Scale Matters

There were five four-engined Scale models at the 2025 U.S. National Championships in Muncie, Ind.: Three Connies, a Cc-118 (DC-6) and a B-17. All photos by Orin Humphries unless noted.

Nats 2025 and the World Team Trials

By Orin Humphries
August 2025

I drove my Mustang to Muncie, Ind., leaving July 3, for the 2025 U.S. National Control-Line Scale Championships. It is a 2,440-mile one-way trip, and it took five and a half days to drive it. I took my yellow Stearman only. There were to be two contests for me to get into with it. The first was the AMA Nats, and the second was the Trials for the 2026 FAI World Team afterwards.

For two years we have had crap weather in the springs, and our home field is ruined with mole holes. This means that I have not had the opportunity to practice with the Stearman. The AMA Nats would have four flights with the Stearman and the Team Trials would have three. I figured that by using only the one airplane I would be getting a lot of practice.

We had the static judging for both contests on Thursday the 10th, and the first round was on Friday the 11th. We had been told to show up at 7 a.m. Friday and be ready by 8 in order to beat the heat and possibly the wind; this was for all of the flying days. When we arrived Friday morning, the wind was already at a steady 7 mph with higher gusts. This was a mental load, because if I lost the plane in the Nats before the Team Trials, I would not be going to World for at least two years. The World cycle is two years long, with the selection on the odd years and the competition on the even years. I was sweating bullets!

Friday

The first round didn’t start until the afternoon, and the wind was now a steady 8-9 mph with gusts over that. At the pilots' meeting, I briefed them on wind flying. “Spot your plane downwind, not tailwind, or on release the wind will pick up the tail and shorten your prop.”

One of the super Connies flew first. He spotted downwind, and everything was fine to start the routine. As he went slow and low on final to a Missed Approach maneuver, the wind was on his tail. A sudden gust hit him and stalled his tail. It pitched steeply down and smashed the nose. We never again saw another Connie out of its trailer after that tragic event.

Another pilot was called next, with a smaller Spitfire. He, too, spotted downwind, but his plane was so light, the wind raised the tail and squelched the takeoff twice. I was pitting for him, if memory serves. The judges scratched that attempt.

Through the morning, I had gone through four cycles of “I won’t fly the round,” the wind slacked and, “I will fly the round,” the wind came up again, “I won’t fly… .” My mind was fried when I was called to the line. The wind was 8+ mph with higher gusts. Decision: Fly and hope.

Takeoff was normal, but with my degraded mental state, I forgot to do the level laps. My first option was Wingover and because I hadn’t practiced in two years, I selected my entry point wrongly relative to the wind. The wind blew the airplane out of track, behind my vision, and my lines went slack. I ran trying to recover tension. When that came, the lines told me where the plane was and what it was doing. I gave it emergency UP. When it re-emerged into view, it was heading straight down, and it made the tightest corner to level ever seen from a Scale model. It was only 8 feet off the ground at recovery! (Hmm. Next year at the Roseburg, Ore., Regionals, I’m going to loop this Stearman!)  I got back to the circle center and set up for my next option, a Missed Approach, which went okay. However, my next option was a T&G, and just like for the Connie, the wind stalled me, and the plane bounced badly, coming in on me again. I ran and recovered, but my first flight score was trash.

Under the AMA rules, your final score will be the average of your two best flights. That meant that this first score vanished, so…

I tried to spot my Spitfire-flying partner for this 15 degrees farther around into the wind for his launch point, my standard remedy, but the wind was swinging with us. (This was his official second attempt.) I respotted him again to no avail, wind-wise. The wind was swinging, keeping pace with us! On my third attempt we just let her go. The plane struggled along, trying to keep the prop off the pavement for at least 6-8 feet, nearly losing it twice before becoming airborne.

I’m a little fuzzy, but I think either the C-118 (DC-6) or the B-17 flew in the other circle.

After we finished Round one, the Team leader, who was the AMA CD, came to me and asked if I intended to fly Round 2, saying he wasn’t. I told him that I would not, so he canceled the rest of the day.

Saturday

The predicted storm had us sheltered in place in our motels. The storm was a glancing blow, but still very intense. That evening was to be the Event Dinner, but it was really downpouring! I bagged the dinner and watched the storm from my motel window. And there is even less on TV in motels to kill time with, as you all know. I heard two lightning bolts, one 20 seconds away, and one 25 seconds away, both to the southeast of us. I heard them clearly, and the news later reported damage from them. I had had no desire to drive through this storm to the dinner on a strange city. The ones who did brave it reported that there was a lot of construction, which made GPS useless.

