Hi Lou - I appreciate your detailed response, something I can start understanding. I was actually paying a complement to you'all - I am returning to model airplanes after several decades away, and now with more where-with-all to get deeper into it. I have appreciation of the heritage of model flying, and I was playing up my ignorance more than anything else.

Electric foamies got me back into the hobby/addiction fast, but classics and balsa are taking me further. I hope there is even more renewal of interest in branches of the hobby like C/L.

Amidst a buying frenzy I landed a few serviceable C/L engines and definitely want to get a range of planes, here. I was happy to see one of the club members bring out a recent C/L plane and fly it - I feel there should be more of that. Unfortunately, there are fewer people around to learn from these days. On the bright side, there are those like you quite lively on the internet forums.

The experience of reading this thread was one of those ignorance-is-bliss moments. Everything in here was new to me, and entirely not visualizable (if there were such a word) to me. Actually, it was awesome there is a whole new branch of model flying I can try out (I feel another necessary spending spree coming on.)

I get now a few points about monoline that were getting by me - the whole loss of control with two-line systems when one or both lines goes slack.
Is there a youtube video that shows how the monoline system works? I would be into figuring this system out - for both enjoyment and for memorialization and preservation value.

Cheers,
Poughkeepsie Pete

PS This is the current state of my C/L program - a leftover Guillows Trainer from the 60's I recently got in an estate sale.
The one thing going for it is that it was built by a NASA engineer, so you know it has to be good.
I have a ways to go.