Control Line Combat - 2010/09

116 MODEL AVIATION
The World Cup
contest was held at the Jetero
RC Club field in Houston,
Texas, May 1-2, 2010. It
drew 36 entries from North
America and around the
world.
The reigning (2008)
World Champion, Stas
Culacichin, made the trip all
the way from Moldova to
participate. Another
Moldovan and former
European Champion, Igor
Dementiev, made his first
trip to Texas as well and
collected the first-place
trophy.
A number of the Team
Canada members, including
Brad La Pointe, Dave
Lovegren, Pat McKenzie,
and the transplant ringer
from Kazakstan, Yevgeny
Melnikov, were in
attendance. Greg Wornell is originally from
Canada, but he decided that the “pickings” are
better on this side of the border at an East
Coast university with the initials MIT.
Team Mexico was at full strength with
Junior Ariel Quezada, Fred Quezada, Arnulfo
“Arnie” Delgado, and Leonardo “Leo-Nitro”
Silva present at the competition. The US has
its own set of former Eastern Bloc “ringers,”
in Alex Prokofiev, Andrew Nadien, and A.
Voytenkov.
Pete Plunkett of Austin, Minnesota, made a return to serious
Combat flying in this contest. David Owen did not seem to lose his
flying form, even after undergoing a series of cancer treatments that
included chemotherapy and radiation.
The Jetero RC Club field is an outstanding facility that includes a
covered pavilion with
electrical outlets throughout
and a full kitchen. Permanent
restrooms are conveniently
located adjacent to the
pavilion. There was plenty of
space in which to practice
and trim models, even while
the contest was in progress.
The advantage of having a
large club is that a steady
source of volunteers can be
tapped to make the contest
more enjoyable for
competitors. Those who gave
of their time prepared coffee
and pastries in the morning
and provided hot dogs,
hamburgers, potato salad,
and dessert for lunch, and
drinks throughout the day.
All of this was part of the
entry fee.
Pat Willcox managed the
whole operation, starting
with the labor-intensive task of making
quality streamers according to the rule book
specifications. Luckily all of his houseguests
were willing to help.
The most common fuel shutoff in use was
a swing-arm device by Aerolux. The original
idea for the swing arm was Chuck Rudner’s,
back when shutoff devices were mandated for
Fast Combat.
His first attempts were handmade using
How to win the F2D World Cup
[[email protected]]
Control Line Combat Rich Lopez
Also included in this column:
• So long, Frank Tomicich
• Thank you, Steve Hills
Houston World Cup winners (L-R) Mike “Emo” Willcox, third;
Mark Rudner, second; and Igor Dementiev, first. Rich has a good
idea of why the victor did so well.
This latest version of the swing-arm shutoff was the most common
type used in Houston TX at the Jetero RC Club F2D World Cup.
Frank Tomicich launches after Greg Hill starts for Alan Deveuve. Frank
was fun to be around. He once provided lunch for everyone and then
performed a stand-up comedy routine imitating Rodney Dangerfield.
09sig4x_00MSTRPG.QXD 7/23/10 9:49 AM Page 116
files and scrap parts from various sources.
Chuck eventually convinced the Russians,
namely Alexander Gievesky, to produce and
sell them.
The current devices have undergone
numerous upgrades and incorporate many
subtle refinements. They mount quickly and
easily to engine mounts with one bolt that
comes through the bottom mount.
I saw only one shutoff failure throughout
the entire weekend. A few models were cut
away, with the shutoff devices operating as
designed.
The trip from Moldova for Stas Culacichin
was costly, and he ended up giving Combat
flying-tactics lessons for a nominal fee to
those who were interested. Several American
pilots took him up on these sessions. It
provided a rare opportunity to have a go at the
reigning World Champion.
Modelers could also buy Stas’s models at
the end of the contest. Selling the airplanes
eliminated the need for him to pay the
baggage fees back to Moldova. Check with
Mike Willcox to see if Stas left any unsold
aircraft with him.
I paid close attention to Igor Dementiev’s
flying style throughout the contest. He tended
to walk to one side of the circle, usually on the
downwind side, and fly in a defensive mode
for roughly half of the match.
Most of Igor’s maneuvers were large and
open figure eights. Then he would quickly
engage his opponent, flying offensively and
taking a cut or two, and then return to the
defensive figure-eight mode. This obviously
worked, since he ended up winning the
contest.
The World Cup was an amazing success,
and that is owed to many people’s efforts. Pat
Willcox recognized the volunteers with nicely
printed certificates of appreciation. The judges
did a great job throughout the weekend. Set
aside some time in May 2011 to attend this
contest.
Frank Tomicich Passes: The San Diego,
California, modelers have a reputation for
being laid-back. In spite of that, they tend to
be fierce competitors in Combat. Frank
Tomicich would give you the shirt off of his
back, take it back in the middle of a match,
and then buy the beer afterward.
