Complete Report on Combat at Brodak 2008

The contest had 21 entries, ended up with 18 flying.  Several guys got beat by the heat.  Most everybody used flying wings and pressure fuel systems.  Rick Blankenship used an OS 32 with a tank in a Yankee Nipper design, and Paul Smith used his old slow design with a homebrew tank with forward feed.  Paul helped Brad La Pointe get the overall top score in the last match by getting a one flip start and 298 airtime points.  Brad helped himself by getting 3 cuts, for final match score of 798, a record, beating the 795 points Louis scored on Brad in the previous round.

Combat- Brodak 2008

Name               Cuts Midairs Score
1 Brad La Pointe   6 0        2465
2 Louis Lopez       5 0        2458
3 Chris Lopez       5 1        2417
4 Scott Schmidt   4 0        2282
5 Al Ferraro         6 1        2260
6 Phil Cartier       6 0        2236
7 Roy Glenn        7 1        2086
8 Tom Skinner     5 1        1965
9 Paul Smith       6 2        1909
10 Joey Fabiankovitz 4 1 1898
showing a little mercy we won't go into the bloody details for the last 11 flyers,  Scott Danford, Brad Smith, Osni Leme(Brazil), Dan Reedy, Jim Skinner, Rick Blankenship, Alexander Schmidt, and Howard Shenton, Lloyd George, Gil Reedy, and Dennis Hastings.

11 of the 18 flyers were Sportsman class(low time flyers, occasional flyers, less experienced).  A couple of these, Chris Lopez and  Scott Schmidt are looking to move up.

As usual, the luck of the draw, who scored how much on whom, bad engine runs, crashes, and midairs had a lot to do with the results.  Brad La Pointe had to work his way by Chris Lopez, Scott Schmidt, Louis Lopez, and Al Ferraro- four clean matches with a lot of good flying.  A few other people got dinged by midairs.  I managed to give up over 4 min. of air time to engine setting problems.  We even had a few folks just fly into the ground.

Many thanks to the primary judges, Gil Reedy and Henry Werner,  Roy Glenn and Dan Reedy for help with circle marshalling, Judy Danford and Ranan Blankenship at the scoring table, all the flyers that acted as backup judges, and everybody who picked up all the mess.

Thanks Phil for running this event. Before I flew this style of combat I had some doubts ,afterwards the concept struck me as perfect for it's intended use.My biggest surprise was the number of beginners both young and old.This is what it is and it works!
    The other people who need to be thanked are my pit crew Paul Smith and Howard Shenton.But most of all John Brodak for an amazing week of flying and fun.Well done!

Thanks,
Brad LaPointe

John,
   Depending on the size of the scooter riding across the Blue Water bridge can be rather "breezy".A much more scenic - scooter friendly route would be to follow the river and take either the Marine City or Alganac ferry.Customs are also less aggressive as the line ups are limited to the vehicles on-board.
  Hope to see you.

Brad