Wonder if any of you experts can help.

I've been "volunteered" by my club to set up some combat days early in the New Year. This is a new idea for our club, and we don't have anyone with any real experience of combat. We've had a few trial flights using SPAD models, 3 or 4 of us have built different designs and had some "dogfights" using crepe paper streamers, (damn hard to cut the streamers isn't it) but now we're going to do this as an organised event we're wondering if we need to set up some proper rules.

Our thinking is max engine size of 30 and then free design as to what to build and fly. Can anyone offer any advice or pointers?

Or any of you experts fancy a trip over here to the UK to show us how it's done? And no, we're not paying your expenses

Check out rccombat.com, for their open 'b' rules. This is .30 size combat which allows any type of airframe. You might also want to check the aces site for info on scale combat on your side of the pond. There is a link on the rcca site for this as well. Maybe you can use rcca rules, or maybe you can modify the aces scale rules to be used in open combat.

HI COLINM! I'm new to rule book combat myself, but I have formulated some basic ideas that work well in a club environment. Try to keep the equipment as cheap as possible. Coroplast and PVC drainpipe planes are heavy, but fly respectably with a .25. Get everyone to agree on a low speed prop, the slower you can get these things to fly, the better the action is, otherwise you just have high speed jousting. A little bit of honey smeared on the wing LE will make picking off streamers easier. If you have a guy who is handy with hot wiring foam wings, you can build them in batches and end up with better flyers. I think that a flat bottom airoil with a round leading edge gives the best all around combat performance, the need for outside loops isn't that great in combat, but still possible with this airfoil. Your launches will be more predictable also. A 48" wing, 10" chord with ailerons works well. I rip a couple of well placed grooves in the styrofoam wing panels, almost completely through, then glue 1/8" thick spruce spars in with TITEBOND carpenters' glue. A cheap covering technique is to use colored craft store cellophane and spray adhesive [3M77]. Hope this helps ya!