Control Line Combat-2011/09

Remembering the good old days of CL Combat
[[email protected]]
Control Line Combat Rich Lopez
The author handmade
these wall plaques for the
Beach Brunch and Fly
gathering that he hosts.
Here are some of the 2004 participants in the Fast Rules/F2D at
the World Championships in Muncie IN.
The first major Fast Rules/F2D was held in 2004. Winners include (LR)
Stas Chorny, first place; Richard Stubblefield, second; Boris
Jalunnis, third; Jim Ehlen, fourth; Bobby Mears, fifth; Igor Tukubayev,
sixth; and Lennart Nord, seventh.
Also included in this column:
• Fast Combat rules
• Trophy clutter
• Mufflers
• New England Cup contest
• Dreiländerpokal competitions
update
FAST COMBAT RULES for F2D: It
appears there is much interest in the hybrid
Fast Rules/F2D event. This could be
attributed to the ease of organizing and
running a competition using the AMA Fast
Combat rules, in comparison to a full F2D
competition.
The operation of the Fast Rules/F2D
competition requires fewer judges and
mechanics. Judging can be done with as few
as two people and one mechanic per pilot. In
the “heyday” of CL Combat—the 1960s,
1970s, and 1980s—contests were held across
the country, nearly every weekend during the
flying season. This was likely because of the
simplicity of contest operation.
A contest could run smoothly with a batch
of stopwatches, a bag full of streamers, a bit
of paper or matching index cards, an empty
field, and a handful of blood-thirsty
competitors. Most competitions, including the
AMA Nats, used a single-elimination format.
A large field of as many as 64 entrants was
routinely reduced to the top four.
The downside to single-elimination
competitions was that participants often
traveled long distances and then lost in the
first 30 seconds of a match. For such fliers,
the trip to the contest was not rewarding in
terms of flying time. Double-elimination
competitions were created to address this
problem, and to give each pilot more flying
time.
With the “kill” feature of the Fast Combat
rules, reflights were nearly nonexistent and
there was no dispute about who won the
match. Triple-elimination competitions with
large jackpots followed. These gatherings
drew many competitors and began to spring
up across the country.
The “granddaddy” of these events was the
Bladder Grabber in the Seattle, Washington,
area. Los Angeles had the “Money Nats;”
Vacaville, California, had the “Cuts and
Kills;” Houston had the “Combat Classic;”
Chicago had the “Duke Fox Memorial;”
Riverside, California, the “Riverside Combat
Challenge;” Tucson, Arizona, had the “Top
Gun;” and even Las Vegas attempted a
competition that was blown-out by desert
winds. Dick Howe sponsored an annual event
for Slow Combat and offered prizes.
All of the aforementioned competitions,
except the Bladder Grabber, have
disappeared. Perhaps the power and speed of
the Nelson .36 engines at the hands of an
aging pool of Combat pilots became too
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130 MODEL AVIATION
much. Possibly, the killer instinct was gone,
along with the youth of these once fierce,
young adults. Maybe it was the difficulty in
finding Combat equipment or hobby shops.
Or, perhaps, it was the rapidly disappearing
flying sites and the lack of modeling clubs that
caused the events to end.
I would guess that all of these, along with
changing personal and family priorities,
caused those competitions to disappear. The
former renegade Jive Combat Team of “Dirty”
Dan Rutherford, Phil Granderson, and Howard
“Mr. Clown Suit” Rush, for instance, moved
to Precision Aerobatics (aka continuously
doing the same tricks with a model). They
have gone from wearing warlike dashikis to
white pants and golf attire.
The first really big competition featuring
the Fast Rules/F2D format came in 2004 at the
AMA Nats, just after the World
Championships in Muncie, Indiana. I planned
and advertised the competition and its $3,000
prize nearly a year in advance. We drew 51
entries from around the world and ran the
competition double-elimination.
The prize money was from donations, as
were the engraved sterling silver tankards.
AMA provided wall plaques for the top seven
finishers. I would estimate that was the last
time we had so many competitors in a United
States Combat competition.
Trophies and Awards: I have several boxes
of old bowling-type trophies cluttering my
garage. While these were great to receive,
these awards are now in the way. I would
prefer a wall plaque that lists the competition
and can easily be displayed. Large wall
plaques also are bothersome. Engraved
sterling silver tankards also make handsome
displays on the mantle or on a desk. They
often double as pen and pencil holders.
I still make small wall plaques for the
annual Beach Brunch and Fly gathering that I
host. Perhaps the photo of these will inspire
you to create your own and host a Fast
Rules/F2D contest.
More 6mm Muffler Data: By now, most
have conducted a test flight on a variety of
6mm mufflers and recorded the data. My first
attempts with 6mm mufflers included
modifying existing Fora and Zalp mufflers.
Russ Hester, a regular flier at Whittier
Narrows in California, made inserts for his
engines. The inserts were press-fit in, and then
set in place by flaring the internal end with a
tool similar to a center punch. The
modifications took a while, but worked and
stayed intact.
One of our former regulars, Dave Cam,
came by the field and it piqued his interest. He
is a machinist by trade and I convinced him to
make inserts for my mufflers, which were all
accurate and worked well. I used the mufflers
at the March Madness Combat event in
Phoenix.
Richard “Stubby” Stubblefield has a lowcost,
simple solution for his mufflers. Stubby
simply mixes J-B Weld and then puts the exit
end of the muffler in the mixture, waits for it to
harden, and then drills out the muffler to 6mm.
Don Jensen’s attempt to J-B Weld a washer
to the back end did not work, and the washer
blew away as soon as the engine fired up. Tom
Siegler used a longer expansion chamber-type
muffler he obtained from Igor Dementiev of
Moldova and it worked well.
The new Fora engines on the Viko and
Yuvenko websites have a long, thin muffler
similar to the Dementiev unit.
Several new types of mufflers are available
from many sources. Viko Models (Ukraine),
Vasyl and Victor Yuvenko (Ukraine), Alberto
Parra (Spain), and Mike Willcox (USA), sell
6mm mufflers.
There is more experimenting that must be
done to determine the ideal shape and size.
Propellers play a huge role in the performance
of an engine, and finding the best for 6mm
mufflers requires many outings and much data
collection.
New England Cup: I learned that Mark
Rudner, Greg Wornell, Brian Stas, and others
will again host the New England Cup contest
on August 6 and 7 in Kingston, Massachusetts.
This was a fabulous competition last year and
you shouldn’t miss it.
Dreiländerpokal competitions: I will give
you a full report on how the American
volunteer group of Andy and Bobby Mears,
Allen Deveuve, Tom Siegler, and I performed
in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany in my next
column. All competitions have the maximum
number of 50 contestants. The “Sources” list
contains a website that will give you the results
before you see my next column. MA
Sources:
Dreiländerpokal (Karlskoga World Cup)
www.f2d.n.nu
ViKo Models
[email protected]
www.shop.viko-shop.com
Vasyl and Victor Yuvenko
[email protected]
Mike Willcox
[email protected]
Alberto Parra
[email protected]
www.clubtamaran.com/combate.htm
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