I don't just shiver in my basement building. I also shiver outside flying. I'm about to complete my 14th year as an AMA All Weather Flyer. I used to think Northern Ohio was cold. Survived one year here of something like -18 F (-27.7C) overnight when Iwas in college. Then I spent a pleasant month of March on business on a frozen lake in Northern Sweden, where at a heatwave of -4F (-20C), we felt like it was shirtsleeve weather. Even insects were flying around, and what looked like magpies were starting to be seen. After that, and several winter test trips to the UP, Northern Ohio seems quite comfortable.

I guess I'm very lucky to belong to a R/C club that has a paved runway, very larger grass area that is cut once a week and a C/L flying circle that no ones ever uses. I believe I'm the only one who still flies C/L but our field is 25 miles away and right across the street from my house is a school yard that I can either fly off the paved parking lot or in the grass. I could take my C/L planes up to our field but I be the only one flying. Here at the school yard, people, especially kids like to watch me fly and I get a kick out of that. Maybe some day someone will get the bug from me and start flying C/L with me. I fly both C/L and R/C and they are two completely different types of flying. I don't believe one is any harder or easier to fly then the other, it just takes alot of time, practice and sometimes glue to get good at either one. Larry

While I myself never became a very proficient C/L pilot. I sure had alot of fun with it! My Dad was hopelessly deseased with it. He used to drag my brother & I all over the midwest with him & his flying buddies, from one competition to the next. Even at the age of 7, I can tell you it was anything but boring!! I loved to watch him fly, & he was into all of it. Stunt, Combat, & his favorite, Rat-Racing! He would spend countless hours hand polishing every piece of his race engines, looking for that little edge in power, and i believe he found it too. 41 yrs later his house is still full of old trophies from his C/L days. He too got into RC as the years went by but he never forgot his roots, and the last plane he flew was his hot pink Nobler C/L plane that he had won so many trophies with. He's still alive & enjoying life allthough he is no longer able to fly, he still Knows how to build. We slapped an ARF together a few weeks ago. He got a real kick out of it, being darn near built for us, after so many years of building from scratch, & kits. He also still has some original design planes he built, he's not quite ready to let those go yet but the rest he has given to me.

We still have at least one guy that I know of at the club I am trying to join that does fly C/L there. He cleared himself a nice spot off the end of the runway and does his thing. Looks to me like he's having a ball with it too. C/L is not dead to me!![sm=sunsmiley.gif]


Mark

It' so much about visibility, and face it CL does not have it...

I'm working to change that however possible and have started a new forum and already garnered vendor participation. CL does not have a solid meeting place on the web and I believe that hurts it. Think about it, here we are on "RC"Universe, which I love, but it doesn't serve well... You, in reality, have to bounce around many places for scattered information. My forum my not take off, but it won't be because I am not trying!

I discovered Control Line very late in life (only two years ago). By discovered, I knew it was there, I had a owned a Cox PT-19 when I was in Jr. High, but I bought it and never found anyone to take me out to fly it... And then two years ago I drove by a field and saw a stunt ship flying and thought I'd try it... It stuck.

The guys I met brought out an old Skyray with an Enya on the nose and let me fly it... I loved the way I felt the plane flying and the pull on the lines... I was hooked... Then I got busy and had to deal with the fires here in San Diego, but now I am back!

This experience is coming from a guy who flew advanced pattern in the 80's (hey Chip, I beat you once ), helicopters, sailplanes and more. I'm even sponsored in some areas because of the hard work I've put in. Control Line flying is viewed as "easy" or "non-challenging" or "archaic"... These viewpoints are wrong. It is very enjoyable, very rewarding, and very challenging (of course I'm an excited new guy but I know I am right ).

I firmly believe that if you can get someone to try it, their likely going to like it! However, don't throw a screamin' 1/2A at the older folks especially... Sickness doesn't sell!

So, my next venture is a new flying area, that's got visibility!

The site is top notch Warren... You're doing good.

Nice to see some younger folks ptting some energy into cl flying. Keep it up, the timing is right.