Sunday

The scene at the circle was awesome. Every awning that had been left standing Friday was totally trashed. None of them went anywhere but to the landfill. Under the big, long, permanent double-canopy for the Stats area, all of the folding chairs had previously been lain down and the seat pans were almost full of water. How did the water get under there?
 
We began the round before 8 a.m., and either the B-17 or the C-118 flew, both only once at this Nats. We never saw another Connie. We had to make up the missing round plus the last two this day, so the CD got inventive. He asked if we would accept this day’s flight as having two sets of judges, each providing their own scores. This was rather than trying two flights with one judge set each, making for a long day with unknown weather changes to come. We agreed. So this flight was scored as Rounds 2 and 3. Again, there are four scores to be used one way or another for your final standing.

I bagged electing to do a Wingover as an option and replaced it with Low Flight. This flight was uneventful, but my T&G plus my Landing bounced unprofessionally. My Spitfire partner and I pitted for each other through the whole day. The wind was never over 4 mph with a few manageable gusts. We flew Round 4 that afternoon, and I saw a little more improvement in my flying.

FAI

We flew Round 1 of the Team Selection on Sunday afternoon, and I saw some further improvement in my aircraft handling, but was still deficient. The CD and Team Leader is Pete Bauer, and his wife, Kathy, flew a Profile Shoestring Stunter as her entry into the sport.  Pete is the reigning World Control Line Scale Champion for the 2023-2025 cycle. Kathy served also as caller for several pilots. There were five of us vying for spots on the 2026 World Team, which will be in Buckminster, England, next July.

Monday

I had been getting told that I wasn’t in line with FAI standards throughout the whole experience, so during the storm Saturday I re-read their rules. Fifty years of competition under AMA standards both at the Northwest Regionals and at the Nats was a great anchor around my neck. You see, at the Nats, there is a wide range of piloting skills by design, a good thing. But at World, just about everyone there is at the top of their game. So, how do you go about separating them? The FAI rules and standards must necessarily be tight down to every single dot on every “I” and every crossbar on every “T”. There are no “suggestions,” “preferences” or “sortas”!  ! Still, the changeover for me wouldn’t be instant. Fifty years of AMA paradigm are tough to break.

As an example, the FAI judges want every maneuver to begin and end directly in front of them. Period! In AMA, you can do a loop, say, anywhere on the circle you choose to. In FAI, however, if you do it in front of them, you might get 8 out of 10 points. If you do it somewhere else, and it’s the exact same performance, you will get 2 out of 10 points. Scoring for FAI goes by half-points, so six points lost this way count as 12 half-points. At World, things turn on a single half point.

Yesterday and today the humidity was 99% at dawn so the air was murky and heavy. But today the wind, however, had abated seriously. When we arrived at the circle this morning the wind was 0 mph with gusts to 1 mph!

Here we were, all vying for the limited spots on the World Team for next year, yet as we set up for Round 2 of the FAI trials, I was really impressed with the working togetherness spirit that just happened throughout the whole bunch of us without any outside influence. That is, it went like, “Orin Humphries to the line.” I reached down to pick up my airplane and wondered whom I could ask to grab my handle. I looked toward it and … someone had already picked it up to help me. Nice, now, I will need to come back from the launch point to get my … another one of us had already grabbed my line box and we three set up on the circle. Kathy called for me and coached me as she did for others. When I had finished my flight, two pilots helped my clear off the circle. As I set my plane down in the pit, I jogged over to grab the next pilot’s handle, and someone else had the line box for that pilot.

The entire evolution the rest of the day went like that. Everyone was smiling as we helped each other. This, then, was Team USA coming together for the good of this great nation before the world. Not for the individual. It was humbling to say the least. (I had to take a moment after writing that.)

I mis-heard what one former Team member had advised me about where to begin my taxi for takeoff. I blew it. My round two flight still had a bounce in my landings. Our team leader throughout had half of his landings greased on with tiny skips in the rest, for perspective.
We finished Round 2 and broke for lunch. I spent the time wrapping my head around all that I had read and been told. I was ready to do it their way.

Final Round

Kathy moved my handle and called for me. FAI wants your cruising altitude to be up around 6 meters instead of AMA’s head height to ten feet. She said, “You’re high, bring it down,” when I was around 8 meters. When you land, wherever your plane wants to come to rest at the end of rollout, you must continue to taxi without stopping until you are directly in front of the judges. Then, “Maneuver Complete!”

