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Speed,Combat,Scale,Racing => Combat => Topic started by: phil c on August 31, 2017, 07:55:24 PM
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I'm sitting here sick as a dog with nothing better to do than spout off.
Lets just start with getting cuts. They aren't easy to come by.
Start in level flight. The streamer usually don't track the path of the plane. Centrifugal force tends to make it ride further out near the end. The streamer construction makes difference too. Depending on the string, material, and knot different batches of streamers trail differently.
Go up to 45 degrees and things change. The streamer tends to fall in making it easier to get cuts. In fact, around 45 degrees is the best place try for cuts.
Up top is harder. The streamers fall in making it harder to line up, you get dizzy leaning over backwards waving you head around. But if you're tall and your opponent short it is good place to hide for a couple of eights.
Lining up takes some doing. Nobody has any depth perception at 50 or 60ft. The best you can do is try and spot whether your plane comes down inside or the streamer hits the inboard wing. The other place to keep an eye on is the control handles. If you can line up fairly well it's reference point when you miss and you can try another position if you get chance.
Leave some comments
Phil C
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Hi Phil,
I hope you start feeling better. Huntersville is coming up fast, are you planning to be there? I love watching you guys battle. It's also my wife, Holley's favorite event to watch when I'm not flying patterns - ho hum. Mike is pestering me to try speed limit but my quick balance shifts are getting pretty sad. I do play with my Norvel AME.061 powered Gladiator once in a while, using a 4.5" prop. It's a bitch to keep up with, but I find if I just keep it turning I can fly the tank out. I've never tried it while dragging a streamer, that'd probably tame it.
Hope to see you in October,
Rusty
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Phil, I am still amazed that there even cut with the small diameter prop being used. Also pilots are a couple of feet apart and the arm length with the way some guys hold their arm. I can see why there are many mid airs during a contest. Of course guys practice more in this day and time. D>K
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I need to get better at line wraps and mid airs. Hard to practice alone. Any tips?
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practice eye's off flying. When in a wrap try going outsides around your opponent, if he's willing both do outsides until you are either free or feel it getting worse. If so reverse to insides. If you practice enough with another flyer, you will begin to know what you are in as far as wraps. Talk to the other pilot to keep the models close so you can get out of the wraps, don't jerk or saw the lines or there will be a flyaway and you will endanger your friends.
Good luck.
K
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I need to get better at line wraps and mid airs. Hard to practice alone. Any tips?
As Ken says, practice flying without watching your plane. It should hang out on the lines well enough that you can feel what it's doing, as long as your arm is pointed at it. Practice eights, outside loop, then inside loop. A standard defensive maneuver. Try to find out how low you can do them and never let the plane go vertical in the middle- pull out almost to level flight and let the plane climb a quarter lap or so and then go the other direction.
Always try to see how the wrap started while watching the tip of the other streamer.. Common thing that happens, the lead pilot does an outside(as above) the trailing pilot over reacts and follows too soon, goes to far around the loop and recovers too soon, setting up a near head on pass(if the other pilot doesn't stretch out his inverted climb). A head on pass is very difficult to see which way the lines cross.
Another common situation is one pilot does a near wingover to come down on the opponent's lines with the lines crossed to try for a cut. Once the lines touch they are half tangled. If your on the left and your lines are on top whatever happens you'll have to fly an outside loop around the other plane to finally clear the line tangle.
If you're on the left and your lines are under you'll have to do an inside to finally clear the tangle.
If you're on the right it's the exact opposite. Right-over-> inside Right-under-> outside.
The best thing is to beg, borrow, or bribe someone to practice with you.
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Hi Phil, I always get a great deal of entertainment when the Philly Fliers host their speed limit combat contest in the fall. I tried it one year and found it was not my "cup of tea" I had more trouble staying on my feet than trying to get cuts, although I did get one. I think Combat is like Stunt, it takes years of practice, you don't enter with a Flite Streak and expect miracles. I will say my plane was as fast as some, but not fast enough. I really enjoy judging you, Dan, Louis, Shawn and Ken, and all others. Sometimes you need 6 sets of eyes to confirm a cut. Look forward to seeing you at our event this year.
Rich
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I'm hoping to see a bunch of of you Philly guys down here in Huntersville in about three weeks.
Rusty
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Rusty, I know a few of the hardcore's will be there, Dan B. said he will try to attend.
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Rich, I'll be there, limp and all. I've been so hobbled by my flaring hip I haven't been able to either fix the fuel leak on my flagship or do the final flight trimming on my backup. But these things have a habit of miraculously resolving right in time. So if I can fly it'll be a bonus, and if I can't it'll still be the same fun contest as always. I've been training to judge in case the time comes.
This is Phil's thread but since he asked me to pass the word, I'll post it here. He's had a long exhausting but fun summer season, and just has to have some R & R, so we'll miss him this October. But he'll be back strong and rested when the next season comes around.
Ken and Shawn are day to day with ridiculous pressure from work, so we'll keep hoping for a break for them. I bet John and Dan, Larry and the rest will make the trip. It wouldn't be the same without them. I met Roy last year for the first time and enjoyed getting to meet and talk with him.
Two weeks! See y'all there.
Rusty