Control Line Combat - 2007/11

Practicing with top-line equipment pays dividends
Also included in this column:
• Combat meets around the globe
• Flooded engines
[[email protected]]
Control Line Combat Rich Lopez
Various blow-tube options. The author’s favorite is the one with the brass fitting on
the end.
MOST PILOTS WHO are interested in FAI
Combat are working every spare moment in
preparation for the United States F2D Combat
Team Trials in Lubbock, Texas. The contest
will have taken place by the time you read
this, and the 2008 team will have been
determined.
The effort required to be successful at the
Team Trials is enormous and cannot happen
without lots of practice with good equipment
against proficient sparring partners. Some of
us, on the West Coast, practice all year
without stopping.
Most of that practice happens with lesser
equipment, which means rebuilt models and
second-string engines. Although that gives
you considerable “stick time,” it does not give
you the precise timing needed to fly top-ofthe-
line equipment effectively.
During the entire month of August Chuck
Rudner, Pete Athans, and I practiced with
contest-worthy equipment. Helping us with
our training were Don Jensen and Russ
Graves, both of whom add different styles to
the mix.
Other pilots joined us from time to time.
Martyn Cowley, Charlie Johnson, Don Repp,
Greg Hill, and Darrin Albert were always
ready to chase streamers and proved to be
worthy adversaries.
There was no Bladder Grabber contest in
2007, but it is scheduled to return in 2008. In
its place were several other major contests.
Bill Maywald revived the Riverside,
California, Combat Challenge in late July.
The turnout was sparse, with only 12 entries,
but those who attended seemed to have a
great time in what has to be one of the nicest
sites in the country.
The facility has so much green grass that
each pilot could have his or her own practice
circle. Restrooms are permanent, and there is
a nice shaded pavilion in addition to
numerous trees. Bill talked family members
Don Jensen, on the left, with Peter Athans and Peter’s owndesign
F2D model. It flies extremely well.
Alexander Kalmykov’s PC8 and PC9 Combat engines mounted
on Pete Athans’ home-built and store-bought models.
134 MODEL AVIATION
11sig5.QXD 9/21/07 9:19 AM Page 134
into grilling burgers (the good sirloin ones)
and hot dogs free of charge to all who were
present.
Darrin Albert continued on his hot streak
and came out on top. Bill Maywald was
second, and Mike “Mr. Concrete Recycler”
Rule finished third. Mike provided his
company’s T-shirts free of charge to all
contestants. This was a mellow contest that
needs more participants.
The same weekend the Bladder Grabber
was supposed to have happened, Jeff Rein
organized the Top Dog Contest in Snohomish,
Washington. It consisted of 80 mph Combat
Saturday followed by AMA Fast Combat
Sunday.
If you have never been to Harvey Field in
Snohomish, it is worth the trip to attend a
Bladder Grabber or a Top Dog just to see all
the activity at this small airfield. All day long
skydivers jump out of airplanes with their
vibrantly colored parachutes dotting the skies.
Modern and vintage small aircraft take off and
land every few minutes. Sometimes in the
early morning hot-air balloonists gather to set
up their gear for a day’s adventure aloft.
The town of Snohomish is picturesque,
with its quaint streets filled with antique shops
containing artifacts that were once familiar
household objects and have long since been
rendered obsolete by modern technology. I no
longer take my wife to the Bladder Grabber
after she purged my wallet buying antiques.
The contest organizers tried a different
placing system at the Top Dog contest that
featured a combined win/loss record for the
two days. Last year a Canadian, Mel Lyne,
won the Bladder Grabber. He bested the field
again this year to take the Top Dog honors.
This allowed him to eat steak while the rest of
the contestants were fed hot dogs.
Mike Rule finished second, and Ken
Burdick and Jeff Rein tied for third. Ron
“Hang Loose” Enos flew over from Hawaii to
judge and have fun.
An interesting group of three contests was
held during three consecutive weekends in
Karlskoga, Sweden; Aalborg, Denmark; and
Sebnitz, Germany. They called this series the
“Dreiländerpokal.” The organizers compiled
the wins and losses to determine the overall
winners.
