contests I have ever attended. It had
good weather, great competitors and was
extremely well organized. Even better
than all of that I flew better today than I
ever had before.
I think I got inspiration from the Texans
who showed up to duke it out with us in
the air. Many thanks to Lee Liddle and
Mark Laboyteaux for being great friends
and strong competitors.
The Hilltop Flyers Field is one of the
toughest, if not the toughest we fly at all
year long. The 19 fliers who showed up
didn't have any trouble with it.
right: view of the
safety line yellow
marking and the trees
that are the CEL. Rick
Scheule the best CD
in this part of the
country ran a great
contest. Joe Tarpley,
HillTop Flyers
President doing tech
inspections.
click below:
- 8 round Scores
-10 round Scores
to Larry is his son Buzz, who placed 4th overall in his first
combat contest. Larry jumped out to an early lead and
scored 8 cuts on his way to a high round score of 840 in the
3rd round. With 19 total contestants we flew heats of 10 and
9 per round. Larry was consistent and on fire all day long.
Larry co-designed the Lanier Ripper and Slasher with Wayne
Voyles. There latest generation of planes is shown on the
left. It was flown by Larry, Wayne and Buzz quite well. Look
for this to be available soon.
Standing behind Lee Liddle. Today Chris finished ahead of Lee as he was second overall after the 8 official rounds of the
contest. Chris fly his own design "Battle Axe" which is pictured above. The Battle Axe uses a 60-64" span wing with the
Eppler 203 airfoil. The fuselage is made from aluminum U-channel which Chris advises is available at Lowes and is used to
cap the edges of 1/4" plywood. Note that Chris uses a regular clunk tank. The Battle Axe is an excellent performing plane.
SSC Warbirds. There were 7 planes up
in the demo. All were Lanier RC
Pre-Production prototypes which will
soon be available of the P51, and BF109.
Wayne Voyles P51 is on the left, Chris
Quinn's BF109 is shown next to it and
on the right is Lou Melancon's red
BF109.
made the fourteen hour drive from
Dallas to fly one day of SSC Combat.
Lee is shown on the left prepping his
next generation Cobra for "start
engines." The photo below shows
how Lee has changed from an
elevator back to his original elevon
set up for flying wings. On the right
Lee has launched and Roberto is
tossing the streamer (the ground was
wet from a lingering fog). Lee Liddle
and Wayne Voyles compare notes
below.
Mark LaBoyteaux is always in a terrific
mood. He is one of the most
optimistic and happy people I have
ever met. Mark is the RCCA
webmaster and quite an innovative
modeler. Shown below Mark's picture
are two of his Warthogs.
North Carolina. We met them earlier this
year at the first Tennessee contest and
they have been regulars at most of the
Southeast contests. Marty is shown
holding their version of the Cobra and
Robbie is fueling then launching his GRS
ARF Falcon. They have also developed
their own Falcon for Open B.
Engines - the engines were predominatly OS LA .15s with some
Magnum .15s. Also seen was a MECOA .15 that performed very well.
Airframes: - no one design seemed to have an edge over the
others. Each had its strong characteristics. The new Lanier design
which won has a very light wing, and can dart quickly to catch
streamers. The Battle Axe is a fast smooth flying plane that can be
guided to advantage by pursuit and furball pilots alike. The Cobra
continues to be one of the faster planes (Lou Melancon's was
timed at 54mph during practice) and loses the least speed in turns.
The Lanier Ripper is one of the few kits available and builds both
fast and strong. The GRS Falcon 64 and 72 were used by several
competitors but still has durability issues. A lone Tufflight Panther
X was fielded and managed to demonstrate superiority when
looping and is quite fast.
Covering: - colored packing tape was used most often for covering
wings. It is light, inexpensive, easy to apply and easy to repair. A
few fliers used iron on coverings.
Weight: - few planes exceeded three pounds and many were in the
2 lbs 8-10 ounce range.
Fuel Systems: It was about equally divided between standard tanks
and pressure fed systems. David Grantham had an older Magnum
.15. It was mounted on a GRS Falcon that was set up for a bladder.
When David changed out the clunk tank for a pressure bladder he
picked up about 500 rpms and got more consistent engine runs.
drive less than 500 miles for a contest. According to Chris Quinn
if there were a combat meet in Lima, Bob would first drive
around the city for 12 hours to get ready for it. He has flown
SSC, SSC Warbirds, Open B, Scale 2610 and 2548 this year,
almost always with his own designs. Bob represents all the
good things about combat fliers. He is a father of 6, a
grandfather and President of the local school board since
retiring at the young age of 56 from full time teaching. Shown
next to the Technology side bar above is Bob's marriage of a
Cobra wing to Battle Axe fuselage construction.
the Hilltop Boys: Larry Welch with
his own design using a Kirk
"Montague" inspired wing, RCCA
Southeast District Rep Don Pruitt
sporting a cap with attitude, Don
Fueling, below Don is David Eaton
assembling planes for
competition, to his left is David
McGinnis half of the McGrizz Bat
team getting ready for a match,
and new flier Darin Stevens who
only soloed last week. This week
he gets into his first combat
contest flying a Lanier Ripper he
won in a club raffle. Hows that for
fast tracking your way into RC.
Stevens, Robin Drake and
nationally know Competition fun
fly pilot David Grantham.