Mile Hi Madness Combat Report

August 2 & 3, 2003

We had two great days of weather for Mile-Hi Madness and two great days of combat. Turnout was a little lighter than expected, but the event was still fun and very competitive.

It was sunny with temps in the mid to high 80s and very little wind (for a change). We had 14 pilots for Open B on Saturday and 9 pilots for Scale on Sunday. Open B had 6 rounds with 7 pilots each, with 2 sorties per round. We flew with 10 minutes between heets. For Scale we had no frequency conflicts and enough judges to fly with all 9 up for each round. Well, at least for the first round. ;)

Many thanks to the great pilots that traveled in from out of state for this event including: Victor Shamulus CA, AJ Seaholm KS/MO, Don Howard OK, Neal Rohrke NE, Ron Horton MT. They really helped kick the level of competition up a notch and showed us some other strategies and techniques. Of course, they also got to learn how to fly combat in thin air where turns aren't quite so tight.

Open B started off fast and furious with lots of cuts in the first few rounds. We locals got a round or two of home field/hi altitude advantage in before AJ, and Don got adjusted and found "the gulch". We have this 20 ft deep gulch just beyond the runway that is about 100 feet wide. I think that AJ and Don just like the idea of flying way below the horizon so if they had streamer left near the end of the round they start winding their way down the gulch, 10 feet below field elevation. Up in the sky we could all mix it up well, but these guys just got into the sub-terrainian flying. I was trying out my new Go Devil and it was doing well so at the end of round 4 when the only streamer left was AJs I just couldn't let he and Don stay safe underground. For the last minute of combat AJ, Don and I kept screaming back and forth in the gulch and with 8 seconds left I snagged a foot of AJ's streamer when he came up a bit to turn. That was the best combat cut of my life. Tom Neff, a local from AirPark Elite club, did his usual great flying and snagged 7 cuts in round two (the high for the day). As expected there were some pretty spectacular mid-airs, often with fly aways, but we had a couple with wings floating down. Fortunately they all landed safely away from the pilot line and I believe everyone recovered all their gear.

At the end of the day AJ snagged first with 2544, Tom Neff took second with 2352, Don Howard third with 1756. Ron Horton was 4th, jj (me) 5th, Neal Rohrke 6th, Randy Hodges 7th... George will post the full results, but we locals finished a respectable 2nd, 5th, 7th... when up against all these big guns from out of state. Now that they taught us some lessons, we'll try to make things a little tougher next year.

Sunday we had some incredible Scale 2610 flying. This is the first time I got to hear 9 Scale combat planes in the air and for the first 4 minutes we kept them all flying. With about a minute left AJ and I hit and stuck. Both planes just flat spun together down to the ground, but damage was minimal. In round 3 Adam and I were both pursuing different targets in opposite directions and managed to hit head on, engine to engine, which put us both out for the day to say the least. There was great pursuit flying in scale, but AJ doesn't just fly pursuit, he flies "obsession". Once he gets an airplane in his sights he will stay on it for minutes until he snags the streamer. By the end of the day AJ, Don, Neal, Victor and Dean (TiGuy) were flying with incredibly evenly matched airplanes. By this time even more people were willing to fly down into the gulch, especially when there was only one plane left with a streamer! Yikes! This was quite a show.

Given that the locals all only had one plane each for Scale, and also that Scale is just gaining momentum here in Colorado, the out of staters cleaned our clocks in 2610. AJ took first, but I don't recall the rest of the standings except that the Colorado pilots let all of our out of state guests take all of the places first before any of us. Regardless of that showing, we all Really enjoyed the Scale competition and are sure to build momentum on 2610 here in Colorado once we can get our planes put back together.

