:o Somebody tell me something about combat please. :boxers:

Tony, I already did, on the cell phone.
But I recon you want it made more public. <_<

We had only three combat contestants this time around due to the forcast bad weather, I think.
But the weather worked out just fine with only about a five minute sprinkle.
I was flying the UGLY plane, Johnny Turner had his combat wing, and Mike Callen was flying an Aircore trainer type plane.
No Tony, Lanzo, or Steve showed up. Wussie Wussie :P

From second round on, we had to use plastic surveyor tape for streamers because the crepe paper ones were coming apart in the damp conditions.
I was in the lead going into the third round and figured I had it all wrapped up and was already spending the twenty dollars prize money.
There I was thinking too much and somehow got the UGLY plane right in front of Mike's slow Aircore plane. A big loud noise and a shower of balsa wood and my plane was coming down like a wounded duck. Mike's plane kept on flying with a little damage and he finished the round.
The UGLY plane is totaled out and Johnny had no damage to his combat wing that I can remember.
Frits was there with his camera and will have pictures of the grizzley crash scene in his next From The Pits Report.

So Mike Callen is combat champ for January. :thumbup:

Good report Alvin :thumbup:

The word about combat is getting around :) We had a good size spectator crowd today.

Three Pilots... Mike Callen, Johnny Turner, and Alvin Reed :thumbup:

Mike 4 points...Alvin 3 points...Johnny 3 points......

Mike did a great job keeping his plain flying after the midair with Alvin, his wing got pushed sideways into the fuselage, and he lost aileron control about 3 minuts into the last round but was able to get the winning point for finishing the round :dance:
He did have some damage to his plain however. But it will fly again...

The weather held out and it was a great combat :D

I don't think Mike thought he had a chance to win :no: as his slow flying plain seamed to be the taget most of the time :o

Congratulations to Mike Callen :thumbup: The January 2007 Combat Champ

Thanks To All................

Next Combat February 18th

Now Tony, don't you wish that you had been there? :yes:

I understand that when you get kicked back in the recliner and see the misleading weather radar on TV, it is easy to stay reclined and get the wife to keep the beers and salty nuts coming. I think that you have Rene well trained. :lol: :roflmao:

You better buy her some more live rocks and sea monkeys to finish out that new 100 gallon salt water aquarinium. :newstuff:

I done give up on Lanzo, Steve, and Andrew. They know who wears the pants. :hysterical:

And little Mike locklin must be scared to. He done moved up to north pit and give up on choppers and combat. :hmm:

;) Nice report Don & Alvin Congratulation Mike good WIN.Alvin sorry about your plane. I will go to hobbyTown with you and help you pick out you another plane :crying:.

Good job Mike!

Alvin: We have some Tribute 36 profile planes that are nice and light there $89.99 I think, the old OS should fly it fine!

Later,
Jake

Hey,Tony I tried to give him a combat plane that day.but,Noooooooo. he didnt
want my little ole plane.it wasnt good enough for him.Now that Bad Dude from
over in Ms named Gary Busby got it now to fix it up.He said he was coming just for
alvin now.He said he was gonna gun down that next plane that alvin gets.
hahahahahahah :hysterical: :hysterical:

Hey Jake,maybe we can give him a Aircore plane. :hysterical: :hysterical:

Yeah Kenny, I hear you. <_<

Hey Mr. Slappy Jake,
Do yawl have or can you get the plane linked to below?
Sonic 25 Low Wing

Hhhaahaaha,there alvin.but,on a serious note.thats a sharp looking plane. :thumbup:

That should be a fine plain :thumbup:

I don't think you can do much better then that for the price.

It sort of looks like my Advance 40.........

Don't wan't anything to spendy if you are going to use it in combat :no:

Hey Kenny, do you have a hot wire foam cutter? I still think the Gremlin plans that I have are what this group needs for combat. If we can produce some short kits, everyone could build one for probably under $25. Short kits would include two foam wing halfs, the square PVC fuselage and a set of construction plans.

That would work.I dont have a cutter but,My friend made one here while back
out of gautier wire,car battery and a board.It worked great.He built some fine wings.
We will have to keep alvin away from the plans,he will be building them and selling tem on ebayhhahaahahhah.kenny2 :thumbup:

Hey,I havent forgot ya.I havent heard from steve.I willcall him tomorow.but,check
this out and see what you think.I found a set up from a man and here is info
Delmar Brengman
6054 emlyn ct
san Jose,ca 95123 #(408)629-1325 email-DBrengman@aol.com.
I have a copy of some of it,I will send it to ya.ps--I ordered several sheets of
coroplast from harbor sales and I went and bought 3 sticks of american pipe today.
I will hopefully see yall sunday.kenny2

Kenny 2 Alvin can't play due that plane he bought.

"COMBAT" This Sunday 2-18 :dance:

Me and my armadillo should be ready for test flight saturday and if all goes well then I will be tearing through one brand spanking new Sonic like it was made of toilet paper on Sunday.

