Last month I explored the storied early history of FF, from the 1870s through the 1960s. This month FF enters the modern era: 1970 to 2006.

The decade of the 1970s was one of change in the FF world. Flying fields were disappearing, old-time FFers were dying off, and more aeromodelers were taking up RC flying instead of FF. Yet the FF contest scene remained strong, led by the establishment in 1971 of the United States FF Championships (USFFC).

The USFFC was a success from the beginning, held at the great Taft, California, flying site. Three-hundred or more competitors would converge on the venue every Memorial Day weekend, making the event equal to—or even more competitive than—the AMA FF Nats.

The USFFC had everything from night flying to Jumbo Rubber Scale, and the “Sweepstakes” winner was awarded a trophy that was more than 6 feet tall. The USFFC continues to this day, and although it’s not quite as big as it was in the glory days of the 1970s, it is still among the largest half dozen FF meets in the US.

Also of note in the 1970s, chase bikes came into normal use at FF fields. This trend began slowly at several Nats in the 1960s when it became clear that chasing FF models on foot across 130° runways was unhealthy.

Today chase bikes are the standard for serious FF participants who often have to pursue their models many miles during the course of a contest day. The typical FF chase bike is a dirt bike in the 70cc-200cc size range, costing $500-$1,500. It is rare to find a serious FF competitor without one. Only FF Scale fliers, with their smaller fields and typically shorter flights, seldom use these vehicles.

Several new events entered the FF lineup in the 1970s. Pennyplane, Manhattan Cabin, and Easy B came into being indoors, and the hugely popular P-30 event was introduced outdoors in the mid-1970s.

P-30 was the brainchild of Southern California fliers who envisioned a simple, small, rubber-powered model that would be suitable for beginners and use an inexpensive, easily obtainable 9.5-inch plastic propeller. The rules have remained unchanged since the beginning, and now P-30 is arguably FF’s most popular event. Most P-30s—even those built by beginners—will easily fly for 60-90 seconds, making them perfect for most small fields.

Technological improvements in engine design revolutionized FF Power events in the 1970s. Schnuerle-ported, ball-bearing racing engines by Rossi, K&B, Webra, and others hit the scene, relegating the older loop-scavenged, plain-bearing engines to obsolescence. The legendary Rossi .15 dominated FAI FF Power during the entire decade.

AMA Power events also became horsepower races while designs improved in handling greater launch speeds. The Stardusters and Ramrods of the 1960s were replaced by the Pearl and Satellite design families of the 1970s. Pearls and Satellites are still popular and competitive in AMA Gas, some 30 years after their original popularity.

Bob White: No retrospective on international FF would be complete without mention of Robert P. White of Monrovia, California. He came to international prominence in the 1970s.

Bob had returned to FF in the mid-1960s after a long layoff and quickly became one of the world’s premier Outdoor Rubber fliers. For many years he concentrated on one event: international-class F1B Wakefield.

Bob’s signature twin-fin F1B design went through annual design refinements, continually improving its performance. From 1971 through 1989 Bob was on seven of the 10 US F1B teams that competed at the FF World Championships. Five of the seven times he scored a top-five finish, finally winning the Wakefield Cup in 1987.

Jim O’Reilly of Wichita, Kansas, and his Mulvihill model at the 2005 Nats.

Jerry Murphy launches a Winterhawk F1G on a competition flight. F1G is one of FF’s most popular events. Models fly for two minutes on only 10 grams of rubber.

Chuck Etherington (Elizabeth CO) fine-tunes his F1C piston-engine FF model. F1C is the FAI class in piston-engine FF.

Bob was inducted into the National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame in 1988 and continued to fly FF enthusiastically until his death in November 2005. Bob’s impeccably crafted World Champion F1B “#22” is hanging in AMA’s National Model Aviation Museum in Muncie, Indiana, for all to appreciate.

Indoor Dominance: While Bob White was dominating Wakefield competitions outdoors, the US became the leader in international Indoor FF beginning in the early 1970s. From 1968 to 2004 Jim Richmond won eight F1D World Championships. This incredible record makes him by far the most decorated individual in FF World Champs history and probably in all of aeromodeling history.

During the same period, five other US Indoor fliers won individual titles and the US won 11 of 18 team titles. From 1976 to the 2004 only two F1D World Championships—in 1982 and 1992—were not won by a US individual or US team!

No country can claim as many World Champion FF fliers as the US. Thirty-eight individual World Championships have been won by 24 US competitors. Of those 24, seven earned more than one individual world title. See the sidebar for a complete list of America’s FF elite.

The 1980s: The early 1980s saw the first applications of what we now consider high-tech construction methods in the FAI events. Carbon, Kevlar, and foam composites began to revolutionize construction and design of FF models. Wings became longer and skinnier, airfoils thinner and more efficient, and gadgets more numerous.         

The typical 1980s Wakefield (F1B) model had variable incidence tailplane (VIT) and auto-rudder (AR) to maximize the climb.

As early as 1981, Soviet Wakefield fliers were testing delayed propeller release (DPR) front ends. DPR—which would become standard on Wakefields from the early 1990s on—released the propeller a half second after a vertical javelin launch, gaining the model roughly 20 extra feet of altitude.

Chuck Etherington launches his F1C model, illustrating the beauty and artistry of FF.

Chuck’s model is state-of-the-art, featuring a 3:1 geared .15 racing engine, folding propeller, and multiple timer-operated in-flight trim functions.

F1C flier Ed Carroll prepares for an early-morning flyoff with his Russian-built folding-wing model. Folders are finally gaining a foothold in F1C competition after years of experimentation. The advantage of a folding wing is less drag during the rapid climb phase.

F1A “Nordic” Towline Gliders also used quite a bit of composites, enabling a more aggressive “zoom” launch off of a circle tow hook. Circle-towing came to the US from Eastern Europe in the 1970s and was ubiquitous by the 1980s. It enabled the flier to circle the model overhead on the towline for many minutes until the right air was found.

FAI Power (F1C) took the greatest leap in the 1980s with the introduction of the Nelson .15 racing engine and the “bunt” transition. Bunt was first tried in the 1960s but wasn’t perfected and put into widespread use until the 1980s. It is a timer-actuated one-quarter outside loop just after engine shutoff at the top of a screaming, vertical power pattern.

The advent of bunt—when used in conjunction with VIT and AR—meant that FAI Power models could get far higher than Wakefields or Nordics, and their still airtimes reflected this difference. Because of this it wasn’t long before the FAI shortened the seven-second engine run to five seconds.