Finally got to fly the Satan this past weekend and it was fast!  Just the way I remembered it when Larry was developing it back in the 60s.  The Fox 36X BB powered the Satan to 122mph which confirms Larry Scarinzi's claims of superior speed. The legend lives on! 
Al

          Al, I wish I could've seen that. Shawn and I had the Demon out again 2 weeks ago. Roy flew with us for some practice matches as well. We went with a 8 x 8 older wood Top Flite. I have to say it was certainly moving out. Roy was quite impressed. What nitro were you using? I recall you said those engine have a tendency to blow the cranks up. Ken

It SHOULD be .018".  Most of us had volutarily gone up to 18's long before AMA caught up.  We got tired (real fast) of losing planes just on practice flights.

Did Al say .015?

                  Does Larry's original Super Satan still exist? Ken

             Pretty cool Al I hope i get to see it fly sometime. Ken

Finally got to fly the Satan this past weekend and it was fast!  Just the way I remembered it when Larry was developing it back in the 60s.  The Fox 36X BB powered the Satan to 122mph which confirms Larry Scarinzi's claims of superior speed. The legend lives on! 
Al

One thing about legends. Sometimes they are filled with half truths.   

One thing about legends. Sometimes they are filled with half truths.   

Please enlighten me!

OK I'll bite.  My comment was not aimed at the fact that some old time control line flyers consider Larry a legend.  If that's how they feel then so be it.  I have no argument.  But my comment referred to the old 120 mph combat airplane legend of the 1960's. I was a very active combat flyer in the sixties and early 70's and flew in 30 or more contests around the country and never saw a combat airplane do 120 mph at any contest I ever attended.  I usually had the fastest airplane at any contest I flew in during that time period.  In the late 60's my relationship with the  World Champ speed flyer Carl Dodge gave me certain advantages when it came to building combat engines that were exceptional. My strongest Dodge built engine would go 116 mph on our foam combat ships.  And this was in contest trim, no extra thin wing and flying just as it did in combat matches.  Now is my commentary saying that Larry never did 120 mph with a combat plane ?  No, just like Messerschmidt went 469 mph in 1939 to amaze the aviation world, this happened with a very, very special airframe and engine that could only run a short time, before it was damaged.  But the Germans wanted the world to think that this was their souped up ME-109.  Far from the truth.  And Duke Fox wanted all us stupid combat flyers to think if we flew Fox 36BB Combat Specials that we could go 120MPH. Not true at all.  Larry helped perpetuate this myth as Duke supplied him with many engines and spare parts. I'm sure Larry would tell you he wasn't really "an engine man".  He was back in the day, "an airplane man". His success came from having mass quantities of Foxes from Duke to make enough engines so he could find one that would run on Blast fuel for a few minutes before it exploded.  Now Take a minute to figure out the pitch speed of an 8X8 prop with 100% efficiency at 17,000 RPM.  This is over 120mph, only trouble is there is no prop ever made that will give much more than 90% efficiency.  The props we used in the day were probably less than 90% efficient. Now attach a streamer. Then take into account the drag of the lines and airplane and 120mph goes away real fast. So what am I saying ?  Larry might have done it, and I do have some doubts, but if he did, it was like Messerschmidt with a very special engine and airframe that would not do very well on the contest circuit cause pit men are not very good at replacing connecting rods and crankshafts during a pit stop. Was Larry a smart and talented Guy ?  He certainly was and is.  But this 120mph combat ship stuff was baloney, until the Nelson 36 made the scene. 

 The claim  of 120MPH  + is  completely legitimate.
Weather permitting, on summer Thursday  evenings , the Union Model Airplane Club met and typically  there were  5 circles flying. Larry and several of us would go to the furthest away circle . It was 1966 and 1967.He was conducting  development/ testing of the Super Satan  design  for Carl Goldberg and  his LS Tuned Fox 36xBB line of  custom tuned engines for retail.

We timed from outside the circle during flights (sans streamer) and he  would   always time himself as well.  Real 120MPH + flights occured.
 Larry had " graduated" from Fox Blast. A club member and pharmacist , Al Needleman, mixed his fuel for a long while. Binky pacifier, small hub Tornado Yellow 8X8( boiled & balanced), prop hub and drive washer modified to prevent blade toss.  There were  more LS tricks to achieve speed, but I was only a teen and most of us weren't privy to that info.

Engines were custom re-worked by Larry- I still have a  few . (Someday I'll sell them since I primarily  fly electric now since returning to Ukie).
I built and flew a Super Satan in 1967. It was ridiculously fast . So much so that it was too much to comfortably compete with. Larry twanged my Satan one evening and that was my one and only.
I used Voodoos , some stock, some modified with longer booms and scratch built some to save weight. Won Senior combat in '69 with a Voodoo and an LS Tuned Fox 36xBB. Also liked Sneekers and Demons.All were great designs ,but not terribly fast.

Another club member at that time, Mike Luciano, built a number of Satans and achieved nearly similar results.

I have no reason to make any of this up. Larry knew  his engines and custom reworked motors for many, many people .

In the early 1960's when the ST C35 and G21.35 came out it was possible to break 120 MPH with a kit Voodoo and a bit of engine work and hot gas.  However, the .015" line broke regularly a too many planes got away.  Many flyers went to 018 voluntarily until AMA stepped up and changed the rule.

