1978, the next T.O.C. competition, sponsored by the Circis Circus Hotel in Las Vegas. The ‘Model Airplane News’ original report is available on the following page thanks to the kind permission of the MAN editor-in-chief. Photos by the German pilot legend Guenter Hoppe.
How does one report an epic which without the superlatives isn’t being done the justice it deserves? If the superlatives and it must be all, are used, then the reader hesitates to accept it, just put it down to a wordy, easily excited reporter.
The first I may be and the second is undoubtedly true as I am excited; excited because a first-time effort came off as though it had been done a hundred times or more on the part of management and a thousand times on the part of the competitors.
It was rapidly apparent right from the start that the competitors had done their homework, some, however, with almost insurmountable problems, even disasters; Wolfgang Matt lost his two aircraft due to equipment failure, the last only three weeks before the event.
Dean Koger lost his beautiful 1,700-square-inch Laser 200, but managed to build two Lasers of 1,200 square inches. How Tony Bonetti coped is beyond belief, but he did, as he lost two planes, the last one a week before leaving for Las Vegas and managed in four days to pull a quarter scale Pitts S1A together during which time he had approximately 12 hours sleep and then on Friday, just two days before take off time to Las Vegas he crashed his four day-old bird due to a linkage failure and now disaster.
Impossible to get a bird together in sufficient time, he managed once again through the help of Phil Kraft, who gave him his back-up plane, a quarter scale Super Fli. So instead of taking off for Las Vegas he is now California-bound and managed two days of practice with a brand new, almost foreign bird and on to Las Vegas, but now on Wednesday, the day before all the festivities began, what happens? Still another dork and this time a wing broken in half, the Break starting with the inboard edge of the aileron cutout right through the leading edge. With the aid of some cyanoacrylate glue, sand paper and patience, he was in the air once again early the same afternoon.
Incredible fortitude, but isn’t that what all champions are about! Another victim was Rhodesia’s Rich Brand who lost his No. 1 bird a few weeks before leaving for the event, moved his No. 2 machine to first spot and managed a third one which was now his No. 2 plane—sounds like a complicated numbers game which it really is as on the morning of the start just an hour before the first official, his No., 1 plane, for some unaccountable reason, rolled into the deck and now his untried third plane, which had become his No. 2 plane, was suddenly the No. 1 bird and his remark able 8th place finish with only 136.5 and the one-half point between him and the second-place total of 2,327 make it even more remarkable!
I could go on with the despair and fortitude report but I am sure you must now gather that we are dealing with a conclave of eagles, the 28 best who did their utmost to make it to the top of this new event, Prototype Pattern with semi- or scale-like aircraft ranging in size from the barest minimum of 800 square inches for the monos to over 2,500 for the largest. It was a beautiful line-up of birds and we knew that it was going to be difficult to pick the best Replica of a full-scale plane for the George C. Johnson memorial award.
Most popular bird was the Spinks Akromaster by Ed Keck (M.A.N., 3/78) with a total of six entries. Next in popularity was the Zlin 50L used by four competitors with Kraft’s Super Fli, the Stephen’s Acro and the Zlin 526 tied with three each with the balance of one-offs which included the Laser 200, Hiperbipe, Skybolt, Cranfield A-1, Sportmaster 100, Chipmunk, CAP 10 and CAP 20L and the Dalotel DM-165 that took all the marbles.
It had all the appearances of a Standoff Scale contest until they were in the air and then the difference with the fly through pattern of 20 total maneuvers during which the turnarounds were all scored as well as the center maneuvers and all contained within the 120-degree frame or box in the sky.
Immediately in front of the box was an apex of two dotted lines running tangent at 120 degrees to poles posted about 400 to 500 feet from the apex. These lines formed the box within which the entire 20 maneuvers must be performed. At the apex, approximately 7 to 8 feet from the point, were two frame judges, one for each line to the pole and about 15 feet behind the pilot were the five judges in a line parallel to the flight line. Five judges were used for the qualifying flights and all 10 were used during the finals.
All the judges were required to do was to score the actual maneuver, paying no attention to the frame as the frame judges were to indicate only the outs and here is a remark able thing: of the 600 turnaround maneuvers flown on the first qualifying day, only 18 were out of the frame with the No. 8 maneuver, a hammerhead with one half roll, and No. 13, a one-half reverse Cuban with a 11/2 positive snap, taking the greatest toll with five each out of the frame with the balance distributed among the rest of the turn-around maneuvers. Our statistics were compiled only for the first qualifying round as this had to be the toughest with improvement from that point on.
