Single-wire flying

[Tim Wescott]

Just idle curiosity, while I get up the nerve to awaken my cat's homicidal tendencies by tossing him off my lap:

Where does one get control line, handles, bellcranks (or whatever they're called), etc., for single line flying?  And what does one use for the wire?  Stainless?  Plain steel?  Do you have to straighten it before first use?  How big of a reel do you need to use?

Etc. -- I've read about single-wire flying, and I've even seen it done once, but I've never gotten a chance to satisfy my curiosity by seeing all the details in action.  I searched for a good page, but in this case Google does not seem to be my friend.

[Larry Wong]

IT'S called MONO Line   Dale Kurn use to travel around the country giving shows on how to fly stunt with a Zero & Thunder bird.  Now the only people use mono line is the speed guys, not quite the same units but the same idea.

[tom hampshire]

      I studied it and gave up without ever going to hardware.  The manufacturer offered a thousand dollar bounty for a nats win with it in the 50's and still have the money.  By all accounts, the control inputs are slow and indefinite.  The deal killer is that each time a maneuver is completed, it leaves a twist in the line which changes both the throw rate and the elevator neutral.  That was the end of the line for me.  Best of luck if you try it, maybe a servo on the elevators actuated by a twist link on the handle, with a coded pulse train up the line and an air ground would be the way to approach it.

[John Stiles]

I'm thinkin bout tryin that with an R/C plane. get me a chaise lounger and lay back with the radio in hand. Of course it'll be electric, so it wont disturb me in case I fall asleep! 

[Wayne J. Buran]

Just idle curiosity, while I get up the nerve to awaken my cat's homicidal tendencies by tossing him off my lap:

Where does one get control line, handles, bellcranks (or whatever they're called), etc., for single line flying?  And what does one use for the wire?  Stainless?  Plain steel?  Do you have to straighten it before first use?  How big of a reel do you need to use?

Etc. -- I've read about single-wire flying, and I've even seen it done once, but I've never gotten a chance to satisfy my curiosity by seeing all the details in action.  I searched for a good page, but in this case Google does not seem to be my friend.

Go to "Speed Talk" on this forum and ask sombody where you can get information about Mono-Line.
Wayne

[Jim Thomerson]

In 2000, at the VSC, Joe Kirn flew a very respectable Old Time Stunt Pattern with a monoline Jamison Special.  I was one of the judges.  I don't think Stanzel has any more monoline equipment available.  Bits and pieces  show up on eBay.  I think getting equipment for stunt or sport flying would be a matter of finding old timers who have some they will part with.  Years ago I built a monoline Woodchopper with a Torp 19.  All went well until I tried a loop and was unsuccessful. If you get a chance, the Stanzel Museum in Schulenburg, TX, is a must see.  There are a number of beautiful airplanes built by Dale Kirn.  His Thunderbird (or a replica) is there.  

[Avaiojet]

There was an original kit of the Tiger Shark, on ebay, which I believe was a monoline model.

Could still be there.

Looks like this.

CB

[keith varley]

There are two people up here in Canada that fly mono- line stunt .Marty (Hippy)Higgs and Chris(Partner) Sacket. See this article with pictures taken from Flying Lines.Keith Varley

http://flyinglines.org/monoline.stunters.html

[Jim Kraft]

When talking to Dale Kirn, and if I remember right, the only thing that changes when you do a loop is that the spool moves one thread up the handle. And one of the nice things is the control works whether you have line tension or not. I have never tried it. He also said that after doing multiple loops that you just reach out and spin the control spool back to midway when in level flight without problems. Dale and his son were masters at flying monoline stunt. Dales daugter Teresa goes to our church, and she won several speed events at the NATS flying monoline when she was growing up. She wanted to teach her boys to fly but had never flown 2 line and did not think she could.

[Howard Rush]

I saw Dale fly three stunt patterns on 1 oz. of fuel with a Baby Flite Streak on a 50-foot Monoline at a Kansas City contest in 1960 (+/- one year).  Very impressive.

[jim welch]

Howard did you ever see monoline Pete? He flew combat with a fast monoline plane, wrapped the lines up and worked on everybody real bad.He had control any where in the circle even sideways.bell cranking him sure cramped his style though... Jimmy

[Howard Rush]

Howard did you ever see monoline Pete? He flew combat with a fast monoline plane, wrapped the lines up and worked on everybody real bad.He had control any where in the circle even sideways.bell cranking him sure cramped his style though... Jimmy

I think so.  Wasn't he at the 1964 Nats in Dallas?  Monoline was eventually outlawed in combat.

