Control LINE Combat

[robert mathison]

HI All,

This photo sent to me from my Son , it seems the gang out in Vagus held a combat contest this Weekend. this model's engine is in side the wing.

Bob

[greggles47]

Bob,

It's not about the damage, it's all about the fun. Hope he had a blast!!

Most combat fliers I know would fix that with a bit of CA, a bit of tape and be flying it in the next bout.

[faif2d]

It just goes with the territory! Although I only had a few $150 motors when I was active. I always hated it when they met motor to motor that was expensive. The crashed planes were just part of the cost to play the game.

[monolineman]

it went into the trash can and i hooked up another one to the lines. and yes we had a load of fun. we had 5 guys for this club combat contest and 5 planes were smashed to bits. our vegas combat rules are simple 60' lines .40 max engine size the winner was a sig sky ray with a fox 40 9x7 prop 15% nitro.

[The Kiwi]

Until I was replying to Lester Haury's PM on the MACA message forum, it hadn't struck me, but I did enter five or six Speed Limited Combat events before facing up to the even greater limitations that have been placed on me by visual losses, old age, and a spare tire weighing me down, and yet all of the models I used remained undamaged. This was mostly the 80 mph version favored in Houston, but I also flew a couple of 75 mph events in Oklahoma.

Fifty-five years ago, when I was getting started in combat, our old Half-Fasts and Nobodies flew about 70 mph, and I took just one plane with me to my first contest. I flew three times, and broke the motor mounts on the Nobody in a bad landing, which kept me from flying off for first, as I didn't bring spares. We didn't have bad air to air collisions, or bad damage from hitting the ground when we mixed up our directions inverted.

A volunteer supporter of a Texas Boys Camp named Mike Gibson is using models to bridge some of the gaps to the young people, and Lester got involved in the multi-date series that is a WW2 "Sportsman" combat activity. The rules are why I call it "Sportsman", as they reduce the competitive nature of combat. The series calls for 70 mph as a speed limit, timed at an unusual 15 foot altitude. There were several meetings last spring, and he (Lester) tells me there are more to be scheduled this fall.