Model Airplane News and Pacer Technology joi

by RICH URAVITCH l i t

UPPOSETHEYheld a scale meet !§§

and everyone came?! | | |That seems to havebeen what happenedfor Top Gun ' 9 0 , whichwas held in M e s a , AZ."Everyone" includedcompetitors, pit crews,spectators, vendors,media people, eventstaff and many others,who a l l — i f my infor-mal poll has any val id-i ty—went away satisfied, smarterand inspired.

For the second year, ModelAirplane News teamed up withPacer Technology (the Zappeople) to sponsor this "invitationonly" scale event, which is ;quickly gaining a reputation asone of the best scale competi -t ions. Conceived by our "SportySca le" columnist, Frank T iano,Top Gun provides an opportunityfor serious scale competitors whohave proven their abil ity to com-pete with those who have thesame credentials. The difficult jobof selecting contestants ishandled by a committee. Like thesalty old air boss in the movie ,said: "I've gotta give you yourdream shot. I'm gonna send you

40 MODEL AIRPLANE NEWS

The colorful F-86 of this mar's Top Gun, Ron Gilman,degrees, speed boards in

and externals still attached. It recovered nicely from acrossxvind gust.

• Below left to right: The Yellow Air-craft F-4E Phantom II entered by Ron-nie Kemp. Finish duplicates that of5,000th Phantom built. Powered by aDynamax/O.S. .90, it didn't lack inperformance. • High individual staticscore went to this beautiful F-4C builtby Larry Wolfe. Note L.E. slats andoperating landing/approach lights innose-gear door. Unfortunately, itcrashed on takeoff. • Luftwaffe fanswould have fallen in love with JackDorman's excellent rendition of theFocke-WulfFW-190 Wurger. Like oth-ers, it fell victim to crosswind.• Unusual and colorful subject is CliffTacie's tried-and-true Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM-81 tri-motor bomber.Considering the size and lightness ofthis entry, he did an outstanding job

PLACE123456789101112131415161718192021

NAME

..Ron Gilman

..Bob Violett

.. Jeff Foley .

..Hal Parenti

..Shailesh Patel

..Charles Nelson

..Terry Nitsch

..BobHanft

..Wayne Siewert

..Gene Barton

.. Bill McCallie

..Earl Aune

..Skip Mast

..Clifford Tacie

.. Dennis DeWeese....

..Bob Francis

..Frank Pring

..Neil Snodgrass

..Brian O'Meara

.. Mel Santmeyers

..Jim MacDonald

AIRCRAFTF-86F SabreF-86F SabreA6M3 ZeroRyan FireballP-47 ThunderboltWaco Cabin VKS-7FF-86F SabreNieuport 28C-1Mooney PFM3200A1H SkyraiderP-40NF4U-5N Corsair . .C-130 HerculesSavoia Marchetti SM-81ME-109GCurtiss SNC-1 Falcon...AT-6 HarvardMidwing SpecialA6M3-22ZeroBeech StaggerwingF6F-5 Hellcat

POINTS

174.10.. 174 01

172 33171 80171.17167.92

.. 167 64164 64164.13163 74163.16162 62

...161 34....161.31

161.29160.92160.91159.88159.10158.66158.21

up against the best. You'regoing to Top Gun"—and soit was for four days in theArizona desert.

Held at the Spook HillFlying Field—which ishome to the host club: theArizona Model Aviators—the first two days (Thursdayand Friday) were devoted to static judging and practice flying. The demanding (and usu-ally thankless) job of contest director was beautifully handled by Jim Deming, who wasably supported by club members. It soon became obvious that this group of R/Cers hasthe attention and support of the city administration. The field has two blacktop runways,

Bud Atkinson's mysterious Aeronca LB seemed like it was around just long enough for me to take this picture. Apparently, itwas withdrawn from competition before round one of flying—too bad, pretty airplane.

