Radio Control: Combat
THE SUPER BOWLTM of non-Scale Open Radio Control (RC) Combat has to be the "Wild Weekend" event put on each year by the Palm Beach Aero Club of West Palm Beach, Florida. If the name of the club sounds familiar, perhaps it's because you've heard of another of its premier events - Top Gun. However, many Combat lovers watch for the Wild Weekened, now in its fourth year. Wild Weekend is a big-money contest; the purse of several thousand dollars in cash and merchandise attracts a large number of aggressive Combat fliers, and an even larger number of spectators. For two days in March (21-22 this year), 42 pilots fly the skies with their models to vie for bragging rights and the $1,000 first-place prize.
RC Combat is Here!
ONE OF THE exciting changes in the upcoming AMA rule book is an entirely new event introducing 1/12 Scale RC Combat. This event, introduced by the International Dogfight Association (IDA), has become quite popular in Europe, but activity in the U.S. has been restricted to areas and groups that have been locally active. The new RC Combat event has a structure similar in many ways to Control Line Combat but with some interesting differences. Like Control Line Combat, streamers are flown attached to each model during a timed round. Unlike CL Combat, however, only Scale models of aircraft are allowed.
Radio Control: Combat
IT WAS the worst carnage that I had ever seen. Not one model had escaped some sort of damage. Everywhere I looked I saw split MonoKote, broken wings, snapped tails, and crushed fuselages. Most were reparable, but a few would never see the sky again. Was it the shattered blood, guts, and balsa from the most vicious Combat meet ever? No, it was the sad surprise in each box I unpacked from the 1,000-mile move from Michigan to Oklahoma. Oh well, I needed to build some new airplanes away. The only real survivors were the few models that I drove down, and not even all of those escaped the fearsome dose of hangar rash.
Radio Control: Combat
ALTHOUGH CLUBS across the US are active in Radio Control (RC) Combat, sometimes there is an event that dwarfs the normal club activities; if the weather cooperates, the huge effort made by the Contest Director (CD) and the hosting club can pay off as a spectacular event. It did for organizer and CD Doug Haacke and the Billings Flying Mustangs Club, with the First Annual Scale RC Combat Western National Championships. The contest allowed the use of "Montana Rules" (based on the AMA 704 event, but with modified guidelines allowing slight increases in wing area, engine size, and dry fighting weight to compensate for the higher altitude). About 2/3 of the contestants were "lowlanders" who mostly flew stock 704 equipment. The contest's huge purse-$2,000 in cash, five radios, and 10 kit/engine combos-drew 33 pilots, who brought more than 120 models!
Radio Control: Combat
I've been taking considerable grief for covering events all across the US, but not getting enough pictures in Model Aviation from events going on in my own backyard. So I packed my camera case and went to Warbirds over Lennox, a 704 meet hosted by the Radio Control Club of Detroit (RCCD). One interesting thing about this meet was how much of a "family" event it was. In the group shot is (standing 1-r) Daryl Rorbeck, Paul Wagensomer, his brother Dave Wagensomer, Lee Tait (kneeling 1-r), the third brother, Greg Wagensomer, then three generations of Radio Control (RC) fliers in a row, with Don Veres Jr., Don "Little Don" Veres III, and Don Veres Sr. They may all be related, but neither the Wagensomer nor the Veres clan pull any punches in RC Combat!
