The say hover bikes will be the rage of the future, everybody will be riding them. Of course they are still perfecting the design. Here is one of the latest hi-tech prototypes.
It was a popular way to fly model planes years ago, by holding a handle attached to two lines that connected to the plane's elevator controls. You stood in the middle and turned around as you flew the plane around you in a circle. The only control you generally had was elevator (up & down) control. You could get dizzy flying them if you had a fast plane or your lines were too short.
Try two people flying together streamers attached to tail of each plane. object was to cut the others streamer off with your prop- was called combat flying. I used a foam wing assembly with just a flat fuselage to mount an 049 ( 3 blade prop) up front and elevators in the rear it was close coupled about 10" front to back less than 20 wide wicked quick in the turns which is what you needed. Easy to repair, because sometimes you could lose your tail. That would( disqualify the other person)There was a to scale reproduction class- someone built a B24 another did a Spruce Goose. All the engines on the goose ran and were .020's. It was extremely impressive. And they had to be able to do a rolling take off and landing. One meet a guy had a jet, but instead of a electric or nitro enclosed fan he used a jam jet. ( there was always an advertisement for those in popular mechanics and other mags. ) I have no idea how he built it so it didn't burn up from the heat of the jet, that was the big problem with that. The lines for the small planes were braided synthetic material. Big stunt planes and such braided steel cables. The early RC frequency's were very close to the 27 mh ( just above if I remember correctly) range of Citizen band radio. and Cb 's that had been modified for more out put wattage would interfere. Was all amplitude modulation. No digital encoding and no frequency modulation back then. Got to remember this was at the beginning of the solid state electronics. It was a big deal when Fm became available and a couple other frequency areas that were not a harmonic of the CB band as well.
AMA still exists. I'm a member, you have to be to join any AMA club. they still provide liability insurance and run events including the Nationals (NATS) at AMA headquarters in Indiana. AMA membership is not what it used to be however... probably only around 80~100k nationwide now. Control line is not as popular as it used to be but still around. You can still find CL kits, engines etc in the catalogs and there are CL events at the nationals. There are also people who still do engine power and rubber band freeflight.
