ptulmer

My Feedback: (5)

Seems like all my flying time has gone away. The 1/2 hour trip to the field on the only day that my wife and I are off together is getting harder to justify every week. Heck, not only that, during the week we have beautiful weather and crappy weekends! I've got a piece of uncleared property that measures something like 200'x250'. I want to put a 1/2a control line circle in there! How big should the circle be? How long should the lines be? Am I missing something?

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I've even got two c/l airplanes! One complete, one almost-ready-to-cover!

mclintock

My Feedback: (3)

I say make it at least 120' diameter so you can fly .09 sized things too. I've managed 40' lines on an .049 powered plane that was fine, the lines were spiderwire woven fishing line, 10 lb test- the smallest one.. I broke one once which made an interesting flight. Longer than 45 feet the lines were arcing back so the plane was not really flying tangent to the circle any more.. I'm going to the next bigger spider wire from now on, or proper steel lines.

I think the standard is 35 feet of .008 steel lines for 1/2a.

gcb

For those size planes you would use either 35' or 42' lines, depending on power. For anything up to a hot .061, a 50 ft radius (plus arm length) should work. If you include landing gear, be sure to bring a piece of cardboard for take-offs.

Good luck with it.

George

Tim Wiltse-RCU

Patrick,

If you put in a c/l circle at your house be sure to make room on the side lawn for me to park my car!!!!

LAter,
Tim

BMatthews

This should have been in the CL forum.

.15 to 25 powered stuff flies just nicely on 52 foot lines. For 049 stuff 25 to 30 foot is great. Some higher powered 1/2A stuff can fly on 35 foot lines but the winds had better be pretty calm. Not much line tension at that size radius.

So 110' would be fine. No real need for a circle other than cutting the grass and doing some basic leveling if it's bumpy.... oh, and move the boulders.....

Wayne C

My experience, .049s usually do fine on about thirty foot lines. I've used forty and fifty foot lines but they cause a lot af drag and line tension becomes a problem unless you have a really hot plane and engine. I've had some that did great on twenty foot lines. I have several handle and line combos. My brother and I and several friends used to do a lot of front yard flying on ten to fifteen foot lines.
We'd start with a light plane and a cox reedy. (my personal favorite combination for frontyard flying was a carl goldberg lil wizard and babe bee.) We would take a 6-4 prop and cut it down to 3.5 or 4 inches. Then after running a tank af fuel through the engine to get things warmed up and adjusted, we would carefully measure a dose of fuel, practice had taught us the right amount, and start flying.
We took off on the sidewalk and had to be careful of tree limbs and such. Close control of altitude was a must but it was a lot of kicks. We had to keep our engine runs short to keep our balance.

Clear about a 100- 120 foot circle and have fun.

Clean

All that aside, a 200 foot circle is big enough for everything and have a buffer. AMA legal stops at 70 foot from handle to center, that's a 140 foot circle. Add a 15 foot pitting diameter and you'd be up to 170 feet. You also don't need to mow the whole thing, you know how the wind blows in your neck of the woods. Mow your grass at normal height, mow the area of most likely takeoffs lower. Small stuff is fine but there really isn't that much more effort required in your case. It is nice to be able to walk out and fly if you want to, I used to fly some .010's in my backyard on 15 foot lines. But those were just interesting as compared to some nice 1/2A ships, and I've seen and flown some 1/2A ships that are just like their full size PAMPA stunter brothers. They can be a bit fidgety though. Worse comes to worse and I'm scratchin for a flight, I take the Fox35 powered Buster off the wall and go put a flight up on that. Hard to get that combo wrong.

ptulmer

My Feedback: (5)

Sorry Bruce. I figured I would get as many answers as I could here before it got moved over to the two guys in the c/l forum... The area isn't grass. Man, we're talking prime South GA swamp land! All kinds of brush, muck, snakes, etc.

Actually, there was more interest in this thread than I would have guessed? I take it alot of you guys (Tim?!) really like c/l!

Tim Wiltse-RCU

Patrick,


Heck yah buddy!!! I cut my teeth(and fingers) flying 1/2a control line. When when Kelsie was in kindergarden I had her as my launch girl for my Man-Win trainer and a little flying disk off of Aeromaniacs website. Tell you what while it is a little weird looking with like 20degrees of engine offset the Man-Win trainer off the Balsa Beavers website in Canada flat out rocks. Made out of coraplast the darn thing can't be killed. It's a funky combat wing looking jobby that runs on a Cox BabeBee/Black Widow. Once I was up in NY seeing friends and family. I was telling my buddy about it and how I could make one out of a sign off the side ofthe road. He said "Poppycock you can ..Tim your an idiot to think I believe you". So as we are going down the road I lock up the breaks and snag some sign of the curb. We get to his house and I tell him to hook me up with a sharp knife, a piece of airduct tin, a couple 4-40 sized bolts sets and the BlackWidow off his Lil Satin(he keeps a 1/2a plane on hand for when we get together). No more than 30 minutes later I'm stripping off Spider Wire off his fishing reel and flying in his front yard..good times..good times.

