Hi John,
You have a great memory. Yes My dad did get decked by Dave Wallick at the 1976 Nats held at Dayton. My Dad was running one circle, I was the event director and was running the other one. To make a long story short, Dave's hook scrapped along the ground on his landing approach. It was seen by my dad and both of the timers. When my dad shouted to Dave that he would not get landing points Dave became very violent. The 3 judges then showed him the scrape in the concrete that the hook had made but that did not matter. Dave hauled off, and when my dad was facing the other judges and talking to them, Dave hit him with his fist on the side of his head. My dad immediately dropped to the ground (he was in his late 50's..Dave about 30). I saw the commotion and upon flight completion stopped the flying on my circle. I made sure my dad was OK and then ran to the hanger to notify the AMA officials. They came out, heard what had happened, called on their walkie talkies for some MP's and immediately BANNED Dave from all competition for that Nats. They (AMA) also requested my dad not to press charges. We were informed by a base officer and the the MP's (who immediately came and stood on each side of Dave) that we could have charged him with Assault and Battery. If we pressed the charge the MP's would call the local police who would have immediately put Dave in jail. We did NOT press for charges, since we agreed with the AMA officials that none of us wanted any adverse publicity during the Nats. The MP's then escorted Dave immediately off the base.
It should be noted that during plane inspection and measurements held the evening before flying on day one, that both of the planes that Dave originally planned to enter were disqualified...His Guardian for being dramatically out of the scale tolerances defined in the rulebook..in over 5 areas..and His Fulmar for having flaps 3 times the size of the actual aircraft. I had/have an extensive 3 view collection and all planes were measured against actual dimensions. I was the event director and did the measuring myself along with 2 noted scale modelers from the Detroit area. All 3 of us voted for disqualification of Dave's models ( in should be noted that the same "disqualified models" were used later in the year to set 2 records!!!). Also note that NO other planes..out of the over 120 (3 classes) that we judged were disqualified. Dave then entered his backup planes.
Now you have the whole story 34 years later.
Richard Sawicki
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