CL Combat
Combat communication: It's worldwide now!
Rich Lopez <REDACTED>
I HAVE BEEN thinking a great deal about how the Combat community communicates with its members. Before the birth of the Miniature Aircraft Combat Association (MACA), most of the information about contests came from the AMA section in American Aircraft Modeler magazine and later in its MA; other magazines such as Model Airplane News, Flying Models, or Model Builder; club newsletters; or word of mouth, in person or on the telephone.
Also included in this column is information about:
- The AVG expedition to Russia
- Flip-starting Cyclon engines
- Fora engine availability
- A tragic loss for the Combat community
Although the magazines often gave event information and had contest calendars, the lead time to make it to the printer was usually three months. This meant that clubs wanting to stage contests had to plan way ahead to sanction the event and get the information to the magazine in plenty of time to meet the printing deadline. Many of us relied on this information to plan vacations and build fleets of models for the contests.
The AMA magazines always did, and still do, have comprehensive contest listings that give ample notice. The downside to this is that many clubs fail to get their information to AMA in time to be included in the "Contest Calendar" section and lose out on potential competitors.
The magazine columnists often give information about upcoming contests if they know about them. However, you would be in deep trouble if you had to rely on me for your contest information since I write this column bimonthly.
MACA started out with monthly newsletters in 1974, and now it publishes one every other month. The advances in communication technology have made information readily available to anyone on the planet at any hour of the day.
Desktop and laptop computers with high-speed Internet connections, cell and camera phones, and BlackBerrys make contest information immediately available; that is, providing someone takes the time to write it down, take the photographs, and post it on the Web. I can remember Slava Belaiev winning the World Championships in Sweden in 1996 and calling his mother in Russia on a cell phone. That was unbelievable to me at the time.
You need to know where to get information and how to get yourself in the loop so you don't miss out on anything. There are some wonderful Web sites that will keep you in the know.
Göran Olsson of Sweden has a comprehensive site that contains many links to all sorts of clubs, organizations, and manufacturers. The address is www.go-cl.se/cl.html.
My wife and I will be in Ireland for a two-week vacation. I wanted to know if there are any modeling-related events scheduled in that country during the time we will be there, so I went to the FAI Web site: www.fai.org. I did not find an event in Ireland, but there are all sorts of CL contests scheduled throughout Europe. You can visit the AMA site—www.modelaircraft.org—to find out what is happening in the United States and the world to a limited extent.
Some groups communicate through E-mail. You can find a CL Combat forum at www.groups.yahoo.com/group/combat-l/. There you get all sorts of useful information but also some dumb comments and opinions that must be taken with a grain of salt.
Ah, but that is what I love about our great nation; anyone can express an opinion to anyone who is willing to listen or, in this case, read. Remember that you have veto power with one push of the delete key.
CL Combat
Rich Lopez
Mike Willcox recently posted a fantastic report about an American Volunteer Group (AVG) expedition to Russia to do battle with 92 Combat competitors from Russia, Moldova, Latvia, and Ukraine. The contest was the Cup of Aleksin, held May 6-10.
The AVG consisted of Mike Willcox, Allen Deveuve, Mark Laboyteaux, and Leonardo "LeoNitro" Silva of Mexico. Leonardo was born in Baltimore, Maryland, so he is an American citizen. And as I remember it, Mexico is part of North America, so he does qualify for the AVG.
Before the United States entered World War II, General Claire Chennault took a bunch of American fighter pilots to China to fly P-40s against the Japanese. This AVG was called the "Flying Tigers." Mike, Alan, Leonardo, and Mark are really a sort of modern-day AVG.
Igor Milenin of Ukraine won this competition. If you want to see the full report with photographs, go to Göran Olsson's Web site. You must read Mike's report or be square and out of the loop.
There has been a great deal of talk about permitting the use of electric starters in .42- foot Cyclon/Fora 1/2A Combat. Most of the contests featuring this event permit electric starters.
I will go along with what the majority of pilots want, but electric starters are unnecessary. I can usually start my Cyclon engines in one or two flips. I must have at least 200 flights on my four engines, which means that I have started them more than 200 times.
The only time they are reluctant to fire is during the first start of the day, when they have a great deal of after-run oil in them. Once I get the oil out, it is back to one or two flips for each start.
For the first start of the day, with oil in the engine, I put four drops of fuel in the exhaust, drip some around the dust cover so that the front bearing gets wet, and turn the venturi toward the ground and do a fuel-drip check. I turn the engine over several times, feeling for a bump. Wearing a glove, or at least a Band-Aid on my middle finger, I flip it forward until I get it started. After the initial run, only one or two drops of prime are needed to get it to start on one or two flips.
All bets are off if your battery is weak, your glow plug is over the hill, the plug element is touching the side of the plug body, or you have the head clearance wrong. I run my engines at 0.010 or 0.009 with 25% nitromethane and 20% all-synthetic oil.
Combat pilots pride themselves on being able to start engines quickly by hand-flipping. Henry Nelson's Combat .36 has given almost any Combat pilot the ability to one-flip start any engine.
If you go to the Red Flag, the Bladder Grabber, the Houston Combat Classic, the Riverside Combat Challenge, or any other Fast Combat contest, you will be amazed by how many crews get one-flip starts.
If you need Fora engines, George Cleveland is your man. You can reach him at GRS Models, 36 Antigua Dr., Kenner LA 70065; Tel.: (504) 443-4640; E-mail: [email protected]. His Web site is http://pages.prodigy.net/gcleveland_grsmodels/.
George also sells the best 1/2A propellers, in a variety of delicious colors and sizes. He has cherry red, lime green, merlot purple, and faded blueberry blue. Try them all! Some will work better than others, depending on the amount of nitro you are using and the altitude at which you are flying.
On behalf of the Combat community, condolences to Larry Skelley and his family for the loss of their son Skyler. Larry is a longtime Combat pilot who is a keen competitor and a great guy to talk to. He had worked with Skyler to get him to the point where he represented the United States at the CL World Championships in Landres, France, in 2000 as the Junior member of the Combat team.
If you want to send a card or a message, Larry's address is 906 Warrior Dr., Murfreesboro TN 37128. MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
