I don't mean to hijack this thread, but...
There are several reasons that the Nemesis II was superior to the VooDoo. Howard Rush designed the airplane when he was in High School in Overland Park, KS. He took the NACA airfoil data from "Abbott and von Doenhoeff's 'Theory of Wing Sections'" (which was a compendium of the early NACA variable density wind tunnel tests) and modified the "4-digit" section data presented therein. Howard and his flying buddies tried the 15% thick airfoil (from the book) which flew fast but didn't turn well, and the 18% thick airfoil (also from the book), which turned well but didn't fly very fast. Then they "averaged" the coordinates and came up with a 16.5% thick airfoil. Howard then "shifted" the point of maximum thickness from the standard 30% of the chord length to 25% of the chord. THAT was the breakthrough.
. Shifting the point of maximum thickness forward makes a LOT of difference in the maximum lift that a 4-digit symmetrical NACA airfoil can produce. My later computer modeling yielded the info that placing the max thickness at 17.5% to 20% of the chord length produced the max lift. Later AMA and F2D empirical data prove this out.
(Note: Howard tried an earlier design, inspired by the Big Iron and VooDoo type designs, which he called the "Atropos". ( one of the Greek fates, which "cuts the thread of life' cute name for a combat plane, huh?) The Atropos used a NACA laminar flow 6-digit airfoil. It was apparently a disaster and wouldn't turn worth a damn)
The longer tail booms do two things. First, as noted, it reduced the need for "tail weight" to balance the newer, heavier engines and secondly, it increased the "maneuvering stability" of the model. It became more "pointable" and more accurate. In the early 1970's my flying partner and I tried a Nemesis II with 8" booms. It turned out to be too much. 6" booms seemed to be the optimal for the Nemesis II.
When Howard was in school at Purdue, in the late 1960's, he met fellow Purdue Aeromodeler member Neal White. Neal took the Nemesis II info and designed the Bosta (Portuguese for "crap"). The Bosta is for all intents and purposes an elliptical planform version of the Nemesis II. It uses the same airfoil. The idea was that according to aerodynamic "linear theory" an elliptical planform has less induced drag for the same amount of lift. In other words, it wouldn't slow down as much in the turns.
In the early 1970's, when I was in High School in Kansas City, my flying partner and I met one of Howard's old flying buddies, H. Brooks Herndon. Brooks gave us an early set of Nemesis II plans and also taught us some of the rudiments of aerodynamics. We took that info and came up with the first "practical" tapered-wing, foam wing combat plane, which we called the Shrika II. The basic idea was the same as the Bosta, a tapered wing has less induced drag than a rectangular wing, and making it from foam, was more practical than cutting many different balsa ribs. We campaigned the airplane around the Midwest successfully for several years. When I was in college at KU, I CD'd a contest in Kansas City and Tom Zon (then from the LA area) came out to watch. He saw our Shrika II and was impressed with the performance. He asked for plans and cores so we went back to my dad's house and I taught Tom how to cut foam, gave him several sets of cores and a set of plans with the promise that he wouldn't give them to "Bozo's" who wouldn't build them right. True to his word, Tom only gave the plans and cores to those who would build them correctly. The airplane was a success in the SoCal combat arena.
In 1975, Joe Kall won the Jr Nats championship with the airplane.
http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=13543.0;attach=46281;image Picture #1
http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=13543.0;attach=46287;image Picture #22
That's me on the far left of this 1975 Nats picture #37 holding the clipboard:
http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=13543.0;attach=46291;imageLater on, I stretched the Shrika II out to 48" switched to a single laminated tail boom and used the Eppler 475 airfoil instead of the original Nemesis II airfoil ( a BIG mistake). I called it the "Bateleur" ( an African eagle) The airplane was a p.o.s. It was only many years later that I discovered that it was the E 475 airfoil that was to blame and that it would have been a great airplane if I had used the Nemesis II airfoil.
Fortunately, even though I dropped out of Combat due to military service and raising a family, development of the concept continued in SoCal and Greg Hill and Pete Athens came up the the "ArrowPlane". There were other derivatives of the ArrowPlane concept, such as the "AllenPlane"/Bounty Hunter, etc.
So there you have it. The Berryman "Big Iron" and the Wooten "VooDoo" type designs led to the Nemesis II which led to the Bosta, which led to the Shrika II and the Bateleur which inspired the McFadden "DreamSicle" and the "ArrowPlane" which in my opinion was the ultimate development of AMA combat. And then AMA combat DIED... (except for the bi-annual Bladder Grabber in Seattle)
So now you know, "The rest of the story".
Howard: If I'm wrong about any of this, please correct me.