Hey guys,

I'm new to R/C and am learning how to fly, but combat sounds fun. What exactly is it?

Cheers!

Check this out: http://www.racores.com/rules.html
TM3D

The offical AMA/RCCA (RC Combat Assoc.) rules can be found at:

http://www.rccombat.com/asp/rules/rules.htm

These rules are what is flown at Nats and around most of the country in sanctioned contests.

You can get a lot of information on the RCCA forums at http://www.rccombat.com, it's worth a look.

The RACores Grelmin rules are used in a few places, mostly in New England. They are actually rather different from the AMA/RCCA rules

Links to rules aside, there are actually several differnet types of RC Combat. They loosely break down in to 3 types. Streamer combat (usually with glow-powered planes), full contact combat (with Zagi-type electrics or slope gliders), and electronic combat (usually with a particular vendor's combat modules on electric park flyers).

Most combat, as far as I can tell, is flown informally, just guys getting together, deciding on their own rules (or lack of rules) and going at it.

The most organized national combat organization is the RCCA, which is focused mostly on glow powered streamer combat. There are several classes listed under RCCA rules.

A couple of action shots from contests around here:

Wow, this seems fun! I hope there are people doing this near my area, as I should be able to do combat within a year or so.

Aren't there are lot of mid airs in this competition? Seems pretty risky! [X(]

Thanks for the replies!

There are a handful of guys in the southern CA area. Exactly where they are, I don't know, I met them at a contest in Texas .

If you pop on over to the RCCA forums, some of the CA crowd will be easy to find.

mid-airs? Umm, yeah, they happen. [X(]

Modern combat planes are built to take a hit and keep going, or at least take only minimal damage (most of the time). A lot depends on what class of combat you fly, and how your plane is built. Balsa-and-ply construction is just not a good idea! Reinforced high-density foam (not the white stuff) and various forms of plastics and composites are most common.

Still, mid-air damage does happen. guys like me who compete at the big contests build a lot of airframes, and bring lots of backups to a contest. You also get good at field repairs.

My favorate shot of a mid-air in progress:

[X(]

Seems like a ton of fun!

Most fun you can have with your clothing on. [X(]

I mean, most fun you can have with a model airplane [>:]

Ever dogfight without streamers? Tip or tail hit counts as a kill. Used to belong to a club about 15years ago in PA that did. It was a private insured club. Now though they have ama and I doubt they do it anymore. (at least when too many people are flying).
David

We've done some practice with out streamers, not trying to hit each other though, just going for "phantom streamers". Intentional contact just causes too much damage to airframes, too much shop time.

We do use forestry tape and no wing stickum for practice though. The streamers usually just slide off the wings, but you can still hear and see the "drapes" and the streamers last a lot longer. Props still cut them, of course.

And yes, the AMA now specifically doesn't allow intentional contact for glow-powered planes. Electric Zagi-style and slope full contact combat are popular though.

hey we fly at Irvine, CA...dont do combat though..but you are welcome to join us electric or glow... www.ocma.com I fly there...nearly weekly..it's a cool place to fly..just a little far from LA

Kirk, I've been lurking on the fringes the combat threads for some time and I see you in many many posts. I belong to a flying club in Suffolk VA and we have a good number (at least a dozen) combat enthusiats although we are very unorganized and essentially have no rules, come as you are, last one in the air wins. We all pretty much use a SPAD combat design with our initial intention of limiting our max motor sizes to 25. However, over time the need for speed has over taken us and now we have everything from 52s to 32s many with tuned pipes. We used to fly full contact combat with our glow engines with the intention of knocking opponents from the sky, but this year we have decided to require streamers (six inches....joke) with the intention of knocking our opponent out of the sky, however we have set up safety zones IAW RCCA guidelines for SAFETY. We are looking to SPARK greater interest in the Hampton Roads area and thought you might have some suggestions on how to do that. Have you heard of anyone conducting TEAM competition (4 vs 4 challenge) against other clubs in a close geographical area? Any thoughts you might have would be greatly appreciated. I have considered driving to MD to observe one of your combat bouts but to date have not.
Sincerely,
Gary Murdock

I have heard of guys doing team combat, and also doing "bomber raids", where one guy flys the "bomber" usually with multiple streamers, and he has some fighters on his side and the other side has fighters. The idea is for the defenders to "kill" the bomber before it makes a certain number of laps around the field and drops it's bombs. If you loose your streamer, you land, so it's all about getting the other guys before they get you and getting the bomber through or stopping it.