It looks as though reining World
Champion Igor Trifonov of Russia is for real.
He won the first two events, which was
enough to give him the overall series win.
Rudolf Königshofer of Austria was second
by virtue of a win in Sebnitz and a third-place
finish in Denmark. Boris Jalunis of Latvia
finished third overall, with a second place in
Sebnitz and a third in Karlskoga.
You can find complete results on Goran
Olson’s Web site, along with many links that
will give you access to a huge number of
photographs. I have already started saving my
pennies so that next year I can convert them to
Euros and spend a month in Europe flying
Combat.
The European Championships was held in
Serbia in July. Igor Dementiev of Moldova is
the new champion. Dmitry Vedernikov of
Russia was second, and the 2005 European
Champion, Mike “Whacker” Whillance,
finished third. The Junior champion was
Oleksandr Pokorskiy of Ukraine.
This competition is limited to European
countries. Non-European citizens are
permitted to serve as mechanics for the F2D
event. I participated in the 2003 contest as a
mechanic for Swedish team member Hakan
Ostman.
Igor Dementiev builds and sells models,
and Chuck Rudner has purchased sets of
aircraft from him. Igor’s quality of models is
outstanding, and I would be willing to bet that
the cost will go up now that he is the
European Champion.
Flooded engines can give you fits and, even
worse than that, cause engines to bite your
fingers while you are trying to flip them over.
You still see modelers blowing into the
exhaust ports in an effort to clear the flood.
Depending on the severity of the flood,
that may or may not work. It will not work if
there is a bunch of fuel in the crankcase.
I have found a method of remedying
flooded engines. I put the piston at bottom
dead center and rotate the engine so the fuel
goes up the ports and into the cylinder, and
then I rotate the engine so the fuel rolls out of
the exhaust port. You may have to go through
the procedure two or three times to get all the
fuel out.
This technique seems to work well with
side-exhaust, no-muffler engines, such as the
Nelson .36. F2D power plants with mufflers
are another story. They require that you blow
air through the 8-millimeter opening in the
muffler with enough force to expel the fuel
from the 4-millimeter venturi.
I do not recommend putting your lips
around the muffler and blowing. The solution
can be as simple as obtaining a piece of
garden hose you can blow through. You can
also obtain a variety of sizes of clear or
reinforced tubing at The Home Depot or
Lowe’s.
You can find some interesting fittings in
the plumbing department that have tapered
ends that fit nicely into the 8-millimeter
muffler opening. I like the 5/8-inch-size tubing,
which allows for a fair amount of air volume.
All this air blowing will do you no good if
the crankshaft port is not open to the venturi
opening. You can hear air passing through the
venturi as you rotate the propeller to the
correct position. You will also be able to see
the fuel spraying out the venturi if you did that
correctly.
If you cleared the engine too well, it still
may not want to start because the top end will
be too dry and will need a drop or two of
prime. This is one of those things you acquire
a feel for, much like knowing how much
prime to use.
On occasion engines will vapor lock and
refuse to start. That means the engine has
spent atmosphere in the muffler and inside the
crankcase that does not have enough oxygen
molecules to mix with the fuel to cause
combustion. Blowing air through the engine
will fix this problem.
Some engines like to hot restart, while
others will cause your flipping-hand arm
muscles to lactate so much that there is no flip
left in them. Some pilots have bottles of water
in their pit boxes that can be poured over
engines to cool it.
The 2008 US CL World Championships team
will need plenty of monetary support beyond
that provided by AMA. Keep an eye out for
souvenir T-shirts and hats once the logo is
decided. We hope to have a great showing in
Landres, France, next year.
Landres is near where many Americans
flew combat in World War I as part of the
Escadrille Américaine and the Escadrille
Lafayette. Go rent or buy a copy of the movie
Fly Boys. MA
Sources:
Goran Olson’s Web site
www.go-cl.se/cl.html