Rory Hartman’s modified Carbon Cub.
By Gerry Garing
The 2025 AMA RC Scale Nationals is in the books. We’ll look back at a few of the highlights. There were 34 registered pilots. Thirteen pilots flew in more than one class. In total, there were 47 potential flights scheduled for each round.
The Pro-Am classes continue to be the most popular with 29 entries. Eight of these were pilots who entered another plane in a static judged class. The Open Scale class is popular since it is a static-judged class; however the “Builder of the Model” rule does not apply. Pilots can purchase a completed airplane and have it static judged.
Weather is always a major concern at a contest and Saturday was a problem. Some pilots elected not to fly in the strong crosswinds that morning. The wind was forecast to pick up even stronger during the afternoon. However, rain and a thunderstorm moved in, resulting in the cancellation of all events for the afternoon. Pilots retreated to their campers, hotels, and the AMA museum to make the best of the situation.
The annual banquet was held that evening, during which the rain had moved out. Conditions were much improved Sunday morning and round 4 was completed. The award ceremony wrapped up by 1:30 and pilots started packing up to head home.
Thursday’s NatsNews included a photo of Charlie Nelson’s cabin WACO biplane. Charlie was known as a serious competitor, all around good guy, and committed to building a series of cabin WACO biplanes, with each one better than the previous. Charlie also holds the distinction of winning the US Scale Masters Championship, the AMA Nationals, and Top Gun all in a row. I believe he is the only person to have done so.
Upon relocating to Arizona during the winter, he became a mentor to Tim Dickey. Tim acquired one of Charlie’s planes and entered the plane in this year’s Nats in Team Scale with Charlie as the builder. Word came in Saturday morning that Charlie passed away in his hometown in Massachusetts. How fitting that after all these years, his Waco went on to win one more contest at this year’s Nats!
The Builder of the Model (BOM) rule is a declaration that a modeler has constructed much of their airplane. Defining what that means has been debated since the advent of fiberglass and foam kits over four decades ago. Certainly, an ARF out of the box does not meet the BOM rule. However, the AMA Scale rules now recognize an ARF that has been stripped and refinished does qualify.
There is no finer example of this than Rory Hartman’s Red Bull Carbon Cub. I walked past it for two days assuming it was another ARF. Then, I noticed the rib stitching, the aileron control cable covers, the fairings, the wingtip nav lights, antennae, filler caps, and a myriad of other details. Rory described how he stripped the covering, changed several key outlines, and began adding details. Then came the intricate Red Bull paint scheme. Rory followed the full-scale example by covering the airframe with Stits fabric. He then applied a vinyl wrap in the color scheme of the Red Bull Cub Crafters. Rory entered his plane in Sport Sportsman class and earned a 95.50 static score, just 0.5 pts behind the top static score in that class. He went on to take first place in Sport Sportsman.
How about entering next year’s Nationals? Now is the time to start preparing!. Whether you build a plane, fly an ARF, modify an ARF, or buy a completed airplane, there’s a class for you!