Mentally, I had admonished myself with, “On the landings you are not a spectator; you are the pilot!” My last landing was my best with only the tiny skips The Boss sometimes did. I had finally stuck the flight! I believe that no one in the Nats nor in the FAI Trials could do High Flight like my humble Stearman does. My approach of, “Fly only one airplane as many times as I can” had paid off.

Pete Bauer got first spot on the World Team, Mike McHenry’s L-4 got second Spot, I got third spot, and Kathy got female class. Pete Mazur got alternate. There’s a story between me and Pete M. winding up as we did.

FAI rules say that in trying for a team spot you can fly any airplane you want. You do not have to try out with the exact model that you intend to fly at World. Also, for the Trials, the Builder of Model rule does not apply (it does at World).

Pete M. had chosen to fly his ARF F8F Bearcat, with electric power, flaps and retracts. It is 1/10 scale. He also took the rule that the judges want to see “Scale Speed” too seriously. For the Bearcat, a 450 mph-class fighter, he figured that the model should fly at 45mph, then. (The Laws of Physics say that this way to figure scale speed is fundamentally flawed. Search on “Similitude” online.)

This wording is very troublesome in both AMA and FAI Rules. The phrasing should be something like, “Type-Relative” speed. That is, a J-3 Cub would have to be the slowest with its 65 mph typical cruise. Late WW I fighters would be faster with their 110-125 mph speeds, typically, a Beech T-34 would be faster still, with prop-driven fighters being the fastest ones in the contest. Airliners are their own set with late-1920s designs at the low end and DC-7s at the top.

The judges docked him for unrealistic relative speed, and he lost more points for lack of realistic sound. Even with my poor scores in rounds one and two, my third flight got enough points to squeak by his better flight scores that had low speed and sound points in all three of his flights. I got 1,268.050 points and he got 1,267.484. That’s a half point.

My winning strategy throughout my career in Carrier and Scale has always been to address the entire event as an integral effort, not to force just pieces of it. Many who tried to get by me with maximizing just a piece or two of the puzzles, did not succeed. The Bearcat was missing two pieces that the flaps and retracts did not make up for.

Coming Home

Another trek of 445 miles per day (I’m 83), followed by eight hours off the road in a motel, day after day … I had three instances of traffic hazards on the road. Two were lane conflicts, and one where the attitude dork behind me tried to run me off the road when I wouldn’t just get the heck out of his way. The round trip involved 11 days on the road. If there is another trip to Muncie in my future, I will fly myself there and rent a van. I have to build a shipping crate for flying my Stinson to England next year, my new model, would already have a crate to fly a model to Muncie for a last Nats.


AMA judges want things in three-ring notebooks. FAI judges want large, unbound sheets to spread out, rather than thumbing through notebooks.



This shows the size of the multis. The only Connie that flew in the wind was damaged by a gust. Later, the B-17 and the C-118 each made one flight.



My yellow Stearman. Jeral and I bought a cart for fewer trips to the car, setting up.



We had a broad selection of Scale categories represented.



This is my favorite, a 1/2A bird powered by a pair of .020s. It flies great!



Saturday’s storm wrecked every awning. They all went to the landfill.



My Stearman got third Place in Sport Scale.



Pete Bauer is our Team Leader for World Scale in Buckminster, UK, next July. He is the reigning World Control Line Scale Champion. This is his BN Islander, and his wife, Kathy, is calling for him. She is going to World in the new Female category.



The upper grid is the final result. The lower list is from one of the early rounds.



Five of us tried for spots on the 2026 World Team. Left to right: Mike McHenry with his J-3, Pete Bauer with his BN Islander, Pete Mazur with his ARF Bearcat, Kathy Bauer with her Shoestring Stunter, and Orin Humphries with his Stearman. Fred Cronenwett photo.



Pete Bauer in Spot 1, Mike McHenry in Spot 2, Orin Humphries in Spot 3, Kathy Bauer in Female Category, and Pete Mazur in Alternate. Fred Cronenwett photo.



My Ford Mustang as seen on a 5,400-mile round trip to Muncie, Indiana for the Nats and FAI contests. Eleven days total road time.



This is the plane I will actually compete with at World next year, a Stinson SR-6.

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This page was updated Aug. 25, 2025