RE: .074 powered
I remember the fast combat Monoboom. I think it was Greg Hill in the late 1980s who showed up here with these wooden masterpieces that were designed / built by a guy named Hoffeldt...?
They were tremendous flyers, but were too fragile for combat.
A local guy [Dick Salter] campaigned a similar 1/2A version he called the Fantail, but they were just too labor intensive for "The Show". If that design used Soviet style framework, it would have made some difference for survivability.
Even though I loved 1/2A combat, it never lived up to it's potential in my mind. Most of the local contests boiled down to matches marred with no starts, and fatal mid airs after very little jousting.