Patrick Lanfri has been promoting combat in North Florida for a year and his efforts are paying off.  John Hall of Talahassee attended his first combat contest ever flying a Lanier Slasher in Open B.  David Sharpe of Clearwater, Florida (near Tampa) had his own design Open B plane and did well with it. Registration opened at 8am and the pilots meeting was held at 9:30.  Contest Management decided to run two heats each in SSC and Open B.  Since there were 9 fliers entered in each class the heats would have either 4 or 5 pilots up at one time. In SSC the first heat of round one Larry Killingsworth put up a blistering 568 point score, and this was just the start of his excellent day.  There were no "newbie" pilots in SSC, all were seasoned competitors and Don Pruitt, Don Grissom, SLAM, and Drewjet were flying strong.   That left Patrick, Ron and I trailing the rest of the pack but putting up a valiant effort. The only new designs at this contest were Larry and Waynes "built up" HDPE fuselages seen on the front page of this web site. The Georgia contingent all had strong running engines.  Don Pruitt had to adjust down the end point of his transmitter as did Larry Killingsworth to stay under the 17,500 rpm limit.  This was surprising considering the mid to high 80s temp and very high humidity.  Lou Melancon had to drop down to 5% nitro PowerMaster and still had to adjust down throttle linkage to make the limits. The wind blew from our backs or quartered from back and side all day. No one experienced launch problems and most of the designs were very quick. SSC has really not taken root in Florida but Open B continues to enjoy popularity.  New contestants David Sharpe, John Hall, and Bo Joiner each had a different approach to the contest. On Friday during practice John Hall was given a Kentucky Mousse can to put on his OS 25FX and he immediately noticed a significant gain in rpm which led to more pulling power through the turns.  John had to change from a four ounce tank to a six ounce to make time, he made the change overnight again thanks to the generosity of Patrick Lanfri. Bo Joiner is a member of the Gateway RC club and he was flying a Ron Horton Wasp.  Bo was having fun all day.  I look forward to seeing him at more contests in the future David Sharpe has made a name for himself on the RCCA forums with his scale planes.  At this contest he had a unique Open B design that featured a high aspect ratio wing and gutter pipe fuse powered by an OS .25 FSR.  It was well thought out and performed well. I want to thank Patrick for organizing the contest.  Bob you did a great job as CD and line marshall.  Carol you made a grueling day both pleasant and classy.  Joe thank you for all the hours you put in judging for all of us.  You Gateway RC folks are great.