Wally

Hey guys I've been following this thread for a while now. One thing I'm convinced of is that there are many people who like and feel strongly about c/l flying. I started c/l in the early to mid seventies and still love it. I still have the babe bee powered Carl Goldberg lil wizard that I first flew successfully thirty years or so ago. It has many hours and many crashes on it and is still in fair shape even though I have retired it. I haven't seen anything that compares to the simplicity of a reed valve .049. It would probably still run. When one of my friends moved into r/c I would often go to the field with him. Whatever planes we took I usually threw in the wizard. It had three things going for it -- it would almost always start, it usually ran well, and it would usually survive a crash. It was a good one to let a new guy use. At times when there were problems with the more sophisticated stuff it was the only one that flew. Often we would fly it until we ran out of fuel ( the can -- not just the tank ) or until we burned a head ( man we used to run that thing lean ). Truth is after aquiring a job, a wife, a family and other obligations I quit flying so much. Recently I've been trying to get back into the hobby. I like planes and I like engines. I'm happy with a simple flight and I don't want the expence or complexity of r/c. C/L fits me pretty good.

http://www.clstunt.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi

Hi, Wareren: there is a control line forum at http://www.clstunt.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi They have a real nice forum not as big as RC Universe but a good forum. I'm glad to here you are starting a forum, you need to post your site address so others can visit. I belong to four or five forums including one for S.P.A.D. only.

I think the idea of exposure is the key to getting more flyers. I joined a club in my area a couple of years ago. They meet on Sundays and Tuesdays both days are bad days for me. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday I could make it to the flying field. In fact I have made it during those other days and no one is ever there. I was told by one of the members they do come out during the week. Maybe it was just a bad time that I chose the twenty or so times I went out to the site, but with it being a 23 mile drive each way I’ve been there three times when they were flying all on Sunday early afternoon. These guys are real good fliers but if your not there on a Sunday you would never know it.

I belong to a RC Club also if it’s a nice evening you can believe someone is going to be at the field flying. When I started flying control line you would see a few people from time to time at a school parking lot flying. I love control line for so many reasons, but if you are going to fly in a public place you need someone to be there with you. A stooge will launch your plane, but it won’t keep children from trying to walk up to you while you are flying.

When I started I had a friend to fly with I wanted to fly everyday, but it’s hard to fly control line alone, RC flying alone is easy maybe even preferable. How many people I have seen try to fly go less than 20 seconds crash their control line plane and give up. In RC there is someone that will teach you and do so without loosing your plane most of the time. In control line it’s usually fly or die. I learned to fly both, but it’s real easy to teach with a buddy box, and there is no buddy box for control line, and you can’t learn 300 foot in the air. Control line flying is a real challenge and most people are not up to the challenge.

If there were more control line fliers that could fly and would fly were more people could see them fly there would be more getting into the sport. Or if there was a control line simulator that used a control handle and more people could learn to fly there would be more fliers.

At $50 per 20 second flight and more like $150 for a .35 size plane the kind that really makes you want to fly most people can’t afford to fly control line planes. But no one wants to admit the reason they don’t like control line is because it’s to hard for them to learn it. I’m telling you I’ve did both and the way most people learn to fly control line is much harder to learn, and they settle for RC.

One other thing I have noticed is people will spend $ 500.00 for RC and want to spend less than $50 for control line. More exposure and more good teachers is what control line needs,

Now that’s just two cents worth more from me.

Hi propjobbill, It's kind of funny to me that you said that most people aren't willing to admit that C/L is harder to learn. It was actually just the opposite for me. Now as I stated earlier it was my Dad , & not I who was IMO the Master C/L Pilot. I was however able to do it well enough to have alot of fun at it. I never got anywhere near the level he did, or most of you guys in here have, I'm sure. I was able to do some loops & fly inverted enough to swap it back & forth & stand in one spot for awhile without having to constantly spin around with the plane and get dizzy as some have talked about. But that was about the extent of my skill level at it's best, & I did bust up my fair share of planes[&:], but all in all, it was easier for me I think than RC which I am currently trying to learn on a Trainer with a buddy box. My progress hasn't been as rapid as I had hoped it would be but I'll stay with it till I get it. I don't know if it was the feel of the plane at the other end of the lines that I found easier to grasp or what. Maybe just harder to teach an old dog new tricks. But I'm still am very interested in C/L too. I might even have to build me another one just so that guy at our field isn't the only one left


Mark

Hi Mark, Maybe my statement was misleading but not on purpose. It took two or three hours of flight time for me to learn to fly RC well enough to take off and land, and I still am not a flier to brag about but with RC when I made mistakes there was time to recover. There is more to learn with RC. Up, down, right, left, etc. also as with control line up and down are the opposite when you are upside down, and left becomes right and right becomes left as you come toward yourself.
There really is more to learn to fly RC but with buddy boxes and simulators it can be learned without lose of aircraft. There’s less to learn with control line but reaction time can be much less time.
But in all honesty without an instructor it is almost impossible to learn RC. Where as if your are willing to build and rebuild in control line you can learn on your own.
With RC I had an instructor, with CL I learned on my own without any help except the little advice the kit gives you which is not near enough.
So RC may be harder but you usually have a helper, but with CL you are usually on your own, and I think that is why CL is hard to learn. As I said if there was a buddy box or a simulator CL would be much easier to learn.
This is just my opinion based on my experiences.
The hardest thing for me to leaen on RC was when coming at yourself to level the plane out push the stick toward the wing tip that is lowest to level the plane out.

