Sunday brought forth the truly hardy combat flyers at the Newton Sky King's club in Newton, Iowa. Temperatures hovered at 26 degrees with snow and ice on the ground. Several of us came out to do battle with our trusty and tough SPAD gnats. The faster flyers had the venerable OS .15 LA gnats.
One of the major mid-air collisions of the day resulted in one gnat trying to burrow through the other gnat's wing. The burrowing gnat got it's engine stuck in the other gnat's wing and both spiralled (like two joined leaves falling) down to the ground. Not surprisingly, the gnat with the damaged wing was taped up and flown within minutes without any trim adjustments. The cold made the Corplas very brittle and it was the general consensus that had it been a little warmer, both planes would have survived fairly intact
Check out the video at our website called, " the power of a John Deer sticker" at:
http://www.newtonskykings.org/moviesMS.htm#top
PS...the previous day all the SPAD boys flew their gnats in heavy snowing conditions. One question though, where were all the balsa guys :> ?