Fly RC The Leading Radio Control Airplane Magazine

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THE COMPETITION Top Gun has always been at the forefront of the evolution of scale competition since its inception in 1989. In the beginning, there was only one classification for the entrants: they were all experts with great skill in both building and flying their models. Within a few years, the idea of team scale was born whereby a pair of modelers would pool their talent into a combined effort and be in competition with other teams at the event. In 1995, Frank Tiano recognized the growing number of expert modelers who could not only build and fly their own models, but could design them as well. The designer class was born and it is now called the Master class. (continued)

This 1/5 scale F-16 from China competed in Team Scale.

Caller Shiela Nitsch retrieving husband Terry’s F-100 after a flight.

One of three BVM Kingcat sportjets that performed in the halftime show.

Bryce Watson won the “best ProAm model” award with his F-5 Tiger II.

JETS AT TOP GUN

Turbine Jets have made a huge impact in the Top 10 placements of all classes. The sound, available power and reliability of these powerplants, combined with the typical high quality kits available to the modelers make jets a good choice for scale competition. Jets generally have a higher wing loading than most prop planes and handle wind and crosswind conditions somewhat better than the lighter propeller aircraft.

One manufacturer in particular does extremely well at Top Gun, and that is Bob Violett Models. The F-100 from BVM is one of those kits in which hundreds of hours of research have been conducted before kit production, making the model almost perfect in outline right from the factory. The quality of the kit is obvious when you look at how the various F-100s performed this year. Some will say that it is unfair for a particular type of model to have an advantage over others. In order to level the playing field, the Top Gun board decided to give all composite jets a 2% penalty in flight scores. This rule seems to work really well, making the fight for the top positions extremely close and exiting.

T O P G U N W I N N E R S

EXPERT CLASS Name	Aircraft	Scale	Span (in)	Weight (lbs)	Engine	Radio	State	Static	Total
1 Terry Nitsch	F-100-F Super Sabre	1/7	70 in	36 lbs	AMT 450	JR	OH	95.750	190.606
2 Gustavo Campana	L-159 Albatross	1/6	65 in	30 lbs	RAM 1000	JR	Argentina	95.250	188.473
3 Al Kretz	Spitfire MK 14	1/5	88 in	26 lbs	Moki 1.8	Futaba	AL	92.750	186.917
4 David Wigley	Hawker Tempest MK 5	1/5	6 in	45 lbs	Quadra 75	Futaba	NY	93.583	185.708
5 Lee Rice	F4U Corsair	1/5	93 in	32 lbs	G-85 Twin	Airtronics	TX	93.167	185.542
6 Sean Cassidy	F6F-5 Hellcat	1/6	80 in	29 lbs	Zenoah G-45	Futaba	IL	93.583	185.250
7 Jack Diaz	Rafale	1/7	60 in	35 lbs	Jet Cat	Graupner	Venezuela	92.417	184.170
8 Tom Smith	Bf-109G	1/4	101 in	40 lbs	3W- 75i	Futaba	FL	92.000	182.417
9 Rene Alvarez	L-39 Albatross	1/5	80 in	32 lbs	RAM 1000	JR	FL	92.333	181.799
10 Bill McCallie	P-39D	1/5	80 in	24 lbs	Moki 1.8	JR	FL	89.667	181.167

MASTER CLASS Name	Aircraft	Scale	Span (in)	Weight (lbs)	Engine	Radio	State	Static	Total
1 Bob Violett	F-100-F Super Sabre	1/7	70 in	36 lbs	AMT 450	JR	FL	94.667	188.870
2 Ramon Torres	B-55 Beech Baron	1/5	92 in	22 lbs	YS63 (2)	Futaba	FL	94.167	188.625
3 David Hayes	Rockwell Trush	1/4	107 in	21 lbs	Saito 180	JR	NC	95.583	188.416
4 Dick Konkle	Aeronca 7AC	1/3	141 in	35 lbs	Kavan twin	JR	GA	95.917	186.417
5 David Johnson	Albatross	1/4	84 in	15 lbs	Brison 2.4	Futaba	CT	95.083	186.375
6 Richard Feroldi	Albatross DV	1/3	117 in	35 lbs	Sacks 5.8	Futaba	FL	94.167	186.167
7 Lloyd Roberts	Lockheed Vega	1/6	84 in	15 lbs	O.S. 160 twin	JR	ME	96.667	185.750
8 David Platt	Val	1/5	114 in	27 lbs	Moki 2.1	JR	FL	92.250	182.833
9 Tom Polapink	Pfalz DIII	1/5	74 in	15 lbs	O.S. 120	Airtronics	NY	92.750	182.208
10 Hal Parenti	B-25 Mitchell	1/9	84 in	17 lbs	Enya 53 (2)	Airtronics	IL	92.083	126.041

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In an effort to give less-experienced or new scale modelers a chance to compete, this year’s Top Gun added the new class known as ProAm. While fundamentally the same as Fun Scale, ProAm includes modelers that have the skills to fly a model yet lack the experience and skill necessary to build and compete in the Expert or Master classes.

The ProAm modeler need only show minimal documentation to receive the maximum of 25 static points. In this way, models that would not fare well in normal competition have just as good a chance as those that could, or in some cases have been in real competition.

As its name implies, ProAm is open not only to the beginner: It is open to those modelers whose model has previously been in competition but is no longer competitive or legal due to the three-year limit.

Continued
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