Thanks to George and Larry for coordinating a great event, to all of our club members who helped run and judge the event and to all of the participants. This was one heck of a combat weekend.

jj
RCCA 579
AMA 90443
Mile-Hi Combat Squadron
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Great report, jj,and a totally great event. It was incredible to fly with everyone who made the events. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to future events. You guys put on superb show! Maybe flying the gulch of doom will be an added attraction in the future, It was awesome to see planes go out of sight, below the horizon, and reappear, still chasing streamers!!!! Thanks to all who worked and participated and voted for my most spectacular mid-air!! Love the WASP kit!!!!!

rh

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Yeah RH, and you did a great job in the 2610 Scale with that Coro Stang. (that was yours, right?) Man, it all flew by so fast (pun intended).

Couple of other items that I'm remembering now that I'm carbo loading with some brain oil.

There were some spectacular mid-airs, but there were also quite a few bump-and-runs. Amazing how many wing taps just resulted in minor flight path changes with no fatalities.

The Coro world had risen again. Not only were there a few coro or coro/foam planes in Scale, but Adam (gotta bring a new coro plane every month) flew another new coro design in Open B that even AJ said could run and turn with his planes! Adam sounded like he might make another one of the same designs!!! I'm sure he'll change something, but that was one heck of a good flying plane. Still need to see what it does with 20+ ft of streamer hanging from a wing tip, but perhaps we'll see about that next month.

Another great thing was that several people really got the bug after watching this event. We can use some new pilots around here.

Looking forward to flying against some of the out of state'rs who came to this event on their own turf.
One more thing,

Did I mention prizes? (no)

We had Double entry prizes for each pilot as well as some great kits and/or cash. My 5th place finish in Open B covered my entry fee and that was with lunch and drinks included!

jj
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WOW!!! What a kick in the pants!! We had a fantastic 2 days of combat with some phenomenal exhibitions put on by all pilots, local and out of state.

I brought only one airplane each day and managed to last 3 flights each day, but still had a great time. This is the Open "B" plane JJ referred to:



As of this weekend I hadn't come up with a name yet, but I think I will call it the Merlin. The reason for this name is the one flight of the weekend that sticks in my mind the most. On my 3rd heat of the day, after about 2 minutes of combat, I looked up to see that I was the only one with a full streamer left which of course made me the prime target. AJ got on my tail and if you've ever flown against AJ you know that he doesn't give up until he gets your streamer. I managed to evade him for at least 2 minutes so I figure that any plane that would let a combat skills challenged pilot like me avoid "the Tick" for 2 minutes must have some magic in it. JJ was right, I typically built and tried a lot of different SPAD designs because I hadn't found anything that really gave me a "wow" feeling until this plane. This might just be the first SPAD I build more than one of! Unfortunately with 7 seconds to go in my 3rd heat Neal Rohrke got a wee bit too close trying to take off the remainder of my streamer and flew into my right wingtip. Except for a broken motor mount on the hard landing following the midair for which I had no replacement, I could have easily repaired it and been in the air again. JJ, I did have a streamer hanging from the wingtip in the first heat and it didn't seem to affect it at all.

The scale action today was incredible as well. My coro Fulmar was the largest and slowest plane in the sky, but I made it work and managed 2 cuts before my vicious mid-air with JJ. I also managed to avoid AJ with it for quite awhile in the second round. In all I managed 6 cuts during the weekend which more than doubled my entire combat career total (5).

It was a real thrill for me to meet and fly against so many of the great flyers whose exploits I had only read about. I know that my game was ratcheted up a notch due to the level of competition and it appeared that that was the case for all our local pilots as well. I know that I learned a lot just observing the action.

I would like to say thanks to everyone who travelled so far to come to our event and to all the volunteers from the Mile Hi RC Club who came out and helped set up, take down, judge, and whatever else was asked of them. And of course the biggest thanks go to George Kerr and Larry Ott who CDed the event and did so much work behind the scenes to make it a great event for all who attended. Good job guys!!!

Adam Bryant

He's still back there! Come on Mav, do some of that pilot s!@#!

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Great report. Thanks, now I won't have to write one! Thanks to all for the kind words. I had a great time!

JJ calls it the "Gulch of Doom", but it is affectionately known as "Death Valley" to most club members. "Gulch of Doom" has a much nicer ring to it, I think we will adopt that name from now on!

Adam, get some more of those wings built, that thing flew AWESOME!!!