PLACE NAME AIRCRAFT POINTS TEAM ENTRIES AIRCRAFT POINTS

2223?4252627282930313?333435

Bob FreyTommy WeemesChuck CollierDavid VoglundJerry OrtegoEarl ThompsonDiego LopezRichard LewisChuck FullerDick HansenMike KulczykCharlie Chambers....Shane CramerJackDormanLarry WolfeDavid PlattJohnGuentherRonnie KempAl CaseyBud AtkinsonStephen Sauger

P-51D Mustang...Curtiss Hawk 75P-47D ThunderboltP-40EF-86F SabreWhirrawayAD-6 SkyraiderAD-6 SkyraiderStearmanAlbatrosDVASupermarine Attacker....P-51D MustangP-47D ThunderboltFW-190F-4C PhantomA6M5CZeroME-109F4F-4EMiG-31937AeroncaLB1936StinsonTri-motor

156.74156.48155.34153.46153.21149.03145.53145.44139.49129.94126.7098.7790.3888.5392.8589.8179.7575.4372.4570.15

a sheltered pit area, protected staging and flying boxes andjust about anything else fliers could want—except,perhaps, a way to prevent crashes!

Each competitor had a designated time in which his

12345

Gerry Garing, Bob PickneyBill Steffes, Nick ZiroliDonald Smith, Frank TianoBill Hempel, Sr., Bill Hempel, JrJohn Elliot, George Harlan

J-3 CubB-25 MitchellHawker Sea Fury...JU-87 StukaDH Rapide

...164.99

. 155.05

...135.51

...131.16129.34

entry would be static-judged, and he knew about it well before themeet. Judging was scheduled to allow a maximum of 15 minutes"in the circle." This system provides skilled judges with morethan enough time to evaluate a model, even at this level of compe-tition.

The same three judges scored every airplane and, when judgingwas complete, almost all the contestants agreed that it had beenfair—very tough, but fair. Larry Wolfe earned the highest individ-ual static score of the meet (92.85) for his flawless F-4C Phantom,which he made from a Jet Hangar Hobbies kit. The highest teamscore was that of George Harlan and John Elliot, who garnered94.59 points for their superb deHavilland Rapide. This was thefirst year for the "Team" category, and it seems to be a very effec-tive way for excellent builders and equally good fliers to joinforces for competition.

Static judging days provided an ideal opportunity for us to takea close look at the entries, as well to enjoy "hangar talk" withother builder/fliers. No doubt about it, the roster looked like a"Who's Who" in scale.

tou.•orge Harlan's DM Rapide—this unique entry earned the high static score of the meet, but it only manasugh competition!

43

• Above: In addition to allthe spectacular models onhand, TG attendees weretreated to fly-bys per-formed by these T-6s andBill Hane's P-51 Mustang,"Ho Hun." • Below: DonMuddiman of the CloudDancers Show Team givesus his answer to the shrink-ing flying-field problem: hisFlying Machine is hand-launched. ..vertically!

It's interesting that all five of the Teamentries were scratch-built designs, whilethose in the Expert, or individual, categorywere about evenly divided between kits andscratch-built models.

NO "DEAD AIR" TIMEThe flying portion of the competition began

on Saturday morning,right after Bill Hane'sflyby in his full-scaleP-51 "Ho Hun" whileour national anthemplayed. I didn't hear it,because my ears weresomewhat overwhelmedby the sound of the

Merlin in Bill's Mustang; it sang merrilyabout 10 feet in front of me! (I never refusethe offer of a ride!)

Back on the ground and at the site, Ilearned that the Wolfe F-4 had become acasualty and that there had been other "closeones." It seems that most of the problemswere engine related, perhaps owing to theelevated temperature and altitude, for whichsome hadn't made adjustments.

This first round of flying was followed bya "lunch break" program of demonstrationflying that was designed to entertain thecrowd. It entertained everyone, includingthe Top Gun participants themselves! Per-formances by Don Muddiman of the CloudDancers Show Team, Jerry Kitchin from

• Above: Always a consistent performer,Skip Must's C-130 finished in lucky 13thposition. • Left: Close-up of Skip's"Hcrky Bird" shoivs realism typical ofall the Top Gun entries. Const Guardscheme is simple, colorful and attractive.