Glad to see you back in combat Steve :thumbup:

I don't think Alvin is going to put his new plane in harms way :no:

hehehe, Me no worry. :D

I make a prediction that Steve's new combat Armadildo plastic plane does not make it past the first handlaunch. :P :hysterical:

I had a custom made takeoff dolly for mine. B) :biggrin:

Otherwise you have to handlaunch it inverted so you will have the downspout fusalage to hold on to. :thumbup:

What about the winds tomorrow? They're supposed to be pretty strong. Not quite as bad as today, but still strong. :thumbdown:

There will be combat No Matter What the weather is :thumbup:

Some one shoot Alvin's plane down.

not so fast there Alvin, my new combat plane has been test flown and is ready for action, and did I mention it is FAST, very FAST. :D with it's drain pipe fuse and corrigated palstic wing, I hope to rip right through a balsa built up sonic tomorrow with it. :D

Wind ? what wind? I put the first test flights on my plane today, real RC pilots do not worry about wind.

Well, I've been shot down even before I began! I have to work tomorrow. :banghead: Of the four employees I have, two of them are working other part time flying jobs, one is too new to work by himself, and the fourth (who is supposed to work) called tonight and said he wrenched his back by not picking up a tow bar correctly (he's about to quit anyway). Needless to say, I'm not real happy about it :angry: , even if the winds were going to be strong. I've been looking forward to this weekend for two weeks! I need a new job! One that has a set schedule with no surprises, and reliable employees!

Well...That did not happen.
Steve and his new Armadildo combat plane did not make it to the actual combat stuff today.
During a test flight the Armadildo nose dived into the ground and broke the shaft right off the front of motor. That put Steve out of business and he soon loaded up plane remains, Margo, Holly, and the dog and left in a huff.
Mike had his Wonder flying wing out but would not enter combat for some reason, probably intimidated by Alvin and his Sonic. Just as well, in a test flight of Wonder between combat rounds, the Wonder went haywired and crashed in nose first very hard and plenty tore up.
Henry Waltman chickened out on his promised combating with his Four Star Forty (Jon was to be pilot) and had to watch from sideline and kiss the twenty dollars prize money away by default.

The other regular combaters "Woosed" out and did not even show up.
(I can think of Tony, Lanzo, Frits, Mike Callen, Andrew, and Johnny)
Sad and pitifull that they are so easily ruled.

Anyway it boiled down to me and Rob Baker doing combat.
I will hurry through most of the combat to get to the good stuff.
After the three regular rounds of combat, we were all tied.
After the flyoff round, we still tied.
I offered to Rob for us to settle it with a coin toss.
He refused saying that if he could get one more crack at me in another round, he would settle the issue once and for all by tearing me a new A hole.

We in the fifth round now, we are all over the sky from as far as you could see them to as high as they could go, and way down below the level of the white pvc pipes sticking out of ground about six feet. Right on the deck for sure at times trying to get any advantage over each other.
Both of us went at one another in a dive below the pvc pipe level and we came back up each without a streamer. We had cut each other at same time.

Still a tie and no target streamers left.
Event Director Don Koval asked us to land and put on new streamers.
We did and right back in air going at it again.
With about 1 1/2 minutes left in round, I somehow got a clean cut on Rob's streamer, I knew that if I could finish round without letting Rob get a cut on me, I would win.
I was doing my best to keep ahead of him and we were making a very very low run across field out about the first row of pvc pipes. I was twisting and banking and doing all I could think off to keep him from getting a lock on me.
I banked over to right, Rob followed my move and banked over to, I would usually bank back hard to left, but this time I faked a little bank to more right and quickly banked back hard left and pulled up. Rob had followed my fake right bank a little too far and rolled it into the ground at full steam and many little pieces of balsa wood reapeared above the weeds.

Alvin flew on to a glorious victory of course and collected the prize money.
Thanks to my supporters and to Justin and Jeff for being my helper/spotters and to Don Koval for running another fine combat event.

With only two of us in combat this time, it was still the most exciteing and rushing one I can remember being in for a long time.
A classic battle between the North Pit and the South Pit.
I heard the very loud cheering section (trying to rattle me) up in North Pit hollering for Rob.

I am sooooo steamed because of having to work all day, I can hardly see straight! :fuming: The winds weren't as bad as I expected them to be and I was planning for two weeks for this combat event. :angry: Sounds like I really missed a good one.

Anyone know of anyone hiring? :crying: They don't pay me enough for this :toiletpaper: !!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for that fine report Alvin :thumbup: I couldn't have said it better :)

The weather was a bit on the cool side, I don't think it got much above 50. And as it was Daytona 500 race day, and with Mardi Gras stuff going on, only three guys came to combat, but only two got to fly.Alvin Reed and Rob Baker. Steve Drake had some engine trouble and didn't make it to the first round

But" what a great combat it was. Alvin and Rob fought it out to the bitter end.

It's about as good as it gets :thumbup: Rob crashed with only two seconds left in the fith round and Alvin got the win.........Congratulations Alvin........

You guys put on an exciting show :thumbup: :thumbup: :dance: :banana:

Next Combat March 18 th...................

From this past Sunday's Combat match.

Below we have Rob and search party scouting a large area trying to locate all the parts to his combating airplane.



