Top Gun halftime show is super

Model Airplane News, Aug 1998

Each day at Top Gun, there is a halftime show. Orchestrated by Bubba Spivey of Lanier RC*, the show is a super production, with almost no down time and yet a large variety of model aircraft were exhibited; everything from turbines breaking the scale sound barrier to guys flying R/C combat. Bubba and his buddy Wayne put on a team aerobatic show that always excites the crowd, and Jason Shutman put his Extra through its paces. Geoff Combs also wows the crowd with very large Extra.

For the last couple of years, Chip Hyde has put in some show-stopping performance. His superb power management abilities allow him to fly very and very slow, and it's a real treat to watch him fly. This year, Chip was doing low-level 4-point rolls with his 42-percent Ultimate. The neat thing was that he did them less than half a wing length above the ground. That's right; no typo here. He would enter the maneuver in level flight and when he rolled to the first point, he would increase altitude just enough to clear the wing and then drop back down once he rolled inverted. The procedure was repeated to negotiate the third point of the roll. Note also that he was flying so slowly that this entire sequence was done in less than the length of the runway. Magnificent! A crowd-pleaser has always been Mack Hodge's large B-29 that he flies like an aerobatic plane, doing point rolls and low inverted passes. This year he and his buddies added a new twist: they dropped an X-1 from the wing and glided it down to a landing. Just before touchdown, they fired a solid propellant rocket and powered it up in a spectacular fashion, doing a few victory rolls on the way down the second time.

The spectators really enjoy the halftime show, and it's a good time for the competitors to relax and enjoy the show themselves. As Greg Hahn said, "Top Gun is a five-day fun fly with a few competition flights thrown in." Hope you can make it next year.