Saturday - July 26, 2003

The final day of Nats, and Nostalgia and RES can make for a great way to spend it if the weather cooperates. Unfortunately, it was overcast and windy which makes it difficult to fly some of the older wooden Nostalgia models. Back again this year was Jack Iafret, CD of Nostalgia and Mike Fritz was the CD of the RES event. Both of these gentlemen did an excellent job.

In my opinion, Nostalgia brings out some of the most beautiful looking models in our hobby. And the pilots that brought them out today were determined to fly them. The wind was so strong at points that models were launched without tapping the winch peddle more than once or twice. I remember Steve Siebenaler with the help of Rob Glover launching Steve's Windfree in what seemed like what was going to be a disaster. But they didn't press the winch peddle, the model barely spooled out line as it climbed out on a successful launch. Sometimes we were on the line as long as 20 seconds. We parked our gas bags in the wind, and brought them down as safe as we could, hopefully on a landing tape.

Another flight I remember is Tom Scully popping off with his Challenger, hooking it up from low level in a thermal and maxing the round. In fact getting so hooked up that his talking timer beeped for over 40 seconds after he was supposed to be on the ground, it just didn't want to come down!

And the last flight memory I can share here was that Jim Deck got to compete in his first contest at the Nats in several years. The flight line literally broke out in applause after Jim landed his 3m Gnome in the last round of the contest on Saturday. It's moments like these that make coming to the Nats so special.

In the Nostalgia event, James Vanderzly placed first flying his Challenger, Ryan Woebkenberg placed second, and Tom Scully place third also flying a Challenger. In RES, Troy Lawicki is the new national champion, Mike Fritz placed second, and Don Richmond placed third.

The results of RES and Nostalgia can be seen here:  2003 RES and NOS  Nationals Scores

2003 Nationals Picture Gallery