I attended the Vintage Stunt Championships (VSC) in Tucson Arizona last week. This is a major control line competition not just for District X but the entire United States. There were pilots from all over the U.S. plus a team from Brazil, and there would have been one from Japan if they were not recovering from their earthquake and tsunami.

While you read my account of the event please refer to my pictures which are here.

I met Mike Keville who founded the event in Southern California at the Knights of the Round Circle field in Whittier Narrows in 1989. Mike or his wife Jo Ann ran the event for the first 14 years of its existence.

The Cholla Choppers currently run the event at their home field in Tucson. Lou Wolgast was the CD for this year. Even though I don’t want to get into too much detail because our Model Aviation Editor Emeritus and current CL aerobatics column editor Bob Hunt has agreed to prepare a District X column on the subject for the June issue of Model Aviation, I would like to point out the following.

Lou Wolgast flew a plane of his own design. He penned his Sport Fury in 1964 at the age of 16. It was a beautiful machine. In fact the CL aerobatics builders could give just about anyone a run for their money when it comes to pristine finishes. Many of them like Lou’s are done with two-part automotive paint and a lot of man-hours.

I met a team that spanned three generations they were Robert Sr., Robert Jr., and Scott Harnes. This family was honored by having Robert Jr.’s Gladiator on the commemorative shirt for the event.

John Callentine the President of the Choppers campaigned a unique airplane. It was a scale P-51 Mustang. John told me it was an Al Rabe design and in spite of its scale outline it gave up nothing to the purpose built aircraft.

Sean Cavano who resides in Tucson and has been flying for 3 years had another Sport Fury but his was powered by a four-stroke Saito 40. Sean prefers the torque he gets from the four-stroke. It also was significantly quieter than most of the two-stroke power plants in other aircraft.

If you have ever wanted to go to a CL event I highly encourage you to check out the VSC it goes on for 4 days and ends in a heck of a banquet. So make plans to be there next year.