Control Line: Navy Carrier
ENGINES: Some Carrier modelers have moaned for years that there are few good Profile Carrier engines. Most of them have supported rules proposals that would allow .40- or .21-cu.-in. displacement engines. I have yet to see the proposals for the current rules cycle, so I can't say how many suggestions in this year's stack involve profile engines. So far we've managed to fend off the rules changers, and it appears that patience is finally paying off. Engines in the .36 size range have always been available. Many of them have been sport-type engines, often loop scavenged or minus ball bearings, and not particularly well suited for Profile Carrier competition. Foreign manufacturers haven't produced competition .36 engines with any consistency, though there have been one or two short-lived attempts. U.S. manufacturers and small-shop entrepreneurs have kept up with demand, however.
Control Line: Navy Carrier
LINE CLIPS: The October issue of this column contained a photo of an assortment of line clips in various sizes. The caption referred to "adding line clips of varying sizes to make fine adjustments" in line length. That wording allows the reader to infer that I was condoning the use of more than two clips per line as a means of adjusting line length. The Control Line General rules are quite specific in allowing no more than two clips per line. The caption should have referred to substituting clips of differing lengths to achieve the desired length.
Control Line: Navy Carrier
CARRIER'S FUTURE: As you read this, thoughts of the coming contest season are probably running through your head. It's time to start thinking about flying again after the long winter, at least once the income tax returns are filed. I hope you've made better use of the winter months than I have. My new projects haven't progressed since I moved last summer, but I still have a few months before the contests begin in the northern states. The two major winter contests-the King Orange Internationals and the Southwest Regionals-will be history by the time this issue reaches you. If all goes well, I'll have photos from the Southwest Regionals (two weeks away as I write this) for one of my future columns.
Control Line: Navy Carrier
WHEN SIG INTRODUCED the Skyray 35 Carrier event at their annual Control Line contest, and later at the Nationals, I obtained two of the kits for evaluation purposes. One I built as a practice model for Profile Carrier-legal for the Skyray Carrier event-and to try out a new idea or two. I was impressed by the quality of the kit (not surprising for a Sig product) and decided to try to convert the other kit into a Profile Carrier model eligible for the ten scale bonus points. The first challenge was to find a prototype aircraft with a straight, nontapered wing. Changing the basic structure would have defeated the purpose of starting with a kit in the first place, so a wing with a swept leading edge was out of the question.
Control Line: Navy Carrier
APC Propellers IN THE APRIL issue I mentioned the most recent propeller releases from Landing Products-the competition series of APC propellers in nine inch diameter and pitches of 6.5, 7.5, and 8.5 inches. I've since received information from Fred Burgdorf describing the development and production of the APC propellers and the differences in the sport and competition propellers. The APC propellers were first described in the last of four "Model Propeller Noise" articles by Vess, Heathcoat, and Nagel which appeared in the December 1989 to March 1990 issues of Model Aviation. These articles described the mechanisms by which propellers on model aircraft contribute to the overall noise of model aircraft. The primary observations of the researchers were:
