CombatPigg,
The rules have an unusually high degree of redundancy and repitition - on purpose. To an outsider looking in the sight of an engine limit of $60 or less is appealing. The single prop and performance limits (designed to keep planes to slightly less than 50mph in forward level flight) were initially created to make sure all bases were covered and that the event would not escalate into an engine and technology event.

In the early days the planes had right at 400 square inches and were dogs. They wouldn't climb, would snap like crazy, and were hard to launch. Then Dr. Evil (Mike Fredricks) showed up with a much larger plane with over 600 square inches and was faster, turned tighter and at us all up.

The key in this event, where we have power limits, is wingloading. The magic number is to have a wing loading of less than 12 ounces per square foot.

The Falcon flying wings used by Lee Liddle and many others perform extremely well in SSC. The Ready to Fly version of the Falcon 72" from George Cleveland weights a little under 3lbs with an OS .15, two std servos, a Hitec 555 and one micro servo yet has a wing loading of about 8.7 ounces per square foot. It flies very well with the additional benefit of being able to thermal in light lift.

There are many who are angry that Scale was replaced by Open, but the SSC airplanes are being modeled as Warbirds as well as Open and are growing in popularity. Here is an example of Warbirds in SSC:



My good friend Petr Bachan of Texas has designed a Flying Wing designed by the Horten Brothers in Germany, and it works for both SSC and Scale 2610. Click on this link to see his build along article: http://groups.msn.com/Compositemoldi...on.msnw?Page=1