NARAM 36...

By Kevin Kuczek

    NARAM this year was held in hot and humid Houston, Texas. Surprisingly, it wasn't as hot and humid as when they last held NARAM at this location. In fact, even the roaches and fire ants were nonexistent! I had most of my models built before I left, which was good because building models was the last thing I wanted to do after being up until 4:00 AM, and then getting up at 8:00 AM to chase rockets that sometimes floated miles from the launch site. Keep in mind that this schedule went on for four days straight. I felt like it was exam week!

    I did pretty well, taking a trophy in every event I entered. Really great models were not needed to win. Consistency meant everything with low cloud ceilings and prevailing winds that took your birds directly into the NASA complex. In fact, the range was shut down two times when NASA objected to models landing in restricted areas.

    The duration events included "1/2A" Parachute Duration, "A" Helicopter Duration, "C" Rocket Glider Duration, and "F" Streamer Duration. Times recorded on the flight cards were pretty misleading though, since most models due to the high winds could only be seen for the first couple minutes of flight. Unfortunately with the return rule, one flight had to be returned.

    So, having ultra high performance models at this contest usually didn't pay off. My duration models were light but not fragile and maybe not as light as I could have made them. My motto has always been to go all out and hope to get one flight back or tracked. No one can predict what the weather will be like. If I had all the time in the world, I'd probably build a couple of bricks to fly, in case of high winds.

    The altitude events included "D" Altitude and "E" Dual Eggloft Altitude. I placed second in "D" Altitude and first in "E" Dual Eggloft Altitude. Tracking the egglofter flights was not a problem for the trackers. In C division there were only three qualified flights and two of them were mine. Thus to place, all you had to do was qualify.

    Flying "D" Altitude was another story. Most modelers chose Apogee 18 mm D3-7's and most punched the low cloud base and didn't get tracked. My first flight did just that. I stayed with my motto though and flew a backup model I built the night before on a D3-7. I launched right into a small blue patch of sky and got tracked.

    Coming into NARAM, I was number 2 in the nation and 2,000 points behind the leader. After NARAM, I was 4,000 points ahead of the previous leader, and took the "C" Division National Championship!