Frank Schmitt duels eventual champion John Emery in the preliminaries.	Terry Coleman en route to a macth in the Final.

Participation was marginally down this year, despite welcome participation by several newcomers. The first three rounds consisted of single dogfights featuring evenly-matched planes, resulting in numerous tight games (including four ties). Afterwards, ten players were either undefeated or were 2-1, with defending champion Mike Lam one of those failing to make it into the Quarterfinals due to the tiebreaking criteria.

In the Quarterfinals (and subsequent matches), each pairing played two identical dogfights, switching sides as usual. Mike Confoy (who lost a cut with Mike Lam to advance last year) was one contender, but fell to John Emery 22-5. Roger Taylor (the only past champion to make the Quarters) lost to Frank Schmitt 15-9. Terry Coleman edged out former GM Mike Nagel 10-7 in the closest match, while another former GM, Chris LeFevre, ran up the highest score in vanquishing Peter Perla 30-9. Not surprisingly, the USNWildcat/Buffalo pair proved superior to the A6M2/F1M2 side, 71-46.

LeFevre's margin of victory matched him against Coleman in the semi-finals, but Coleman prevailed 5-2 with his Hurricane I/Gladiator pairs vs. the opposing Bf110C/C.R.42 elements and 10-0 when playing the Axis. In the other semi, Schmitt's Commonwealth fighters eked out a 2-0 win over Emery's Axis elements, but couldn't overcome the 10-0 margin chalked up by Emery's Desert Air Force to advance.

The Final thus pitted John Emery against Terry Coleman. In the first dogfight, Emery's LaGG-3/Yak-1 elements carried the day against Coleman's Finnish Hawk 75/M.S.406 fighters. The Yaks proved their mettle as the wingman dove out of the sun to down the damaged Morane leader on Turn 3, and the pair combined to destroy the other 406 on the last turn. Coleman's Hawks managed to destroy the LaGG wingman, but when the planes landed Emery was ahead 12-5. In the second dogfight, Emery's Moranes combined to shoot down Coleman's Yak leader on Turn 2, but the Soviet counterattack was fierce. The surviving Yak blew up the 406 leader's fuel tank on Turn 5, and by the end of the game the Hawk wingman was the only undamaged Axis plane in the air. Coleman's comeback fell short, however, as John Emery won his first WBC DIF Championship by a combined score of 19-14.

Special thanks are owed to dedicated Assistant GMs Mike Lam and Chris LeFevre for their support during the event, and to Martin Scott for doing the artwork for another eight beautiful aircraft cards. Another GM will be needed to guide this event in 2008 should the membership vote it back in as I will not be available to run it.