[RKDinOKC]

My first exposure to RC Planes was a RC Formula 1 plane race. Pretty impressive. Those guys were going upwards of 210 mph. They raced around pylons. The pilots stood between two pylons that were 50 ft apart then flew out and around a single pylon 700 ft out. There were turn guys for each plane at the 700ft pylon to flag when the plane passed the pylon so they could turn. There was also a lap counter for each plane that had to concentrate on only that one plane to not lose which plan they were watching.

Got into RC because of it though much more mundane speeds. The only racing I got involved in was our club put together a racing class that was a very cheap (and slow) plane and the cheapest Fox .40 engine. No modification were allowed to the kit or engine. It was fantastically fun. The planes were very well matched, it was anybodys guess who would win. We had 30 participants. By the end of the season the planes were pretty trashed and patched up. The last event of the year was all the racers went at once and the one that crashed closest to inside a trash can got a new plane and motor for the next season.

We also tried doing air combat with streamers, but no-one was able to clip another's streamer. Just too difficult in 3D space.

After 3 years they changed to rules to allow people to build anything they wanted, but had to use the same motor and were limited to 500sq inch wings. We lost about half the participants including me.

Then they went to Quikie 500 RC racing rules for 500sq planes and lost participants down to 3. The idea was following the regular rules you go race at the many events around the country, but keeping up with motor and plane speed ups were very expensive.

I often thought and suggested we go back to the cheap plane formula because of the huge participation, but never happened, sad.