Jaime at Topgun

[Onepoint]

Got a text from Jaime at Topgun yesterday,  I think he was enjoying that a whole lot more than I was pushing a cart through costco.   He sent me a ton of pics.

[Onepoint]

more

[Onepoint]

and more

[stetto]

Really impressive!

[Onepoint]

1/2 scale sopwith pup, and 1st round flight of Wallys bearcat

[balsum fractus]

......that's why I got an email saying the forum attachments file is almost full!!!

Very impressive stuff....love those warbirds!!

[Onepoint]

Yeah, I added more space.

[wtxsflyr]

That would be so cool to go to!

[Onepoint]

More stuff from yesterday.  I saw horizon hobby on youtube was live streaming all weekend if anyone is interested.

[Onepoint]

1/3 scale jug 

[jetmex]

Got back to Gainesville from Top Gun yesterday and have to say I had a blast!  I was a little disappointed in the turnout, wasn't quite as big a gathering as I expected, but that didn't take anything away from it.

I was actually a contestant, taking on spotting duties for friend Wally for his competition flights.  We made it to the final round in 5th place overall in the sport prop class.  Didn't fly the final round because Wally was judging the flight events and no one bothered to let either of us know that our class's flight time had been moved up.  The roster wasn't posted anywhere, it was a little infuriating.  We did enough flights to place in the top ten, as the low score was thrown out (which would have been the missed round), but I'm not sure where we placed.  Wally couldn't find the scores either, but it didn't really matter because we both had a great time.  The Bearcat performed flawlessly, apart from a wheel coming off after the first landing!  It was actually kind of funny, and did not damage the airplane. 

One of the high points for me was getting to spend a few hours with Rich Uravitch in the static judging tent watching how things were done.  Wally judged the flight events and has asked me to be the static scale judge for upcoming Bomber Field events, so he introduced me to all the judges so I could get an idea how things are done.  Rich was a pleasure to be with and was more than forthcoming with the answers to any questions I had.

There were several pretty bad crashes.  A beautiful 1/4 scale T-28 got too far out over the east end of the field and hit the power lines along the road there.  The airplane caught fire and burned and the Lakeland airport (which is next to the event site) was shut down for an hour.  The pilot of a Russian marked P-40 lost the airplane on takeoff and it went over into the tent line, striking the top of one of the tents and falling into the parking area behind it.  No one got hurt, but it was close.  A 1/4 scale P-47 cartwheeled on takeoff and destroyed itself after the pilot lost control at rotation.  Turns out the ailerons were reversed.  And the blue Sukhoi jet that's in one of the pics  I sent crashed and burned after the elevators fluttered on a high speed pass and blew off the airplane.  There was probably more money tied up in those four airplanes than any of us make in a year!

All in all it was a wonderful experience.  The quality and variety of airplanes was amazing, didn't even get around to getting shots of all of them.  I got to meet and hobnob with a lot of great people and get up close to some beautiful models. Sadly, it may be the last Top Gun, as Frank Tiano, the main organizer of the event, passed away earlier this year and his family doesn't want to continue it.  There was talk flying about someone else picking up the event, but nothing solid.  We'll see what happens.

And if any of you are interested, there are three events coming up at Bomber Field back home, the Warbird event in June, the B-17 fly-in in September and their first scale event in October.  Come on down!

[Onepoint]

Sounds like that was a great time.  I caught a little live action watching Horizon Hobby live stream on facebook.   I hope that someone picks it up, be a shame that goes away.

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That is a way cool experience! Thank you for sharing with us!

[stetto]

Glad to see you got in on a Top Gun, Jaime!! Thanks for taking us with you.

But the header on this thread is misleading. I didn't see one pic of 'Jaime at Top Gun'...

[Onepoint]

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