Robert,

More power to you (pun intended)!!!

I recommend a Will Hubin timer to go with your ICE 50 ESC. His FM 9 system (programmer and timers) is great if you are serious about having several E powered models. Otherwise, he can fix you up with a suitable timer for under $20.

Email him at whubin@kent.edu

Robert, if you're picking it up again after a layoff, you may want to get a 2.4GHz car radio -- you can hold that in your off hand while you fly with your usual hand.

Then get a timer if you want to get serious about competition.

Just stay with it as you may find the dizzy's returning on your first flights.

Hmmm an interesting point!  Since our planes are tethered, they are officially a "ground vehicle", so a car radio is actually the legal way to go, while an airborne unit isn't.  Comments, rules guys?

Well I doubt that getting dizzy will be the problem.  I flew Formula One pylon for over a decade, Q40 for another 5 years and still do some quickie racing from time to time.  Six second lap times with the faster stuff, but a half turn of the pilot's rotation only takes about 0.9 seconds.  In pylon racing you get to look at the top of your airplane from a distance of 75 feet for the second usually while dodging bad air from other airplanes.  I always thought that my earlier years of ukie helped me turn pylon 2 and 3.  The hard part of pylon is adjusting to the fact that elevator controls direction and aileron controls altitude.

I went to the Nats to compete in pylon back in the 80's before Muncie turned it into a week long local contest, a format that I completely detest.  I was blown away at my first Nats at Olathe Ks. in 1968 by the Navy hanger full of models, control line speed, combat, stunt, RC Pylon, RC scale (Dave Platt's SBD), and of course free fright.

During part of the 70's when I was in college, I worked part time at Progress Manufacturing for Chris and Ethel Machin.  I'm sure that some of you still hoard a few Rev-Up's.  Few things get the blood pumping faster than to be sitting a a shaper table while a 3 inch diameter head turning 20,000 rpm finds a hidden flaw in a foot long block of hard maple and throws half of it into a 3/4" panel of particle plywood.

But that might cause the ground to open below my feet and swallow me whole for building a hybrid.

Well...........I feel bad about that idea now, since I just returned from Florida where it happened two weeks ago, and again in Illinois last week.

Robert, as a fellow Pylon player,, I share the joy,, I actually am lucky en0ough to have a group of guys up here who have seen the light, put the Q40 and 428 stuff on the back burner, we fly APRA 9 Thundertiger 40 quickie or 424) and EF-1,, the last few races we have had right at 20 pilots in each class,, pretty awesome,, I also fly CL ,, electric,,

now about that EF-1 you have just sitting there collecting dust,, I have a couple slightly spare CL kits I may trade you out of that thing

Thank you Dean,

While it seems like most RC pilots have little use for their issues of Model Aviation, I always liked reading about what other areas of the hobby were up to.  Competition in any venue improves the breed, and it seems like the people at the top of any event work at it very hard.  They also tend to share their concepts and ideas freely, to ignore them would only decrease the tools available.