PAMPA

Finals morning dawned cool with high overcast clouds and light winds…nearly perfect flying conditions. Flying began about 8:30 am.

Competition resumed on Thursday morning for the final round of preliminary flights. Mother Nature, however, had other plans. The low cloud ceiling experienced on Wednesday returned, along with a quartering crosswind blowing in from the north-northeast.

Nineteen Masters-class pilots gathered at 8 am on Wednesday morning for their third and fourth rounds. However, the weather gods had other ideas as the clouds were low, and the ceilings were only 400 to 500 feet at the start time. After several flights to determine whether the clouds had risen high enough to enable competition flying to begin, it was finally okay to fly without constraint.

Results from the competition rounds flown on Tuesday, August 19 can be seen on the National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics (NSRCA) website

What a week it was at the 2025 Nats! I have to hand it to the team that ran the show.

On Friday morning, the group was greeted with warm temperatures and light winds. So far this week, we have been very lucky in that when we were flying the weather cooperated. Today would be no different.

Today, contestants were greeted with cool temps in the low 60's. It was cool enough that I even warmed the vent air just a bit in the car. No AC was needed this morning. On the way back to the motel, however, the car's AC was set to max, with all nozzles pointed at me!

On Monday, July 7th, there were three events being held: Old Time Stunt (OTS), Classic, and Nostalgia 30.

Beginner and Intermediate classes of Control Line Precision Aerobatics were flown on Sunday July 6th. There were two entrants in Beginner with seven in Intermediate. These events were flown on the grass circles. Grass is much more forgiving, than asphalt in case of an accident.

Simply put, Control Line (CL) Precision Aerobatics is an event where a builder of a model airplane is judged not only on how well they build their plane, but also how well they fly it in a prescribed flight pattern involving aerobatics.