049flyer

My Feedback: (18)

A few of us played around with Slow Stick combat a few years ago. Fun to watch because everyone flew close in and the planes were slow. Parts are cheap and interchangeable. Seemed like a good idea but we couldn't get it to stick for some reason.

boiler1

We decided to make Gnat a provisional RC Combat Assoc. event last year and it was flown at at least 4 sanctioned meets. A lot more was flow outside of the meets.
we have over twice that many meets offering it on the schedule this year and the schedule has't been filled yet.

darels

My Feedback: (18)

Juan....

I am the combat event organizer for the Edmonton Radio Control Society we have a short flying season up here in Canada but combat is prospering here
We have six sanctioned events happening this year in our province.

When I first started organizing I tried to get the club to use .25 ci engines and the events had few participants I was discouraged a little.
Then I moved our maximum engine size for combat back to .46 and things turned around most pilots have .46 engines and planes

If you expect other pilots to buy non standard engine sizes and to use the same type of planes it will work against you for combat.

In my opinion their are too many "classes" in combat today here is our rule "open design .46 ci engine max or 450 watts electric"

A .46 will pull a 60' streamer in just about any amount of wind it is a little harder to get streamer cuts but .46 SPAD wide open is FUN

Hopefully you have coroplast in Guatamala here is a video from one of our events http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngfPwJ1ii04

Don't give up!!!! Darrell

Cross Check

Hi Darrell,

Great Video.
The fun and excitement of a Combat Match is hard to explain,
Unless you are there.

I agree on "too many Classes". Keep it Local, and have FUN !

Just follow the excellent R/C Combat Safety Rules.
(especially if you think Spectators might show up ! )

I like the use of longer string/streamers...

Tell anyone interested, that 'Midairs' will happen.
(part of the 'thrill', is daring to fly in the 'Combat Box'...)

What works here in the GTA(grosser Toronto area) is:
-getting everyone test flown.
-Split the entries/Heats, so that 'newcomers' are separate than the 'experienced' pilots.
Each group 'spots' the other....
-when attrition allows.... It is 'all planes up' !! !

Above All, Have Fun. Safely.

If you have not tried R/C Combat...try towing a streamer on your plane...
You will enjoy the excitement...

Then, the adrenalin rush of 'START COMBAT' !

Take care,
Have fun,
Dave'crosscheck'Fallowfield
Maac 6437
Unabashed Combat Team

darels

My Feedback: (18)

Hi Dave....

I didn't check the date on the start of the forum 2010 is a long time ago guess I just felt like posting something.

We take safety seriously any accident is too many I mark our field according to the "500' per cubic inch rule from the spectator line" with coroplast election signs and everyone wears a hard hat and has to sign a sheet with the rules on it.

Anyone who hasn't flown combat I missing out! yes you will lose some planes but in most cases the engine and other components survive.
and coroplast and downspout is cheap it's actually kind of funny when the event stops so that everyone can go to find the scattered remnants
of someones plane.

This also keeps you building planes your "fleet" doesn't too large so when I hear that "thhwap" sound it never bothers me.
Been a long winter looking forward to combat this year.

Darrell.....

biker 133

I have been trying that for a long time ,saying that it is hard for a flyer to part with a $ 100 air frame does not hold water ,if he has a problem with crashing a plane while having fun ,maybe he should keep it in his trunk ,I have flown controll line combat since I was a kid ,entered many AMA events and I am trying to get guys to fly r/c combat ,they don't know the fun they are missing

B-17 Guy

Electric foam planes? So I got a good combat plane, used in WW2! It's a B-17 Superfortress. (American Bomber)


Anyway, why not play World of Warplanes, or Warthunder on your PC? It's multipayer.

biker 133

No ,I don't think foam planes < which i loath > is a good idea ,the whole idea of combat is to be realistic ,foam planes don't cut it ,like I said before ,if a guy is worried about loosing a $100 air frame then he should stop flying ,I don't advocate crashing your plane but in all the years i have flown combat I never lost a plane ,and if i did ,well that's the cost of having a ball .get into combat and have a thrill '''''''''''

Old Erkki

Greetings from Finland
We have been flying here in Europe 1:12 Scale RC Combat over 15 years. WW II Eurocup result list has over 200 names in 2013. And 1:8 WW I Aircombat has about 70 names. Those two are major outdoor classes.So I think that we did something right.
Some principles
-No dramatic rule changes since 1990
-It is still possible to buid competitive plane from foam and brown paper. Price of plane is less than $ 50. Building time 10-25 hours
-Engine output is limited

Sometimes pops up new class proposal but eventually they fade up. Only some local indoor classes survive.

More info you can find in
http://www.aircombat.eu/

Old Erkki

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Another perspective. I came across this thread researching RC combat, which I'm going to be engaged in shortly! If the goal is to increase interest and participation in this line of the hobby, why limit the planes that can be involved? Not everyone likes to, or has the ability to stick/kit build. And those that do, might not want to lose a plane. So why not use foam? EMBRACE THE FOAM!

Last year at our electric event we had folks from two other clubs put on a noontime demonstration. We had about 15 planes with streamers go at it for 5 minutes. All were either combat foamies, or profile planes. After 5 minutes only one plane was left, and he was the "winner".

I have to say, the crowd absolutely loved it. So did our members, and this wasn't something we had ever done in the past. Several of us decided to follow up on this and actually do it rather than watch it. What was amazing to many was the lack of mid-airs. Not one plane hit another. It's funny that every now and then we have a mid air at a huge field with only two or three planes in the air, and yet here we had none.