[Joe Yau]

Hi Tim,

As Keith has mentioned above that Chris Sacket (Partner) & Marty Higgs (Hippie) flys Monoline up here.  But they don't just fly Monoline speed, they also flys Monoline Stunt as well.  Check out this video with Chris flying his Monoline Crusader. (Test flight)

[Dennis Leonhardi]

I think so.  Wasn't he at the 1964 Nats in Dallas?  Monoline was eventually outlawed in combat.

Dave "Monoline Pete" Kruse is my good friend and combat teammate at the '63 Nats in California.  Really a nice guy.  And, by the way, he was way ahead of the curve and deeply into electric in the '60s.  The rest of us thought he was crazy (not really), which proves what the rest of us knew.

He was aiming at that $1,000 prize and could fly a pretty decent pattern with his (monoline) Nobler, too.

Interesting story at the '63 Nats: Quite a few flyers protested his entry in combat at the pilots' meeting the night before the preliminaries, and some of the "name" flyers insisted they wouldn't even fly if he were permitted to do so.  The combat director - Sandy Frank if I recall correctly - stated monoline was allowed under the rules and we'd be starting at 7 am, regardless.

I've never seen such a bunch of grown men act like crybabies ... if you simply use your head, you realize that a monoline-equipped airplane is waaaaay slower to respond than a normal combat ship, and his only advantage is that the (much heavier) single line will literally render your lines ineffective if you allowed his line to drape over your lines.  Gosh, how hard can it be to simply stay above him, so to speak, while making passes at his much less responsive plane?!?

It went on all day at the prelims - whine, complain, badger, hurl insults.

When we got down to 16 contestants - one round left, the final 8 to fly off on Friday - Dave was matched against Bill Carpenter, designer of the  Swoop kitted by  Sterling and the '60 Nats winner.  Dave beat Carpenter fair and square - I don't remember the details - but crybaby Carpenter put up a big fuss, so Dave agreed to a rematch (yes, the judges gave him a choice).

And then he beat Carpenter again.

Well, if whining and complaining works once ... yup, Carpenter complained about something again, Dave agreed to another rematch, and then ... beat Carpenter for the 3rd time!

Well, Dave is above all a real decent guy, and I think he’d reached a breaking point ... when the judges confirmed his win, without any more protests, Dave told them he wanted to forfeit and allow Carpenter to advance.

I was personally crushed, but you respect a friend’s decisions.  Three of us from Minneapolis, good friends who regularly flew together, who together mentored kids every Monday night at a neighborhood house in Minneapolis, had gone to the Nats together.  We had more fun together on that trip than should be allowed; I had advanced to the finals, and it would literally have been the thrill of a lifetime for both of us to have flown together in the finals.

I didn’t have the pleasure of encountering Carpenter, but think he lost the next round; I finished 4th.  I have great memories of that trip and the competition, yet will always feel some sadness about the way Dave was treated.

You know, contestants could have chosen the .09 made by Johnson for power, but they chose .35s instead.  Simply to be competitive.

They could have used their brain and realized that Dave was actually at quite a disadvantage, yet they felt a need to whine and eventually legislate against monoline.

Pretty childish from where I sit ...


Dennis


“I know you can fight.  But it’s our wits that make us men.” - Malcolm Wallace to his young son William Wallace (Braveheart) in the movie of that name.

[John Stiles]

Hi Tim,

As Keith has mentioned above that Chris Sacket (Partner) & Marty Higgs (Hippie) flys Monoline up here.  But they don't just fly Monoline speed, they also flys Monoline Stunt as well.  Check out this video with Chris flying his Monoline Crusader. (Test flight)

Dayaaammmmm, that was great! Beautiful flying, beautiful plane, and beautiful scenery! Thanx 

[jim welch]

Dennis....Thanks for that it's been a long time since then but that really is a good explanation of how it was that monoline got the axe in combat.Pete definately left an impression on a bunch of young Virginia kids back then and we flew 1/2 combat planes on monoline for quite a while after that.Bobby Mathison, Joey mathison (speed flyer moderator here), Willis Swindell, and myself had lots of fun with them.    Jimmy   

[john e. holliday]

That is a shame that a bunch of grown men could put on a show like against a competitor.   I know of other NATS in which individuals did not get to show their full potential because they flew against the grain of competition.   

I was there when Dale and Joe Kirn flew the Thunderbird.   I don't think Joe flew in the competition as it was Dale's airplane.  I was in awe watching Joe's hands as he flew the pattern.   I beleive the kid also flew scale using two mono-line units during past NATS.

