I was just flying by myself, cruising gently when this guy with 2 Zagi flyers walked up and said, "want to try some combat?" I ended up driving an hour each way for five days from my beach house: the equivalent of driving home and back!
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Purposefully tryng to hit the other plane and knock him down adds another exciting layer to the flying of remote control gliders. With great lift close in, you can concentrate on the 3 dimensional puzzle- while shouting uncontrollably! Tim had no problem fixing any damage to the foam flying wings while on the hill in the wind and sand . . . |
Just another week at the birthplace of flight, a 60 foot high 5 acre sand dune. The week prior had a lovely SW breeze of 10 mph. But Saturday a raging North Easter struck that blew cold at 25 - 30 mph for 6 days. Sand became airborne, beaches deserted (I never went swimming once) and the holiday makers were stuck inside. |
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I was just flying by myself, cruising gently when this guy with 2 Zagi flyers walked up and said, "want to try some combat?" I ended up driving an hour each way for five days from my beach house: the equivalent of driving home and back! |
John Vigour, Charlottesville VA and Tim "ToolMan" Clemens from Toronto. Tim's combat name ToolMan doesn't come from expertise in the shop, although he obviously is good considering he built in 2700 hours his own Ultralight and flies with no parachute. ToolMan refers to his Zagi- durable, and utilitarian. And set up with maximum possible throws. (Check out the kits: www.zagi.com) His combat model is two years old and battered. My THL is brand new and weighs 12 oz., although I had to add 9 oz. of ballast in 30 mph winds. So I was consistently above him, but couldn't gain any advantage from it due to his experienced flying. I found out that combat requires the planning of chess. Plus my light plane would sometimes bounce off and crash even if I hit him. My best kill started from underneath his winglet, and I just pushed and pushed up until suddenly he unbalanced. It was interesting that Tim adds all his ballast in the nose, where I put mine on the CG. The planes flew about the same speed. You have to wear your hat backwards so you can see as well as possible. But a teenager walked up the dune, saw us cutting back and forth and said, "This might be cool". I was so proud. |
Notice the fuzzy horizon line- that's airborne sand, in a layer about 3 inches high. You couldn't put anything down. The lightest grains penetrated everywhere- inside transmitters, and teeth. You couldn't hold tape near the ground- it instantly became sandpaper- so you had to hold the other guy's plane while he worked on it. At one point Tim yelled and I saw his plane headed straight for me downwind. I got my arm up and the only damage was my antenna in three pieces and his elevon fractured. Both were repaired quickly! |
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The Atlantic at dusk after flying a hundred miles of combat- back and forth, up and down, often in "controlled flight into terrain". Lessons learned for combat kills: Fly your own plane, don't spend all your time looking at your opponent. He's most vulnerable during turns because they're predictable. Never fly in a straight line and always make a short false turn in the wrong direction before reversing your direction. It doesn't do any good to fly low and slow- you gain altitude slower, you're vulnerable, and any hits bring both planes down.If you're directly above during a turn at the end of the flying zone, a quick split ess will bring you quickly zooming down on your opponent (roll upside down and pull elevator until you're in a vertical dive). However I never connected trying it due to the 3 dimensional challenge. But I noticed that I was always looking at Tim's plane during the attempts. Flying mine by feel - and suddenly it would streak into view in a fast dive, missing his plane. So I learned the lesson to fly my own plane and NOT to spend my time watching his and only glancing at mine. If only about 4 more guys had shown up! |
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