C/LCombat T
his past July hosted eight days of Combat action, starting with the US Team Trials, July 13 and 14. Fliers started showing up Thurs- day and Friday and there was a lot of last minute test flying. There were 38 pilots pre- registered; and 34 people actually flew in- cluding four Juniors—Braden Parker, Austin Minlor, Alexandra Nadein, and Ry- lan Ritch. They started off five full days of some of the best Combat action I’ve ever seen. The Team Trials were followed by two days of Nats F2D, and a day of F2D Fast. Team Trials had approximately 114 matches (including reflies of ties) in two days. Despite F2D’s reputation for trashing equipment, this show featured many long matches with a lot of action in the air, treat- ing the spectators to some of the best Com- bat flying ever seen at Muncie. Lots of matches had multiple cuts with scores of three, four, and five cuts. The pit crews were pretty well practiced so very few matches hinged on pit crew mistakes. Remarkably few matches showed much ev- idence of tactical flying, where one flier was really trying to take out a plane to win or used delaying tactics to run out a match. There was even one instance where the pi- lot obeyed the pit crew and landed early but to clinch a match lost through an airtime error.
The good flying continued right into the very last matches. The old grandmaster, Richard Stubblefield, pulled off a 3–2 win against former World Champ, Mike Willcox, late in the Team Trials. The good flying started in the first round. After 11 rounds the team came out, in no particular order, Mark Rudner, Josh Ellison, Richard Stub- blefield, and Andy Minor as first alternate.
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
The Team Trial participants as viewed starting from the back row, left to right: Tatyana Leontyev, Mark Rudner–Team, Josh Ellison–Team, Dave Edwards–Judge, Richard Stubblefield–Team, Andy Minor–Team, Lance Matassa–Event Director, Jeff Hannaur–Circle Marshall. Middle: Bob Mears–Organizer, Arlene Pyles– Scoring, Jan Mears–Pit Boss. Front: Rylan Ritch–Junior, Alexandra Nadein–Junior Team, Austin Minor– Junior, Braden Parker (Junior, not present).
The new “land on demand” (LOD) rule was not used. The biggest surprise was that approximately 25% of the matches had shut- off malfunctions. Everything from quitting on launch to tripping the LOD, through the shutoff tripping from slack lines, to a com- plete failure to actuate after getting the lines cut.
Bob Mears organized the contest and re- cruited a very skilled group of judges. Lance Matassa directed the action with
Jeff Hannaur acting as circle marshall for every match. Dave Edwards, Steve Stew- art and Tatyana Leontyev counted cuts, assisted by Steve Shoemaker, Dave Owens, Larry Scarinzi and Bob Mears. Ar- lene Pyles and Jan Mears ran the scoring and pull test.
Bob worked out a layout with two circles, and a slick pit/pull test/ready area to handle all the fliers. The pit area was laid out in a long line complete with a preliminary pull tester/line length station. As soon as a match was on a circle the next set of fliers brought their planes through the scoring tent
into the official pull tester, got
processed and waited in the ready box. When a match finished the judges switched circles. The fliers in the ready box moved to the vacant circle and got ready while a match was flying on the other side. The AMA put in two concrete center pads that worked beautifully and will serve for many years, especially when the rains come. Even the weather cooperated with good con- ditions—not blistering hot, not rainy, and not excessively windy.
Alexi Tupunov and Chris Gay ran the 2013 Nats. Taking turns they ran the circles Monday through Saturday, running about 140 matches altogether. They could use some more help next year folks!
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Nats F2D filled Monday and Tuesday with 32 fliers, including the same four Jun- iors. Seven new fliers took the places of those who left after the Team Trials, with three Canadian fliers adding a bit of inter- national flavor. They flew approximately 100 matches including re-flies. The good flying continued with both pilots in the air for three minutes or more. Two, three and four cuts were common and a few matches had five. There were plenty of midairs but not too many of the bone- crunching kind that destroyed both planes. In the end, Andrew Nadein took first; Andy
OCTOBER 2013
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