AJ, you are welcome here anytime. A pleasure having you here to fly with us, and you have a place to stay anytime you want it!

Well Mile Hi Madness is history, Here is how those who dared to combat at 5835 ft fared.

Open B:
AJ Seaholm --------2544
Tom Neff ----------2352
Don Howard -------1756
Ron Horton --------1540
John Jaugilas ------1480
Neal Rohrke -------1200
Randy Hodges ------560
Larry Ott -----------500
Victor Shamulus ----440
Tim Ott ------------252
George Kerr --------216
Dean McBournie ----140
Adam Bryant --------72

2610 Scale:
AJ Seaholm --------2108
Don Howard -------1500
Neal Rohrke -------1280
Victor Shamulus ----906
Randy Hodges ------628
Adam Bryant -------412
John Jaugilas -------340
Dean McBournie ----180
George Kerr - We won't talk about it.

It should be noted that Tim and Larry Ott flew the same SPAD Derelict in all 10 rounds. I think that out of 12 heats, the Derelict only missed one heat. Pretty darn good!

I want to thank everyone who came to fly, volunteer and watch. Victor drove 18 hours to get here, and 18 hours to go back home. My hat is off to you Victor. I would have been dead on my feet, but you were up and at them and flying! Thanks also to AJ, Don, Neal, and Ron for making the long treks to make Mile Hi Madness a success!

George
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Thanks to everyone for a great time at Mile Hi Madness. The hospitality was outstanding, the organization first rate, and I'm still thinking about those brats on Saturday, mmm, mmm good.

The Mile Hi field sure was a ton of fun to fly at. The "gulch" as JJ has named it provided for some awesome battles to fly in and to watch. Swapping streamers at -10 feet altitude is a sight to see...

The high altitude cut back on performance and turned the action into a pursuit pilots dream. There were some great engagements and some awesome cuts. If you've never flown combat at over a mile high, you're missing out...

Special thanks to George Kerr for taking us in and providing a place to stay.

Can't wait till my next time at Mile Hi....

A.J. Seaholm
TEAMseaholm
aseaholm@kc.rr.com

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WOW great event! Fantastically ran event from the mile high guys! A big thanks to George for also putting us up for the 2 nights has well! Victoria and I had a great time! A long long drive 2140 miles total for us. It was nice to See AJ and Neil with his wife again. More importantly it was great to meet George, Don, JJ, Ron, Tom, RH, TiGuy and others.

The trip:

Going there was a nice drive. The only snag was outside of Las Vegas, when we hit traffic; getting stuck for an hour in a 2-mile spot. Utah was pretty. Colorado was a night.

Coming back we go to see the Rocky Mountains better. The other snag was on the southbound I-15, when a Tractor-trailer caught fire and caused a hour delay again.

Open details:

I wished my showing in open had been better. No excesses, I have to be better prepared. Despite being tried from the drive. I say that when I was up in open, it was great flying by all out there. Thanks to George for giving me a bladder tank for the Go Devil, I was having major fuel foaming issues with it. (Even after using some Armor All) after the first flight. I have never used one, so I did make a few errors in fueling causing it to lean out in the air. My Choker was flying ok, except it always ballooned up on me on takeoff causing me to stall on the other end of the runway got a zero in the 3rd round for that. I took up the Go Devil in the 4th round. It flew ok, but I saw it still had a few bugs to work out. I enjoyed the low level flying and got too low once.

Saturday nights dinner was great to sit down and talk about what we love to do best COMBAT!

Scale details:

The action was fast and furious! Every one was flying top notch. I flew better in scale that day than my in open. My IL-2 was performing very well, Neil committed that it was out turning his IL-2’s. My first round was the best one with 3 cuts. The rest where ok, with some killer low flying again. I know I lost sight of it a few times in the gulch of death.

Congranulations to AJ on both his wins!!!


Victor (the Snake) Shamulus


Cell phone:760-809-2590
Work phone: 858-451-4344
RCCA # 503 AMA # 480994

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Last changed: 02/08/2004

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