Full contact vs streamer

[highflier]

Hi all,
Seems like most of these thread are theme'd around Streamer combat. I personally fly EPP wings and play full contact, I.E.

Mid air, if one plane crashes score one point, If neither or both crash no points.

I do this with Electric about 250 watts WOT.

So whats your opinion if you have done both, Which is more fun and why?


Also be interesting in info on full contact setups and mods. I have gotten to a pretty bullet proof setup. A prop or control rod is about all that ever gets broken now.


Highflier

[62pilot]

We generaly fly wih streamers, but go for full contact. Aint nuthin like watchin foam and other bits fall to the ground.

[jwjohnson]

We only do full contact combat with EPP flying wings. If your plane is harder to fix streamers may be your best bet, but if you can tolerate full contact, there's nothing like the spinning planes and falling parts that can result from a good hit.

This is just a few of the guys in our group. We usually have 5-10 people flying.

http://www.vimeo.com/1311411

[highflier]

My combat plane of choice has been a WW Raider (5 spar) with 3s A123 and a Mega 22/10/5 motor.

I have had a lot of fun but there is only a few of use that do combat. More would be fun.

I however would like to get a rudder and open up a little more flying styles. It just seems like I will never find away to make it a low cost battle and still have the performance that I am used to.

Highflier

[kingsflyer]

The full contact combat at SEFF this year was a lot of fun! 59 planes launched at the same time and scoring didn't start till there were less than 10 still flying. Each of the last pilots was assigned a spotter and all hits were scored with both pilots getting a point for each hit. Seemed to work well.
McD

[chamm37]

Thats was areally kool video :D Keep them coming. I am going to build one of those simple delta wings for combat flying out of EPP and beek it up a little...Little maybe and understatement hahaha

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=867083

You know what would look really kool. If you got one of those wings and put carbon plate on the top and bottom of it with EPP foam and see how that holds up :D :D :D hmmmmm carbon...

[dlw151947]

Our group has done both types of combat.Right now we are back to streamer combat.But some days we might as well have been flying full contact :mad: .
Buzzy

[Jim_Marconnet]

One of the tricks of longer-term full contact combat is to come up with a plane and rules and tactics that result in lots of "bumps", pilot and spectator excitement, occasional raining foam, and sometimes a plane coming down to the ground - but not utter devastation of the planes.

If you or a fellow pilot bring home a bag of parts once or a few times, then there is a good possibility that you will get your feelings and/or your checkbook hurt, and the number of active combat pilots will be reduced by one. You need several combat pilots, and new pilots being recruited, for combat fun over the long term.

The group not that far from us who have flown full contact combat for several years now have come up with inexpensive, easily repairable, Bluecor and similar foamy planes with inexpensive radio gear, and minimal armoring (protective sacrificial foam shark fins and lightened printed circuit card material over the LiPo) to keep the build time short and the weight down. They have had a blast over several years.

Jim

[flypaper 2]

We use Pizza Box type planes made from 9 MM EPP. Mine is 2 yrs old and looks it. :D Full of holes, slices and edges with pieces hot glued back in. The 8 dollar blue wonder motors from HK work great. Never had to replace one, or speed controller or batt. from damage in combat. Also helps that the P boxes aren't fast. :p

Gord.

[RonJ]

Our group always use streamers, it definately adds to the "WOW" factor from the crowd. We go for full contact and the streamers just add to the excitement. I usually tell the crowd that the streamers help us find the downed planes in the corn field. Just finished an air show this past weekend and the combat really got the crowd on their feet. We use the "Fomanator" and the red 2822 from HC on 3S1350.
Twenty foot crepe paper ribbon (stripped in half by band saw). Different colors for individuals or teams.

Combat is real FUN !

RonJ

[irone]

The advantages of using streamers is that a good pilot can make many cuts during a round. Undisputable scores may also be kept. Better planes and equipment may be used and usually fair better. Streamers promote better plane handeling and piloting skills.

We generally reccommend EPP planes to brand new want-to-be pilots as they bounce usually without breaking. Great learning tool but not the best flyers.

===================================
I love the smell of lipos in the mornings !

[highflier]

The full contact combat at SEFF this year was a lot of fun! 59 planes launched at the same time and scoring didn't start till there were less than 10 still flying. Each of the last pilots was assigned a spotter and all hits were scored with both pilots getting a point for each hit. Seemed to work well.
McD


The largest crowd that I have been up with in combat is only 5 :( Would be a blast to just dbl that.

now as far as last one up wins.. well my batteries will only give me 10-15 min flights if a poke around. Closer to 10 if I am flying after people.

Highflier

[northla]

I can't comment about full contact with the electric wings . I have flown many, many contests of RCCA open b, scale and ssc wet combat and with the streamers, a judge with every pilot, a little sticky stuff on the LE of the wing, and 6 to 12 planes up at a time.... streamer combat is some sort of a rush.... with being able to continue after you lose your streamer, you lose the drag and can really get after the guy that has 2 or 3 hanging on his wing and also dragging his own.... you talking about a target rich environment.... or if your the lucky one with 2 or 3 on your wing... you really learn how to duck and dive and get on the deck..... its like a badge of honor to land after the horn blows and walk back to the pits dragging all that paper!!!

