The following is the District X column from the December 2012 issue of Model Aviation. There were almost 70 photos that didn’t make it into the magazine because of space. To enjoy then all click here.

I recently attended the United States Free Flight Championships which were held right here in District X at the Lost Hills Free Flight Model Airfield in California’s Central Valley. I am always impressed by the skills on display at a free flight contest. If you’ve never been to one you owe yourself the treat of attending, I guarantee you’ll enjoy yourself. Contest Director Ted Firster has sent the following summary.

The US FF Championships have come and gone, held on September 21 – 23 with three of the best flying days we have seen in some time. We approached this event with a lot of questions and trepidation with the arrival of our new neighbor (1600 acres of future nut trees). Kevin Sherman and I traveled to Lost Hills in mid-August to assess the effect the trees would have on our S/W and W boundary. We identified and secured permission from Holloway Mining Company to have launch sites on of their property half a mile north of our normal launch site. A year ago we had our normal site cleared of tumbleweed, when we arrived this year most had grown back in that same area. Holloway volunteered to clear our site of the tumbleweed….they are great neighbors. Unfortunately, as I explored the south portion of our property I found the new planting area had extended further east than what we had anticipated and chasing in that area was virtually impossible making our original launch site useless. We moved our launch site further east on our property where we had never flown before and found excellent chasing areas to the south.

This contest turned out to be one of the most successful free flight champs we have had in the past five years. The temperature was basically normal for this time of year and wind conditions never exceeded much over 10 mph but thermals were tricky to find.

At the FF Champs, we run quite a different schedule than the usual FF contest. I personally believe that the contest is for the contestant and not for the ease of the contest director. Old Time events and all non-power events can be flown any one of the three days and do not have to be completed on the same day (exception Catapult and HLG). Nostalgia and Classic Power can fly any of their first three flights on Friday and complete them on the schedule. Rocco Ferrario from Napa brought his usual contingent of juniors and they always seem to have a great time. We had our Gollywock Mass Launch Saturday morning and I jokingly said “let’s all get into a circle and launch”….and low and behold that is what they did. It looked like a WWII dog fight over the Pacific but fortunately had no collisions and we had several good flights with Carl Redlin climbing higher than others and walked away with the trophy again! Carl also won Twin Pusher Mass Launch and the Dawn Mulvihill Event. Be sure you practice winding if you fly Twin Pusher…Hal Wightman and George Walter have a story to tell. (Sorry Gene, those suckers just won’t fly backward). Fred Ginder’s return after being absence a few years and won high time with 1418. He is a third generation flyer and his father was instrumental in getting the high time trophy started. Some of the more contested events were OT A Pylon, P-30, AMA A Gas and all Nostalgia Power events with five maxing out and two tied at 533 in A Nostalgia. We had a good turn out in E-36 with John Oldenkamp 762 seconds. Sevak Malkhusyan started chasing late and ended up with 737 for second place – good flying Sevak. We had 25 FAI flyers and that number was low due to the short time until team selections. The Sweepstakes Championship was highly contested until the third day when Terry Thorkildsen pulled away. Congratulations Terry and Congratulations to OT Champion Hal Wightman.