Judging had a new departure as there were five full-scale pilot/ judges and five mode judges and, here again, it was remarkable as there was little to choose from the two. This was the first time for all of the full-scale pilot/ judges: Jerry Zimmerman, a world-class full-scale aerobatic judge; LaMar Steen, designer of the Steen Skybolt, who was a guest at last year’s Pattern event; Jim Roberts, a flying 48 buddy of Leo Loudenslager and Nats Dass full-scale aerobatic pilot; Gordon Price, Canadian National full-scale champion, and Art Scholl, who needs no introduction as his flying feats have been acclaimed worldwide.
It was Art who summed it all up for the full-scale people when he stated to Frank Christensen, 1972 U.S.A. Team Captain, the year in which we won the World Championships team and all, “Frank, we should use the model judges in our competitions as they are sharp and as good as any I have seen.”
Dave Brown launches his Zlin Z-50 for the competition, assisted by his wife Sally. End of a most memorable quote as far as concerned. A bit of anguish and hair-pulling took place prior to the start of the show as Hanno and Hans Prettner arrived in Las Vegas on Sunday, the 5th, only to be told that their plane box was still in customs in New York and Pan American could not move it until the following day only to find out that Pan American’s cargo policy of hurry up-and-wait did not get it moving on Monday and started it toward Las Vegas Tuesday by way of Chicago and it arrived in Chicago late Tuesday afternoon and wouldn’t move it until the following day.
Now the strings began to work. Mel Larson and his group got on the phone, as did others around the city and, believe it or not, Sam Crawford and Hanno picked up the box at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning after paying a premium of, I understand, $120.00 to get it through customs. Premium was due to the lateness (or is it the earliness?) of the hour and the customs boys were not used to such hours. Nevertheless, Hanno and Hans were back in business and managed a few test flights on Wednesday—it was hairy; even more so when you realize the order of the final finish and who wouldn’t invest $120 to collect $15,000?
We had heard rumors of Hanno’s plane and its size, plus power plant but it must be seen in order to appreciate its more than 2,500 square inches of wing area, its two Webra Speed Sixties, tuned and synchronized gears to drive a common prop shaft, and a 20-10 prop. It may not be the most handsome aircraft with its rather square lines but as the Prettner team conceived it, it’s the most impressive! When asked why he designed and built such a large aircraft, Hanno answered quite simply, “I thought I was meeting the desires and wishes of the organizers.”
Stated so simply, it teels the philosophy of this incredible design and flying team from Austria and gives an insight to a true champion. Now to the nitty-gritty—here we have a highly specialized event created for the sole purpose of having everyone start on equal footing; new aircraft, new style for presentation of maneuvers, new judging concept and from the first flight around it was almost a foregone conclusion, bar ring some unforeseen complication such as a crash, that the Prettner team would win.
The only other item to be determined was who and how were they going to finish from second through 28th place. To give an indication of just how it went, his winning score of 5061 for his best 3-of-4 final’s flights averaged out to 8.44 per maneuver; whereas Dave Brown, who was second with a total of 4721, which averages 7.87 per maneuver, or a differential of .57 per maneuver or 11.40 points per judge per flight. Now to break down the point spread between 2nd and 5th places in the finals discloses something else again.
Between Dave’s 4721.00 and Ivan Kristensen’s 4712.5 shows an average of 7.85 or .02 per maneuver. Koger’s 4669 shows only a spread of .07 per maneuver and to complete the picture, Matt’s 4641 for 5th place breaks down to .04 per maneuver between 4th and 5th and .11 between 2nd and 5th.
In TV, they call a finish like that squeaky-tight. To attempt to describe Hanno’s flying is to describe a flight on rails flying the same or a constant speed through every maneuver whether it be vertical or horizontal and the engine never changing tone or beat at any time.
I must say that the engine/ prop combination had a weird sound as between the prop and gear resonance it appeared to have a squeaky off-pitch noise nothing at all like the engine/prop noise we are accustomed to —but never ever changing the beat or tone.
Someone mentioned to Phil Kraft that Hanno must have a computer in the plane and Phil remarked, “No way, a computer can make an error.” The most difficult maneuver in the opinion of the judges was the rolling circle and the consensus of the scores reveal this to be an accurate assessment. On Hanno’s first of the final flights he averaged 8.685 and in the final flight his average was 8.75 for the rolling circle.
Note that his score for the most difficult maneuver was better than his average for the, full flight score. As for the balance of the pilots, all were competing to the best of their capabilities and the point spread between 6th place and the 19th place finisher had only 109.5 from a total of 2210.5 points for their four best flights for a per-maneuver average of 5.53 and 5.25 for a difference of only .28 per maneuver; again it was squeaky-tight. Actually, a check shows that only 2.5 total points out of 2175 separated 11th through 15th. Check the scores just to verify that it was tight and tough.
The weather was not the usually good Las Vegas type as it varied from bright sun and 80 degrees to some cold rain showers that postponed the activities twice on Friday. Thursday was nice, sunny and 80.