It became difficult to break 100 MPH with the bigger lines.  At the 1977 Nats Riverside Mr. Duke Fox gave out protoytype Fox Combat Mark III's to many of the better flyers.  115 MPH was immediately attained with models that went 98 with a G21.  Mr. Fox single-handedly resurrected the Fast Combat event that was dying for the lack of engines. 

Prior to the Mark III, competitive high speed was only available to machinist-modelers who could make their own engines.  The Mark III sold 120 MPH to anybody willing to pay $60.

I saw a Super Satan demo at a Nats.   I remember it as involving a lot of arm and lines that I wanted to measure. 

Larry has become one of my heroes, too.  He is one of a handful of guys like Bob Hunt and Ed Southwick who are (or were) as excited and enthusiastic about model airplanes as geezers as we were as kids.  Larry hangs out at combat at the Nats and brings an F2D model to fly.  Sitting on the sidelines, he's an old guy with dumb jokes and a plaid shirt.  When he picks up the handle, 40 years go away and he's Larry Scarinzi. 

I saw a Super Satan demo at a Nats.   I remember it as involving a lot of arm and lines that I wanted to measure.  

Larry has become one of my heroes, too.  He is one of a handful of guys like Bob Hunt and Ed Southwick who are (or were) as excited and enthusiastic about model airplanes as geezers as we were as kids.  Larry hangs out at combat at the Nats and brings an F2D model to fly.  Sitting on the sidelines, he's an old guy with dumb jokes and a plaid shirt.  When he picks up the handle, 40 years go away and he's Larry Scarinzi.  

Howard,
That's him, alright.  To a "t".
 Somewhere, I have an old, color snapshot of you and Larry haming it up at the 71 or 72 Glenview NATS.
Frank

Since I was very involved in combat and Nats competition in this era (1956 through 68) except east coast Nats, which I was never able to attend I feel I must add my 2 cents. I don't want to step on any ones toes but my observations are as follows from the contest I attended.  Rigged for combat with no streamer there were NO 120 mph planes.  I did clock planes faster than 120 but they were way too high and had arm involved.  During the 66 - 68 period using Fox CS single ball bearing engines on Vampires with 25% nitro I ran an even 116 +/- 2 mph (no streamer). I consider Larry a good friend, but he only flew at one Nats that I attended.  At that meet he flew James Mears and he did win the match. James was all over him and had way more speed but Larry may have been a little lean.  To be honest, the problem more often than not was having too much speed which makes timing much harder.  It's always a lot more fun to fly the really good flyers.........
RW

I'm no Combat flyer (never was, except for one disastrous attempt in Illinois, c.1962) -- but must say that any opinion offered by Riley Wooten should be taken as Gospel.  He is arguably (?) the best Combat flyer of all times.

(Not to mention that he's also a hell of a nice guy, too.)

In practice at a 1974 contest I watched a friend time a Winder/Spectrum derivative ST G21-35 .018 lines 40% nitro TF wood pylon prop of who knows what pitch post a 118 mph speed

I was 14 at the time and thought that was the coolest thing there was

Riley's point about flying high is a good one.  Once the plane gets above about 15 ft. the apparent speed goes up pretty fast.  I've seen plenty of 120 mph claims that came from flying at 20 ft or better.  I'm sure Al got a decent low level flight and an honest time on this one.  Back in the 60's and 70's there were plenty of combat flyers and many of them couldn't fly the plane low enough to get a realistic time on it.  Just way too touchy.

With no disrespect to the many accomplished combat flyers commenting on this post.
  Al's opening post claims of 122 mph. Everyone is forgetting that! Phil also commented that most likely Al stayed at a reasonable height and probably got a good time.

Since my return to control line I have built a Super Satan. I have yet to fly it. However, I will get out in the next month or so and fly it. I will fly it on 58' 015 lines eyelet to eyelet. That will put me pretty damn close to 60' center of plane to center of handle. No comments on 015 as they are more then adequate for flying a 18.5oz plane regardless of speed. A combat match is a different story. I will use a out of the box .36xbb. Then I will bolt on my fathers 36xbb that was claimed to exceed 120+ speeds. This particular engine is stock and lapped per Blitz article. I will have this video taped starting from line measuring to a level flight timed with stopwatch in view. I will post a link to YouTube for everyone to see. I have no idea of the outcome as I stated the plane has not been flown and I'm not sure if it will even stay together! Lol

  I find one thing disturbing. I have had many conversations with Larry in the past few years. There is one thing I know for sure. When you mention the Super Satan, Larry lights up! He claims it to be one of his proudest accomplishment. I think that wouldn't be the case if it was based on lies!

 Dan and Howard's comments on Larry's personality are spot on with Howard's flying comments spot on as we'll.

Question: how much speed can you actually gain, whipping a plane as light as 17oz.,60' away, traveling 120mph, when  you're already spinning like a top, add in your now fully extended arm to actually try and get said whip?

We never time laps back then but based on fairly recent flying of 1975 .36 on a combat cat wing with
RevUp >>>9X6<<< 5% Nitro at about 10ft with a fat needle 10ft hight and no whiping and 2 clocks running-----116mph. O-Yeh line length and dia were checked and were correct .018 X60ft. left overs from 75 nats.

I have no problem with translating that to over 120mph on a Spectrum with a mild G-21 on 30% and 8X8.
The Spectrum was one of my favorites before going back to my own slower but much tighter turning designs.
No the Spectrum did not fold like a winder or toothpick will.