🚀 go-pugleaf

>I fly R/C, not combat, but I'm going to let you know how I feel anyway. 
>I posted about a year ago on the subject of "why don't the control-
>line flyers use mufflers?"  It seemed strange that the AMA is such a 
>strong advocate for mufflers in R/C and yet had no stated public policy 
>for C/L.  I fly at Ned Brown Woods in Elk Grove Village and the C/L 
>engines are indeed quite loud and irritating; loud enough that you 
>cannot hear your R/C plane in the air.  The loudest engines are the 
>combat types practicing for competition.  The replies to my original 
>post explained that combat engines had to be loud because 
>
>1) it was a competitive event requiring the ultimate in engine performance
>2) combat flyers during practice must use the same setup as in competition
>3) AMA had no muffler requirement
>4) there were no effective mufflers available that would survive combat
>5) no mufflers could be designed to survive combat.
>
>Well now it becomes obvious that if rule #3 is changed by the AMA then 
>a whole new world of technology is available to the combat flyers.  It's 
>amazing how the laws of physics change so dramatically in 1 year.
>
>


	Bull.  I  was one of the responders to this original query, and
	the summary of responses seems pretty accurate to me.  They are
	still valid, no matter what the AMA muffler requirement is.
	
	Do you really think that just because the FAI is planning to
	require mufflers on .15 glow engines in FAI combat, that this
	means that there are actually suitable mufflers available?
	If so, you are sadly mistaken.  The new FAI rules are purely
	political in motivation, as evidenced by the fact that the
	requirement is in terms of muffler chamber dimensions.  There is
	no requirement in terms of sound levels, and there is no muffler
	requirement at all for diesels!  As Bill Lee pointed out, a high
	performance diesel is just about as loud as a glow engine.
	The British combat flyers have	tried for years to drive FAI
	combat towards diesels, and this is just another attempt.  All it
	has done is effectively kill the FAI combat event in the US,
	with a very few exceptions.
	
	Items #4 & 5 above are still true.  There are no effective
	mufflers available that would survive the inevitable carnage, and
	no one seems to know how to design them.
	
	I would like all the RC flyers out there to note that the single
	loudest event in all of model aviation is one of your own, and
	that is Pylon Racing.  Not only are they loud, but there are
	usually FOUR of them going at once, and they are up there in the
	sky where the noise propogates more widely than when on a 60 foot
	tether.  I would be the last to suggest that they be placed under
	some kind of noise level regulation.  To someone who appreciates
	high performance model engines, that stuff is music, not noise.
	However, it does sort of irritate me to have an RC flyer complain
	about the noise of a competition control line event, when the
	competition RC event is louder.
	
	Mike Urban