The question I asked almost every competitor I met was, “So why did you come to the Nats?” Everyone—and I am not making this up—answered, “Because it’s fun.”

            I’ve enjoyed model airplanes for as long as I can remember, and the Nationals, or Nats as so many like to call it, has been something I’ve promised myself I’d make it to one day.

            I’m into all kinds of models, from FF to CL, but I have to admit that my primary interest is in RC. The fascination with things that fly, if you asked my wife, is most definitely an illness, and I’m happy to report that the treatment of its symptoms is to enjoy modeling as much as possible.

Mark Leseberg brings his Precision Aviation Extra 300 in for a gentle landing. He won Unlimited RC Scale Aerobatics with his four-cylinder DA-200-powered model.

So there I was, planning to go to the Nats some year, more or less with the thought in my head that I needed to practice really hard before I would be “worthy” to compete against those pilots. The practice would do me good, of course, but frustration arose because it was almost as if I was forcing myself to go to the Nats and, in turn, making myself practice.

            It got to the point where I was forcing myself to fly model airplanes. The harder I tried, the more  stress I encountered from thinking about going to this contest, and that caused me to put off the trip.

Johnny Berlin ready to set his 149-inch Nostalgia-class Sailaire, by Dream Catcher Hobbies, down for a day of flying.

            My year for being able to attend the Nats seemed farther away than ever, when an unexpected opportunity arose: MA was seeking an associate editor to help with the magazine. A native of New Jersey, the thought of uprooting my family and moving to Indiana was heavy. I applied for the job, and the short story is that AMA and the town of Muncie are now my home.

Ready or not I was going to the Nats this year, and I was happy that participating in any of the events was the furthest thing from my mind. Instead I would be reporting on the event every day for five weeks, July 4-August 7. It was made loud and clear to me that I should get out in the field as much as possible and gather as much of the “Nats experience” as I could.

Kevin Siemonsen’s model performs an inverted pass through the poles during Masters Unlimited Limbo competition in RC Competition Fun Fly. His five passes under the string took less than a minute.

Don Belfort entered NEAC RC Electric Scale with his Piper Tri-Pacer from Wendell Hostetler plans. It has a Speed 400 motor for power and functioning flaps.

            This sounded like the best idea in the world for me. Looking at the schedule of events, I was excited about seeing firsthand some competitions I’d only read about in magazines.

            One of the things that wound up my interest in reporting on the Nats was the new way in which it was going to be covered and distributed to the membership. In the past MA provided complete Nats coverage in a dedicated issue. Because of the normal printing schedule, people wouldn’t see any news about the competition until close to the end of the year—nearly four months after it was over.

            In today’s day and age the Internet has surpassed the print medium for reporting news in a speedy fashion. This year the AMA crew and magazine staff decided to cover the Nats by using the Internet to expand NatsNews: an online newsletter that has been published in past years during the event as a service to the membership and competitors who planned on coming to the area.