RCC-09-7 – Scale maximum wingspan of 48â€

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Lou Melancon
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RCC-09-7 – Scale maximum wingspan of 48â€

Post by Lou Melancon »

<b>RCC-09-7 – Specify a maximum wingspan of 48â€
Yankee Samurai
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Post by Yankee Samurai »

The only issue I have with this rule is a minimum wingspan. I still have three Hergett P-51's in kit form that only have a 39" wingspan. The plane is still competitive in this area.
Hat Trick
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Post by Hat Trick »

Just add 1/2 inch to each wing when you build them and your good.
Pathous
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Post by Pathous »

Well Randy all you have to do is fly them before 2009.
montague
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Post by montague »

Well, if that's the only issue, then you could vote for the measure on the first vote, and put in a cross proposal.

That said, I'm not against using a lower number, like 38 or whatever, and I don't think anyone would really care that much anyway.

I do think some lower bounds is a good idea, though it's not a huge deal to me, and I'd hate for the whole proposal to sink over a couple inches on the lower end of the range.
Pathous
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Post by Pathous »

Why not drop the min wing span? The shorter wings will be a bit faster but have a major disadvantage in turning. This would allow anyone who still has some of the smaller planes to compete till they are used up.
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Post by rccrpilot »

Having lived though the demise of the original scale combat and all the bad feelings about people stretching the rules in any way possible to gain any technical advantage possible, I am a strong believer in a very limited wingspan range for any class. Currently in our area we fly SSC exclusively with a 48 inch wingspan as the only allowable wingspan and have no issues with planes being competitive with each other, just the pilots are competitive as it should be as far as I am concerned. Our version of SSC is really a one deign activity with only a couple people flying left over Open B planes with .15 engines.
pinoy
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Post by pinoy »

On the other topic I voted for the clarification of devitation of fuse and wings together to avoid any "cartoon like" looks of the planes. With limiting the wingspan to 48", for me this contradic that proposal since it could create a totally different looks also if you limit the wingspan. If people do want to fly their mustangs or other shorter wingspan planes then that's their choice. Shorter wingspan plaens do have their advantages also and Flying longer wingspan planes do have their own disadvanteges too.
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Post by montague »

Andy,

I think you missed the point of the 48" proposal. The idea would be to scale the entire plane to match a 48" wingspan. It moves us totally away from the 1/12th scale and replaces it with 48inch scale. So the fuse and tail and everything else would scale to be approprate at 48 inches. No one wants a 1/12th fuse and a 48" wing.

Of all the proposals related to scale combat, the scale to 48" is probably the most important. Right now, 2610 is dieing out. 2548 never really took off. We need to get things working together under one class with resonable performance, reasonable and easy to understand scale rules.

You say shorter wingspan planes have "their advantages". Can you name one that actually matters at an event? In case you've forgotten, the only competitive 2610 designes in years have been things like Fulmers, Kates, Firebrands and such, all have long wings and lots of area. Mustangs and such aren't competitive, and haven't been in a long long time. You're fooling yourself if you think otherwise. I'll note that you weren't showing off the advantages of small planes yourself either. And I can't think of a single downside of getting as much wingarea as possible in a scale combat plane. Wingarea rules all in R/C combat, we all know that.

Just look at the planes that have won all the major 2610 contests over the last 5 years or so. Nothing "small" there.

The only way scale combat doesn't continue to decline and die out is if we can make the common fighters able to compete again.

Note that I don't want to restrict guys to only fly someone else's hand-picked list of planes. But if someone wants to fly a Mustang or Zero or whatever, they should be able to with out being so hopelessly outclassed as they are in current 2610.

The answer is to level the playing field a bit by scaling all planes to 48", and allowing a +/- 10% variation on things other than wingspan to help with things like vertical stab area and so on. That's the idea.

And I honestly think it's necessary to get scale combat moving again.
pinoy
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Post by pinoy »

If you want me to set an example then I will. Back when the hergett mustang was very popular and we already had the IL 2 the fulmar, TA 152 and Mike even had his long wingspan plane that I believe it was around 72 in wingspan plane that he flew in Billings Montana, the mustang was still fairly dominant then and it was because there were no pipe or mouse can allowed then yet. The only reason why those longer wingspan became dominant was because all of a sudden they have the power coming from the pipe and able to fly around the shorter wingspan planes. Prior to that the shorten wingspan do able to run away and make a comeback to make their attack. I know this is kinda out of the topic here but this is the true reason why the planes became too fast and invated the issue of being safe. BTW, Jeff Harvey won the NATS and several event major events around the midwest with his zero and ME 109 against the TA 152s, IL2s, etc.
I do know my history and I do based this opinion all the way back when it was still 704. My proposal back then for 2610 prior to me not competing after the 2005 NATS were;
- eliminate the use of the pipe
- eliminate the use of bladder tank
Just with this alone the scale planes would go back to its slower flight making it safer and longer wingspan wouldn't be able to take advantege of the extra horsepower. It would also look better for the AMA board to approve it since we're making the plane slower but still competitive.
I see your point of scaling the planes to 48in wingspan but in reality all of a sudden you have planes that has the same wingspan BUT not scale to each other.
You don't have to remind me what planes I used to fly before because we all wanted to win each time we go to a contest that's why I started flying my kates but without the horsepower that plane wouldn't be as dominant as you remember trailing your six each time you're up there. If there is a class that I wanted to fly again when it comes to RCCombat then it would be scale but bottom line, I think we're barking at the wrong tree to continue the growth of 2610.
If you're trully looking at your history then you shouldn't agree with the +/- 10 deviation because all it did was create discrepancies in scale looks of the plane so please don't question my opinion if you're not sure about my basis.
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Post by montague »

