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mance .061 again, and the supposedly lower performance Big Mig available again. Run the venturi wide open, break it in on 25–40% fuel on a 4.25–3 cut down Cox black prop and they will fly very quickly. It will be close to the higher dollar Profi, Fora, and Cyclon engines on the same prop and not need near- ly as much care (but do keep it clean). Another useful activity is finding and watching Combat video on the internet. YouTube has loads of mostly F2D action available. Combat is pretty hard to record in a way that makes it easy to follow. The planes tend to blink in and out as they go to- wards or away from the camera. So skip past any that have poor lighting that are very hard to see.


To really see what happens the pace has to be slowed down. The only way I’ve seen to do this is to get a YouTube video downloader which will turn the recording into a format that can be saved on your computer. Then find a good player—VLC is one I use—that lets you slow down the speed or even step through close action frame by frame. Most video editing software will work too. It’s kind of fun to clip things down to just the key action in a match.


Too many pilots: Al Ferraro and Charlie Johnson (above) help Brad La Pointe and Paul Kubek get Brad set to start. Brad ended up edging Craig Campbell by a cut to take third place. Brad Smith and Henry Nelson (below) go at it in the first round. The action was pretty low key with Brad checking out the pits and getting behind on airtime.


To get even more out of the show watch it with some Combat buddies and critique the action. For a real learning experience try to pantomime the action the pilots are doing while the planes are maneuvering. The frame-by-frame sequence will really show up where the pilots made a mistake or turned the wrong way. One thing I’ve no- ticed watching some video lately is that in many matches one or both pilots get con- fused (?) and don’t follow the other plane. At some point they turn away and have to re-engage.


When that happens don’t level out and look around for the other plane. Unless you get totally discombobulated keep an eye on the other plane during the disengage and try to recover quickly so that you are getting behind the other plane, and are aiming at the tip of the streamer.


The other maneuver you see time and time again is both pilots get the planes in too close to each other. This often results in a line tangle or midair. Remember the tip of the streamer? Where the cuts are? It’s usu- ally at least 15 feet away from the plane. Do- ing 10-foot loops and eights around each oth- er is asking for trouble and at best will get you one cut—the string. Time and again you will see the trail pilot do an outside to try for a cut and open up the maneuver to try and see any cut. The other pilot will pull a full control inside and then an outside and the planes end up in a head-on pass. Try to never do set piece maneuvers like this. Always fly your maneuvers in response to what the other plane is doing, and can do, not what you are expecting him to do. Good pilots have a way of not doing what you expect.


Until I recuperate from the upcoming Team Trials and Nationals ...


FLYING MODELS 37


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