[Dennis Leonhardi]

That is a shame that a bunch of grown men could put on a show like against a competitor.   I know of other NATS in which individuals did not get to show their full potential because they flew against the grain of competition.  

Thanks Jim and John.  Dave is one of the good guys, I can't tell you how much time he devoted to mentoring kids and helping them build and fly - 2 lines, not monoline.

What ought to be embarrassing to many of those "grown men" is that they were accomplished combat flyers, not rookies.  If they had set aside the testosterone and used whatever brains they had, they would have seen what a tremendous disadvantage Dave was at.  But he had made it a mission to show what could be done with monoline.

(I've always thought too many combat flyers put waaaaay too much emphasis on their airplanes, engines, you name it, and way too little on what should be their most dangerous weapon, that thing in the head.)

Dennis
 

[don Burke]

By all accounts, the control inputs are slow and indefinite.  The deal killer is that each time a maneuver is completed, it leaves a twist in the line which changes both the throw rate and the elevator neutral.

Not necessarily so.
When the control is returned to neutral the twist is taken out of the line.  If there's any twist left it's the pilot's fault for not knowing where neutral happens to be.

If you have seen Dale or his son Joe fly a full pattern you'd be amazed.  A year or so ago at Whittier Narrows Dale and Joe were there and Joe flew a full pattern.  I asked Joe if he had trouble switching between 2 and 1 line, he said, he didn't know, he never flew 2 lines. 

[Howard Rush]

Dave "Monoline Pete" Kruse is my good friend and combat teammate at the '63 Nats in California.  Really a nice guy.  And, by the way, he was way ahead of the curve and deeply into electric in the '60s.  The rest of us thought he was crazy (not really), which proves what the rest of us knew.

He was aiming at that $1,000 prize and could fly a pretty decent pattern with his (monoline) Nobler, too.

Interesting story at the '63 Nats: Quite a few flyers protested his entry in combat at the pilots' meeting the night before the preliminaries, and some of the "name" flyers insisted they wouldn't even fly if he were permitted to do so.  The combat director - Sandy Frank if I recall correctly - stated monoline was allowed under the rules and we'd be starting at 7 am, regardless.

I've never seen such a bunch of grown men act like crybabies ... if you simply use your head, you realize that a monoline-equipped airplane is waaaaay slower to respond than a normal combat ship, and his only advantage is that the (much heavier) single line will literally render your lines ineffective if you allowed his line to drape over your lines.  Gosh, how hard can it be to simply stay above him, so to speak, while making passes at his much less responsive plane?!?

It went on all day at the prelims - whine, complain, badger, hurl insults.

When we got down to 16 contestants - one round left, the final 8 to fly off on Friday - Dave was matched against Bill Carpenter, designer of the  Swoop kitted by  Sterling and the '60 Nats winner.  Dave beat Carpenter fair and square - I don't remember the details - but crybaby Carpenter put up a big fuss, so Dave agreed to a rematch (yes, the judges gave him a choice).

And then he beat Carpenter again.

Well, if whining and complaining works once ... yup, Carpenter complained about something again, Dave agreed to another rematch, and then ... beat Carpenter for the 3rd time!

Well, Dave is above all a real decent guy, and I think he’d reached a breaking point ... when the judges confirmed his win, without any more protests, Dave told them he wanted to forfeit and allow Carpenter to advance.

I was personally crushed, but you respect a friend’s decisions.  Three of us from Minneapolis, good friends who regularly flew together, who together mentored kids every Monday night at a neighborhood house in Minneapolis, had gone to the Nats together.  We had more fun together on that trip than should be allowed; I had advanced to the finals, and it would literally have been the thrill of a lifetime for both of us to have flown together in the finals.

I didn’t have the pleasure of encountering Carpenter, but think he lost the next round; I finished 4th.  I have great memories of that trip and the competition, yet will always feel some sadness about the way Dave was treated.

You know, contestants could have chosen the .09 made by Johnson for power, but they chose .35s instead.  Simply to be competitive.

They could have used their brain and realized that Dave was actually at quite a disadvantage, yet they felt a need to whine and eventually legislate against monoline.

Pretty childish from where I sit ...


Dennis


“I know you can fight.  But it’s our wits that make us men.” - Malcolm Wallace to his young son William Wallace (Braveheart) in the movie of that name.

An interesting thing about these fora is that you can finally meet folks who we heard about 50 years ago.  It is good to get, finally, the Evil Monoline Guy's side of the story.