Later,
Tim

Tim Wiltse-RCU

Pt,

As for room 35 is the max your gonig to go out with a Cox reedie. SO your talking 70 plus arm length plus add alittle for a safety zone so your looking at 90 feet across if your careful.

LAter,
Tim

Larry Driskill

Hey, and a happy Good Evening from Texas,

I'm sorry all these folks above here did not see what you were really/surely lookin' for.

'Seems to me you are lookin' for what size your 1/2A CL Combat area needs to be.

Cheers for screamin' 1/2A engines hangin' onto stainless steel cables.

By the rule book, you have a choice.

For High Performance 1/2A Combat you will need room for flying on 42 ft. lines.

For lesser speeds you can opt for 35 foot lines.

I would allow 10 to 15 feet of nice grassy, swamp and snake free, mowed and trimmed area outside the flight circle.

lildiesel

I've always found the dimensions of a baseball diamond will let you fly 1/2A C/L from the mound without hitting the backstop. Just make a circle around a a 90 foot diamond. If you want to fly anything larger, make sure that the outfield grass line is the pro 95 feet from the pitcher's mound -- you could safely fly a .35 from between the mound and 2nd base.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Patrick, a great way to get lots of good info about C/L is to find a copy of STUNT NEWS. It's the best model airplane related magazine that I've ever seen

vauxhall

You'll need 90' to start with, but once you get into it you'll be making the circle bigger for .35 powered Stunters. This my DC Merlin diesel 16" span Phantom Mite on 35' light multi strand steel lines. Lotsa 1/2A fun.

gcb

According to the title, this is for little airplanes, not necessarily only little RC airplanes.

Perhaps all the engine discussions should be under glow engines or everything diesel, also?

I think there is more commonality in the size than the type...for both engines and planes.

George

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Well, BRUCE was just doing his duty, and trying to drum up some business for the C/L forum. If you want to see a very active C/L forum, try out STUKA STUNT! C/L might be a dying sport, but you couldn't tell by the amount of message traffic and interesting discussions that they have over there.

BTW, the STUNT NEWS should be currently available through PAMPA [an AMA SIG for C/L flyers]. This magazine is usually loaded with plans and great construction articles and building tips. Most of the advertising is done by folks who have top notch C/L related stuff to sell, so this mag has a wealth of links to custom gear, some of it applicable to what we do here.

gcb

Agreed, but it sounded as if it was NECESSARY to move the thread. In all honesty, my main modeling interest is CL. When I come to RCU, I go to CL, then Glow engines, then Everything Diesel, then here...just because it's easier to select through the list of things I check in that order. I also peruse some of the other forums occasionally too.

I am also active on the Stuka Stunt Works forum. Most of the topics are about precision aerobatics (stunt), although sometimes other disciplines get discussed.

PAMPA is an excellent organization. Again, this is mostly for stunt (as described in its name). You won't find a lot of info on Scale, Combat, Carrier, Team Racing, etc. in Stunt News. If you're strictly an RC flyer, I would suggest you check out a local CL field. It may open up a whole new outlook on model airplanes.

Models is models. All are good.

George

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Hopefully, some others here will check this control line stuff out. Those guys really know how to build light. Some of the techniques they use are becoming lost arts, like "concours quality" tissue and dope finishes [something I've never learned to do either]. This is their golden age, literally, most of the guys are 50 and up, with practically no one else to pass the torch on to.

vauxhall

Hi CP, I always enjoy reading your threads and comments; I've got a couple of little grandsons who'd rather go C/L flying with Grandad than use their Playstations, there's still some hope for grass roots C/L....also the LHS guy commented the other day, that C/L seems to making a small comeback in our area, I hope that its 1/2A control line. I plan to spend some time coaching 'em in tissue covering, rubber powered stuff and even F/F. Don't get me wrong, I also have fun flying R/C 1/2A planes..............John

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Hi JOHN, nice to hear from you! C/L has its' ups and downs around here, what it takes to stir up interest is for outsiders to witness it, but it is a rare day when some newcomer actually commits to it. There are a couple of ARFs, the NOBLER and FLITESTREAK to help persuade newbies into trying it. My son prefers C/L combat to R/C combat, but he is yet to build his own batch of planes, [he uses my old dogs ] or buys from MEJZLIK, those awesome combat ARFS. They make great sport flyers, even with just average power.

vauxhall

Hi CP, I agree with all of the above, C/L is just another aspect of our hobby, and C/L isn't much of a spectator sport ( except for Combat ), you just have to give it a try, first hand, to get hooked, I'm also glad to hear your son enjoys a bit of C/L " streamer chopping". Good on him. The beauty of diesel C/L flying, no batteries or chargers of any kind required, just lines, fuel and a smallish patch of cleared land... ....John

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

John, don't forget the seperate set of diesel overalls that stays out in the garage permanently, or not being able to fly diesel within 24 hours of wanting to be intimate with your wife rule! , CHUCK