Some guys were playing around with "straffing runs" by adding teathered ballons out in the combat area to pop for points during the match.

There are a lot of fun things you can add to make things interesting.

If you're trying to keep the guys you have, one of the best things to do is to limit power available, so guys don't trash so many airplanes. Eventually guys get sick of too much rebuilding, and the faster you go and the heavier you are, the more rebuilding you do. Just saying "stock exhaust" and a 10x3 APC prop on a .25 will slow the planes down quite a bit and you still get a lot of cool combat. SSC class also does this, but with .15's. Since it sounds like you guys are already running .25's and bigger, you might want to stick with that.

If you want to come up here, you're welcome. We started the last contest a bit late, we were aiming for noon, but the football game got in the way, so we started later.

Oh, btw, I was up in Lenox, MI over the weekend. There's a guy up there who looks like he will be moving to Newport News and was looking for combat flying going on in that area.

Kirk,
Thanks for the reply. Bomber with escorts...now that sounds fun, might have to experiment with that. Believe the strategy I'm going to take is to invite one other club with combat interest in an open class event with a come as you are anything goes just for the fun of dogfighting one another. If we get more interest in combat in the area, then we can begin to conform to the RCCA classes and standards. Right now I just want to get more fliers involved in flying combat.
I'm not sure if the Newport News RC group is into combat, but I'm aware of some interest in Williamsburg (Colonial Virgina Aeromodelers) and my club, Hampton Roads Radio Control in Suffolk. My only concern is if someone has been flying competion in organized meets he might be disappointed in our flying style. But I'm sure we would have much to learn from him.
Cheers, Gary

Personally I'd love to come down there and fly with you guys. And depending on when you deicde to run stuff, I just might. (if you run a contest by RCCA rules that doesn't conflict with something else, I WILL be there unless I honestly can't make it for some odd reason. That's not to try to push you towards RCCA rules, there are lots of good reasons not to use those rules, it's just what I happen to fly. I'm one of the few nut jobs that chase NPS points ).

Btw, I run a small website at www.MidAtlanticCombat.com. We have a calendar up there. Right now, the only events posted have been RCCA rules events, but I never intended it to be RCCA-rules only, that's just what's been flown around here. If you want your info posted, let me know, and I'll post it.

There used to be combat contests in the Norfolk area. I don't know why they stopped, or if there are guys there that would show up and fly with you if you contacted them. You should at least contact the clubs in that area and see what happens.

Has anyone seen these combat planes?????

I'm trying to get one............

Pic below:

Yes, I've seen and flown against them many many times. Those are Cobras, designed by Lee Liddle. In fact, those are Lee's cobras.

There are some guys kitting them, though I honestly forget who. Go to the RCCA forums at www.rccombat.com, then search on Cobra kit and you'll get contact info.

We used to have a bunch of combat pilots at Plane Crazy in Winchester VA. A bunch of new members are joining and you may want to contact us for some informal combat. By the way I used to do combat the way you do with full contact last one in the air wins. A over powered Kobra did very well. 24-1 over 5 years that I did it. Just retiered the Kobra 2 weeks ago when the glue joints gave way on landing. (New kit ordered)
David

You can find the kits here . . . . [link=http://www.royappleton.com/Cobra_Smack_Sales_Page/Kit_cores_Sales.htm]Texas Combat[/link]

There are three clubs in Southern MD (CCRCC, Pax Aero and Wind Drifters) that fly WWI combat with profile WW1 planes. The planes are balsa and ply construction and were designed by a club member, Rick Foch. It has the advantage of being much slower than most other forms of combat. The planes weigh about 3.5 lbs and use TT or OS sleeve bearing .25 engines. We had our tri-club picnic yesterday and had several hours of combat in the morning and the crowd loved it!

We also have a bomber mission where two fighters fly cover and two attack the bomber but the so far, I have built the only bomber and it has only flown on test flights. Yesterday the wind was too much for it.

Here are some pics.



The planes are easy to build ( I have built 4 of them). Details are available at http://www.charlescountyrc.org/wwi_profile.htm

Jeff