ell, as I promised, herewe have the specialreport on the Warbirds

from the 2008 WRAM show.Being the show’s 40thanniversary you’d think theshow would be jammedpacked and except for theFriday snow storm that keptthe crowds light, the showwas well attended but notwhat I would describe as overcrowded. Because of theweather and of course theslowing economy, there wereseveral venders that simplydid not attend. This gave oth-ers the opportunity to movefrom the lower level to mainfloor and this gave an open airfell to the basement area. Ingeneral, there were only a fewnow items at the show as

many manufacturers hold offshowing new stuff until theToledo RC Expo in April. Stillin all, I always feel the WRAMshow is always worth a visit tosee what’s happening in theRC industry and of course toconnect once again with goodfriends and to see some reallysweet warbirds.

This yearsMAN steppedup to sponsorone of the spe-cial awardsgiven out dur-ing the show. Iwas very pleaseto hand theover-size postercheck and thereal check for$250 to Roy

Vaillancourt for the “BestPainted Finish” award. Roy’swinning model was his beauti-ful FW-190, the same one fea-tured in our last issue of theWNL. Congrats Roy. Nice job!

WW1 Warbirds

TWN TWN 8 years of

Warbirds

2008 WRAM Show Report

W

Roy Vaillancourt won 1st place in Designer Scale

and also took home the Best Painted Finish award

with his Well known Luftwaffe FW-190 Butcher Bird.

Perhaps the most popular cat-egory at the WRAM show isWW1. Best in show (plane)and the 1st place WW1awards went to Karl Jacob for

his 1/4-scale Albatros D.Va.2nd.place went to DennisHernandez with his Junkers CL-1and 3rd finisher Robert Mottaearned some gold with hisNieuport 28.

WW1 was also popular in the

Designer Scale category as Tom

Polapink earned 2nd place with

WRAM Show

Warbird Winners

Overall Best in ShowBill Setzler 50% scale Fokker

Eindecker

Best in Show (Planes)

Karl Jacob Albatros D.Va

Best Finish Paint

Roy Vaillancourt, FW-190

Designer Scale1st. Roy Vailancourt

FW-190

2nd. Tom Polapink

Pflaz D.III

Standoff Scale1st. Hank Rirhl

Nieuport 17

WW11st. Karl Jacob,

Albatros D.Va

2nd. Dennis Hernandez,

Junkers CL-1

3rd. Robert Motta, Nieuport 28

Post WW1 (Military)1st. Matt Lupri

P-51 Mustang

2nd. Scott Annis

FW-190

3rd. David Behnken

F-6-F Hellcat

Nicely finished Nieuport 17 earned a well deserved 1st place in the Sport

Scale class. Even though it did not have a dummy radial, it looked great.

3rd place in WW1 went to Bob Motta with his nicely done Nieuport 28.

Bob is a fellow FLYRC club member and always does well at the show.

2rd in Designer Scale went to Tom Polapink with his well used and nicely

detailed Pflaz D.III. Tom was also helping out in the WW1 Aero booth.

his well executed Pflaz D.III.

Proving the popularity of the

WW1 planes, the Best in Show

(Overall) award and a cool $1000

went to Bill Setzler for his

impressive 50% scale Fokker

Eindecker.

Post WW1 (Military)Even though the name of thecategory is a mouthful, this isthe place heavy metal warbirdcome to play. The Nicely doneMustang to the left earned 1st.for Matt Lupri. It was amazingand he did a lot of fine detailwork including weathering thevarious metal sheets. The cockpitalso was well appointed! 2nd.place went to Scott Annis for his

FW-190 and 3rd. place went to

David Behnken for his nicely

done 1.20 4-stroke powered F-6-

F Hellcat.

Warbird HardwareBesides all the great competi-tion models, the show alsohad a fair amount of militaryhardware on display. For nicecockpit stuffers, there weresome nice pilots busts shownin the Slimline Mufflers booth.Three new very scale lookingbusts are now added toSlimline’s Extreme Pilot series,and they should be right athome in any 1/6 to 1/5-scalefront office.

From the Great WhiteNorth, Kondor Model Productshad two new warbirds on dis-play. First was a 95 inch B-25Mitchell medium bomber andthe second was a 71 inchspan Douglas Skyraider. Bothhave painted composite fuse-lages and built-up woodwings. Both looked really niceand should prove very popu-lar.

And, talking about B-25s,right next to the MAN boothwas the Horizon Hobby dis-Overall Best in Show went to Bill Setzler for his yet to be finished 50%

Scale Fokker Eindecker E.III. Craftsmanship was amazing.

David Behnken placed 3rd in Post WW1 (Military) with his nice looking F-

6-F Hellcat. I was one of the smaller warbirds there but nicely done.

1st. place in Post WW1 (Military) went to Matt Lupri for his beautifully

detailed P-51D Mustang. Built from Ziroli plans, it was very nice.

play featuring their relativelynew B-25 bomber. Spanning82 inches, it is a nice exampleof multi-engine warbird. Rightbelow it was their new electricpowered T-34 Mentor PSTtrainer. Nicely done.

The final item I found ide-ally and specifically intended

for warbirdswas a very nicely done resincasted 3-blade (Hamilton-Standard?) prop shown in theNick Ziroli Plans booth. Thiskit is easy to assemble andpaint and it will add a lot tothe look of any 1/5-scaleWarbird. A perfect addition to

any Ziroli, Hellcat, orDauntless. Well, that’s it forWRAM 2008! I hope to seemany of you in April at theToledo RC Expo! Until then,fly safe!

Gerry gyarrish@yahoo.com