Probably like many of you, I'm a pack rat and never threw a "good" model away. I was cleaning out a closet in the basement and look what I found...

Four Fast combat ships circa early 70's, one with a very new looking 36X screwed to the nose!

IIRC, I got a halfway decent job paying $1.65 an hour around 1975 and was able to get three G21 .35's and switched to Nemesis designs with surgical bladders in Estes tubes then, so these have to be back from early high school. The drinking age was 18 back then which probably explains the Coors can pacifier compartment.. yeah I was 18, sure, OK. LOL!

Again, if memory serves, I used the root ribs from a Sneeker and built constant-chord wings. A couple of these ships show battle scars from matches and the broken hub from a Tornado 8x8 lends me to believe the chrome ship was used in a match and then retired, to be found today 35 or more years later! All still have oil on them, so each one is authentic and a veteran that flew in anger.

My dad and I had consecutive AMA numbers and I can see where they were "field modified" to change the numbers.

Handling these little combat ships after all these years really opened up the floodgates of memories.  

You know, I do remember that at the Lake Charles Nats in '74 I was using long tailbooms, so these are probably from Oshkosh or earlier. That makes them at least 39 years old. So they rode in the back of my '65 Mustang while I tried to make out with my girlfriend...

Anyway,  I thought I'd share. Most good combat ships never survived. I had tucked these away and had forgotten about them. I think the chrome one is going to get cleaned and put on display in the man-cave.

No amount money could ever pry these from me.

Hey, anybody got any Missile Mist? I think that 36X is calling me.
 

Oh boy, I would be afraid to fly those.  But, then again I did fly a Big Iron that was flown in the 60's by Wayne Meriwether.  Johnson Combat Special on 10% fuel.  This was at a club meeting night in Topeka KS and was too windy for the other planes. We finally got a needle and clocked a little over 90 mph.   Now check the Fox site as they may have Missle Mist, but I doubt it.

                       It seems as though that sweet purple stuff is still available. I loved the old can. I checked the site and sure enough it's still there. It takes a little finding, but I found it. Ken

I'm a very lucky chump in that I get to spend a fair amount of time around Top Fuel Dragsters, and EVERY TIME one fires up I get transported back to the first time I unscrewed the cap on gallon of purple and took a whiff. Really. That burn in your sinuses, tears in your eyes.. I'm standing next to a 10,000HP Hemi blowing the awning off the trailer at idle, and I think of Fast Combat. How stupid is that? Then I look over at that light blue 55 gallon drum of the magic liquid and think of what I could have done with that in High School!!!

Even weirder, every time I shine my shoes, and I mean every darned time I get a whiff of the polish and think of a member of this forum who shall remain nameless and his nitrobenzene combat fuel.

Funny how smells can evoke such memories. I turned 55 this year. Is this an "old guy" thing... like how any girl under 35 with two eyes, a nose and mouth is pretty?