RE: Is combat dead?
If you fly over tall grass [hay field] the 14 oz planes never reach the ground all day. The only serious damage is when you mid air...but the repairs are usually routine carpentry with CA glue and packing tape.
I bring a can of acetone or MEK and rags to help with repairs, but we've had many days where only 1 plane or even none ever get hurt.
The action is slow enough and we fly close enough in to be able to avoid mid airs most of the time. If I have a possible scoring shot at another plane, but reckon that it's a risky move, I'll abort it, take a sip of beer and try to get lined up better on the next go'round. The action is slow enough and lasts so long, we sit in lawn chairs after the planes are launched.
Real tight looping pursuit almost never results in anything more than prop cuts and planes slapping each other since they are going the same direction and at the same speed side by side.
Those are my favorite moments...it looks really cool, almost like a twin engine biplane when they get lined up just like so.
Here;s a photo of our ".15 diesel class".
The planes are retired control line combat planes that are outfitted with elevons and fins.
The engine is moved further forward to balance out the bulk of the RC conversion.
48 inch span, about 500 sq inches...these planes are excruciatingly slow with their floppy nylon 8x6 props doing about 11,000 rpm. The are comical with the diesel engines popping and burping, just enough power to maneuver at will...but just barely enough. They will show signs of overheating if you do too much manuevering...so then you have to level off a little and just try to out run the other guy for awhile. These planes get retired when they get too funky to look at and there are occassional repairs with Gorilla Glue.