clude steady level flight below five feet while walking around the pilot’s circle. Now add in at least five steady inverted laps while walk- ing the circle. Pay attention to switching from walking counter-clockwise to walking clockwise without tripping. Add in four or five laps of sharp climbs and dives. Start with a 45-degree climb followed by a 45-de- gree dive. That takes a quarter lap. Now work up to two climbs in a quarter of a lap, for a total of eight per lap. Work on doing the same thing from inverted flight. For tougher training practice try flying a twitchy plane. Start by taping on a small amount of tail weight, a penny or a nickel. See how it goes for a couple flights, trying to do the same tricks. Then add another penny and try again. The goal is to try and do all the tricks with a plane that can barely be kept in level flight. Doing this with a couple of fixed planes make sense. They also probably have warps and other problems to keep you on your toes before they crash again. If they never crash they aren’t getting trimmed tail heavy enough.
The last trick that can be practiced alone is flying eyes off. Igor Trifinov, a World Champion F2D flyer, recommends taking a small book out to the handle. While flying and doing maneuvers holding the book down by your waist and try to read a page. Keep your head down so you can’t see anything over 20 feet. An alternative would be a face shield like pilots use when practicing instru- ment flying, only you won’t have a safety pi- lot standing by.
Training partners
Further practice requires at least one will- ing victim, I mean flying buddy, for practice matches. Practice matches are different than contest matches because they are aimed at honing skills needed in a match, not scoring points. For starters, simply fly level as one pilot tries to get cuts. The first pilot gets three or four tries for a cut. If he gets a cut he gets another few tries until he’s got everything but the knot. If he doesn’t get a cut, switch around and let the other pilot try for cuts.
There’s no maneuvering now, no sudden climbs or dives. Just fly level when towing the streamer so the other pilot can learn how to get lined up. This can be surprisingly hard. It can get even harder in a match when the lead pilot is trying to keep the oth- er flier from lining up.
The whole trick in this exercise is learning how to spot if the plane is inside or outside the streamer. The chase pilot has to try to line up. If the lines are cut properly even with the AMA plus or minus six inches, lining up the handles will get you close. But if the first cut misses try to get further out. If that misses, try further in.
Streamer tech
The streamers don’t necessarily follow the plane at the same radius. Solid plastic streamers usually cut from table cloth are
FLYING MODELS
Scott Schmidt vs Dan Banjock. They had a good match as Scott tries to get back a cut. Dan pulled some pretty good stunts to end up with more points, but he missed the cloverleaf, hourglass and the square eights.
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cheap. They tend to fly a foot or so inside the plane’s path. Paper flagging tape is softer and tends to follow the plane pretty well. Hard crepe paper, such as available in Europe, frays and breaks more easily, meaning you’ll get more wing cuts just from hitting the streamer. It tends to fly a bit outside the plane’s path. All the materials can be affected by how the string is attached.
Attaching the string F2D style by using reinforcing tape on the streamer and tying the string through a hole minimizes the ef- fects of the knot streamer to streamer. Mak- ing a big bow-tie loop in the streamer and ty- ing the string in the middle of it can make the streamer spin and fly either inside or outside. Plastic streamers also can do this. They may twist into a narrow plastic rope that will eas- ily stop an engine or form a loop near the at- tachment that pushes the streamer track in or out. Plastic can also get caught in the prop nut or the propeller, slowing or stopping the engine and leave a flap on the motor that chokes the intake.
Making a little bullet knot may pull right through a foam wing, or catch on an F2D leading edge or wing tip, breaking the string. The best streamers overall, barring the time and expense of making F2D streamers, are made from biodegradable forestry flagging tape, preferably cut 13⁄8 inches wide. Forestry tape is good for every- thing except 1⁄2A. Fold the end of the stream- er over twice, at about two inches. Fold lengthwise in the middle and tie the string on about 3⁄4 inch from the end with a couple of half hitches and an overhand knot or two.
Plan the flight and fly the plan More advanced pilots may want to chase streamers while training and that means more possibility of useless midairs. As a rule, talk to the other guy and decide on who will be the aggressor and when the roles switch. Aim to follow the tip of the streamer. Simply trying to fly a couple feet behind the streamer tip while the other guy tries to get away is very good practice. When the planes
get too close, break off, level out and take a breather. The usual five-minute match has about 100–110 laps in it. You can afford to waste a few avoiding useless midairs.
Keeping it straight
It is a good idea, especially if you use Spectra™ lines, to practice flying into and out of line crosses and tangles. Many pilots get very tense and confused when they get in a line tangle. Spectra™ lines make practice easy since they don’t kink, knot, or get perma- nently twisted. This helps both pilots main- tain good control. Start out with both pilots standing side by side. The lead plane does a loop while the trail plane follows. About three-quarters of the way around the lines will cross. Don’t panic. The lead plane goes another one-quarter loop and then reverses direction. By the time he completes the exit loop the lines uncross.
The biggest problem sorting out a line tan- gle is figuring out how you got into it. A little extra circle arm waving practice will let you see how line tangles happen and how they have to be flown out. One common case occurs when the planes and pilots get out of synch and the planes make an unexpected head on pass and suddenly the lines are tangled or ac- tually just crossed. If you think about it, sup- pose you are standing on the left. Unless the planes go out of sight behind both pilots, the line cross has to occur somewhere out in front. It can happen only two ways—either the planes pass in a clockwise direction top to top or they pass anti-clockwise, bottom to bottom. The first way is essentially an inside loop tan- gle, the second is an outside loop. I find the hardest part of getting untan- gled is the mental juggling. While still maintaining control, I need to get a clear picture of what happened into the thinking part of my brain, so it can then decide what to do. In the long run, this has to be prac- ticed enough that you do the right thing in- stinctively, the way most action in a Combat match happens. Until next time, don’t panic!
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