Riley:
You mean journalism isn't perfect and error free??
Ah shucks... here's a word-for-word quote of the entire coverage of Open Combat at the 1967 Nationals as reported by Model Airplane News in their November 1967 issue:
(Note: The long paragraph with run-on sentences is straight from the article.)
"Open combat during the first two rounds was marked by an unnecessarily large number of "byes" due to one side or the other failing to get their engine started, by a large contingent of good fliers from Northern California (WAM country as opposed to AMA) and an excellent record of very few midair collisions. Soon the pairings worked themselves down to the very, very good few and the matches were excellent with hardly any midairs and well run by the ex-National Senior combat champ Dan Jones and his crew of Navy helpers. Bob Carpenter, who won open combat at the last California nationals, still flying his Swoop design, was beaten by McInytre who had not flown since the Philadelphia Nationals of two years ago! Texas' Lipscomb defeated USAF team member Whitney from Hawaii, who then went on to a match with McIntyre for third and fourth. McInytire having been dispatched in an exciting match with Texan Riley Wooten. Wooten, flying his foam-winged Vampire, which is available in kit form, looked faultless and his airplane was the sort of thing you expect to see on exhibition in a store window instead of the veteran of many combat matches. A crowd drew up to watch the all-Texas Wooten/Lipscomb match and were set for excitement when a very quick start put them both up in short order. A few moments later Wooten drew first blood with a cut and then unexpectedly there was a solid 'thunk' and Lipscomb "killed" Wooten, cutting the knot off. The crowd was stunned at the very short match but there it was. Wooten wound up his lines with a plane that looked very much similar to yours or mine - before the first flight. It's not that I object but he could have painted some dirt marks on it or some imaginary repairs out of pity for the rest of us - the foam wings sure looked good. Fox was his choice but the bulk of the fliers used the SuperTigre front rotor ball bearing combat engines. A reminder of a few Nationals back was the attractive Mexico City entry powered by the Johnson 35C, remember?"
End quote.
Well, as I can now see, I "ASSUMED" the mid-air took out airplanes, for it typically does. However, a more careful reading of the article indicates your Vampire was almost unscathed.
So, the above is the "cut and dried" version of contest coverage... I much prefer to hear it from the competitors themselves!
All fer now...
Andre