I hear ya propjobbill, My biggest problem seems to be getting a good soft touch on the sticks, I've been told when I'm flying it looks like I'm stirring fudge or something lol. I also do the left thing when I knew in my head I meant to go right to level the wing out. I just find myself getting confused alot then I tend to get panicky, but I'll get it eventually


Mark

Warrens is at

http://www.onlycontrolline.com

It's comign along. Lot's of good areas to grow into.

Thanks warren I've book marked it for further use.

You have gotta try C/L a try at least onr time! Chances are you will get hooked as you try to take your line skills to the next level each Sunday. My brother and I fly C/L at the same circle that my dad, uncles and all there flying buddies did for years. Since visiting a local hobby shop I heard a older guy saying he would like to get back in to C/L, since than we have found a few more control line flyers! They also want to start flying C/L at a local R/C club. I think it will spark even more guys interest! Plus you gotta love feel and the roar of your Fox .35 tearing up the sky! Cant wait till Spring!!!

You know it Ryan!

PArt of the reason we may see various aspects of the hobby dying are attitudes like we have displayed here. I'm 37 years old, have came back to control line because of eye problems I have yet to get fixed, and forgotten how much I used to love CL!. We already have canned ARF'S, so let's can the attitudes and have fun. I think folks who will try and make time to build and fly, and who will try new things like CL will have fun. It's not for everyone, but then again there are folk's who will let nothing make them happy either. Just my opinion, now excuse me while I go work on my new CL bird, a Sig Chipmunk with a Brodak 3 line bellcrank and vintage Roberts handle!
Bryan

I started with CL. Geezer.

CL has very definate limits on what you can do with 2 wires.

Newer generations have a lot of , I want, what I want now and instant completion.

CL is you wait your turn in a restricted circle.

RC is going to possibly have 100's of channels soon.

CL teams are very rule concious. RC is loose by comparison. Totally different minds at work in each.

This is a long thread, and I haven't read every post, so if I mention something that has already been discussed, forgive me. The best way for us to promote CL is to be SEEN HAVING FUN! Some of us are "doubly handicapped", flying both RC and CL, and within the ranks of our RC friends are many who started out in CL, and still experience that "tug" when they see someone flying a stunt plane. I try every chance I get to make a CL flight at the RC field, and I make a big show of how "pumped" I get and how much fun I'm having. So far I know of 3 guys who are getting back in CL. One step at a time........Glen

I started flying CL in 1980 when I was 10 years old with the goal of moving up to RC. I had a Goldberg Shoestring Stunter with a K&B 40. While I had a blast with CL and many times thought of getting the old stuff out, just never did after going to RC. With the much lower cost to get into RC today, very few people have any interest in starting with CL.

I respect CL and hope it grows but with RC around it's an uphill battle. Sorry I can't offer a solution other than you should enjoy what you do....there's no reason you can't have fun even if it is a small number of folks doing it.

C/L isn't losing (current tense) popularity. It lost (past tense) popularity over three decades ago. The end of the 60's was the end of C/L's two decade heyday. It faded away in the 70's and was effectively dead and buried by the 80's without anyone really noticing or attending the funeral. What remains is a quorum of diehards and their introduced progeny, along with a smattering of the curious and those returning nostalgic to recapture memories of their bygone childhood. I still fly it very occasionally, and I do love it, and I'd fit somewhere in between those two stereotypes.

Why? Well the foxtrot and the cha cha aren't popular any more than jitterbugging either, though they were all "huge" (2006 speak) in their day. R/C was driven by human fickleness for fashion and technology, reinforced today by commonality and cost.

