I wanted to wait until all the dust had settled from the occurrences at this year’s Nats to congratulate my dear friend, Tom Luciano on his win in the Advanced class.
The story behind Tom’s win is worth a bit of virtual ink here. Going back a lot of years, I knew Tom’s father and brother, as we were all members of the Union Model Airplane Club (UMAC) in the 1960s and early 1970s. I vividly remember Tom as a toddler, roaming around the circles at the weekly summer meetings at the field, and at the huge Memorial Day contests that were held at the club’s field that was adjacent to the famous ESNA (Elastic Stop Nut Corporation) facility. Little did I know that he would grow up to be such an amazing man and flier.
Tom started out in control line modeling, but when the club lost its field in 1977 most of the members converted to RC flying. They found a field on the Watching Indian Reservation, not too far from Union, New Jersey. Tom flew RC for several years, and he still enjoys RC flying today, even though his main interest is once again control line flying. Tom enjoys Combat and Stunt flying, but recently he has focused in on competitive Stunt.
I got reacquainted with Tom a while back when he and his father showed up that Garden State Circle Burner’s 40th Anniversary OTS contest in 2011. He was still flying a lot of RC at that time, but the interest in control line was rekindling and he soon started flying Combat models and sport Stunt models as well. Eventually Tom gravitated to wanting to fly Stunt competitively.
Tom asked me a few years back if I would help him make the next step in his progression and suggest a model that he might build for competition. Up to this point Tom had been flying profiles and ARF built-up models. And, his skills were getting to the point where he needed a better model.
Tom visited my shop one day in 2016 for a “Blue Sky” session on what he might build. I took him over to my plans bin, which contains hundreds of plans (many pilfered from the plans department during my days at Flying Models magazine. Hey, I was in need of “research material” after all…). He looked through a few, but told me that he liked the looks of the Crossfire and asked if that might be a good choice. I’m a firm believer in the notion that almost all the competition stunt models of the past several years are good candidates if built properly. I showed Tom the Crossfire plan of the model that I was currently flying, but also showed him a new Crossfire drawing that depicted a lowered motor location to put the center of the motor shaft in line with the wing’s center line. I told him that it was called the “Drop-Nose Crossfire.” He really liked the looks of that model and so he began building one immediately.
When done, Tom’s Drop-Nose Crossfire flew very well with but minimal trimming, and with that model his flying progressed quickly. He flew that model locally in 2017 and 2018, and then took it to the Nats for the first time in 2019, where he placed fourth in Advanced.
In 2020 Tom was practicing with his Crossfire at his local field and wandered off center a bit and the outboard wing hit a cone that he had placed adjacent to the circle as a maneuver reference point. The outboard wing sheared off the model just outboard of the landing gear mount. Tom called me and we got together to graft a new wing panel onto the ship just prior to leaving for the Nats. The ship still flew extremely well, and Tom again placed fourth in Advanced.
Tom did not attend the 2021 Nats due to the Covid thing and also a very heavy workload. Tom and his brother own a construction business together, and there are times when he just cannot be away from the business. Add to this the fact that Tom has endured and overcome some very serious health issues over the past few years.
Tom did get a break from work in 2021 just long enough to attend the CL portion of the Joe Nall Fly-In. At the “Stunt Camp” portion of that event Tom got a lot of coaching from the panel of experts there. One of those experts was 12-time Nats Open Stunt Champ, David Fitzgerald (13-time Nats champ as of this year!). David flew Tom’s Crossfire and stated that, “I can’t make it do anything wrong.”
Encouraged by that validation of the model’s performance, Tom began practicing in earnest. Unfortunately, as his tracking through maneuvers got better - and he was hitting the same spot at the bottoms consistently - he hit his own turbulence on a calm day and the ship was totaled! In fact, the remains filled two plastic bags. In baseball a two-bagger is a good thing… not so in the Stunt world.
When Tom called and told me about the crash, I could tell that he was very down. He asked me if I thought he should repair it, and I counseled against it. Tom had a new ship started, and I thought he should concentrate on that. He decided to reconstruct the model from the pieces (without telling me…) and, well, as you all now know he flew it at this years Nats and won Advanced. I told him to never listen to me again… If he had, he would probably not be the Advanced Champion now. I suggested that he rename the ship the “Double Phoenix” as it had risen from the ashes twice!
Tom’s Nats 2022 Nats experience was not without some significant drama. Tom is now writing a piece for Stunt Hangar that addresses his issues on Advanced Finals day, so I won’t go into any detail on that here. My purpose in writing this is to let all of you know about how a very dedicated and persistent competitor overcame huge obstacles in his life to achieve his goal, and also to let everyone - and Tom - know how incredibly proud I am of him and his achievement. Way to go Luciano!
Bob Hunt
Topic: Tom Luciano and the "Double Phoenix" (Read 1185 times)