March 3, 2025
Dear Team Members:
I wanted to give you some quick updates on matters related to the 2025 US Space Modeling Team:
Arizona Cup
This past weekend saw the Arizona Cup, the first FAI World Cup on the 2025 calendar. I know many of you attended this great event; thanks again to Contest Director Matt Steele for organizing it. Looks we had like 29 competitors from four countries. Results are available on CupNavigator (https://cupnavigator.com/sportEvent/1231).
CIAM Meeting
Also this past weekend, the CIAM Space Modeling Subcommittee met to prepare for the upcoming annual Plenary Meeting at the end of March.[1]
The next meeting of the CIAM is March 28-29. Chris Flanigan and I plan to attend and represent the NAR. Voting at that meeting is entirely in person. Prior to the in-person meeting, each of the Subcommittees meets to consider matters specific to their air sports, so as to streamline proceedings for the CIAM annual meeting. These meetings are being held now. The Space Model meeting was completed on Saturday, March 1.
There are presently 20 countries the Space Modeling Subcommittee: AUS, BUL, CAN, CRO, CZE, ESP, GBR, GER, ITA, LAT, MKD, NED, POL, ROU, SLO, SRB, SUI, SVK, UKR, and USA. (Russia and Belarus are currently on suspension). The chair is Zoran Pelagic. 14 of these countries showed up on Saturday, to consider 29 proposals from 7 countries. The US and Great Britain were most active with 9 submissions each.
Final voting was yesterday, and we should be able to report the final results shortly. Note that all these changes will go into effect starting January 1, 2026 sothey are not a factor for this year’s events including the 2025 World Spacemodeling Championships.
A few highlights:
- We tried to add an explicit allowance for active control (such as thrust vectoring) in S7 and were defeated.
- Pistons, which are currently disallowed in FAI altitude events, will be disallowed in all FAI events. While pistons are common practice in NAR competition, they are problematic for international competition due to the difficulty in enforcing proper legal usage.
- There were several proposals for updating the dimensions of S1 (sustainer) and S5 (scale altitude).
- In case of ties after three rounds, there will be a single flyoff round (unlimited duration) rather than the traditional 2-round approach. This should reduce the length of long contest days.
News on the World Championships in Serbia
At the meeting, the delegate from Serbia reported that they had received all necessary approvals for the 2025 World Championships and expect to issue the first bulletin this coming week. They are almost 3 months late, so we shall see. They did confirm the dates: August 22-28. If these hold, you should plan to arrive in Belgrade on or before Thursday, August 21 and to depart on Friday, August 29. The team will organize housing and transportation between these dates unless you elect otherwise. If this schedule holds, we will anticipate requiring the second team payments for seniors and supporters approximately 4 weeks after we receive and forward the contest bulletin.
Also, it looks like the leading bid for the 2027 World Championships is Poland.
Team Uniforms
We are just about ready to launch the portal for ordering your team uniforms. I expect to launch that coincident with the team bulletin release. When we do, you will have approximately four weeks to order your team uniforms. Once the orders are collected, we will process them in one batch and ship them to you individually. You can expect to receive your uniforms no later than June 1. As a reminder, there will be a team jacket, polo shirt, cap, and t-shirts. It’s mandatory that every team member have a jacket, one shirt, and a cap. You may order as many extra items as you desire, including for supporters or family members. But be sure to order everything in the original order, as we do not plan to stock a large quantity of extras so if you don’t order it in the main call, you probably won’t get it. No re-orders are planned.
Keep Practicing!
Above all, keep preparing and practicing for the competition. Since a number of the countries could not afford to travel to the US and thus missed out on the 2023 World Championships, expect them to be out in force and eager to make up for lost medals. This will be an extremely intense competition, and we want everyone to be at the top of their game.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to me, Basia, Coach Steve, or Coach Robin with questions.
Sincerely,
Coach John
[1] As a reminder, the FAI is the world body responsible for all official aerospace records and competitions in the world. Headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, the FAI has eight “Commissions”. One of the these is the Air Sports Commission, or CIAM. The CIAM has various subcommittees for each air sport – one of which is Space Modelling.
Countries join the FAI through their national aero club, which in the US is the National Aeronautics Association, or NAA. The NAA has various national Air Sport Organizations that belong to it, which roughly match the FAI’s structure. In CIAM, for example, the Academy of Model Aeronautics represents all US aeromodelling. The NAR works through the AMA to have the Space Modeling voice and vote on the CIAM. The CIAM meets once a year, in person, to consider rules changes, award sanctions for various world championships, select awards, and generally discuss issues and business related to the air sports it is responsible for.