Frank loved flying with the likes of
Charlie Johnson, Lorna Samuel, Greg Hill,
Sean Dea, Stuart Mossman, Stan McCarver,
Darrin Albert, Rich Ambler, Roger Ochoa,
and Alan Deveuve. A number of others also
flew with him throughout the years.
Frank won one of the last big Fast Combat
contests in Riverside, California. I last saw
him at a fun-fly at the sod farm in November
2009, where he provided lunch for everyone
and did a stand-up comedy routine imitating
Rodney Dangerfield.
The Combat community will miss Frank.
Loss of an Innovator: Steve Hills was a
creative individual, as was evidenced by his
success as a fine commercial and graphic
artist. He was instrumental in developing and
refining foam models.
Steve had a set of 1/2A, FAI F2D, and Fast
designs when I met him at one of the Lincoln,
Nebraska, AMA Nats. He and Pete Athans
had successfully used foam models in
numerous competitions in Southern
California.
As it turned out, Steve lived in Redondo
Beach—just a short distance from my
apartment in Playa Del Rey. We quickly
hooked up and started building airplanes. I
had no experience with foam, and Steve was a
patient and competent teacher. I convinced
him that we should give his designs the name
“SlySir,” and it stuck.
Steve was a member of the US F2D team
in 1980 and served as a mechanic for Phil
Granderson. He had some great stories about
what the Soviets were doing to keep track of
their team.
Steve broke through all of the politics and
befriended the Russian team, and he managed
to wrangle a model away from Oleg
Doroshenko, who became the World
Champion that year. Phil finished third,
making him the first American to stand on the
podium in an F2D event.
It was Steve who first used fiberglass and
carbon-fiber arrow shafts as an integral part of
the engine mounting block and providing the
boom to which the stabilizer and bellcrank
were attached.
He designed and built four prototype
models for my World Championship effort in
1990. When we settled on the final design, he
spent several weeks in my garage, building a
fleet of 16 aircraft for me to use.
Steve grew up flying with the likes of Riley
Wooten, Pete Jaden, James Mears, and the rest
of the Lubbock, Texas, crew. He passed away
May 22—on his 64th birthday. MA
Sources:
Mike Willcox
[email protected]
Steve Hills:
www.shills.com
Miniature Aircraft Combat Association
www.maca.hobby-site.com:3535
Continued from page 105
Definition of Satisfaction
This is a letter about AMA club activity
and personal satisfaction.
Ossipee, NH is where I live and the town
has an annual Old Home Week celebration
every year during Fourth of July Week. Our
Recreation Director, Peter Waugh, is the son
of an old AMA member and modeler, Jim
Waugh. Jim and I are members of MWVRCC
in Conway, NH.
With the help of Jim, MWVRCC, and
Peter I have run regular programs at the town
hall gym and other community properties.
Currently, we support a weekly indoors RC
flying event in the town hall gym called
GymFlyers. This is a three hour open flying
event with advice and instruction as requested
from a few somewhat infrequent youngsters or
the occasional adult.
Unbeknownst to me, Peter included
GymFlyers in the list of Old Home Week’s
events which was advertised by flyer for
Sunday, June 27. At first I thought of getting
MWVRCC to help with a display setup,
however the club had done an open house
display the previous Saturday (June 19) and it
was too late to ask people to “do it again so
soon.”
So, I thought that I would simply go as
usual and carry on with my normal routine for
the 4-7:00 PM activity. About 2:30 PM that
Sunday afternoon while loading the car, yet
another spell of vertigo attacked and I had to
recover by lying down and napping for a
while.
Arriving an hour and a half late at the
town hall, three cars pulled up and a
collection of adults and youngsters popped
out and helped me carry equipment into the
gym. I started my usual lecture about the
history of modeling and the AMA with an
emphasis on the utilization of radio control
technology over the decades culminating in
the availability of micro models for indoor
flying.
When the lap top based RC simulator
program with video projector and wide screen
were running, I stopped to briefly fly my
ParkZone Ember II around the gym. From the
audience seated behind me, I heard comments
about the uniqueness of being able to fly so
freely indoors in a small sized gym and
appreciation of having such an activity in our
town.
Most of all from the small group of
adolescents there came utterances of “cool!”
and “I want to do that!” Now that is my
definition of “satisfaction.”
Thereafter, I introduced them to the flight
simulator both electric indoors and gas
outdoors model flying so that nearly all,
young and old, got to “fly” themselves and
learn a little bit about how airplanes fly in the
process.
Well, the event stretched to 8:30 PM that
Sunday and all, including me, went home to a
late dinner happy and satisfied at having some
time well spent! MA
Ed More
via e-mail