Andy,
I don't disagree that reducing power might have worked as well to try to eliminate the advantage the larger planes have, but there aren't rules proposals to do it, and I haven't seen anyone do even so much as a demo to see what would be required to make it work.

This is not the time or the place to talk about mousse cans or bladder tanks. If you or someone had put in rules proposals for that, then we could talk about it. You didn't. No one did. Issue dead. What we have now is what we have now. And I think it will work.

As for "scale to each other", who cares? So what if one model isn't the same scale as another? In the air it's all close enough anyway. Of all the things I've heard complained about or talked about, trying to have all the models be the same scale has got to be the least important thing I can think of. In fact, you're the first person who's ever raised it. It's a non-factor, and I can't believe you actually raised it as an objection.

The 10% rule is there (in the proposed rule changes) to allow planes like bf109s to not lose directional stability with a streamer on the wingtip. Allowing larger surfaces helps make the planes flyable. Even companies like Great Planes doctor the tails on their sport planes for flyability. It makes no sense for combat planes to be held to a higher standard in the name of scale fidelity, this is combat, not F4C.

In the currently active 2610 rules, the 10% rule can sometimes planes look goofy since some guys can scale part of a plane up and part down, and the wings are always +10% compared to the rest of the plane. But I really think that it's an over-hyped problem that isn't nearly as bad as the hype would indicate. It gets a lot of talk, and there are other proposals to address it, but it IS mostly just talk.

For example, at the last two nats, I had a very-scale hurricane for 2548. I had several people ask me if the vertical tail was too small! It was actually right on scale, and yet guys are so used to sport models with enlarged surfaces that a plane that's closer to actual scale is looked at as being "off".

Frankly, the only reason to have even the 10% rule is that recent history has clearly shown that scale rules that don't lay out a very clearly defined defintion of "scale enough" will fail. 2548 currently has rules that don't spell out how much a plane can be modified other than to say that it should look ok at 15ft. That's so highly subjective as to be useless, as the last two Nats 2548 scale juding has shown. There were planes with wildly out of scale parts that were allowed to fly. If we try to go back to language like "plane should resemble the protype at 15ft", then you'll be right back to guys doing all kinds of thing because their version of "resemble" isn't the same as someone else's "resemble".

Anyway, taken together, the other rules proposals address some of this problem by changing the wording on the 10% scaling issue.

But if you're looking for perfect scale models, you're in the wrong sport.

We're trying to improve something that's broken. Right now, Andy, you aren't doing anything at all. You aren't even flying combat. Yes, you have past experience, but it IS past. And being in the past, it doesn't always apply to what's been going on during the last couple of years. And you did nothing to get proposals in to do things like remove the mousse cans or otherwise fix the problems with scale combat

I also love this "get past the AMA". What are you talking about? WE, right here, this group, this rules committee, IS the AMA board. There's no one else to "look good to". It's this group that votes and approves rules proposals.

I hope this group will work to actually try to save scale combat in this cycle.
Hat Trick
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Post by Hat Trick »

votes due 12-15!

This makes 2610 more like 2548 but not a whole lot! Probably better than nothing. I would also like to see engine restrictions like 2548 has put in at a minimum. I think oddballs will still be the most competative planes but at least not as bad as it is now.
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Which_way_is_up
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Post by Which_way_is_up »

Yes
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Post by Bobwrc »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by montague</i>
<br />Andy,

I think you missed the point of the 48" proposal. The idea would be to scale the entire plane to match a 48" wingspan. It moves us totally away from the 1/12th scale and replaces it with 48inch scale. So the fuse and tail and everything else would scale to be approprate at 48 inches. <font color="red"> <b><font size="3"><font size="2">No one wants a 1/12th fuse and a 48" wing.</font id="size2"></font id="size3"></b></font id="red">
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Cmon, Kirk, In the real world, that's exactly what will ultimately happen, or very close to it!
If you doubt it; I suggest that you scale up an Me-109, or most radial engine powered fighters.
Using a scale that produces a 48" wing will also produce a huge fuselage cross section, if this is done honestly!
You can "bet the ranch" that the scale fidelity factor, that has already been stretched to the limit by some; will become an absolute joke.
montague
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Post by montague »

Do you fly, or have you even seen 2548? Those planes are scaled to 48", and you DO NOT see fuses done like you're suggesting. The idea here is to get 2548 and 2610 into the same ballpark on airframe design.
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