fooling around with mufflers and other re- strictions for noise, electric will be more than competitive. The real driver is that the motors don’t require anything like the amount of machine work and tight toler- ances to produce a glow engine. Add in the likely added weight of an effec-
tive muffler and the outcome is pretty likely. If you are having problems with noise, just re- member that the good, old 25 LA with the stock muffler can reliably fly a speed limit plane between 75 and 80 mph. The only penalty is about an ounce of weight more than the lightest, but noiser, custom mufflers.
Streamer materials Since the demise of Dennison extra heavy
Dan Reedy homes in on the biodegradable flagging tape Larry Wilks is towing (above). For thirty years Combat has not really had good streamer material. Now we are seeing the benefits of using biodegradable flagging tape in competition (see text), the best stuff in 30 years. Roy Glenn (below) warms up his Cyclon 049. The white box is a chunk of Styrofoam cut to fit the outward wing. With practice this kind of self-launcher works well on planes up to about 46 inches. (F2D size). The trick is to step back fast so the plane doesn't have time to yaw as the wing pulls out. Don't try something like this on a large Fast plane though!
crepe paper about 30 years ago we have been fighting with streamers every year. Up until a few years ago the only viable alternative has been plastic table cloth, either plain, or laminated with tissue. They both have prob- lems. A 2-inch plastic streamer can regular- ly stop or bog down even a Nelson engine if the plastic wraps up on the prop nut or falls over the intake. The paper laminate is a bit more forgiving, but the streamer really has to be cut down to about 1.5 inch for Fast, and 1.25 or so for Speed Limit and F2D. Even so there are other problems when the laminate streamer sheds all the tissue and both planes are flying with white streamers, or the all-plastic material rolls itself into a string and becomes nearly invisible. Other times the plastic breaks at the knot when the streamer is hit in the middle. The best stuff available right now is called biodegradable flagging tape. It’s made from wood fiber and looks like coarse, heavyweight silkspan. It seems to fix just about all the problems. Using the standard way of tying streamers—fold over about 3 inches, fold it lengthwise and tie a knot about half an inch from the end—works well. The stuff is very shock resistant and never breaks at the knot. It is quite possible to knock off a cut with a wing hitting the middle of the streamer, and it rarely wraps around the prop or prop nut. On the minus side, one almost has to get it mail order, and the only generally available width is 1 inch. That is a bit on the small side, except for Half-A where it is too big. But look around on the internet. Several companies offer 13⁄16-inch width which is the spec size for F2D and also works for Speed Limit. The other option is 3-inch wide mate- rial. The roll can be sliced in half with a saw, or trimmed to width with a tool sold for cut- ting pin stripes from MonoKote. Either way, a 1.5-inch wide streamer is effective for all the main events, Fast, Slow, and F2D.
Some internet sources
www.rshughes.com 13⁄16 and 3-inch widths Dark Blue and Orange, Fluorescent Blue and Orange
http://tinyurl.com/cmsceeg Dark Blue and Orange 3-inch.
www.benmeadows.com 1 inch × 100 feet Dark Blue and Orange.
FLYING MODELS 49
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