NASA

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.

Today was the final day of the 2025 RC Scale Nationals. Yesterday of course, it was cut short around noon by excessive winds, occasional heavy downpours, and a thunderstorm or two. There was even a brief power outage around 3:00 PM.

The storms moved out and we had great flying weather to finish up the AMA events and fly Round 1 of the F4B team trials.

We knew the weather could be problematic today. However, we were hoping for the best. Arriving at the field around 7:30 AM, the skies were clear with a breeze. By the 8:00 AM pilot meeting, the had wind picked up to a stiff direct crosswind and was forecast to become even stronger.

The summer weather in Muncie can unflyable due to high wind, and the weather on July 12th was one example. The pilots decided not to fly due to the high-wind conditions. So, the decision was made to return to the flying site on Sunday morning to finish off round 1 for the AMA events.

We have four flight lines in place this year. Assigning pilots to a flight line is a task that is never easy. Some of the pilots have entered several airplanes, When assigning the flight order, the CD must ensure that a pilot is not assigned to fly in two different places at the same time.

All of the AMA events were static judged today, and then we started flying round 1 of the four possible flights. However, the winds started to pick up when we started, which made flying more difficult than normal. Fun, Sport, and Profile classes were flown, but we were unable to fly the 1/2A, Team, or Authentic events.

The F4B Control Line Scale World Championships happens every even year, and the team trials happen the year before the World Championships happen.

The RC Scale Nats is scheduled for Thursday, July 10 through Sunday, July 13 this year.

There are multiple Control Line (CL) events at the Nationals. They all share a bellcrank to control the elevator and fly in a circular pattern. But each CL event is very different in its purpose. The goal in a CL Scale event is to build a smaller version of a full-size aircraft in appearance and flight qualities.