Personally, I do think there is space in this forum for slope combat, zagi-style foamie combat, and the electronic IR combat. Even though most of the regulars here fly streamer combat (as do I).

That said, a heli vs airplane using the IR stuff might be fun, but you'd be risking the heli. I'd probably give the edge to the heli when using IR beams.

In the real world, of course, airplane vs heli, the airplane wins just about every time mostly due to speed and ability to fly higher, but in RC combat, espeically using IR, the high speed "hit and run" approach is less useful.

I'm pretty sure at least one of the companies making the IR setups have it configurable so that it can do things like beep or flash an LED rather than cutting the throttle on a "hit".