National Free Flight Society

America’s Cup

2023 Final Scores, January 6

A fantastic year of USA FAI Free Flight is complete. The score sheet population looks close to the pre-covid levels of participation. 2023 has two firsts per my historical record keeping: this is the year of “father and son”.

Before getting into the event by event details, let me write upfront the details for the AmCup Award ceremony for the 2023 season. For those that have done the 2024 FabFeb online entry you may have noticed no mention of an AmCup Banquet payment. Due to Covid 19 the awards since 2019 have been done outdoors on the field. Some had nice weather and others not so nice weather. This year the AmCup Awards and the MaxMen F1ABCPQ trophies presentation will be done at the Lost Hills recreation center, north building. AmCup awards will remain informal, that is to say no sit-down banquet. SCAT and MaxMen will provide at no charge snacks from Gabbies and water and soda. The schedule start will be 1 hour after last Flyoff flight (Civil twilight 6:08, Dark 7:08pm). Snacks at 7:00 pm until sufficient flyers and MM CD arrive for awards, I’m guessing 8:00. The goal is to finish by 9 pm.

2022 AmCup winners: please get the perpetual trophies polished and the plates engraved and arrangements for the trophy to be at the Lost Hills recreation center for the award ceremony. Our repeat winners Faust Parker (F1C), Bob Hanford (F1C) and Jack Murphy (F1C) may keep the trophy at home, we’ll borrow a trophy for photo shoot.

2023 FAI FF Competition He Report

In F1A (24 flyers with top 5 points), Enes Pecenkovic (2021 AmCup winner) started the year strong with the first two wins with large bonus points. He traveled and won several smaller contests. Brian Van Nest also started strong with two early, large point wins, won the Nats and was within 2 points of Enes. The Lost Hills October contests were the deciding factor this year, Enes winning 2 of the four and Brian won one. Enes with 112 points and Brian with 110 points. I snuck into third. To my memory this is the first time a father- son combo placed in the top five in the same event; Andrew Barron (4th) and Peter Barron (5th). Congratulations!

In F1B (29 flyers with top 5 points), it looked Jerry Fitch (also the 2021 winner) was the flyer to catch with three high bonus point wins by April. Walt Ghio had 2 good wins during this time as well. Charlie Jones started his move mid-year and to many surprised us with top score at the end of

the year. Its very unusual to win the AmCup F1A or B or G (higher entrance count contests) counting a second place score as Charlie did with a 26-point second place Kotuku. Examination of the scores shows a wide spread of the large bonus point contest winners. The top four places were separated by one point! By my thinking, one can argue that F1B is the most competitive event at this time.

Hurts to write, just the opposite for F1C (10 flyers with top 5 points) I do give great credit to Faust Parker who year after year makes the effort to meet the 3 flying site requirement. He has been the only F1C flyer to do so for the past three years. Faust started the year strong with two bonus point wins followed by solo (how sad is that!) win at the NATs and two Texas-contest wins.

In F1P (8 flyers with top 5 points) it’s the same story as F1C but insert the names Bob Hanford and Mike Fedor for the only flyers to meet the three flying site requirement. Bob beat Mike in three of the four contests they flew against each other. So, Bob repeats his 2022 F1P win.

In F1G (22 flyers with top 5 points) Geralyn Jones took the playbook from husband Charlie. Geralyn won one of the early large bonus contests at Lost Hills, went to Canada in midsummer for a win, won the Nats and another Muncie contest to win this year. Perennial power houses, Tiffany O’Dell and Jerry Fitch won many contests but could not overcome Gerlyn’s bonus points. Geralyn and Charlie join the Tiff and Blake as couples that have won AmCup in the same year.

Hurts even more to write about F1H (6 flyers with top 5 points). Only 6 flyers and only three met the 3 flying site requirement. I came out on top due to with 5 wins but one of those was the only bonus point for the season. Blake Jensen is second with 8 wins.

Some good news, F1J (13 flyers with top 5 points) has reversed its declining numbers. A new name at the top of the F1J list is Daryl Perkins. Daryl did it with eight, 25-point wins over Faust Parker’s five, 25-point wins. In other words, they tied with 100 points each. AmCup breaks ties only for first place and this is done by taking a fifth score (no flying site requirement). In this case both have 125 points, still tied. Do the same with sixth score, Daryl has 150 points to Faust’s 148 points.

F1Q (10 flyers with top 5 points) I will anticipate will start to increase in numbers now that it is an FAI FF team event. The next USA Team Selection Finals includes F1Q for the 2025 team slated for Romania. This year Aram Schlosberg topped the list. Aram only won 4 contests, but two were of the 6 contests with bonus points and met the 3-site flying site requirement. I don’t know if Aram planned it this way, but it goes to show the widespread strategies employed while seeking an AmCup victory. On the other hand, Jack Murphy (2022 winner) placed second having placed in 12 contests of the 25 contests where F1Q was flown this year!

All of Jack Murphy’s travels were not for nought, he won F1S (24 flyers with top 5 points) placing in 12 of the 20 where F1S was flown. A new name on the list is second place Frank Mennano who tied Julie Parker at 99- points for second place.

What’s the world coming to? Mike McKeever won F1E! Fred Terzian second, Geralyn Jones third. There were only 4 contests flown, all at Lost Hills this year. The new rule for F1E only allows 3 scores to come from the same flying site. For fun (what else to do on Dec 26?) I calculated a score to the previous rules that in this case would be the best two scores. The only change would be Geralyn would move into a tie with Fred for second.

 
Jim Parker
SCAT AmCup Administrator