I'm hoping we'll have more participants this year.

Here is one pic towards the end of the 5 minute window.

boiler1

I've been flying rc combat for 10 years. The reason you have few mid-airs is you are flying slower planes in a smaller box. The spectators get to see them better and the pilots have better deapth perception which reduces mid-airs. I have flown every class of combat in the rc combat association. The slowest planes fluing in the smallest box work best. We haven't developed an electric only class yet but had better get on the ball and get it done since new pilots are many times electric only.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Electric is HUGE now...even the folks that have more time in this hobby (i'm not going to call them what others do ) are coming around to them in our club. Not only the scale stuff, but smaller EPP trainers and 3D planes. In the event I saw a couple planes landed hard and were repaired within minutes with some CA and kicker.

I've never seen combat other than small foamies, I'm sure it's a blast.

Clean

It's not a matter of losing a 100 dollar airplane. It's a problem with losing 5 or 6 a match AND not being able to rebuild before the next match. Most people have a life that doesn't include rebuilding all the time. Combat goes in waves, folks live with the rebuild time for the excitment of the match, for a while. Then they move onto other activities that are less destructive until they get the itch again.

Foamy combats are great in that they can be flown close in, generally use about a bucks worth of foam with 60 bucks of equipment which has seen many airframes. Good flying foam ships fly acceptably nice though they are slow.

B-17's wouldn't work so hot unless you want a B-17 profile with a single motor up front. Otherwise you're looking at 2 or 4 planes worth of motors, esc's for a single event. And watching a b-17 in a furball would be just, wrong.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Picked up my new combat ship this weekend, got it all dialed in, looking forward to my first battle this weekend! Wonder how much of this will be left. Ha!

Clean

even if it's a write off it's not expensive to replace. I've seen those that were more hot glue then anything else slugging it out with the others. Best bet, take two or three wings and swap the power pod when needed. It's a whole lot of fun. I like HOR combat with 15's too. They fly too slow to get too much crash damage and because of the low power, you have to fly pursuit combat. You have to observe the other guy, figure out how he responds to how you fly and then double think him, getting to his planned intercept location just after HE gets there. He goes there for you and you get him. Ahhh it's so much fun to hear them scream. And it hurts, it really hurts biting your lip so they don't get the same satisfaction. We all have tells. The biggest part of the game is hiding yours. But I long for the days of the C class slugfest. Just magical.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Sounds like great fun. I'm looking forward to it!

B-17 Guy

B-17s were warplanes and did get involved in dogfights.

Clean

B-17's were involved in Dogfights. They were lovely TARGETS! Oh, they did score a couple kills but their guns were defensive not offensive. Nobody chases down a fighter with a lumbering piece of mid 30's technology. They'd at least use a 26 for that action. Don't get me wrong, the 17 would absorb a ton of damage and still keep in the iair. It was a hundred mph slower then 24's and later 29's but it did the job at a time when we didn't have anything else to fight with.

They didn't like to loop so much. Neither did their crews. Rolling wasn't so much fun either I'm told.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Had two combat fights this weekend, one better than the next. Wow that was fun. Hard to try to find a plane and go after it. Every time I did that I lost track of mine! I actually won the first one I entered, second one not so much. I'll try to get pics up. The crowd loved seeing it and gave us a nice applause for the show. I walked over to our event vendor (RC CORES) and bought myself a second ship!

J.V.

My Feedback: (56)

We have been doing RC combat with 800mm scale WW2 planes from Motion RC. Started out with three of us in the spring and now there are seven in our club doing it on weekends. It's just unofficial club fun. The planes are very durable just a little glue after a crash and back in the air.

qwerty3

Excuse this post in a rather old thread:

In my experience, it has helped get a few guys interested enough to build a spad gnat and join us - by having an extra ship (or two), and let the new guy try a combat session or two using your plane. We've got a small group doing spad gnat combat once a week, or so (depending on when we can get enough together at the same time) - but this has taken 3 years. We now have several others that show up to spectate for the informal matches.

Not worried about scoring - just temporary bragging rights. The AMA combat rules are good - follow those, and you should not have safety issues. One thing we had to learn was sharing air time with the regular (non-combat) fliers at the field. Depending on how busy the night was, of course.

j.duncker

My Feedback: (2)

People don't build much anymore. So if someone came up with a cheap ARTF that just needed gear and engine AND was fun to fly it might get people interested. I flew 12th scale combat in the UK and Europe for years and it was great fun. I tried to get others interested and had some success but they dropped away.

So CL combat is fed by guys like this https://viko-shop.com/ people buy 1/2 a dozen at a time.

When Rare Bear ARTF models were around people had a go at pylon racing with them LOTS of people.

Propworn

My Feedback: (3)

The only rules we had for combat was a limit of a .25 engine. That allowed a lot of freehand designing. Some worked some didn't. The best combo was a Norvel .25 with an APC 8X4 prop and a 24 inch span flying wing. Sheeted foam wings 3 servos goes like a bat out of hell and does loops small enough you can cut your own streamer if not careful. The old one all beat up still fly's no problem. All the red is supposed to be blood from the many it has mid aired and turned into junk. Found out I got more cuts aiming for the other plane instead of a streamer.

Clean

Man, those Norvels would scream on a 9x4, oh wait, MA 9x4. Probably sounded about the same.

Happy prop sounds.