Ron Thomas is FF  Power Grand Champion having won six of the eight events that counted towards the prize.

Bob Hawkins was the RC Glow and Ignition Champion and Jay Burkart the Electric Champion.

 

On the Tomboy front, 14 flyers posted times, although it seemed like there were maybe 20-25 Tomboys at the field.  Even Bud Romak had a Tomboy built--but the Russian Millski diesel in the power department wouldn't cooperate.  Even after we turned it over to the prominent English model engineering firm of (John) Maddaford, (Bob) Close and (Brian) Martin, each of whom has been starting and running small diesels for all of their modeling lives, there was no joy.   Apparently the Russkies chose to use ABC construction on this particular version of the Mills .75.   Bud had just bought the engine a couple of weeks ago and as delivered NIB, the piston squeaked at the top, but didn't have any compression below that.   I suppose if you put it on a starter, you could get it broken in enough so that you could hand start it--but ABC is  a pretty dumb way to do a long stroke small diesel.   Anyway, even after we brought in Allan Laycock as our "Australian consultant", we couldn't get it  started.

 

There were some long Tomboy flights, and as unfortunately seems to be the case each year, disputes about the rules.   Bob Langdon put up a 29 minute and 30 second flight or thereabouts--but his timer chased with him on a motorcycle, and there was a protest about that.   Anthony Close of Canada had about a 20 minute OOS flight where his timer stayed at the launch site and was given the first place plaque.  In any event, most of the Tomboy flyers seemed to have a good time, posting flights in the 5 to 12 minute range without a lot of undue grousing.

 

The Miss Seldom Seen concours event brought out a lot of interesting models.  Bob Harper won the event with a spark ignition powered Hurricane.

Wait, Bob, was this before El Dorado dried up?

Bob Langdon had a Streamlined Barn Door from one of the Zaic yearbooks--and actually put up a couple of decent flights with it.  Steve Roselle had a big Fiske Hanley that he was still working on (I think he was refurbishing an old model and hadn't completed installation of the power system).

 

Bill Booth Sr. won the Spirit of SAM concours event with his Comet Clippper.   It had a great yellow silk covering job.

 

 

The new Speed 400 event was flown as a "semi" mass launch event. There were 18 entries on Tuesday morning.  Nevels and others will have shots of the  group of flyers assembled for the photo op.  We all trundled out to the flight line and lined up--then Steve Roselle walked down the line giving the launch signal to each flyer in turn.  It took about 2 minutes to get all the birds in the air (it was a long line).  Allan Laycock flew the brand new Scientific Coronet that I'd built for the event--and had a flight time of 9 minutes and 15 seconds which put the ship at 9th place--squarely in the middle of the pack.

 

The Brits also had some interesting models on the FF side.  Brian Martin brought over a Kanga Kub (an old Colonel Bowden design) powered by a Thor engine.  In fact that particular engine had been in a Kanga Kub built by the late Kenny Sykora almost 25 years ago.  After Kenny died, the motor wound up in the hands of Jim Crockett (he of the "Crockett Hooks" for rubber motors).   When Jim heard that Brian was going to build a Kanga Kub, he sent the Thor motor to England for Brian to put in the Kub.   The Kub flew nicely--done up in the Colonel's  traditional white color with the letters  C E B on the side in red.

 

Anthony Close also had a Petrides Flying Midget and a Wigdor Wasp on hand--each powered with a small diesel.    Brian Martin and John Maddaford also spent a good deal of time flying a Trenton Terror.

 

Charlie Bruce had his third Goldberg Valkyrie out at the field for its initial flights.  This one was powered with a Brown Jr.  Takeoffs were majestic--and slow--and the glide was superb.   He's done it up in yellow silk.

 

Brad Levine from Los Angeles brought up his Boehle Giant--full size--i.e. 14 foot wing span.  It had a blue fuselage and orange wing.  There were several occasions on Thursday morning when both the Giant and the Valkyrie were in the air at once.  Quite a sight to see.  

 

 

Ray Heit, designer of the Bay Ridge Mike, Scrappy, Scram and Thermal Magnet (among other airplanes) spoke at the banquet. He gave a nice talk and was available to answer questions.    He and Sal Taibi flew in the TAMBE club in Brooklyn during the mid 30's.  Ray's a good designer--but was asked if he'd had much contest success during those years. He didn't seem to recall much contest success on his part.

 

Bob Laybourne, former Midwest Vice President for SAM and a fellow who had been Contest Manager or Co-Contest Manager for several SAM Champs got inducted into the SAM Hall of Fame as was Bill Northrop.

 

We should have fairly accurate results for the SAM Champs ready to print in SAM Speaks in plenty of time for the publishing deadline for the November December issue of Speaks.

 

Mike Myers

Aussie competitor and SAM web site contributor, Trevor Boundy ( http://www.boundy39.com/ ) holds the splint while his flying buddy wraps the racer tape in an attempt to overcome the effects of radio gremlins. It is frequently tough to make the transition from your home radio system to a borrowed foreign one and this one bit bad.

Definitely not foreign, Californian Don Bekins, perennial gas/ignition flyer and former SAM President, is in foreign territory flying an electric powered Trenton Terror in Friday's RC event.

Perennial electric event winner, Jack Hiner knows how to fly electric Texaco. This flight was over one hour. He brings his own pillow. Next year's electric rules should halve the flight times. Note the 2.4 GHz radio with its small antenna. These were very popular at the Champs.

SAM 76 flyer Dick Bartkowski with his '36 Copeland Wakefield for the Electric Wakefield event. Maybe he should have entered this unusual model into the "Miss Seldom Seen" contest too.

Dale Tower with his electric Wakefield, this one is a Smoothie.

All around SAM free flight and RC flyer and organizer of the Southwest Regionals SAM competition and supplier of SAM kits, Al Lidberg, examines the results of the cylinder departure on his Ohlsson in the Ohlsson 23 event. Time to send it back to George Tallent Al!

More material when it arrives. Dave Harding, SAM webmaster.