King Orange
Vic Nipert with his Blohm & Voss BV-141 and Rex Hinson with his Focke-Wulf FW-159 (above left) discuss the finer points of German aircraft for FAC scale.
Unfortunately Vic's model was last seen heading east back to Germany. FAC CD Charlie Shepard (above right) takes time to prepare his Embryo model.
The KOI was moved from Miami to Jack- sonville in 1971, and since 1985 has been held in Palm Bay, Florida. If you are a Free Flight lover, let it be known that the FMA maintains a 2½ by 4-mile Free Flight Shangri-La with North, South, East, and West launch areas to accommodate any wind direction.
Bob Hanford from Broken Aero, Oklahoma (above) took 1st in Moffett with another Hanford Sr. design, the SπDR. Jerry Wagner discusses the finer points of Bob Hunter’s Satellite 1300 design (below) with Skeeter Surguine. For many free flighters, the camaraderie of the KOI is more important than the competition.
This year contestants came from as far away as Oklahoma and Maine. Although we had several first time KOI’ers, atten- dance was sparse compared with previous years. Many regulars were not in atten- dance due to various reasons including auto trouble, bad weather in their home state, and the weather predictions for the meet itself. But as Joe Clawson said, “even bad weather in Palm Bay during the KOI is better than where you might be coming from.” And yes the weather this year was dismal, by Florida standards, with over- cast skies, light rain showers and tempera- tures dipping into the 60’s. Except for the lack of boomer thermals however, it re- mained very flyable all three days with moderate chases.
The KOI has grown over the years, from the basic AMA events for Free Flight and Control Line and even two RC events, to ac- commodate the interest of AMA, NFFS, FAC, SAM, and FAI flyers. There are now a total of 56 separate FF events with associate CD’s for each discipline. It is also the last America’s Cup event of the year for those competing for “Cup” points. Note that the Control Line KOI continues to be held in Jacksonville on a separate date. Unique to this 59th KOI was the introduc- tion of Indoor FF. A very nice Category 1 fa- cility was secured for the enjoyment of FF modelers that don’t look for thermals to max. This site was large by most Cat 1 stan- dards, due to its dual purpose as a gym and hurricane emergency shelter. We hope the indoor activity will become a permanent ad- dition to the KOI.
22
Along with first, second, and third place APRIL 2014
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