The Soaring League of North Texas is one of the oldest RC soaring clubs in North America, chartered with the Academy of Model Aeronautics as club #1957. Membership runs somewhere between twenty and fifty pilots depending on the year. Officers are elected annually and work from a set of bylaws that predates most of the current membership.
About SLNT
What we fly
Our monthly contests are FAI F5J: climb on an electric motor, shut it off, then it's you, the air, and the clock. The higher you launch, the more the scoring discounts your flight — which is the whole game. F5L is the lighter day: two-meter wood, electric launch, real landing tape.
We retired the winch from monthly contests in 2022. The club still owns and maintains two winch trailers, and they still come out from time to time when somebody asks.
How the club runs
Sailplane pilots are a laid-back crowd and SLNT is no exception, but a club that borrows fields needs some structure. The CD is air boss on contest day. Everything else runs on common sense, a perfect safety record we'd like to keep, and treating other people's fields like we want to be invited back — which, so far, we have been.
We follow AMA flight-safety guidelines with local notes where a field needs them. AMA membership is required to fly a contest or use club equipment, and that one isn't negotiable; it's the condition of being an AMA club.
At the field
- The CD runs the day. No non-contest flying during a contest without their OK, and everyone attends the safety brief.
- Have your current AMA card on you.
- Everyone's on 2.4 GHz, so there's no frequency control to worry about.
- Launching aircraft have right of way. Stay clear of the launch path.
- Join a thermal turning the same direction as the plane that found it.
- Don't drive onto the field, except to set up winches.
- Don't fly low over the pits.
- No alcohol at the field — it's the fastest way to lose a flying site. Save it for after.
- Pack out what you bring in, and then some.
- Park with the other cars, not in the flying area.
- No gas models. Electrics are fine for fun flying.
On-Wing
New pilots get assigned a pilot who'll teach them, and it's free with membership.