The argument against monoline in combat is that the monoline guy could force a line tangle, in which he could prevail, causing his opponent to crash.  Similar arguments have been made against guys who jerk or saw on lines in tangles.  The Chinese were accused of this in F2D.  I figure maybe it came from their tradition of kite fighting and their lack of appreciation for F2D etiquette. 

[Dennis Leonhardi]

An interesting thing about these fora is that you can finally meet folks who we heard about 50 years ago.  It is good to get, finally, the Evil Monoline Guy's side of the story.

The argument against monoline in combat is that the monoline guy could force a line tangle, in which he could prevail, causing his opponent to crash.  Similar arguments have been made against guys who jerk or saw on lines in tangles.  The Chinese were accused of this in F2D.  I figure maybe it came from their tradition of kite fighting and their lack of appreciation for F2D etiquette. 

I hear you Howard, but just don't buy it.  I flew against Dave many times in local competition; he was never able to force anything.  Maybe I just had the common sense to fly higher than him?

In my active combat days, at maybe 5'-8" and 140 lbs, I flew against many taller, heavier guys who liked to throw their weight around in the circle.  The solution, it seemed to me, was to develop some depth perception and stay as far away from them as possible in the pilot's circle.  It never occurred to me to propose rule changes imposing height and weight restrictions.

One of my good friends, protégé and teammate Ted Berman, flew left handed; for some reason, that seemed to throw off a number of his opponents who were intent on matching hands.  I suspect some of the monoline haters would have tried to ban left handed pilots had that been a problem for them.


Dennis
 

[Howard Rush]

I always figured that if somebody was trying to do something unsavory, it would take his attention away from combat.  Hence it wasn't as much of a problem as one would think.

[jim ivey]

It was called the super "V" shark.Had a 2 line control system., I had one in the early 50s. The leadouts went thru 2 1/8th" sia. tubes  mounted in the the fuse and  bent  @ 90 deg. angles.  App. 1/2" radius. The leadouts went directly to the elevator. 1 for up and 1 for down. Seems like it would have worked,  I don't know, I never finished it. I believe That was the red and yellow plane dale flew with a mono-line, looked like it. 

[jim ivey]

Tim theres a stanzel tiger shark on e-bay right now. man oh maaaan sobody really wants it bad!!! 185 bucks!!  as bugs bunny would say "What a Maroon!!!!

[Tim Wescott]

Tim theres a stanzel tiger shark on e-bay right now. man oh maaaan sobody really wants it bad!!! 185 bucks!!  as bugs bunny would say "What a Maroon!!!!

Ouch!  I'm not interested enough in it at the moment anyway -- I'm just thinking that speed and endurance flying look interesting, and single-wire seems to be the way to go.

But I'm not ready to distract myself from stunt just yet.

[phil c]

I think the last time Pete Kruze flew combat at the NATS was 1972.  People still were complaining.  It was banned the next year.  I think there were a couple line tangles that could have easily been avoided..  As Dennis siad, hard to figure why it caused so much fuss.  It really wasn't a major advantage.

I've tried monoline(the Stanzel worm gear hardware).  It is much harder than 2 line because the plane doesn't simply return to neutral when you relax your hand.  You have to "find" neutral on the twisted control unit.  My hat is off to anyone who can put in  a decent stunt flight with it.

On a more modern note, sending a signal through a single line to a servo on the plane would be pretty easy.  No need for the funny, twisted wire handle.  A single potentionmeter on the control handle moved by the line would send the signal.  Sort of a takeoff on Alex Prokoviev's combat shutoff.

[Trostle]

On a more modern note, sending a signal through a single line to a servo on the plane would be pretty easy.  No need for the funny, twisted wire handle.  A single potentionmeter on the control handle moved by the line would send the signal.  Sort of a takeoff on Alex Prokoviev's combat shutoff.

Or, if the 2.4 proposal passes, just tie on a tether, use the potentiometer on the handle as you suggest but instead send an RF signal for elevator control.  You could do a shut-off as well.  And you could send a needle valve adjustment.  It will be interesting to see how the different CL contest boards respond to this CL General proposal.

Keith

[don Burke]

The proposal specifically excludes elevator control by RF.

[rustler]

Just idle curiosity, while I get up the nerve to awaken my cat's homicidal tendencies by tossing him off my lap...

Nobody who likes cats can be all bad! Mind you, if the cat is holding you to ransom...........

[Avaiojet]

Here ya go!

Real time right now. Yours for the bidding.

CB