A small elite group of true combat pilots had a similar name back in the late 80's,
taken from the place we used to fly that looked over the bay inside of Newport Beach:
"Bad Boys of Back Bay"
We flew an unusual little 50" composite model called the "Air-Tic" (once it gets on
you it can't be shaken off)! It was designed and mostly built by Ed Resetar, who
works for Porsche now (he was part of the group that put out the new Carrera GT that
was just unveiled in Europe a few months ago). He would only build them for those he
felt were capable of and willing to fly them as aggressively as they could be flown,
which was very aggressively! The Air-Tic could also take quite a bit of punishment,
more so than any other design we flew against back then. We used to fly as a 4 or 5
man team and combat against other groups of guys flying various designs. We never
lost a combat as a team! And we flew "real" combat, where all hits had to be made
from a rear quarter, no "T-bones" or head-ons". It took a considerable amount of
skill to consistently be able to score hits, and forced everyone to really learn
energy management and aerial combat tactics similar to those employed by real fighter
pilots (lag and lead rolls, yo-yo's, scissor maneuvers, etc.). I've watched so many
of today's combat events and don't see any of that, just big furballs where everyone
seems to be more into enjoying the amount of damage wreaked from out of control
impacts than the deep satisfaction of a kill prosecuted with skill, cunning, and very
good aerobatic flying. And believe it or not, it actually draws quite a crowd when
two or more teams are flying in a defined area with judges and timers, etc.
Very similar rush to Man on Man slope racing!
Keith M
Hawaii
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