C/LCombat C
ombat has come back to the Nats with a vengeance. The new event format attracted 29 entries, 26 ac- tual flyers for triple elimination
F2D. Monday started out literally hot and heavy. The heat and humidity were in full force by the time the first matches started at 10:00 a.m. It took awhile for the matches to start rolling smoothly. Quite a few of the contestants don’t fly all that many full- blown F2D contests and it takes lots of prac- tice to get two planes, lines, and handles ready for a match. Just a few highlights of the action: Bob
Burch went up against Chuck Rudner with a fouled streamer. He had to land the plane as the glow plug started to come out on its own and damaged the engine, plus losing valuable air time. The pit crew did a great job getting him back up and he managed to score three cuts to one, but it wasn’t enough, handing Rudner the win. Later on Andrew Nadein racked up a 4-
cut win. Andrew is on the US team for the coming World Championships. The overall flying was very good but a lot of matches ended up with only one or two cuts—one fly- er taking the string and his opponent get- ting a cut of streamer before taking the string. Something like 12 matches ended in ties and had to be reflown. Fortunately, un- like a few other times, one refly was enough. I don’t think there were any multiple reflies. My vote for outstanding match was be-
tween Greg Wornell and Pat McKenzie (CAN). Greg ended up hitting the ground right in front of his pit crew for a quick stop. He hit the ground one other time, but the motor kept running, so no down time. They traded cuts and Pat ended up towing a short piece of streamer, up one cut. Greg had to get a cut to win. Pat did a great job of de- fense, pulling many wide low eights and moving around the circle. Greg tried every- thing but a head on pass to get Pat up for a cut but couldn’t get one. Finally, in the wan- ing seconds of the match he did an outside
by phil cartier You can reach Phil Cartierat 34 Sweet Arrow Dr, Hummelstown, Pennsylvania 17036, or via e-mail at
philcartier@earthlink.net
PHOTOGRAPHY: PHIL CARTIER
There were something like 78 matches total in F2D at this year’s AMA Nats. The top fliers were (L–R) Mark Rudner, sixth; Howard Williams, fifth; Cary Minor, third; Andy's son, Andy Minor, fourth; Alex Prokofiev, first; and Andrew Nadein, second.
loop, just as he passed over McKenzie who was inverted, came around and cut the little piece of streamer off the string, leaving the ink mark. Yaro Melnikov pointed out another great
match between Andrew Nadein and Brad LaPointe (CAN): “To me the best match was between Brad LaPointe and Andrew Nadein. Cuts 1:1 first, both pilots had a small piece of steam- er left. Don’t remember what happened next—midair or Brad’s engine just stopped—we lifted up the backup model quickly, Andrew made his second and last cut and made a tactical landing. But! Kamikaze Brad made the cut right while Andrew’s landing, taking the whole thing just a few centimeters from the ground, giv- ing a perfect example nobody should give up until the match is over! Andrew won by a few seconds though.” Yaro had his own fine match against Alex
Prokofiev. They had a long match, with no midairs or ground hits. The cut count was 2–3. Yaroslav got a third cut but the stream- er killed the engine, putting him down and out by some airtime. The finals match between Alex Prokofiev
and Andrew Nadein took place with a full blown thunderstorm a couple of miles away in the background. After the launch An- drew’s plane had a shutoff problem upwind, causing him to land 180 degrees from his pit crew—a lot of running for the pit crew. They managed to get it in the air on the second try. The wind was very gusty and variable making an upwind launch with the shutoff very tricky. After some maneuvering Alex got a cut and Andrew’s plane shut off up- wind again, basically ending the match. A lot of tough luck for Andrew made the match a bit of an anticlimax. The officials were doing a great job— Chris Gay, the Event Director who came up
Big Block Fast: a light entry (above) but some good, clean matches. (L–R) Ron Colombo, second; Ed Bryzs, third; Wayne McDaniel, first. Wayne used a Fox Mk VII for his win. The winners in Half-A Combat (at right) were (L–R) Tom Siegler, first; Neil Simpson, second; Chris Sarnowski, third; Wayne McDaniel, fourth; and Rylan Ritch, Best Junior.
44 OCTOBER 2012
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