Another season passes bur we went out in style

This past Saturday was pretty cool as we had our final combat contest in New Jersey. We had seventeen entrants which is a bit each flying 4 rounds. It took us right up into sunset. Flying alongside of a small runway was quite exhilarating. It's hard to stay focused when you have a T-6 Texan running up it's engines and getting in some afternoon airtime. I took a pic as the Texan was flying over our circle giving us a wing wave. Unfortunately, my phone camera doesn't allow for zooming in. There was 1/2A combat and speed limit. The 1/2A is always enjoying but if there's one thing I find most annoying is the problems that occur when it's contest time. I can run these engines weekend to weekend and not experience one problem. Go to a contest and try it. I had 3 bladders all brand new pop one right after the other. Later, I discovered a small sharp piece of Gorilla glue has made it's way into my fuel compartment. I didn't place and this left my son to try for the win.

Although he was giving it his all, he just couldn't defend the title he had last year and it was taken by one of the senior flyers. Somewhat reminded me of the turtle and the hare. Speed limit was next which is basically any engine bushed or ball bearing engine up to .40 size displacement and the plane can't exceed 75 mph on 60 ft lines. Lately, most flyers have been using the newer synthetic braided line, Spectra, Spiderwire in the 100 lb test. I love it and it really takes the abuse. I usually ruin a set of lines per contest and it's getting a bit costly. This newer material is really interesting to use and makes the experience much more enjoyable knowing that match didn't cost you a $20 set of lines.

Something that has never happened before was that my son and I were paired against each other. This was odd but the process of elimination through the scores left us to fly against each other. Both planes got into the air and combat was ordered after a few laps and we were 180 deg apart. The match was getting heavily heated and resulted in my typical misjudgement which resulted in me eating his elevator. This didn't stop him though and the plane still flew out the match. I have a picture of the elevator half missing. I have no idea why the pic was resized smaller. We nicknamed his plane "Iron Mike" due to him generally pulverizing planes. Although midairs are greatly discouraged, it happens. If both planes stay in the air without incident for the entire match each pilot receives an additional 200 pts while each second in the air is one point. Each streamer cut is 100 with a maximum award of 300 points unless you take the knot off of the string which only allows for a max of 100. points. Ken