The news that a model turbine jet had crashed through someone's house at the 'Top Gun' Model Show at Palm Beach's Polo Stadium has reverberated around the world.

We at 'Flying Sites' first broke the story in Great Britain on the 2nd May (see Top Gun Brought Down By Flak) after gaining permission to use a report in The Palm Beach Post.

But the crash was only the beginning of Frank Tiano's problems! A series of bizarre incidents that began with Saturday's crash end on Sunday with a stand off between show organisers and local residents, with Tiano vowing never to bring the show back to Palm Beach.

The rec.models.rc.air Newsgroup posted over forty five messages commenting on the crash. Arguments ranged from why poorly constructed models were allowed to fly to the size of modern turbine aircraft and had their size outgrown the location of the show.

Meghan Meyer, a staff reporter even filed a follow up report (headlined 'Model plane flap stretches to UK'), because of the interest shown, especially from us here at 'Flying Sites'. Her report published in The Palm Beach Post (9th May) quoted Frank Tiano, organiser of Top Gun, as saying "It's to bad it was all blown out of proportion."

Keith Hollifield, a competitor from Lexington, Kentucky said that the residents, who had held the balloon protest "where probably a bunch of snobs, and the Polo Club owner's behaviour was outrageous." Meghan even quoted your Editor here at Flying Sites as saying "Modellers like to be seen as responsible and do not like the 'toys for boys' image. Any model aircraft crash is not good news for modeller." Obvious I suppose to us but not to her readers perhaps.

So when the dust had settled physically as well as metaphorically the results of Top Gun 2001 were posted on the newsgroup. For those that are interested they were as follows:

Written by Flying Sites Editor
Peter Dennis