What is the best characteristics of open class plane?

[rdc767]

What is the best characteristic of a rc combat plane?
Turning, speed, durability, consistence, or ease of construction?
I currently favor Lee Liddles falcon performance. It has most of the above. I redid it a little and made it better. I've learned a lot over the past 2 year. Here is a picture.
Ron

[Montague]

I think a big part of the answer depends on how you fly (style wise), who you fly against, how often you fly, and how much time and money you have to invest in maintaining a fleet of planes.

The Falcon works great in the hands of guys who can build lots of them. It's tops in the turning department, and pretty fast as well. I've never build one, but they seem really easy to build all right.

But they blow apart easily in mid-airs in B class. They really suffer in the durability department from what I've seen. So if you fly Falcons, you need to bring several of them to a contest. If you only plan on building a couple of planes, there are other designs that are stronger and easier to maintain and repair than the Falcon. They don't turn as tight, but they are certainly competitive. The Piranna, Go Devil, Bat Trick and Avenger all are in that category.

(One guy in this area had 2 Falcons. They flew very well, but both were destroyed pretty quickly. He gave up on Falcons and went to a more duable design)

If you don't get in to many mid-airs though, the Falcon will serve you well. I seem to mid-air a lot, so the Falcon just isn't an option for me.

Like I said, it's a trade off. Personally, I'm more of a persuit pilot than a furball pilot, but I do like a tight turning ship so I give up speed for turning radius in my designs. I also trade off armor for weight savings, though not nearly as much as the Falcon does. My fuses are strong (in B class, last year, I had a stock Skull Bandit fuse, with my own wing), but my wings are lightly armored, and almost expendable.

[LouMelancon]

Kirk is right but there are two types of Falcons and the logic does not apply to both.

The GRS Falcons are RTF for $80 and are exceptional performing airplanes. They are very light and from this stems their weakness - the wing can be broken easily on impact.

The other Falcon is the Lee Liddle produced original Falcon and it is very different in construction method and materials. You have to assemble it yourself from Lee's kits.

The beauty of a flying wing is how tight they will turn and how clean they are aerodynamically. The downside is that they have a very narrow CG range and the current designs required a bladder tank that many combat fliers are not willing to use.

For an easy to acquire kit I would again agreement with Montague that the Avenger, Falcon, Piranha, Go Devil are very good airplanes. I would also suggest the original Bat Trick and its progeny the Choker. Lanier has come out with a new plane but I've only seen the original prototypes in action and not one built up from a kit.

RDC to answer your original question I want stability, fast roll rate, fast pitch and change of direction response, no snapping tendencies, and protection of the radio components.

[sheepy]

Since I have little build time, and am maintaining a fleet for two flyers, I choose:
1. durability (if its durable, I don't have to fix it.)
2. ease of construction (if its easy to build its easy to fix)
3. consistence (easier to fly, so less chance of crashing)
4. speed (maybe I can catch them in the turns per AJ's tactics)
5. turning ( I am not that great of a pilot, so mushier performance is good for me)

[Bud Morrison]

Originally posted by rdc767
What is the best characteristic of a rc combat plane?
Turning, speed, durability, consistence, or ease of construction?
I currently favor Lee Liddles falcon performance. It has most of the above. I redid it a little and made it better. I've learned a lot over the past 2 year. Here is a picture.
Ron

I have 2 of the 64 inch Falcons from GRS. (He has lowered his prices on the Falcons by the way.) What modifications have you done to your Falcons? I notice your one has a 90 degree engine mount. I was thinking about mounting the engines on mine on a 90. How did you go about mounting the engine?

[Montague]

Lou, Thanks for the clarification on the different types of Falcon. I knew there were some differences, but I didn't know they made a lot of differnece in durability. Come to think of it, at Nats, I saw the Wilcoxs get cut in half several times, but I don't think I saw Lee go down quite that way. I know the Wilcox planes had "GRS Factory pilot" written on them, so I assume they are built that way?

I realized I never put down what I really want in a plane, so here's what I want:

1) Stability, both in a straight line and in a turn. Combat requires a lot of eyes-off flying, so the plane needs to be predictiable. If I look away, I need to know where to pick up my plane again. A plane that hunts or rolls out of turns by itself requires too much attention to fly competitively. Flying has to be totally reflex "lizard brain" stuff, thinking is reserved for tactics.

2) Turning/looping radius. My flying style is such that I tend to want to turn NOW on to my target. So I need a plane that can do a fast 180degree turn. I don't necessarly need to hold that turning radius forever though.

3) Controlled snapping tendancies and quick recovery. Most all my combat planes can snap out in certain situations, but I set them up so that they don't snap in normal combat manuvering. However, I've found a properly placed snaproll can really throw off guys chasing me. But I should be able to go full throttle in to a full-elevator loop and hold it with no snapping out.

4) Easy field repair. I want to be able to replace anything on the plane at the field with minimal fuss. Especially servos and engines. This also applies to construction techniques. I want construction that is easily patched up when necessary.

5) Speed. I really don't mind being a bit slower than my opponents, though in a perfect world I'm just a hair faster. But I routinely give up speed (in the form of increased airframe drag and prop and airfoil selection) in favor of all the above.

6) Ease of construction. I do a few things that make the plane longer to build, but result in better traits above.

[watnsee]

you need reliability! you need consistancy!! You need to be prepaired!!! You need lots of air planes ready to go!!!!

[boiler]

simple design, quick build and easy repair.

[kombat kid]

Id say that turning/looping is the most important but if its not durable its no good. I have been in a middair almost every time ive flown.