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Top Gun 2013 Freeflight Event


Bob Curry’s Dumas A6M5 Zeroin the “Bones” (at left), all sanded smooth, and prepped for covering with several brushed coats of thinned SIG nitrate dope. Bob chose to use Esaki colored tissue overall (above), including all the red and blue markings. Only the cowl was painted, using Testors black enamel. The canopy was also covered with thin strips of green tissue covering using a solution of very thin water and white glue.


from my usual Giant Scale R/C projects, es- pecially when I realized that the Zero’s 14- inch wingspan was only about one half the span of the horizontal stabilizer of the 1⁄3 scale Sopwith Pup sitting on the opposite end of my workbench.


I found that many times I was “in the zone”, cutting, gluing, sanding balsa parts as quick as I could read the next step. I was astonished at how quickly that pile of deli- cate 1⁄16-inch sticks and laser-cut parts was taking shape into a very light but strong structure and the familiar shape of a Zero fighter.


With the help of ZAP CA glue, the entire aircraft structure: wings, fuselage and tail surfaces were completed at a very relaxed pace in the matter of a few days, a refresh- ing change from the usual months of work it typically takes to get to the same point on my giant R/C models. Now I was hooked. I ordered a Dumas F4F Wildcat and F4U Cor- sair! Great therapy. From now on, I’ll al- ways have one of these little stick and tissue projects on the side workbench. Several of the folks that participated in the mass launch had traveled from outside the U.S. The closest, Carl Layden, came all the way down from Canada but several oth- er folks had traveled half way round the planet to compete at Top Gun. Gwyn and Christina Avenell hail from Auckland, New Zealand and Greg Tracy from Australia. Carl’s beautiful yellow tissue covered


Piper Cub was built from a Guillow’s kit. Carl modified it to easily break down into several sub-assemblies for transport in a


cardboard shoe box that he was able to fit in his airline luggage.


Gwyn and Christina Avenell had returned to Top Gun again this year to compete in the Masters Class with Gwyn’s amazing 1⁄5 scale Douglas SBD Dauntless. His model has con- sistently earned near perfect static scores in the hotly contested Masters class. For some reason, they were not aware of this year’s F/F event and had not built a model. Coincidentally, they own and oper- ate Avetek Limited, a balsa and model sup- ply company in Papakura, Auckland that also manufactures a line of laser-cut freeflight model kits: Airsail Models www. avetek.co.nz.com. Luckily, they had brought several of their kits for display and when they learned of the planned mass launch, they cleared a table in their tent, grabbed a few bottles of ZAP, bor- rowed some sharp tools and a couple of sand- ing sticks, opened up a few kit boxes and went to work. In no time at all, three Piper Cubs were seen climbing into the calm early evening air and flying smooth circles over their tent...they were ready! Gwyn, Christina and Greg all elected to build Airsail Piper Cub kits which contain laser-cut, color printed sheet balsa compo- nents, along with all the required flight hardware: rubber, nose button, modeling clay, prop and wheels. Since it’s all sheet wood construction, no covering is required. In addition, Christina told me that her


Cub was the first balsa model kit she had ever built in her life and even went so far as to customize it with a pink highlighter pen!


The moments of truth


Sunday morning dawned sunny and clear with light to moderate winds out of the west. At 8:00 a.m. Sam Wright, our perennial Top Gun announcer, notified all the folks that the field was open for freeflight test flying and the mass launch would go off on sched- ule at 8:30. Sam also checked in with the Linder Field FAA tower crew and informed us that over the next hour, the local winds were predicted to increase up to 15 mph. As you can see in the group photos, only seven hardy souls made it to the field in time for the early launch. A little disappointing, because on Saturday afternoon we had six- teen names on the sign-up sheet for the freeflight event. However, with the Top Gun dinner banquet and after-hours socializing at the local clubs around town, I’d guess that we seven were the only survivors of Satur- day night!


By 8:30 we all had made several test flights (only one broken motor!) and were be- ginning to feel the wind prediction was go- ing to be accurate. The winds were still out of the West but had steadily increased to about 10 mph. Since it looked like it was only going to get worse, we decided to go! As you’ll see in the pre-launch photos this was not your typical FAC event—not even close! There was none of the high, or even low tech freeflight rubber gadgetry such as mechanical winders, winding stooges, wind gauges or even one stopwatch. This was go- ing to be a pure fun event and contestants only needed to just show up with their model and at least one winding finger.


Gwyn Avenell’s Piper Cub (above left) which he built from one of his own company’s kits. His New Zealand based “Avetek Limited” now markets the Airsail line of laser-cut balsa aircraft and boats. Check them out at


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www.avetek.co.nz.com and say you saw them in FLYING MODELS. You can see how well Christina Avenell’s artful touch (above right) with a pink highlighter pen really dressed up her entry.


JULY 2013


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