Ultimate Indoor Free Flight Model Plane - F1D - Part 1

It is amazing sometimes what a small world we live in when it comes to the connections we make throughout our life and especially true now with the Internet.  This post is about the F1D class of indoor free flight model airplane which is the pinnacle class of competition for indoor rubber powered free flight model airplanes. Myself I have never built a F1D model or even seen one fly but my connection goes back to 2002 when I read that US Junior F1D team had won the gold at the world championships in Romania. Their start in model aviation had begun with the Science Olympiad event Wright Stuff that is held in many schools, I had helped students with Wright Stuff airplanes.

 What I had read about their win was very brief and I wanted to know more, someone told me I should write an article and tell their story.  I did not really feel qualified but many people would help me write this story Thanks to the Internet and the telephone.  The list of these people is at the bottom of my article, “Right Stuff for the Gold”.   

Now move ahead to last year 2012 when I learned of a documentary film, Float that was being produced about the F1D event with one of the young men from US Junior F1D team of 2002 as the co-producer, Ben Saks.  Like many people I donated for this film which should be shown September 2013 at film festivals.

Young Ben Saks with Wright Stuff Model

Move ahead again to 2013 and I would make contact with Rob Romash by email who was the USA Team Manager for the World F1D Championship in 2002.  Rob has been active with model aviation as a hobby and works in the toys industry.  I had mentioned to Rob how I had seen so much interested in the simple rubber powered free flight airplanes I build and he thought I should give some exposure to the fascinating model airplane that is the F1D.  

Additional Resources

Vignette # 1 Video Used in Making of Float - Might Not be in Final Video


Link to West Baden Video of F1D  - 2 minutes

Link 1 Hour Video of F1D at West Baden that an AMA Video Tape

Bill Kuhl
http://ideas-inspire.com

The Collectionary  - search for all types of models