RC Combat
NOTHING IS QUITE as fun as getting something for free, especially if you're a modeler. I recently took a tour of Radio Control (RC) Combat Web sites and was impressed by the number of plans available for free on the Internet. If you don't have access to the Internet, someone in your flying club probably does, and he or she may be able to help you get the plans downloaded.
A good place to start is the Web site of the RC Combat Association (RCCA)—the official AMA Special Interest Group for RC Combat. From there, you should be able to link to all the other sites I will mention in this column. You can find the RCCA site at www.rccombat.com, but some Web-site addresses change without much notice. You should always be able to link to the RCCA Web site by going through AMA's site at www.modelaircraft.org.
I have to admit that I was impressed by how many plans are free to anyone who has Internet capabilities. You don't have to be an RCCA member to download these plans, but take a moment while you're at the site and click on "Join Us!" for membership details.
Most of the plans are for Combat-proven models by designers such as Tom Carr, Martin Elmberg, Alex Pedashenkov, Dean Tuinstra, Dave West, Gerry Van Dyk, Collin McGinnis, Jeff Weiss, and Steve Hergett.
On the RCCA site click on "Workshop" then "Plans" to download plans for the de Havilland Vampire, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, the Messerschmitt Me 109K, and the Chance Vought V-143.
The choice of the Chance Vought V-143 is interesting. Few know, and for some very good reasons, that that aircraft was arguably one of the worst fighter designs of the time period, but it did have very attractive lines.
You can also find the Supermarine Spitfire Mk VI or VIII, the Hawker Hurricane, and the interesting Commonwealth CA-15 Kangaroo. Another little-known fighter, the Kangaroo was a late-war Australian design that looked and flew like a Mustang on steroids. Only the postwar introduction of jets was able to tie this Kangaroo down!
Soviet fans will find plans for the famous Il-2, the MiG-7 (done in Coroplast™), and the Sukhoi Su-6 attack bomber and the related Su-7 fighter. You can also put Soviet stars on the free Bell P-39: an American design that excelled in Soviet hands.
If that isn't enough designs, you can access even more plans by linking to the ACES International site. This organization, which flies Scale and Open RC Combat events similar to our AMA versions, has active national groups in Austria, Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Although ACES International's model requirements are for models that are slightly lighter, slightly lower-powered, and more closely restricted for 1/2 scale than we use in the States, any ACES design is legal for use according to AMA rules. That works quite well for us here because we can build from US plans or any of the plans offered by the ACES group.
Many of the sites have some redundancy in the designs they offer, so I'll mention where you can find some plans besides the ones I already listed.
You can link to the Australian site to pick up free plans for the P-40F and the Swedish FFVS 122 fighter. Plans for the tiny 122, which looks similar to an Fw 190, can be found on several of the European sites.
Link to Finland's site and click on "Aircraft Combats" to get plans for (what else?) the American-built Brewster Buffalo. Most of the Brewster's land-based air forces flew the Buffalo to the best kill-to-loss ratio of any US-built fighter during the war — even beating the more lauded Mustang. I guess we forgot to tell them the Buffalos weren't supposed to be good fighters!
Although the Italian site did not offer any plans that were not offered elsewhere, it did present a nice set of 1/2-scale Italian markings for your building project. The site is in Italian (not a big surprise), so you will have to click on "Risorse" then "Contrade" to get to this download.
At the Polish site click on "Plany modeli" to get a huge selection of plans. This site offers almost all the RCCA plans, but you can also pick up plans for the Focke-Wulf Fw 190A and A-3, the Republic P-47D, the Martin Baker MB-5, the Macchi MC.200, and the Kawasaki Ki-61 "Tony."
At the Netherlands' site click on "bouwtekeningen" (I don't have a clue as to what that means; I just clicked on every button until I found the one that got me to the right place) to get several plans including a P-51D and the Vought F4U Corsair.
While you're visiting these sites be sure to click on the photo albums they have. It looks as though they have just as much fun in Europe with RC Combat as we do here!
Link to the SPAD site, or visit indirectly at www.spad.org, for free downloads of the Coroplast Spitfire and the Coroplast Mustang, built from Coroplast plastic sheet cleverly folded around plywood formers.
All told, that's more than two dozen free Scale RC Combat plans available on the Internet.
Open Canadian sites. Don't despair, there are plenty of plans for you on the Internet! A good place to start is the SPB D site which you can also link through the RCCA site.
Open Czech B plans available include the Dynamo, the Defender, the popular Derelict (I have a couple of modified Derelicts in my stable), the Debut, and the hot little Dogfighter. Also available is the new Friday Night Special, designed after the 2001 Nationals to be competitive with other elevator/rudder Combat designs.
For Open Class A you can find the Dart, the Dagger, the Dornier, and the popular Saturday Night Midget available for downloading.
Although it's not a Combat design, check out the free download of the SPAD Debonair RC trainer while you're at the site. I've seen new converts to RC by several of these gently flying trainers and have been very impressed by what good trainers the Debonairs are.
Check out some of the free Combat photos, build one, and join the fun!
Until next time, fly safe, fly Combat, and be sure to check your six! FCB
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
