RADIO CONTROL COMBAT
Greg Rose, 1312 NW 196th St., Edmond OK 73003
I BROKE ONE of my own rules recently. I have an unwritten guideline (well, it was unwritten until now) that I will choose Scale paint schemes that have a high degree of contrast between the top and bottom of the aircraft. My Mustang in its German Sonderkommando markings, for instance, has a dark-green top and a bright yellow on the bottom. It is easy to tell it from the other Mustangs at a meet, and it's easy to keep oriented.
This has worked well for me, and I should have stayed with the program, but when I painted my F6F Hellcat I chose the solid dark blue that the US Navy used so often late in World War II.
The Hellcat was such a large airplane, and it makes such a large model, that I figured it would be easy to see. I was wrong; after one short test hop, the Hellcat was back in the shop getting a new paint scheme with a light underside that stands out from the dark-blue upper surface.
The moral of the story, for me at least, is to stay with what works. You can't control what you can't see, so I am back to high-contrast paint schemes for good.
Open-class Radio Control (RC) Combat isn't immune to marking woes either. I have witnessed two crashes that were not caused by a lack of difference in top and bottom paint schemes — which is very easy to do in Open Combat — but were caused by a lack of difference in two models' markings.
In both situations the airplanes were built from the same kit, and the builders decided to leave the "natural" colors on the models. The problem occurred when they flew against each other, and one of the pilots began "controlling" the other's model. The results were predictable and dramatic in both cases; if two people are flying the same airplane, nobody is flying the one that's left.
Stick some brightly colored, broad vinyl tape to your flight box for such situations. If you are in competition with a model that looks a little too much like your own, a bright yellow or red band of color running down the wing could save you some embarrassment and make your meet safer.
The kit-manufacturing scene keeps changing; we gain some, and we lose some. This time we have lost a well-known, longtime Scale RC Combat kit manufacturer; Air-Kill Products is ending production. Air-Kill was a leader in Scale RC Combat kit manufacturing, with an excellent line which included the Mustang, the Fw 190D, the Bearcat, the Hurricane, and many others.
Air-Kill's owners, Jeff and Sandy Weiss, have decided to focus on Scale RC Racing and their successful hobby shop in Sacramento, California.
An excellent builder and flier, Jeff's contributions to RC Scale Combat exceeded that of many Combat enthusiasts. He worked hard to support the hobby and grow the sport. He will be missed in our sport, and he leaves some big shoes to fill; modelers who work hard to achieve what they believe in are rare.
I wish Jeff the best of luck and invite him to tie a streamer back on any time he wants. It will be just like old times.
Even as we lose a kit manufacturer, we gain Waverly RC Model Aviation (9550 N. 140 St., Waverly NE 68462; Tel. [877] 786-2309; E-mail: [email protected]), which imports several Scale Combat kits from the Czech Republic.
Scale RC Combat in Europe has been following a slightly different path than Combat in the United States; European rules require closer scale sizes than do. As a result, kits produced in Europe fit well in the AMA rule-book events, but the reverse is not always true because several US-produced kits fail to meet European size requirements. The positive side of this is that we get to use European kits stateside.
Although the kits that Waverly RC imports are from three different Czech manufacturers, they are all of similar construction. Each kit has a fiberglass fuselage, and all but one (the Firebrand) features a molded-in fiberglass vertical stabilizer. Each kit has presheeted foam wing cores with the washout built in. The wings in all but one kit are obeche-sheeted; the exception (the Tony) has balsa-sheeted wings.
Allied fans can choose from the 43.5-inch-span Hawker Typhoon, which comes with a special spinner to match the Typhoon's distinctive nose; the 42.5-inch-span Grumman F6F Hellcat; the 48-inch-span Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik; or the rather obscure Blackburn Firebrand B-37 torpedo strike fighter, which spans 50 inches!
On the Axis side one can choose from the 36.5-inch-span Focke-Wulf Fw 190D long-nose "Dora" or the 48-inch-span Ta 152 version; the 38.2-inch-span Messerschmitt Me 109T (the longer-span "T" was built for use on a carrier, and although the carrier was never completed, the aircraft stayed in limited production because of its short takeoff run); or the 41-inch-span Kawasaki Ki-61 "Tony."
In addition to its Scale offerings, Waverly RC markets one of the finest-performing Open Combat kits available: the TEAMseaholm Avenger 8.0. The 64-inch-span Avenger 8.0 (the eighth version of the Avenger design) features a very complete kit with all the G10 composite parts, cut foam, ripstop nylon, and Coroplast™ parts needed to build one of the most competitive Open models available.
Designed by A.J. Seaholm, the Avenger 8.0 comes with illustrated step-by-step instructions and full-size plans. Waverly RC carries the Avenger 8.0 as an Almost Ready to Fly, as a kit, and in a short-kit version.
Until next time, fly safe, fly Combat, and be sure to check your six! MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
