Control Line Combat - 2008/09

THE EVOLUTION OF model-airplane
engines for Combat is fascinating to
observe. It is happening currently and has as
engines have been developed in the past
decades.
When I began building model airplanes in
the early 1960s, the multitude of hobby
shops in San Francisco had display cases
that contained shiny, new engines from a
variety of manufacturers. Even discount
stores or those that required a membership
had a hobby section. Those would be the
equivalent of Kmart, Target, or Wal-Mart
having a hobby section.
The other source of modeling supplies
was regular department stores such as The
Emporium, The White House, or Macy’s.
Sometimes they had knowledgeable people
behind the counter, but it was usually some
cute female who worked part-time.
As preteens, my neighbor Steve Lilves
and I would ride our bicycles all over the
city visiting hobby stores to window shop.
Then we would save our pennies, nickels,
dimes, two-bit, and four-bit coins until we
had enough to purchase something.
I had to change what I wanted to buy
because it cost more than I had. My first big
engine was a McCoy .19 that sold for $4.95
plus 2% tax. The McCoy .35 I really wanted
cost a buck more.
But it didn’t cost a cent to look at that
beautiful Johnson Combat Special sitting in
a light yellow box with a clear cover, with
that little price-tag sticker of $19.95. It was
hard to save that much money; putting aside
my weekly two bits for a carton of milk and
a graham cracker at school didn’t put much
of a dent in my goal of saving for that
Johnson.
Although I couldn’t talk to you about
engine performance from personal
experience, I could tell you what other
people said about particular engines. This
came from countless hours spent in hobby
shops and at the various flying fields in San
Francisco.
I felt a sense of sadness when I would
arrive at the hobby shop and that engine I
had been coveting was gone, purchased by
some fortunate modeler. However, my
spirits would be lifted when the replacement
Johnson would arrive and fill the void in the
showcase.
Sometimes, there would be a couple
different versions of Fox engines sitting next
to the Johnson. The only Fox that really
interested me was the Combat Special. K&B
had an interesting .35 that was suitable for
Combat as well. I wasn’t too keen on the
green paint on the head. There were two
versions of VECO .35s to choose from: the
Stunt and the Combat.
All those American products were my
first choice. The alternative to the US-made
items came from Japan. O.S. Max had a
couple of engines that looked well made,
but in those days made in Japan meant, “Not
so bueno.”
I still remember when the first Italianmade
SuperTigre engines were placed in
that showcase next to the established brands.
By that time I had regularly begun to attend
model-airplane contests and had a go at
balloon busting. I did, however, always
manage to wander off to the Combat area to
watch and learn. The experts soon started
switching their Johnsons for SuperTigres.
Alex Sinkevitch could make his papercovered
Sneekers dance all over the sky.
Neal Carpenter of Rodeo, California, built
immaculate VooDoos and covered them in
various silk colors. I learned a lot from him
and his wife, Mary, who flew Combat with
equally beautiful models. Neal used
SuperTigre G-21 engines.
The engine wars took their toll on a
number of manufacturers, whose products
were prone to failure and lacked the speed
and reliability of newer power plants. O.S.
Max tried to advance from its IIs and IIIs to
an H version that was deemed suitable for
Combat, yet I never saw one in competition.
The K&Bs were seldom seen in the ring
or the on-deck circle. Fox went through all
sorts of design changes: straight-in glow
plugs, slant-in glow-plug versions, fins on
the head, no fins on the head, head clamp
and button insert, metal band around the
piston, big crankshaft, four-bolt backplate,
six-bolt backplate, and others that are too
numerous to mention. All this was done in
the quest for the speed and power demanded
by those crazy and wild-eyed Combat pilots.
The top layer of Combat pilots had
engines that were just a cut above the rest of
the field. They ran “hopped-up” or “soupedup”
versions of what they could purchase in
the hobby shops. At one time, the Johnson
Factory offered to take your engine in and
give it the company’s official special
treatment to make it even better—all for the
price of $7.50.
Norm McFadden and Richard Brasher of
the Redwood City, California, Condor
Legion club had SuperTigres running well
beyond their red lines, and they often paid
the price when the crankshafts went sailing
away. Crankshaft problems continued to
plague their efforts when they switched to
Fox Mark IIIs and IVs. The solution came
in the form of scratch-built and -designed
aftermarket crankshafts, often referred to as
“brasher cranks.”
The Fox factory made bigger and
stronger crankshafts and added new and
better piston-and-liner sets. Some of us
bought aftermarket components from Andy
Kerr, Bill Wisniewski, and Roger Venturi,
or we sent stock parts to Dick Tyndall or
Hulan Matthies for modification.
Henry Nelson entered the Combat
engine wars with everything we were
searching for in one package. His .36
Combat engine was, and still is, fast and
reliable, and it starts every time. The engine
wars came to an end at that point, even
though the Ukrainian FORA factory wanted
a piece of the market with its Black Power
engine.
The market for AMA Combat engines
dried up after everyone acquired Nelsons.
You needed to buy a new power plant only
if you destroyed one in a crash or lost one in
the cornfields.
In the international F2D event, which is
ever increasing in popularity, engines are
evolving on a less than yearly basis. FORA,
Profi, Zalp, AKM, Cyclon, Buran, Zorro,
and many others of limited production are
searching for an extra one-tenth of a second
advantage in the course of eight-lap timing.
Aleksandr Kalmykov of Russia is the
brains behind the Cyclon engines. His
strategy is to completely redesign the
engines from one season to the next. The
change is often so radical that bolt patterns,
engine widths, and the type of engine
mounts required are so different that there is
zero interchangeability.
Aleksandr is immensely creative, and his
engines are works of art. He is currently
offering a product with bolt-on front ends,
with either an inboard- or outboard-facing
venturi. According to him, those engines
will fit into the same mounts and have the
same spacing as on the Ukrainian-built
FORA and Zalp engines.
I am currently testing and running the
fourth-generation Zalp, which seems to
have a different philosophy about engine
evolution. The case’s external dimension
and appearance are almost identical to the
generation 1 engine. I started running these
after the 2006 World Championships in
Spain and have since run the second- and
third-generation models.
Each generation has had minor internal
changes, to liners, rods, crankshafts,
backplates, or spray bars, from the previous,
and each runs faster. It is evident that the
strategy is refinement rather than redesign.
The FORA brand is widely accepted and
has undergone substantial changes that
include entirely different case
configurations. Rumor has it that the next
FORA will sport an inboard venturi. Bill
Maywald has been running recent versions
with outstanding results.
You won’t find any of these Russian or
Ukrainian engines at Kmart, Target, or
Costco. You will need to spend a bit of time
on the Internet to track down their
distributors. Start your search at the Control
Line Model Flying Web site. MA
Sources:
Control Line Model Flying
www.go-cl.se/cl.html