44 MODEL AIRPLANE NEWS

When they're ready to• • f i n i s h their latest crea-tion, scale modelers are allconfronted by the samedilemma: "Which full-scaleairplane scheme should 1duplicate?" The decisionusually involves a varietyof questions: is it colorful?

£&

JUS1appealing?will it"wow"thejudges? willit be difficulttoaccom-plish? is

there sufficient documenta-tion available? RonGilman was faced withthese questions when hechose the Skyblazers colorscheme for his Top Gun-winning F-86. Perfectlyexecuted, it even had theactual pilot's name on its

COINCIDENCIcanopy skirt. "Capt. JimReynolds," it read.

Jim Reynolds flew leadwith the Skyblazers inEurope in the '50s, went onto F-100s, and in 1962, wasan advisor in Vietnam.He was involved in anaccident near Saigon, andthe injuries he sustainedleft him confined to awheelchair until his deathin September '87.

Throughout the four daysof Top Gun activity, manyspectators saw Ron's

E • RIGHT?replica of Jim's plane andmarveled at its appearance.A local from right there inMesa (site of Top Gun)showed even more interestthan most of the otherspectators. At the end of theevent, she was introducedto Ron by "Choni" Irvine—an ex-fighter jock who hadbeen a squadron mate ofJim's. The interestedspectator's name?—Jimmey Anne Reynolds,one of Jim's five children!

California, and the local Arizona Show Team had specta-tors on their feet and cheering. I've seen a lot of great free-style, but this was the best ever. When you see Don's littleairplane seemingly trying to consume itself as it executesmaneuvers, you wonder how it holds together, and Jerry'sflying is among the smoothest as he duplicates full-scalemaneuvers with his 1/3-scale Extra 230.

Many had their first views of high-performance jetswhen Jerry Caudle and Terry Nitsch did their 200+mphroutine with their beautifully finished Violett Vipers. Wayup there in excitement quotient was the show put on by Ari-zonan Ken Trainor with his hairy-chested, fire-breathingLockheed P-38. High-speed aileron rolls right on the deck,

combined with the synch-sound only a twin can provide,gave the crowd even more to cheer for. One thing's certain:there was no "dead air" time at this gathering!

ROUND IIBy the second round (Saturday afternoon), most of thegremlins had disappeared, nerves had calmed, and we sawsome excellent flying. The fliers had really done theirhomework by selecting maneuvers and options that werenot only prototypical, but also looked good!

I saw a lot: Bob Hanft's Nieuport 28 flying at a real scalespeed—not warp 3; Chuck Fuller's Super Stearman belch-ing smoke and using the engine and the prop in the vertical,

ABOEE left: Charlie Chamber* was having a really tough time with the engine in his award-winiiingdid a remarkable job of stretching the dead-stick glide, but he ran out of air speed, whieh causcil the lAboce right: jim McDonald finished in 21st place with his wcll-c\ccutcd Grumman 161 -5 Hel cet bu

us Doll" I'-

- 5Hellcat built trom the Hodman set

. \bove left to right: • Curtiss Hawks—a generation apart. The Model 75 by Tomiin/ Weenies formates on the "E" Model of Dave Voglund. Even/once in a while the photographer gets lucky! • All-around nice guy Tommy Weemes used film covering to simulate the highly polished aluminumskin on his Curtiss Hawk 75. This technique is becoming more popular. • A real shame—Chuck Fuller's Super Stearman after its crash. Appar-ently a horizontal-stabilizer brace failed, and this allowed the left half of the stab to fold. • Some of the demo flights were as spectacular as thecompetition. Notc the nose and main gear on Ken Trainor's Baker P-38 deflecting sideways under the load. Right main tire is outrunning airframe!• Brian O'Mcara...what else can we sa y? It took no prompting from the crowd to get Ken Traiuor down in the weeds 'with his smoke-equippedLightning. • Ultimate team scale winner, the 1/3scale 1-3 Cub built by Bob I'ickney and convincingli/ flown by Gerry Gariug. Mary Lou main-tains a watchful eye at right wing tip. • Last year's 2nd-place finisher, Xeil Snodgrass, could only manage 18th this year with his MidwingSpecial. Flown extremely well; smoke added to realism. • As the sun sets in the West, Mel Santmeyers does some final engine tweaking on theOS. 240 4-stroke in his Huron Beech Staggerwing. He placed 20th.

