Free Flight SportBy Don DeLoach | dadl72@gmail.comAs seen in the August 2026 issue of Model Aviation.UNTIL THE EARLY 1940S, it was common for Free Flight (FF) models to fly out of sight while in thermals. In fact, it was rare for modelers to even give such flights a second thought. According to legendary AMA Hall of Famer Chet Lanzo, "We just became fast builders." Chet once wrote that a typical contest weekend meant arriving with twice as many models as he left with. By the mid-1940s, with increasing model performance and the institution of maximum (or max) flight times in AMA contests,…
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