This is a first for this website, we are reporting on a speed meeting in the USA.
For those readers outside of the USA we should give a bit of background information, Whittier Narrows is a flying site provided by the city of Los Angeles and it has specific CL speed circles along with a tether car track and a great RC flying runway which is tarmac. Whittier Narrows is one of the two big model flying sites in the Los Angeles area, the other being Sepulvida Basin which is more to the North of Los Angeles. Wittiers other claim to fame is that it is the home town of Richard ‘Tricky Dicky’ Nixon.
Below is a photo that shows the Whittier site on a great day.
Sunny southern California – Whittier 2013
On the 16th and 17th September 2023 the Bill Nusz memorial speed meeting was held at Whittier Narrows, Bill Nusz was a very competitive CL speed flier and USAF pilot who tragically was killed in a training accident some years ago.
Speed flying in the USA tends to run slightly differently to the UK/English scene, in England we run against a record ratio so for example 100% of the Sport Jet record at 150.1 mph beats 98% of the Fast Jet record even though the Fast Jet would have flown at around 210 mph. where as in the USA the results are taken in each class rather than an overall score.
In the USA the CL speed meetings are broken down into individual classes rather than running against a record ratio. The USA also fly a number and style of classes that are not flown in England these are Perky Speed, Fox Speed and a number of Proto speed classes, these are mostly acceleration classes ie the recorded speed is taken over a number of laps from the moment of release, so very similar to Weatherman speed in England.
The big cross over class between the two countries is Sport Jet and North West Sport Jet, both of which are very similar, just that North West Sport Jet runs on longer lines for a slower rotation speed.
Whittier Narrows September 2023
From reports and photo’s of the meeting the weather does not look great for Southern California and this may have affected entries however it is encouraging that the CD Howard Doering reports that a lot of his time was taken helping the new guys get their equipment starting and running.
The results for the Bill Nusz memorial meeting are here.