46 MODEL AIRPLANE NEWS

• Above left: Chuck Collier's P-47 applies a little too much "brake" on landing roll out and noses over. The cowlhasn 't yet touched, but the prop is gone, and the engine is still running. • Above: Denny DeWeese's Me-109G stretchesits legs to meet the runway, as Bob Frey and his recovery team watch from the background. • Above right: TheTeam entry of SteffeslZiroli was this B-25 built from Nick Ziroli plans. Its British "desert finish" scheme was well-suited to the Mesa, AZ, flying site, and it placed 2nd in Team.

and the wings the rest of the time; ShaileshPatel's Jug executing the meet's most scale-liketakeoffs, approaches and landings; and Bob Vi-olett, with his F-86, performing a routine thatcould have been taken from the old movie,"Sabre Jet." I also saw (but could have donewithout) the crashes of Charlie Chambers' Dal-las Doll P-51, Jack Dorman's FW-190, ChuckFuller's Stearman, Dave Platt's A6M-5C Zeroand Steve Sauger's Stinson Tri-Motor. Theremust have been literally years of work behindthese masterpieces, and I hope some of themwill fly again. The competitors didn't know itthen—none of us did—but the best flying con-ditions of the meet would, after round two, behistory.

TOP BUNS?Since the Arizona Golf Resort was the head-quarters for the event and most of the contest-ants were staying there, it was natural that Sat-urday night's gala banquet be held there. About250 of us joined in the festivities, which in-cluded a great meal, the presentation of awards

from industry supporters, some good-natured"roasting" and special recognition of certainindividuals. One of these awards was bestowedby the "Ladies of Top Gun" (who prefer to re-main anonymous!) to none other than thanBrian O'Meara. He won the coveted, and much-sought-after, "Top Buns" award for his accom-plishments in this highly competitive area. Thephoto shows his entry. Our congratulations andadmiration to you, Brian.

That was the flavor of a most enjoyable eve-ning, but it was soon recognized that the criticalrounds were mere hours away, so ZZZZZ...

BATTLING THE BREEZESomething told me that Sunday's weather mightbe a little different from Saturday's. When Iarrived at the field, things looked normalenough—just a slight breeze down the run-way—but as the day went on, the breeze inten-sified, and to make things worse, it startedblowing almost directly across the runway.

We then had a chance to see which fliers hadspent a lot of time practicing under adverse con-

ditions. After sizing-up their position andpotential, some wisely declined to fly and

Top: Ever notice the flying style/position of various fliers? JerryKitchin watches his Extra 230from a "solid foundation"!Above: The smoke trail relativeto the position of Jerry Kitchin's1/3-scale Extra 230 gives an indi-cation of the wild maneuvers heflew during the demo part of theevent. He sure has magic fingers!

SPAWARDBest MilitaryBest CivilianHigh StaticCritics'ChoiceBest Color and MarkingsBest Engineering AchievementBest CraftsmanshipTop Buns

ECIAL AWARDSRECIPIENT/AIRCRAFT

.... Charlie Chambers/P-51G.Harlan/deH Rapide .

.... 6 Harlan/deH Rapide

.... Diego Lopez/A-1 SkyraiderRon Gilman/F-86FRick Lewis/A-1 Skyraider...Bob Pickney/J-3 CubBrian O'MearaTFIanker"...

SPONSORTop GunTop GunTop GunTop Gun

..Aeroloft DesignRobartMfg.