R/C offered full three axis untethered control and a lot of sky for the trade-off of no feel, and whatever the rationaisation or illusion of being "more realistic" or difficult, rightly or wrongly, unquestionably it afforded more status and still does. ie: in 2006 speak, it is way cool whereas "swinging a toy plane on a string around your head" isn't. R/C is also a lot easier to get into, a topic on which one could write a thesis of its own. The sad part is, unlike control-line of yore flown at the local park or sports field, at any club you'll visit, you won't find (m)any(?) highly motivated self-starter air minded kids doing it as one used to in control-line 40 years ago. Those few who are 'involved' for more than five minutes of father and son bonding until the novelty wears off are invariably parentally mentored insufferable brats driving a YS1.40 powered Cyclone or similar.

In reality, both are hobbies and we're flying model aeroplanes - playing with toys if you will. Both are a lot more enjoyable if one thinks of it like that and just enjoys the play. I get the same satisfaction out of trying to exectute a well flown C/L stunt pattern as I do an R/C pattern, and nothing in aeromodelling beats the adrenalin buzz nor ever will for me, of 4 minutes of ferocious F2D C/L combat.

What drove me away from C/L into R/C was the factional in-fighting. It's still there in R/C, but the impact isn't as marked due to the size of the clubs and relativity of the minority cliques within. The factions simply aren't as pronounced or influential, with the majority of R/Cers just sport flyers rather than hard core unwavering and argumentative factional supporters. There are a lot more transients in R/C, especially since the emergence of the cheap radio and ARF buy and fly era. In C/L the participants have usually been around for a long while, and are divided into dominant factional SIGs which are very self-focussed upon their particular interest, eg: stunt, usually to the exclusion of and dissuading rival SIGS. Sad, but that's how it is IME. OTOH, whilst they certainly exist, SIGs are minority groups in the overall numbers of most R/C clubs.

Understand the desire to vent, but I don't think there's real difficulty in answering the question as to why C/L has lost popularity if you apply intelligence and an understanding of the nature of man in seeking the answer to the question. It was inevitible. That it survives against all the odds probably poses the more amazing and interesting one.

You can seek solice in the fact that R/C as it currently exists with its ever diminishing and distant field availability in our growing cities is now under the same threat of eventual extinction or radical change from the interest in electric and convenience of the "Park Flyer" as well as the ease and attraction of the computer competing for attention. It will be interesting to see what eventuates out of the looming IC vs electric battle and IT diversion.

Got a Cox P-40 when I was a young boy and flew that thing till it wouldn't stay together and the glue was to heavy. Flew a Super Stunter from Cox after that and loved it. Graduated to RC at fifteen then got my Private Pilots License at seventeen. CL started it all. A Lance Corporal in the USMC with a wife and new baby ended it all.
I got back into the hobby much later in life and started back with RC but yearned for the feel of the plane pulling on those lines. You can't feel the plane with RC but you sure can feel a forty sized stunt plane pull on those lines. Now don't get me wrong I like both aspects of the hobby. And actually it is like comparing apples and oranges. They're both good but "different"!!!!
To the issue....control line must get into the 21st century. Let me explain...look at the selection of RC planes. Endless!!!! ARF's, RTF's Endless!!!! Gas, Glow, Electric, and Mods Mods Mods also Endless!!!
Now look at control line.... Endless....Hardly! Don't get me wrong the recent appearance of some ARF kits is encouraging but CL is a day late and a dollar short in that area. I was really encouraged by an article I saw in an "RC magazine," of all things, about an electric pattern stunt ship that was going to be flown in world competition. By the way where are the CL magazines with lots of flashy models and innovations.
I hate to say this but there are some guys out there that held this part of the hobby back with a class system of pattern flyers who spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on ships that very few of the rest of us had the time or the skills to duplicate and those same guys held to their secrets of building and balancing and flying. Now we have what we have!
Give me a complete forty sized pattern ship powered by and electric motor, RTF, with lines and a charger and you have reached the 21st century. I will put down my TX of my micro heli, buy that product and feel the pull again! Skip

I tend to agree with that.

And not just Stunt, I find that the only guys who really try to encourage newcomers are the Carrier guys ( really nice bunch )

Here in the UK, Stunt, Team Race, Goodyear and even Combat are all "class ridden" - if you havn't got the correct model / engine / skill, you are looked down on and in fact you feel guilty for even trying, you are made to feel you are just in the way, and should stick to spectating in awe.

