LAST EDITED ON Jul-08-04 AT 02:29 AM (CDT) RC Combat's over already - they're located a long ways from the CL site. Lee Liddle won again! In the past, CL has always taken place concurrently with RC Pylon Racing. They're just next door, it's easy to watch them, but you'll need to drive to over where their tents are to have a close look at the planes. A lot of those guys are former CL pilots, and some still fly CL Combat occasionally (say "Hi!" to Mike Condon and Dave Shadel for me if you run into them). If you want a large refueling syringe, there will be people selling those over at Pylon.
You might also get to see some RC Scale taking place. This is usually over quite quickly (only a couple days) but is fun to watch.
Right next to Stunt, which is on the tarmac L-Pad, are the grass circles. Some of these will be taken up by Combat. This will be more fun to watch than anything else going on, absolutely guaranteed. If you come early enough, there will be FAI Combat taking place. It's fast and furious, the action never stops. Pilots from all over the world will be there. Later on, for the Nats, there will be Fast Combat, 1/2-A Combat and Speed Limit Combat. Consider trying Speed Limit next year, if you come to the Nats again - it's fairly easy to get into. Consider volunteering - it's a lot more fun joining in than it is watching from the sidelines. The Combat people will be glad to have an extra pull-tester, or an extra cut counter.
Some of these grass circles will be available for practice flying/sport flying during the Nats week, particularly in the evenings, so make sure you bring something to fly! You'll see all sorts of interesting things going on, like someone flying a huge triplane, or, some years back, there was some guy with a huge B-17 flying upside down next to our circle.
Across the road from the grass circles will be an area of tarmac with a fence around it. This will be the Racing and Speed circles. There will be lots of non-stop activity going on there, as well. Late in the week, there will probably be Jet Speed models flying. If you hear something like a trombone flying around at 200 mph, that's what those are. You can hear them all the way from the Stunt area.
Be sure to spend some time at the museum. Really neat - they have a replica of a 1950s model airplane shop in there. All sorts of models. There's also a pretty neat hobby store, which is about a 15 minute walk from the Stunt circles. The owner's kid flies Free Flight. In the beginning he was upset that AMA bought the field, and a bunch of RC sport fliers were buzzing up and down near his property line, but now he's really into the model planes himself. Carries a bunch of CL and FF stuff (need a pound of rubber?).