Grifhold Tool. Ladies of T G

Wing-fold mechanism on Gene Barton's A-l Skyraider,which was one of three on hand. Sister ships by RickLewis and Diego Lopez won "Engineering Achievementg p AUGUST 1990 47

Above left: Just breaking ground is the newest from Mike Kulczyk's hangar—a Viojett-powered Super-marine Attacker. It's one of very few tail-dragger jets ever produced.Above right: "Big John" Elliot, a scale star from the West, fires up his Cox Fairchild 24. Its size wasa disadvantage in this competition, so "B.J." teamed up with George Harlan and the beautiful DM.Rapide.

gave up their chance of placing. Theybecame spectators like the rest of us, butthey went home with intact airplanes.

Cliff Tacie really impressed me. Wedon't hear a lot about him, but he flew hisSavoia-Marchetti SM-81 extremely well.Despite its lightness (it weighs only 15pounds and was one of the lightest air-planes there), his mandatory, slow flybyswere straight down the runway, eventhough the airplane was "crabbed" about30 degrees into the crosswind.

Practice, practice, practice! Most of thefliers had adjusted their flying styles, and some excellent scores were carded. Thelarger, heavier airplanes obviously did better in the strong wind, so many pilots im-proved on their previous day's scores. The lst-place Team of Bob Pickney and GerryGaring—flying an exquisite, 1/3-scale J-3—managed to do this. Plagued by difficultieson Saturday, they rallied on Sunday and eventually prevailed over the Steffes and Ziroli

B-25 by nearly 10 points.At the end of the scored flights, a quick look

at the Scoreboard showed that the results.. would be close. How close? How about .09 of

a point! That was the final difference betweenMr. Top Gun and his Best Man. Ron Gilman

, out-scored Bob Violett by the narrowest mar-gin, but I don't think Bob really minded, as

Two of scale's "movers and shakers": Top Gun'sFrank Tiano (left) and ScanMaster's Harris Lee.

, 1 op photo: Hal Parenti makes a last-minute check of his "turn and burn," mixed-pro-pulsion Ryan FR-1 Fireball, which earned 4th place in Expert. Ducted fan inside; glowengine up front. The static-judging stand worked well. • Middle: Diego Lopez's A-lSkyraider -was finished in Vietnam-era markings. This outstanding model received theTop Gun "Critics' Choice" award, and it was well-deserved. • Bottom: Could be someA.F. gunnery range, circa 1952, as Top Gun Ron Gilman's F-86 blasts across the desert!

The Australian Commonwealth Whirraway wasEarl Thompson's entry. This airplane weighs 26pounds and is powered by a Zenoah G-62.

48 MODEL AIRPLANE NEWS

Newest in a long line of successful C-130"Herky Birds" from Skip Mast. Its four K&B3.5s ran flawlessly during many flights, in-cluding one for "live" TV. MAN plan no. 12811is available so you can build your own!

they were both flying F-86 Sabres builtfrom Bob's kits. Part of Bob's 2nd-placeprize package was—guess what?Bingo!—an F-86 kit that he had do-nated! I guess he figured that he reallydidn't need another one, so he awardedit to the Arizona Model Aviators club inrecognition of their outstanding job of

Some details modelers put into their TG air-planes is incredible...and they fly them, too!Jack Dorman lifted the gun deck on his Platt-designed FW-190 to show us the twin cannons.

making their facility available and giv-ing their support. This prize was supple-mented by a donation from HerschelWorthy (national sales director forPacer), who donated $1,000-worth ofZap products to the club.

The table on which the awards weredisplayed seemed to sag under theweight of the trophies, plaques, kits, ra-dios and accessories donated by thesponsors and members of the industry;their total value was over $20,000! Ev-eryone agreed that the event was one ofthe best in which they had ever partici-pated.

Plans are already under way for TopGun '91: potential sites are being exam-ined, and the selection committee isprobably looking at a list of possiblecompetitors. The location will change;the list of who's invited might change;but the spirit, enthusiasm and excitementof Top Gun won't. See you next year! •

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AUGUST 1990 49