Some folks like to build big, thin F2D's.  The standard Beliaev/Faisov design has a 12-13 in. root chord, and a 5.5-7 in. tip chord and somewhere around 440 squares.  The root is usually 1.8 or so thick, about 15%.  The tip about 1.1 in., about 17%.  Having tried thicker wings in other apps, it looks like NACA was right on in their Tech Report 824?, which tested the NACA 00 symmetrical sections from 9%(I think) to something like 26%.  Somewhere in the range of 24% appears to give the best balance between increased lift with minimal increased drag.  So I tried it on this plane.  The root is 23%, the tip, by mistake, turned out 26%.  Wing area is 380 squares, and the span is 45.5 in.

Maybe later in the year, weather permitting, I'll be able to get in some good matches with these against Roy Glenn or Andrey.  I haven't been able to talk anybody in our club into flying them cause F2D is kinda quick.  So far the smaller, thicker plane flys just as fast as any of the larger planes.  The airframe builds up about 1-1.5 oz. lighter than any other foamy I've done, so the wing loading is pretty good.  It gets through tight turns significantly faster than anything else I've gotten ahold of, including a couple of Andrey's good planes.  It does need some trimming work.  I didn't luck out on that like I did on the previous #07 design.

Talked to Larry Driskill.  They're trying some thin wing designs.  It will be interesting to see how it works out.  I haven't been able to figure out a spar design to hold up on a really thin(9%) wing.  It takes a ton of reinforcing or a lot of carbon fiber in the middle to hold things together.

This is the kind of stuff you get into when you can't round up enough people to fly every weekend.

And then there was the Guillotine - about a 4.5:1 A/R and 20+% airfoil, and flaps, too. Might have done 100 with a G21.35 on 40% nitro (after your opponent removed the streamer) - lol  But a turning machine it was!

Never built an Equalizer.  Missed the magazine with the plans and never even heard about it until I was building foamies.  The closest thing to it in the 70's was probably Sherwood Buckstaff's Mirage(A!@#$%), which had a quite thick wing, 360 squares, and super light construction.

If memory serves me correctly the plane that Bill Netzeband designed prior to the Equalizer was the Jerkline Special it had a full fuselage and the engine set upright. I think the Equalizer used the same wing as the Jerkline special. Shortly after profile carrier became an event I built one using the Equalizer wing, shortened to meet the area requirements. Power was Super Tigre .35. It was not exceptionally fast but I rarely got beat on the slow speed flight. Great memories.

Right now, the F2D07 wing is the best thing I have ever turned out.  I guess with luck the overall trim worked out just about perfect. It works great for speed limit with an LA 25 or a TT 25 plain bearing.  Every single one has literally flown off the board.  It comes with just a touch or right roll that can be trimmed out with a mild tweak and a light ironing of the covering.  For SL I fit a 15x3 stab with the leading edges swept 1/2 in.  It adds the weight needed to balance the engine and the larger stab increases stability for 60 ft lines.  Build it yourself and you can get the weight down to 16.5-17 oz.  The ARF ones are coming in at 18+ and still fly extremely well.

The #09 wing is a bit deceptive.  The centerblock/boom is exactly the same as the #07.  The reason the moments look different is the root chord is 1.5 in. shorter,the tip chord is .5 in. shorter, and the span is 2.5 in. shorter.  Control response is fine, but the changes for some reason have resulted in too much outboard roll.  I think I may have gotten the inboard wing a bit wider, or else the outboard on is a bit short.  It needs some trim work, but I'm sure it will get there as soon as I can work on it.

The tips are dead easy.  Cut the curve.  Take a piece of drywall sandpaper and work it well so it gets soft.  Gently pull it back and forth over the tip, like polishing shoes, until you get the degree of rounding needed.  The big claim to fame for this method(Steve Hill, if I remember right) is that it is quick and repeatable.  If the plane cartwheels on landing the tips are "pre-crashed" and don't get dinged up as bad as square tips.  They are sligthly faster in level flight, but boy can you hear the air roaring around them in hard maneuvers.  that's another experiment in the works.  All that noise has to be wasted horsepower.

Losing airspeed in turns- almost always too heavy a plane and/or too much control.  The top flyers all use way more control than they really need but are practiced enough to only use it when absolutely necessary.  If you don't fly at least 20-30 flights a week with a tail heavy plane, and can keep it under good control, you need something a bit more stable.  Try cutting the control movement down to +-15 deg, measured with a V-shaped jig and add some nose weight.  Then gradually decrease the nose weight and increase the control movement until you start to see the plane slow in maneuvers.  That is your full control setting.  Get used to it.  Bogging down in a turn is usually not worth it.  Much better to keep the speed up a bit and let the other guy use his overcontrol to snap a tight turn and slow down behind you.

If the leadouts are too far back the outboard wing will drop suddenly if you give hard up control.  Use one of the leadout position programs(look in the programs section here) and use it to locate the leadouts.  That will be very close.  Then reduce tip weight until you can just barely see the outboard tip drop a bit in hard maneuvers.

Combat planes have to fly on the wing.  Trying to get a tight turn with too much weight or not enough wing will always make it bog down in maneuvers.  Right now a good wing loading for SL planes is 25+ sq.in./oz.  A 20 oz. plane needs 500 squares.  The F2D wings are all in the 30 sq.in./oz range(14 oz/ 440 squares).  They will out turn a 20 oz. plane, but can run into trouble if the lines get tangled upwind.  The heavier plane almost always wins a line tangle.