And here is one of the larger pieces. I think that I heard that not all of the airplane was found.

It was actually much more exciting than what Alvin posted!!!! If I didn't know better, I'd have said that the events were staged for dramatics!!!!

Wow that was some tale of victory, if I didn't know better I would say you were rubbing it in a bit. While it is true, I had technical difficulties during a pre-combat test flight (actually it never really got in the air) I did have a successfull flight with it on Saturday but it had a little to much up elevator in it, I should have left it alone as I was able to fly it just fine but decided to try and tweek it a bit to make it better. I over tweeked and did not have enough up elevator throw to get it flying after Jon Kopish's fine hand launch, my mistake. Now I have a month to get it fixed (be expecting me and my broke a$$ motor to show up at the field begging for help)

As to me leaving after round one, I was not upset or "IN A HUFF" it was cold and I just wasn't feeling good. I wound up staying hiome from work monday sick but now that I read the rest of the story, I wish I would have toughed it out and witnessed the classic battle between Alvin and Rob. :yickes:

The battle was pretty awesome.... As I said, much better than what was told!!!! Alvin did a great job but didn't really portray how great it was!!!

Here we are, ready for round 1. The only contestants being Rob and Alvin. Don blows the horn and round 1 is getting ready to start. Alvin fires up his plane, goes to the runway, takes off and is flying. Rob and I in the mean time are cussing Rob's plane, trying to get it going (this was after a successful test flight). We're running out of time and Don sounds the combat horn. Finally Rob's plane starts. We get it to the runway, takeoff, chase Alvin for 15 seconds getting right behind him. Right in line with the ribbon, only 10 more feet to go and Rob's plane dies..... He dead sticks it in, we run to the pitts trying to start it but it's dead.... Round 1 goes to Alvin and as no one else is competing he gets 1 point...

So we're working on Rob's plane.... The headbolts are loose and the muffler is ready to fall off so we're tightening up bolts and, lol, putting wire ties on the muffler... We get it going for round 2.

Round 2 comes, Don blows the horn... Robs up and Alvin and he are chasing around when..... Rob's muffler falls off and he's deadstick again not completing the whole round :crying: Round 2 goes to Alvin again, another point. So now Rob is 2 points down just because he couldn't keep his plane going....

Here we are, back in the pitts working on Rob's plane. Hmmm, Rob finds the head bolts loose again, takes the head off and there's a broken ring... Ok, take the ring out, tighten all of the bolts but it doesn't matter because he doesn't have a muffler... Wait, someone just happened to have a muffler for his engine and 'walaa' he's back in business.

Ok, round 3. We're 2 points down, here's the last round but everything is right now!!! Ready to roll. We go out and Rob gets 2 ribbon cuts to tie Alvin. Ok, now we have to fly another round to decide the winner.

Round 4. Everything's going great... Boom, Rob and Alvin cut each other's ribbon in the same collision!!!! Round 4, tie. Got to fly another round

Round 5. Alvin and Rob are chasing each other everywhere, up high, down low thru the vent poles. Alvin gets 2 cuts. Rob's dead now... Everyone starts to leave. AT the very last Rob gets 2 cuts. Couldn't believe it!!!! Tied again, Round 6

Round 6. Alvin and Rob are at it again.. Chasing everywhere. Alvin finally gets a great cut. Rob's chasing him everywhere. He knows he's just about out of time. Alvin decides to fly around the vent poles again, Rob's right behind going for that last tie cut when....... He's turning to follow Alvin in a knife edge position and he catches a wing tip!!!! That's all she wrote.. GAME OVER!!

For only 2 planes, it was great. Not quite the carnage of the 4 plane first round crash but pretty great!!!!! Good one to have on video :roflmao:

(probably not exact, but close enough for hand gernades and horse shoes)

Thanks Jon,

VARY!! good report :thumbup:

You and Alvin are much better reporters then me.

With exciting reports like that, we should get more folks to come out :banana:

Thanks again...........

Another thing I should mention here is, "ROB LOVES COMBAT" :wub:

I don't think combat will ever be won with a coin toss, as long as his plane is able to fly :)

I talked to Rob while I was at HTUSA yesterday, he said that once Alvin had the leed he just ran like a chicken and wouldn't engage in battle. He insiuated that Alvin was a bit of a coward. :D

A real "coward" would not get in the ring.
With all the woosie no shows and others not having their machines in flying condition, I was forced to enter combat so Rob would not have a "Cake Walk" of it. Even though the Sonic is only a fragile low wing trainer, we had to take up the slack.

Me and the Sonic were in a "Head to Head" against a faster, more manuverable airplane, with a younger pilot still with good eyes and with that good government agressor fighter plane training, and from all the talk, a much more skilled and turbine qualified RC pilot.

The old crafty combater was ready on combat day with flawless pit performance and used just the correct combat technique to acomplish the mission with what he had and the plane/crew made it home all alive and intact.

A good defence is sometimes the best offence as was proven last combat day.

America loves a winner and will not tolerate a looser.
Gen. George Patton

I was gonna let yall know that I have some coroplast and some american pipe
still left for combat,if yall run out let me know.kenny2 :thumbup: