hard engine to engine mid-air collision
CD Frank "Smack Daddy" Neubert, Wayne
Voyles 3rd place.
morning but as the sun peaked through the clouds it warmed quickly to the 50s. Winds were under 5 mph during the contest.
24 pilots began the contest and after 8 rounds, 14 finished it. The GMA flying site is one of the best in the Southeast US and
boasts a massive flying area. The combat today was conducted in the "big sky" of the field. Planes were flown higher and farther
away than we often see in combat, which helped keep the furballs to fewer than normal and helped keep carnage down to
acceptable levels.
Many pilots were able to make it through the contest with a single plane. Larry Killingsworth. Mark Cippolone, and Steve Jurick
and others all managed to make it through all eight rounds with a single plane. I would estimate that 6 of the pilots made it
through the event with a single plane.
By the sixth round the fliers who had only one plane had dropped out and the contest was down to 14 pilots. Frank "Smack
Daddy" Neubert, CD'ing his first contest (and doing it quite well) called the pilots together before round seven and recast the
matrix for two heats in the final two rounds.
The engines were predominantly OS FX .25s, and as many of the planes had standard mufflers as had mousse cans. About a
third of the planes were Bandits or Go Devils provided built by Stan Erwin with a few Desperado's thrown in. Another third were
derivatives of the Larry Killingsworth/Wayne Voyles "Shark". The final one third included some Avengers, Cobras and self
designed and built planes.
A big hand should be given to Larry Killingsworth and Stan Erwin for either building the planes flown by the GMA club members or
providing them a big hand in getting them airborne.
Only one pilot used a bladder fuel system, all others used tanks. The props were mostly Master Airscrew 9X4s, but a few APC
9X4s were seen and some fliers flew cut down versions of the MA 9X4, painted blue with orange tips in an attempt to increase
speeds.
Cobra, with flexing motor
mount using aluminum rails
Shark, uses a different wing
than Larry and Buzz
Shark
on the number and frequency of
furballs, but they certainly
happened. You can the action on
the left. There were times when the
airplanes were so close they were
almost touching.
temperatures seemed to make them more brittle and subject to being broken. The fuselage in the left
most photo is a prototype Desperado and was hit hard from the side. The fuse in the middle is a
Shark that has been dirtnapped hard. This same damage was shown on another Shark later in the
contest. Shown in the third photo is a Go Devil, the forerunner of the Desperado showing how the
fuselage is constructed. A very broken Go Devil shown on the right. It had the glass spars in its
wing broken upon impact, something not uncommon today, and the fuse survived with only the
engine needing to be cleaned up before it could be flown again.
line of adhesives specially designed for RC Modeling. Buzz Killingsworth looks on as Cameron Smith does a control check on his Shark.
The third photo is a close up of the business end of an Indiana Cobra. Chris Dover's prototype Desperado sits awaiting flight in the far
right photo
safe and a pleasure to attend.
