Control Line: Combat
NOT JUST FOR COMBAT. You'll notice that one of the photos this month features a rather confusing array of items (available through Art Gross, 12516 Maplewood Ave., Edmonds, WA 98026; Tel. 206/743-9332). The hand belt sander combines the practical use of a sanding block with a continuous belt so that you can use all 54 square inches of the paper. An easy-to-use locking device allows quick removal and replacement of the proper type and grit so you won't have ten different blocks lying around. By spraying some silicon on the paper you can keep it from loading up, and, thanks to the ability to unlock and rotate the paper, the residue just falls off when it goes around the corner. Art demonstrated this technique at the Bladder Grabber, and when your get you sander, you'll find out it works just as well.
Control Line: Combat
THE CUTS AN KILLS contest was held in Vacaville, California over the Labor Day weekend and featured a first place prize of $1,000. Using his familiar Rushpuppy design with Fox power and carbon fibre props, Howard "The Colonel" Rush was the top dog. The nitro content of Howard's fuel is unknown, but it's always 10% more than in your fuel. We were about ready to jump in the car in hot pursuit, but the model seemed to be staying overhead both during the powered part and during the glide. After about twenty minutes the plane made a perfect landing in the same circle it had earlier departed. It was proudly trailing its opponent's streamer!
Control Line: Combat
I HAD A very busy month of June attending the big British contest at Three Sisters, an 80-mph meet, the Bladder Grabber, and a local competition figure-eight contest. The British meet featured the usual bad weather, with wind, rain, and cold (the Three Sisters), but made up for it with some very good competition. Britisher John James flew the best match of the meeting against Slava Beliaev, with Slava taking three cuts right off and John coming back to take five from the Russian to win! Besides the great competition, there was a supermarket of things to buy such as engines, props, and model kits.
Control Line World Champs
THE 1990 EXPEDITION to the Control Line World Championships departed from many locations around the U.S.A. on July 3, 1990. Everyone flew on Lufthansa with plans to meet in Frankfurt, Germany and stay overnight at the nearby Dorint Hotel. By taking direct flights from selected points in the U.S.A., the team and its supporters saved a stopover in New York City, which had added a lot of time and expense to the 1988 trip to Kiev in the Soviet Union. Team Manager Bill Lee and John McCollum left a day early to arrange for the fleet
Control Line: Combat
COMBAT FLIERS are lucky to have a fairly indepth cottage industry established which furnishes them with all manner of materials needed to fly Combat on all levels. Doc Passen, who is the Doc behind Doc's Generix Kits, has expanded his line of kits to include even more variety than before. The performance level of his model designs is slightly below what a pro might use, but it doesn't really matter since pros build their own designs. There's the Hot Dog for Super Slow Combat, the Wasp for Fast, and the Klipper for Slow, as well as the 1/2A Shadow for the .049 crowd. Doc is a master at gussying up a Plain Jane model to look like a World War II fighter. The sport flier will love the variety of designs, and the more polished competition modeler might humble some of the pros with these one-click-slower designs.
