RCCOMBAT Forum

Previously we held some demo events for 3696, but at Mile High Mayem last Sa* * * *ay we ran a 3 round 3696 event with judges, scoring and awards for 1st through 3rd place.

We had 6 contestants battle it out.

This was a lot of fun. we were a bit concerned as we had a rookie combat pilot at his first event. Chris (who is just 10 years old) had just got his plane the night before and was a bit nervous about the event. Turns out he made the rest of us nervous as he scored the first cut in round one.

Adam had some problems with his motor and I (jj) cartwheeled on takeoff for the first round due to dumb thumbing it and watching the other pilots rather than focusing on my plane. Still, that left the other 4 planes to tear up the sky, and that they did.

The second round had some great action with a lot of close calls. I got close to the CEL and in the process of pulling a bit more up, managed to snap roll, pile driving my P-40 straight into the asphalt runway. Nasty nasty nasty bad crash. In round one or two Rhyno and Frank III managed to take each other out.

The rest of the pilots did much better.

Third round was down to four pilots. Not bad though as everyone only brought one plane, unlike other events.

When the dust and electrons had settled the winner was CHRIS ! Our new combat pilot. Wow, what a show from this 10 year old.

Both Randy and Frank III were tied on points but Randy had more cuts so he took second (CD on field ruling). Anyway, that resulted in Frank the third taking third place for all three events!

jj

Great Job on having a real 3696 event. Congrats t6 Chris! I just wish Colorado wasn't so far away.

With this many planes at once, how common were mid-airs compared to SSC? When they did mid-air, how bad was the damage?

At the NATs we just had 4 of us flying, and Lee and I were the only mid-air, and although my tail got broken off it was an easy repair.

I believe we only had one mid air and that was a father and son thing between Frank III and Rhyno. Seems to me that Frank was ok and either as a result of that or another crash Rhyno's was toasted.

In round 1 I had a nasty cartwheel that ripped the engine mount off. that was easily repaired with some 5 minute epoxy.

I'd say there are fewer mid airs due to the pursuit style flying. the wind loading does not favor tight fur balls. The foam construction can glue together pretty well.

My last fuse was on the light side so I may stiffen up the nose a bit next time, but in general the planes do pretty well.

Rhyno's plane is toast JJ
My Mustang is fine for the last round. My concern were the Lipo's.
They were a little soft in the heat we had after the rounds.

My fuse is toast, but the wing is OK.

Need to cut more fuselages. The wing strength and weight seems to be figured out but seems we need a little more ingenuity regarding strengthening up nose sections. Seem to still have some weight to work with in this regard.

How have others done with respect to fuse durability?

The Lee Liddle design with the ply crutch seems to be fairly durable. I have not crashed any of my other designs. I used tri-stock to glue the 1/4" ply firewall to the crutch, and it seems to be very robust on my FW-190. I didn't use it on the Mustang, and the firewall has been torn off a couple of times.

JJ,
My coro/foam fuse has already proven its durability. In test flights (while fighting with the motor it used to have) I had several pretty rough landings on the nose section and it has held up very well. Way better than the blue foam fuse I started with (which did have a plywood crutch extending back 6 or 8 inches).

Basically I just copied the existing fuse using white foam, then wrapped the whole thing in 2mm coro. Only 2 oz. heavier than the blue foam version. If you didn't want to wrap the whole thing you could do it back to, say, the middle of the wing. You could even do this on a blue foam fuse for not much of a weight penalty.

Adam

Adam,

think you might be on to something there.

Hmmm, who'd of thunk to use Coro for a combat plane??? What a novel idea [:p]

Even just some 2mm coro doublers on the sides might help a lot.