was joined by Joe Daly (the younger one!), Judging the event.  I thank you all for your generous help.       
As was started by Allen Brickhaus many years ago, modelers donated quite a number of items to help Beginner Stunt flyers continue to improve.  I can’t possibly name them all as many just walk up and give me models, engines, and other Control Line gear and then they were gone before I can even get their names.  Several contestants said they would be back next year flying the models the chose at the contest.   
A few who I knew or left their names were Richard Imhoff, Mike McHenry, Mike Londke, Wes Eakin, Sparky from Stunthanger, Bob Heywood, T. J. Vieira, Vintage Performance.  With so many generous modelers, I can’t keep track, which is a good problem.  We greatly appreciate all the donations.  All in all, I think everyone had a very good time.    
Michael Stinson, Event Director

Monday

Is appearance judging and pilots meeting for Advanced and Open, and this year it was different due to concerns around COVID and we took different approach to what we usually do. We did appearance judging on the L pad outside instead of building 180 and only the pilots handled their planes. There were many very good-looking planes, there were no 20 pointers and a couple of 19 pointers. The winner of this year’s “Concours d ’Elegance” award went to Steve Millet for his beautiful Ryan’s Eagle. 

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Tuesday

Tuesday is practice day for Open and Advanced. We also hold unofficial events on the grass circles, Old time Stunt (OTS), Classic, and Nostalgia 30 (N-30). Even though these are unofficial events, the competition is serious and being crowned National Champion of one of these events is an honor!  The weather was near perfect, not to hot, or windy, just about stunt heaven! We had 21 flyers in Classic and N-30 and 10 in OTS .This year’s First place winners were in OTS Joe Gilbert, Classic Joe Gilbert, and N-30 Bruce Jennings.

Wednesday and Thursday Qualifying Days

Next up on the schedule is the start of our regularly scheduled program. Wednesday and Thursday start Qualifying for Open and Advanced to determine Top 20 for Open and Advanced finals. Four circles with two flights each day for each pilot. Lots of flights! The best score from each day gets added together to determine placing on your circle. For Open the top 5 on each circle goes to Top 20 day. For Advanced, it depends on the number of entries. This year we took the Top 4 from each circle to determine who will be in the Advanced finals to crown our Advanced National Champion. The opening round on Wednesday the weather was just about perfect, the second round the wind really came up. Thursday is another story though. It started out windy and turned in to windier and lite rain. which really made it for some interesting qualifying flights. Many pilots passed their second-round flights. When the last flight was flown on Thursday afternoon, we had our Top 20 in Open and Top 16 on Advanced set for Friday shoot out!

Friday Top 20 Day and Advanced Finals 

Friday is pressure day! No throw away flights, both flights count to determine your placing. Talk about pressure and it goes very quick. For Open it is the semi-finals and determines the who goes on to Top 5 day and who finishes 6^th to 20^th place. The day started out very foggy and once the fog lifted, we had crowned a new Advanced National Champion Dorian! On the Open side the field was narrowed down to the Top 5, Kenny Stevens, Todd Lee, Derek Berry, Orestes Hernandez, and Paul Walker. Rookie of the year honors went to William DeMauro for the highest placing rookie in Open Top 20. Friday night is like Happy Hour in NASCAR racing, final practice for the Top 5 and Junior and Senior Pilots and the rest of us go out and have a good dinner! 

Saturday Top 5 and Walker Cup Finals Saturday is the Walker Cup Finals for Open, Junior, and Senior. Best 2 out 3 flights to determine the National Champion for each event and then the Walker Cup Fly Off!  The year we had 3 Juniors and 2 Seniors flying, so a very good turnout for the young pilots and all of them were good pilots. So, we had a shootout on both circles!!! However, before that happens, we have to warm up the judges. As we do every day during the competition and the tradition for Top 5 day is the 6^thand 7^th place finishers in Open get the honor! This year Matt Colon and I had the dubious honor and for both of us it was our highest finish in Open.  

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After 27 flights, the dust settled, and we crowned our National Champion Orestes Hernandez, Senior National Champion Steven Daly, and Junior National Champion Gabriel Alimov.  Congratulations to all 3 pilots! And then they had the honor of flying off for the Walker Cup! Congratulations to my friend Orestes Hernandez on being the 2020 Walker Cup Champion!

Nats 2020 Wrap-Up

This year’s NATS was much different than the others because of the COVID pandemic and it was well orchestrated by our event director Dave Trible and the supporting cast of volunteers who, Again without them none of this is even possible. Much appreciation and thanks go to the Judges, Tabulators, pit bosses, runners, and the AMA staff. THANK YOU!!!