Excellence in scale

Model Airplane News, Aug 1998 by Marshall, Larry

DID YOU EVER DREAM of going to Top Gun? If you like scale models, there's a good chance that you have. Before I came to Model Airplane News, I used to dream of going as a spectator and, when my imagination overcame reality, I even dreamed of competing there.

Actually, I did go ... to most of them; Frank Tiano and Werner Kopp of Propwash Videos "took me" every year. In fact, I've gone every year a whole bunch of times, as I've watched those videos over and over, each time gleaning just a bit more information about the scale models that fly there, the pilots who fly them, and about building and flying scale models.

Now that I actually attend Top Gun, to cover it for the magazine, I consider myself a very lucky person. The camaraderie that you feel on that flying field has to be experienced; I can't explain it to you. The pilots are competitors, but they're also very good friends. Sometimes that's lost in a magazine's depiction of who wins and who loses, but it's probably more important than anything else in getting pilots to compete in scale. "Winning is everything" just doesn't apply at Top Gun. As those who have won will tell you, though, it is nice.

Being on that flying field-the Top Gun field-is just special, unless you're a really jaded modeler. I don't know if I should confess this in print or not, but I got downright giddy when Bubba Spivey let me fly one of his planes. It wasn't flying that plane that was so special; it was the realization that I was flying from the Top Gun field. I guess I'm just a kid at heart, but I take solace in knowing that I'm not the only one with these feelings for the place; it is the scale modeler's Mecca.

Top Gun is truly the premier scale event on the planet, and only partly because of the great airplanes that fly there. Top Gun is an event for those who watch as much as for those who do. That's what makes it special, in my view. The facilities that Frank Tiano and the Palm Beach Polo Club folks provide surpass anything I've seen at any event. There are no long bouts of standing on a flying field; there are seats for a couple of thousand folks.

No Porta-Potties, either; they have the real thing. There's no worrying about getting hungry, or maybe more important, worrying about whether your wife or kids are getting hungry; they have great food and drink available on the premises. And there are certainly none of the problems people face at many meets when trying to see the action; there's not a bad seat in the place. Yes, the experience of being at Top Gun as a spectator is a pleasant one, to be sure.

And that, of course, was Frank Tiano's intent. He wanted people to enjoy seeing model aviation. Frank is a promoter of our hobby (he prefers to call it a sport), and he's one of the best we've got. Is he successful? Well, you'll have to head down to West Palm in April to find out for yourself, but when you see several thousand peoplemost of them not model airplane fanatics like we are-watching and cheering, you'll get an idea of what Frank's idea is doing for this hobby. When you walk into all the local grocery stores, drug stores and restaurants and see full-color posters in every one of them announcing a model airplane event, you'll get an idea of just how well Frank and Top Gun are putting model aviation in front of the non-modeling public.

We need more of this sort of promotion, and I think we all owe Frank Tiano, and the guys who help him make it happen, a big round of applause. As one of the major sponsors of the event for its entire existence, we are proud to bring you 10 full pages of coverage of the best of the best. Enjoy!