  SPORT • GLOW • ELECTRICS • AEROBATICS • SCALE • TRAINERS • HELIS |
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JETS
AT TOP GUN Turbine Jets have made a huge impact in the Top 10 placements of all classes. The sound, available power and reliability of these powerplants, combined with the typical high quality kits available to the modelers make jets a good choice for scale competition. Jets generally have a higher wing loading than most prop planes and handle wind and crosswind conditions somewhat better than the lighter propeller aircraft. One manufacturer in particular does extremely well at Top Gun, and that is Bob Violett Models. The F-100 from BVM is one of those kits in which hundreds of hours of research have been conducted before kit production, making the model almost perfect in outline right from the factory. The quality of the kit is obvious when you look at how the various F-100s performed this year. Some will say that it is unfair for a particular type of model to have an advantage over others. In order to level the playing field, the Top Gun board decided to give all composite jets a 2% penalty in flight scores. This rule seems to work really well, making the fight for the top positions extremely close and exiting. |
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O P G U N W I N N E R S
 In an effort to give less-experienced or new scale modelers a chance to compete, this year’s Top Gun added the new class known as ProAm. While fundamentally the same as Fun Scale, ProAm includes modelers that have the skills to fly a model yet lack the experience and skill necessary to build and compete in the Expert or Master classes. The ProAm modeler need only show minimal documentation to receive the maximum of 25 static points. In this way, models that would not fare well in normal competition have just as good a chance as those that could, or in some cases have been in real competition. As its name implies, ProAm is open not only to the beginner: It is open to those modelers whose model has previously been in competition but is no longer competitive or legal due to the three-year limit. Continued |
