stgrlee

What ever happened to Kraut and Tattoo? Are you guys still building planes?

draftman1

I have heard that they arent, go to spadworld.net. somebody there will know for sure

ChrisSpad

they don't build or fly much anymore. I still keep in touch with them on a fairly regular basis. Tattoo's retired, and playing in a band.
Incidentally, they aren't old spadders, they're the original spadders.

draftman1

Chris, was chunky part of the original group? I know he is still on the spadword site. Is there a timeline on spads somewhere that somebody has done? that would be a nice piece of history to see ot have availiable

ChrisSpad

sttb is pretty much the timeline.
I guess it depends on how you define original group, there used to be one of sorts, but i've not seen it in years. Its a long drawn out story, spread over 4 or 5 different forums, and worked on by lots and lots of people. Dean and Collin built the first spad (which is still flyable, and currently in my garage) to make combat a bit more affordable in both time and money than using the balsa kits available at the time. At that point, they opened a pay website with plans on it, kept it a pay site for 3 or 4 months, and decided to make it a free site. From there, spads were a free for all, and caught on around the world. All of this happened late 1999, or thereabouts. I found the spad site a couple of months later. At that time, we were using a free bulliten board, and the name of it escapes me at the moment. At any rate, we kept crashing their server, so they started deleting the bottom half of the posts every Friday, and eventually that became too much. From there, the spad forum was moved onto the RCCA forum, where it stayed for a year or 2, whence we again overloaded their server. At that time, RCHawaii had a forum on another server that wasn't doing much, which then became the first dedicated spad forum. Long story short, RCH opted out of the forum, and Chunky C and I began running it. Along the way, i picked up the spadworld.net domain name, and after a complete rebuild of the forum software from scratch on a new server (complete with rewriting all of the custom mods that the site has) on a new server, that is the spadworld.net site as it is now.
Along the way, several other forums have added Spad subtopics, RCU being one, and even a couple of other dedicated spad forums were opened here and there. As far as the original group goes - here's an old list of credits, from i'm guessing 01 or 02. - http://home.comcast.net/~tipstricksl...ip_credits.htm . A few people listed there were added later on, but that is as close to a list of the original spadders as i've seen, but, there are quite a few that are left out, and there's no real history there. Everything from the RCCA forum was perserved, and added to our forum archives, and can be viewed here - http://spadworld.net/archive/viewforum.php?f=881 .
Spad is where it is because Dean and Collin lit the fire, and literally thousands have added fuel to it. At this point, i suspect that spads have been built almost literally around the world - India, Pakistan, Brazil, Australia, France, England, Egypt, and Israel are just a few countries that i know of spads being built in. Its always been an everyone pitch in and do what you can kind of thing. The archive link posted above, is probably the best indicator of a timeline of how things happened, timewise. Interesting reading if your into that kind of thing.

mclina

Thanks for the history, Chris. It's hard to believe that none of this stuff existing before 1999. I can't imagine what it would be like not to have STTB as a free resource.

draftman1

great stuff Chris, I knew you were at the begining also. I was trying to get back into flying back in 2000 and I remember seing something about spads, I dont even remember were I saw it. I was thinking to my self., well thats a dumb idea why would anybody want to make a plastic plane. then that was it. I never got back into it. then a year ago my kids wanted an r/c plane. I bought a balsa trainer, built it and crashed it twice. before I flew it though I did see a guy at the club that had a daspadstick. it flew great. then after crashing the trainer, I thought hum, those spads are cool! with the thought of having to build alot of balsa planes for me and my kids. so I went the spad route, best choice I ever made. I have built over 40 spads, got my kids flying better than me, we got into combat. its just been a great SPAD experience. I AM A SPADOHALIC and I need help! lets go find some coro

cajun1

Has anyone heard from, or know anything of Daryl "Crash" Sapergia. He was Spadder #4 or 5, I think,(I was #6).

I stayed in contact with him for a number of years after the start of SPAD, but haven't been able to raise him since.

He was living in St. George, B.C., Canada, and was a prolific modeler.

I have been building, designing, and combatting SPADS now for ten years and still going strong. It's been a great ride.

bent

Daryl dropped in on a flying Club near London, Ontario this summer while on holidays. He posts occasionally on RCCanada. The pic is from a Cobble Hills newsletter in July (Daryl's on the left). Sounds like he's still messing with plastic.

cajun1

Thanks Bent. It does look like he's still at it.

I'll see if I can reach him thru RCCanada, jus to say HI to an old friend.

draftman1

Hey Cajun, is that you I see on RCCA forums? what king of spads are you using for combat? I started this year. We, my boys and I have been using dogfighters then the corostangs and a modified draco's. I also have been dabeling in the Mako. its ok but I like spads better

cajun1

That's me, Draftman. I've been involved in combat since 1999, and have flown SPADS almost the entire time.

I use FlatBats with a standard 2 mil flat bottom wing, tapered, reinforced from the spar to LE with a foam core hot wired to fit. I put a 1/8" CF rod in the LE. The spar, foam, and rod is all glued in place with pollyU. The LE is squared by scoring twice 3/8" apart. This results in a more precise flying wing.

Other than that the only changes I make for the original is a standard tail configuration rather than a V-Tail,,,although I flew the V-tail design for a long time. I just find the standard tail easier and quicker to build.

I purchase the black FlatBats from Cramer, and at $6 each are cheap since they are practically indestructable. This plane is all I use for weekend club combat and competition. Age is catching up with me and I don't do as much competition combat as in the past. I probably would if we had as much local competition and meets as we had in the early 2000s.

Clean and I are probably the only two who are still active that flew combat with and against the SPAD originators. We all flew together for a couple of years at the Paris, Tx Combat Nats, probably 2000-2001.

Combat is the ultimate thrill a person can have with a transmiter and plane. With the almost indestructable and inexpensive SPADS I don't know why we can't get more guys interested.

BTW, I've been reading your posts on the CoroStar. I'm wanting to build this plane this winter for a 1.20 YS I own. Wouldn't scaling it up 10% be about right for size? I'm sure impressed with this design. Deadeye did a great job on the plans.

draftman1

Ok Cajun. yeah the spads are the best way to go. I love combat. Our club has a sanctioned event and this year I pushed for two events. Part of our group goes to the livermoore event also. I havnt been able to make the Palomar events yet. otherwise we have a 3 site circut going on in California. I got some club combat going about once a month and I bring out dogfighters ready to go for anybody who wants to try it. they just need to bring a radio and reciver. I got a guy hooked last month. Im hoping to get some SSC and/or 2458 going in our area also. The corostar was a nice plane. I just didnt have a big enough engine in it. at 10% over, it should be really nice. I also made a corokaos. I didnt realize there was one already done. I like it much better than the corostar, it flies like its on rails, hows a full throttle touch in go sound, its very cool!!

cajun1

Thanks for the tip on the Corkaos. The original Kaos was a great plane, so a good Coro replica should fly well. I have owned a couple back in the "80s.

I'm glad combat is still doing well in Ca. It looks like Terry H is still working at it. Lee Little and a hard core group in DFW are all that are keeping it going in Texas.

Ask Terry if it was him, at the first Paris meet that flew the fabulous round against Kraut. It was one of the best rounds of one-on-one combat I have ever seen flown. I still have pictues around here somewhere of it.