Tom Blakeney, for example, had a .60 size Hangar 9 Hellcat that was surprising in its aerobatic abilities, and Nicholas Johnson brought a Hangar 9 Twin Otter with two .25 size motors that just epito- mized “smooth” in its performance and flight envelope. Two of the younger flyers, Nolan Kennedy and Alvin LeLuc chose electrics, a FW-190 and a Corsair, respec- tively, and flew them very effectively under the tutelage of their fathers.
AMA Associate Vice-President, Bill Holland, campaigned his 1⁄3 scale Balsa USA Nieuport 17 (above) for its second year. Done up in the livery of Maurice Boyau with hand-painted serpents on its fuselage sides, the plane also features a machine gun sound system and muzzle flashes from the machine gun barrel. The plane was awarded the WWI Second Place trophy. Jack Haynes brought his veteran Fairchild PT-19 (below) to this year’s event instead of one of his bigger bipes. At that, the plane spans 144 inches and is 1⁄3 scale. It flew most realistically, even without a pilot figure! The plane is powered by a 3W 80cc engine and has been in Jack’s stable for several years.
There were also more EDF (electric duct- ed fan) jets present than there were turbine powered planes, although Bill Holland’s tur- bine-powered McDonell Douglas F-15 raised the hair on the back of everyone’s neck with its whistling high speed passes down the runway. Dave Schaeffer and Woody Lee had a nice array of larger EDF jets on hand, and Dave went one better with his rocket-pow- ered Me-163 Komet that flew two spectacu- lar flights over noon hour on the second day of the event.
It appeared that given the larger size models that make an appearance at “War- birds over Texas”, there were far more gas engines employed as powerplants than glow engines. However, two of the larger bombers, the Laible/Burton B-24 and the veteran B-17 of Givney and Bowling both had large O.S. and Saito four-stroke en- gines. Also, in the past there were signifi- cant numbers of converted weed-whacker engines like Husqvarnas, but most of those have disappeared. There was a noted shift to BME engines that hadn’t shown up in previ- ous meets, with Zenoahs, DLEs, DAs, and BMEs now in the majority. At the same time, although not in the majority in terms of numbers, the five-cylinder Moki is still the reigning engine as far as realism of sound is concerned.
Dean Copeland, a member of Team Futaba and a top competitor for years came from Nebraska to this year’s event and brought his Byron T-28 Trojan(above) powered by a DA 100 Twin. Dean and the plane received the Best Post WWII trophy. James Pool (above, at right) makes an adjustment to another North American T-28 Trojanbefore moving to the ready ramp. The Trojanwas a popular model this year with several making an appearance, and ranging in power selection from electric to glow to gas. This out-of-production and out- of-the-rut electric powered Russian IL-2 Sturmovik (at right) flew well for Tom Blakeney, a guru of electric powered planes in all sizes. The model was originally offered by Red Square Models, and spans a nominal 42 inches using a 3S 2100 mAh battery.
FLYING MODELS 21
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