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e’ve now held half a dozen SAM Champs on El Dorado Dry Lake near Boulder City. When the site is good, it’s very, very good.


But this year’s Champs featured unsettled weather. Out of five days, we had a day and a half of good flying weather. The rest of the time involved heavy rain, strong wind, tremendous thunder and lightning shows, plus a hail storm. But there were periods when you could fly


on virtually every day. Nevada locals tell us that the best chance for good flying weather is the second week of October, and we’ve usually scheduled for that week. In fact, El Dorado Dry Lake had great flying weather with no rain in the second week of October this year. But the 2011 Champs was held on the first week of October. Oops! Despite the weather, contestants and


their friends had a good time. Contest man- agement moved the Champs headquarters hotel to the Hacienda in Boulder City. The Hacienda is both closer to the field and a bit smaller than the hotels we’ve used in the past. The weak economy has hit Las Vegas hard. The hotel staff showed they were glad to see us, since we represented about 50% of their guests that week. The intermittent bad weather kept the Champs attendees in and around the hotel, which gave us more time to meet and greet old friends in a friendly and relaxed man- ner. Take a look at the goofy grin of your columnist holding his compressed air mod- el. Happy smiles like that abounded on the faces of the Champs attendees. Snow White is the old time modeler’s ver-


sion of the great white whale in Moby Dick—every one has heard of it, but durned few of us have ever seen it. But Snow White was sitting on the field on Monday morning, and was soon up in the air for a test flight. Joe Raspante, of Brooklyn, designed and built the original Snow White. It won the 1936 Berryloid Trophy (a model airplane “beauty contest”). After winning the trophy, Raspante hung


by mike myers You can reach Mike Myersat 911 Kilmary Lane, Glendale, CA 91207, or via e-mail at mikemyersgln@charter.net


The boys line up for the Compressed Air mass launch “photo op” on Friday morning at the Champs. PHOTOGRAPHY: MIKE MYERS


the model in his radio repair shop for all to see over the years. Many admired the air- plane, but Raspante never published plans for the model. In August 1982, Model Builder magazine published an article—and a set of plans—on Snow White. The original Snow White had been disassembled, piece by piece. Each piece was then drawn on the plan. Many of us read the article and looked at the plan and thought “too complicated”. But Rich Minnick of Santa Rosa, Califor-


nia looked at the plan, and decided to build Snow White. He told me that when he got close to completing the bird he realized he’d taken on a tough task. Rich finished Snow White in fine style, and went off to his first ever SAM Champs. Minnick’s Snow White was the Concours Grand Champion! This Snow White is electric powered with a 6S1P Li-Po providing the urge for the 9-pound air- plane. I doubt that anyone has seen a Snow White in the air since 1936, but this one was flown on Monday and Friday at the Champs. Kudos to Rich! The 2011 Champs had several contestants


from overseas, including four from Italy, one from Australia, and several transplanted Englishmen now resident in the USA. Add in two contestants from Alaska, and flyers from distant places were well represented. They took home their share of contest hardware. The four Italians flew as a team. That worked out to the Italian’s advantage in the Classic Texaco event on Friday. The winds that day were very erratic with periods of strong wind followed by gentle breezes. The Italian team was flying an Ohlsson .60 pow- ered 1200 square inch Bomber. Although I tried hard, I couldn’t get a photo which did justice to the following scene. The Bomber was on the ground surround-


ed by three Italians—two holding the plane in the wind, the third smoking a pipe and kibitzing. SAM President Ed Hamler with a bandaged hand (the result of a collision with a propeller) was flipping the prop to start the Ohlsson. The motor started, the big Bomber was launched into a sudden gale of wind and went “splat” about 200 yards from the launch point.


Rich Minnick of SAM 27 won the Grand Concours prize with his rendition of the 1936 Berryloid Trophy Winner Snow White(above left). Originally designed by Joe Raspante of Brooklyn, the original model hung in his radio repair shop for


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many years. Van Wilson and Beth Taber (above right) were down from Alaska for the Champs. They got a second and a fourth place in diesel Tomboywith the black model. The white Tomboytook second in Electric Tomboy.


JANUARY 2012


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