Friday has been described. Saturday was slightly overcast, with the sun coming out occasionally and the temperature ranged from lows 60s to middle 70s with a rather firm crosswind; it was approximated at 15 mph if the guessers were reasonably correct and there are those who believe when everything is going well, it goes very well as on the occasion of Hanno’s second flight on Saturday, the sun was strong and warm and the wind was very slight, not enough to measure.
There were such comments as “even God,” etc. Sunday, finals day, was sunny and a bit warmer with a constant cross wind of about 10 to 15 mph. But it was the same for all.
The first part of the week was really beautiful with a very warm sun Sunday through Thursday with an average temperature of 80 degrees and no wind at all. Incidentally, each rain shower on Friday was accompanied by a line squall which really stirred the dust and dirt; spectators and competitors alike really appreciated the Circus Circus tent.
Matter of fact, the Circus Circus balloon crew, headed by Bill Busse, attempted to inflate it on Friday and never took it out of the truck—see photos for this latest addition to the Circus Circus things to promote the hobby of flying. Next month’s M.A.N. at Work column will tell of Bill Bennett’s and my first free flight in the balloon.
As usual, there were the between-round demonstration flights highlighted by the Flying Dutch Jet Team of the Netherlands which, unfortunately, could not get in as many flights as they would have liked but when they did the crowd was treated to some of the fastest pattern-type flying that they have ever seen.
Estimated speeds were in excess of 200 mph vertically and horizontally with the fastest rolls I have ever seen. Bob Violett and his fabulous A4D did his usual top job of flying; beautiful demo, Bob.
Jerry Puleo of New York flew his Waco enlarged to quarter-scale from the Dave Platt kit, and John Simone flew his American Helicopter to good advantage.
Ralph Brooke’s flying buddy, Gene Weaver, flew his huge Douglas Mail plane, doing most every stunt in the book; it was something else to see that huge bird cavorting about the sky. Also demonstrating were the Byron’s Originals Team of Dean Copeland (flying) and Ken Bundt (pitting) with their 1/2 scale Pitts S1 A and the ‘A scale P-51.
Both machines powered by .60 size engines using the Byron power drive performed extremely well. Actually, their display grabbed considerable attention.
The annual gala, better known as the Tournament of Champions banquet, was held at the Sahara Hotel Space Center this year and the attendance was in excess of 500 banqueters. Highlights were the magnificently lined jacket of kangaroo leather brought from Australia by Jeff Tracey and presented to Bill Bennett by the competitors.
In addition, Bill, who had received the Walt Billett Eight Ball galvanized trophy last year from Roy Gelber of MRC, passed it along to Phil Kraft for his activities on behalf of the dealers and the industry alike.
The award is being retired this year so Phil’s name will be the last of very many famous names in the hobby industry added to the cup. Dr. Louis De Francesco of Model Airplane News presented the George C. Johnson Memorial Award trophy to Den Full Scale Aircraft.
Denis’s very well is Donahue for the “Best Replica of a done Stephens Acro was deserving of this honor as it had good rivet detail and an almost true-to-life (beard and all) bunt of Henry Haig, the pilot of the Haigh Stephens.
Al Unser, winner of the last four USAC races, including the Indy 500, was the celebrity guest and just prior to Hanno’s last flight on Sunday he remarked to Hanno that “he will be trying for his fifth 500 mile win so here’s wishing you luck in racking up five victories.”
Hanno has his fifth; just hope that Al’s wish for the quintuple crown comes true this year. The banquet was the stage for the AMA Hall of Fame awards to Phil Kraft, Ed Packard, Leon Shulman, John Worth and Duke Fox. Unfortunately, Duke was taken ill just before the start of the festivities and was taken to the hospital.
Duke has since returned home and is back at work once again. John Byrnes, District II Vice President, MC’d the Hall of Fame awards ceremony.
I know that I have skipped someone or something in this report, but they tell me that I am running overly long and it’s a tight issue—no matter, we will have the sequel in the next issue to catch up on anything missed.
To summarize, it was a total and tremendous first-time effort and the accolades must go to Bill Bennett and his magnificent sponsorship; Jerry Nelson and Doc Edwards for their never-wavering efforts, and to Mel Larson and the hotel staff, all of whom put out above and be- yond—it was tremendous!
The annual gala, better known as the Tournament of Champions banquet, was held at the Sahara Hotel Space Center this year and the attendance was in excess of 500 banqueteers. Highlights were the magnificently-lined jacket of kangaroo leather brought from Australia by Jeff Tracey and presented to Bill Bennett by the competitors.
John Byrnes, District II Vice President, MC’d the Hall of Fame awards ceremony. I know that I have skipped someone or something in this report, but they tell me that I am running overly long and it’s a tight issue—no matter, we will have the sequel in the next issue to catch up on any thing missed.
Text: Walt Schroder, Modell Airplane News
Images: Guenter Hoppe
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