But with these smaller , lighter electric planes, I can understand the reason for not even wanting to drag a streamer....you sure wouldn't want to be carrying a couple on the wing....

I do like the way the F+F Muncie group type plane ( 2s battery) flys with 20' of party streamer cut in half . I can see why they have their rules set up to land after you get cut. You can fly a contest with less people, less hassle and paperwork.

see ya
johnny v
shreveport la

[jwjohnson]

I think the key for our group is that it's not a contest. It's a group effort to get as many collisions as possible. Nobody is trying to avoid getting hit. A hit given is just as good as a hit received. Minimum rules, maximum fun!

[highflier]

anybody just north of PA want some combat... just PM me and see what we can figure out.

More sounds like more fun to me.

Highflier

[dlw151947]

Johnny,thanks for saying you like the way we have our rules set up.I used to fly the RCCA planes also.I spent countless hours coming up with the rules we fly by now. If you really look take a close look at them each one was written for a reason and can be explain why it was written the way it was..Safety came first with the rules we have and being simple to control or judge was second.Thanks again.
BuzzyI can't comment about full contact with the electric wings . I have flown many, many contests of RCCA open b, scale and ssc wet combat and with the streamers, a judge with every pilot, a little sticky stuff on the LE of the wing, and 6 to 12 planes up at a time.... streamer combat is some sort of a rush.... with being able to continue after you lose your streamer, you lose the drag and can really get after the guy that has 2 or 3 hanging on his wing and also dragging his own.... you talking about a target rich environment.... or if your the lucky one with 2 or 3 on your wing... you really learn how to duck and dive and get on the deck..... its like a badge of honor to land after the horn blows and walk back to the pits dragging all that paper!!!

But with these smaller , lighter electric planes, I can understand the reason for not even wanting to drag a streamer....you sure wouldn't want to be carrying a couple on the wing....

I do like the way the F+F Muncie group type plane ( 2s battery) flys with 20' of party streamer cut in half . I can see why they have their rules set up to land after you get cut. You can fly a contest with less people, less hassle and paperwork.

see ya
johnny v
shreveport la

[northla]

Buzzsaw, thanks for all the hard work put into those rules.... I can't wait to get 3 planes together so we can put them up and try your rules out....
Let me tell you a rules story....
when Dr Sandy Frank was down here as the dist 8 vp, I met him at a swap meet over here in Bossier City... I told him I was interested in RC combat.... this is when there was only the American Scale Dogfighters Association as a group of AMA guys looking to create a SIG (Special interest Group). He told me to join that group even though they only flew scale combat and I was only interested in Open type ....that they were talking about doing some open rules..... after I joined, the president called me and asked me to be the south central rep for ASDA , and they were looking to change the name to something else, create some open rules and expand to become a SIG of AMA..... since I was the only one flying Open rules RC combat, guess who got to be committee chairman to put out a set of open rules for the new group RCCA.... yep, It was lots of very interesting work, taking different rules from all over the country and trying to come up with a single set for all....
Must have been ok, most are now in the AMA rule book and Open combat has mostly dominated the RCCA flying over scale for the last 5 years....

johnny v
shreveport

[Cub Fan]

Our club has been doing full contact with the $15 flat wing from GWS props.com using the Hobby king CF-2822 cheap red outrunner and 3S batteries.
This makes a really good flying cheap airframe that is amazingly durable and easy to repair.

It has been a blast and we get new pilots every week added to the list-
We have been doing Thursday night cook outs with combat and then night flying- like a bowling night.

Cub Fan

[Jim_Marconnet]

Hey there Cub Fan:

Thanks for sharing your setup. Could you please copy and paste in the link for your flat wing source. I've tried that props.com and GWS_props.com and whatever else I could think of without finding it.

Jim
Our club has been doing full contact with the $15 flat wing from GWS props.com using the Hobby king CF-2822 cheap red outrunner and 3S batteries.
This makes a really good flying cheap airframe that is amazingly durable and easy to repair.

It has been a blast and we get new pilots every week added to the list-
We have been doing Thursday night cook outs with combat and then night flying- like a bowling night.

Cub Fan

[Lommax]

Maybe the one located here (http://www.gwsprops.com/electric_combat_plane_as_seen_on.htm)?

[Jim_Marconnet]

Maybe the one located here (http://www.gwsprops.com/electric_combat_plane_as_seen_on.htm)?
The price is the same, but the link looks nothing like what was shown, so overall I'll bet you are right. Thanks!

I bought several of these inexpensive planes several years ago. I don't think it was from this particular source, but I forget where. Anyway, the two main things I noticed about it then were that it was rather heavy, and the foam leading edge got smashed and cut much easier than I preferred. So I did not fly it much before retiring it.

Perhaps it's time for me to assemble the second kit now that I'm a better pilot.

Jim

[highflier]

Strapping tape or Extreme tap on the leading else would help it's wear quite a bit.

Combat planes tend to be not on the light side unless you want to bring several and do repairs

Highflier

[Cub Fan]

http://www.gwsprops.com/

This is where we are getting our wing kits- Shipping is the same on 1 or 20 so do a group buy. These are great planes- very durable and easy to repair and fun to fly

Cub Fan

[veggieslinger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWl6Aq6-cxQ heres a nice one. me and a buddy flying combat