Like I say, the Carrier guys are just the opposite, and will drag anyone spectating into the arena, giving advice, phone numbers, leaflets and even let you have a go with their trainer models.
If it wasn't such a minority interest, requiring specialised equipment, I would join their club, just out of pure respect for their efforts

I understand the need to help new people along in this hobby/sport so that we have others participating with us ... a supply of flying buddies, club members, some others to help keep the manufacturers in business ... but should we really have to be evangelistic about model airplanes? Aren't you talking about competitors sharing their secrets of competition? How does competition hold things back? It seems to me that the models you see in the magazines are an inspiration to us unwashed masses to improve our skills and do better. If you take up auto racing, for example, you don't expect to go to the track and have the other teams tell you all their secrets for going fast. You need to discover those things for yourself. I think in model airplanes most of us freely share way more knowledge with each other than in most other competition oriented hobbies.

Also, why is incumbent on manufacturers to develop a market, rather than simply trying to bring a supply of product to a market that's already there? Perhaps you'd buy a RTF electric C/L plane, but I sure wouldn't. I'd rather build my own. And I'd rather have an engine. I want to smell the methanol and castor oil, hear the sound, and all that. And I'm not saying you can't have your electric plane, C/L or R/C, or your ARFs or RTFs, I'm just saying I don't want one (although I did buy the ARF Flite-Streak because it was cheaper than building the kit, go figure!) and the companies are going to make what sells, hopefully. It is a shame to see the market dry up for products you like to have readily available, because that stuff goes away, but hey, this is a creative hobby--figure a way to make what you want!

BTW, I don't mean to be flaming you, but I guess it reads like it. I'm just giving my opinion.

Phil

sigrun and artic flyer seem to be on to something. ghost confirms it. philip's post seems to be an illustration of exactly what they are saying.

using the auto racing example. nascar for example has become a sport with few participants as compared to spectators. most automobile drivers have no interest in competing in a nascar event. Most drivers do want thier automobiles to perform well and operate dependably. r/c seems to have kept and encouraged its "daily driver" segment while still supporting serious competitors. cl is no longer a fad. it has long been replaced by video/computer games and other activities. the popularity it has now is more real than market driven.

many manufacturers and venders do a lot to support the sport flyer "daily driver" of the sport. i can't speak from experience, but it seems that sigrun, artic flyer, and ghost are saying that many local clubs and organizations are ignoring the "daily drivers" who could be the backbone of the c/l hobby.

serious competitors need not fear us daily drivers. most of us are not interested in stealing all your top secret competitive edge techniques. we just want the information needed to keep or planes flying well and dependably.

Phil, I appreciate your opinion and I'm glad we have a place where we can all give it or (vent) so to speak, and believe me friend I'm not busting you. But lets face 2006. The past generation and a half, so to speak, has been raised on "Instant," "Fast Food," and the "PC Games." Building a pattern ship in this fast paced day and age is a thing of the past. I like building to and when the mood strikes I will build. But, a teenager today or newcomer who probably doesn't have three or four spare hours in a day is not....IS NOT!....going to build. Their first experience is going to be "Fast Food or Instant" or they are not going to try it. Man, in the early seventies when I got that Cox P-40 I didn't want to build either, I wanted to gas that thing and hear that .049 scream. Same holds true for newcomers today and even more so! Where is the CL SIM! Don't tell me with the tech we have today someone can't make a handle that connects to the computer an you watch a SIM at the ends of the lines. Maybe if they were hooked in that way they would venture OUTSIDE and try the real thing.
I believe you misunderstood me when it comes to the competition part and it is probably not your fault but my poor writing skills. What I was trying to say is I believe that CL degenerated to "nothing but" competition and the "Daily Driver," as WayneC so correctly termed it was left out. If I was a serious competitor I wouldn't give out my secrets either and I apologize if I confused. I wasn't saying that competition holds things back....People DO....and if the sport got to the point where it was nothing but a group of veteran (retired,with lots of time) guys who do nothing but...Compete! Then we have what we have!
I have a problem with clubs and the reason why is what SIGRUN and Ghost123 mentioned and that is the factions and cliches, and this goes for RC clubs as well. I belonged to a couple of clubs and like mentioned earlier you had to fly a certain thing or lean a certain way to be accepted. No Thank You! Give me the Park Flyers with a couple of guys who just want to get away from the rat race for thirty lousy minutes and really don't care if the next guy spent 2000 hours on an automotive painted pattern ship that has been polished until wind won't even stick to it.
As for gas vs elec man I'm not going there! That's a whole new thread. Man I like gas to and the smell, nothing beats it. But a .60 ship screaming around a 70 foot circle echoing off of the houses in the development in the common area, just is not going to cut it anymore. for that matter the scream of an .049 won't either. SOOOOOOO we're back to the clubs and flying fields and on and on and on............ Skip