Though I maidened the Nitroplanes Pitts Model 12 last week, the engine wasn't running well and I ended up tearing the right landing gear off. I replaced the sparky,many now the engine is running fantastically with the CM6 spark plug. I also brought the AS3X settings closer to final and managed to fine tune it today. A couple of flights in variable gusts really benefitted from the stabilization, but I didn't want to push my luck, so after a couple of flights I put it away. Really enjoyed flying it, and the landing gear held! It did shake the exhaust loose again, despite JB Weld. I went back to traditional, gasket (trying dry) and blue locktite, with lock washers. Hope this works.
Got the PulseXT 60 up for several flights. Always fun! This RCGF-USA 20cc likes the back pressure from the silencers on the exhausts. I tried them off, very loud and poppy, with the silencers the engine runs smoother.
Don't remember if this is with or without the silencers.
Rain is coming these next few days, so no flying anticipated. Its time to get the RCGF-uSA 10cc Spitfire up and running. I haven't started the engine since rebuilding the entire thing. Maybe I'll work on that.
Its about time. First several flights I fought to get my Mojo back, hands shaking, having trouble breathing, sweating, anxiety pounding my heart with a sledgehammer, freaking out worse when the ground came up and over correcting. PTSD, literally, from having a run of bad luck and unskilled flying these past few weeks. After about the 3rd 15 min flight I was calm and finally feeling like I was ahead of the aircraft most of the time. There was some gusts that made it a bit challenging for the Ultrastick, as she responds to pushes from the winds, but that became predictable and as my thumbs calmed with confidence, I wasn't bothered by them at all. In the calm air, wow, she flew amazing! I found the sweet spots for the Ultrastick for CG, engine, DR/expos, and prop. At first I thought she flies a bit heavy, as she is about 3 lbs over design weight, but realized that was more the wind and realizing I have to flyall of the control surfaces all the time. She needs that rudder and keen attention to elevator and aileron. She likes that 1 lb of lead up front. It made all the difference. I learned too that the Evo sounds better and seems to run smoother without a muffler extension on it, so that's gone now too.
I got 4 10-15 min flights in with the Ultrastick, became very comfortable with her. Several touch and goes and landing to stop and turn around. Love how she responds to the flaps now that I have the elevator mix dialed in. It was a LOT of fun to fly in the end, and is back to being my go to! She is FAST and snappy. A couple of times a gust lifted the tail from behind killing the engine, but no ill effect, though the prop blades are not tracking perfectly. She developed a nice buzz from something, but couldn't find a source or problem.
The 30cc Breitling went up a couple of times. Gust don't bother it. Also a lot of fun, but my focus was on the Utrastick today.
Called it a day when I started getting those "just one more ski run" doubts.
Evolution 10cc with Master Airscrew 12x6x3. She idles a bit high, and winds down to stall, as she does here. This is a sign the HI needle is rich, but I can't lean it out further without losing high end RPMs. In flight she doesn't stall out, so it's not an issue.
Joe Nadeau was there with his Tundra (I think) and his racing drone. It was great having a conversation with him!
Next week I intend to maiden the 20cc Pitts Model 12, and if time permits, the 10cc Spitfire. Need to overcome some powerplant issues with the Spitty first.
Waiting for the rains to pass, hoping the field has been mowed since I was there earlier this past week, thinking about heading out to fly the Ultrastick again now that her CG has been addressed. All the rain lately has likely made the weeds sprout up all over again even if it has been mowed. The replacement switch for the Pitts came in, so I decided to take the time to install it. I described earlier that my hopes for the Flag-Pin fail-on switch were crushed.
The flag-pin switch I replaced.
This is a great membrane power switch I purchased from Hobby King. I have a couple of them installed. Its reliable, light, and probably fails in the last position being a membrane switch. Its about 2cm x 4cm and about 0.5 cm thick. The fuse underside of the switch could use a bit more smoothing work, but at the time I didn't know I had some matching silver material so was trying not to damage it. Someday I'll go back and work it.
I put it in the same spot as I had the flag-pin switch.
The inside.
She's all set to maiden, and I am really looking forward to it. This is going to be a favorite. Once I get the Ultrastick all squared away, she'll be next. I keep putting off the maiden of the RCGF-USA 10cc Spitfire for a couple of reasons. One, superstition, since the first two were lost for different reasons on their maiden, and second because I replaced the engine after rebuilding it and haven't gone back to test it. Would have sworn I had posted about the rebuild of the engine, but can't find one. I rebuilt the carb and replaced the cylinder head, so she'll need breaking in. More on that when I get around to it.
It feels like I got off to a late start this year...
I usually fly almost all year around, but work this past year took so much of my time that I left most of my hobbies behind. Now that I am "on sabbatical" between gigs, I have some time.
I updated the iX12, expecting that to derive any number of nightmares, but it actually went pretty flawlessly. I think. It may have this new trick where it needs to have the battery unplugged and plugged back in to turn on, but we'll see. I charged it up completely having let the batter die over the winter. Update done. Cleaned out the planes I killed last fall, no need to be reminded every time I scroll looking for today's aircraft.
I took the Eflite Alpha Sport 450 out, as the first plane I fly every season. It was my first real plane, the one I learned to fly some 11-12 years ago, and I know it so well that it's comforting to renew my thumbs every season, and settle the "new field jitters" when I fly somewhere I haven't before. I thought I had taken a photo at the field, but alas... I did take a pic of the Cubbie. I flew several packs on the Alpha, and then just one on the Cubbie. It was a bit gusty, so the Cubbie took a beating, but landed fine. The grass at Wason Pond, in Chester, NH, where I went today instead of hauling all the way out to Hudson, was long and clumpy, so I took off from the dirt on the baseball diamond. 8 packs in all, about 40 min of flight. The first flight I overcontrolled a little, but by the end I was hand launching with no issues. It really felt good. A dad with some kids had just finished flying a Blue Angels F-18 Kite, enjoyed the show and I invited them over for some show-and-tell! They loved it, and it was good to see them so happy. The dad has found a new hobby!
Tomorrow I think it's time to get the 10cc Ultra Stick flight ready, see if I can solve the "flickering left aileron" problem. Then the 26cc Hanger 9 Pulse XT going. Think the two 30cc's will follow. I am scared of maidening the 10cc Spitfire... past being prologue, but that too will come.
Ah, the smell of flying season, mmm... kinda musty.
Its time to start making things happen for the 2021 flying season. Renewed my AMA a couple months ago, but for no real reason didn't renew my club membership until today. Been thinking about getting around to it for a couple of weeks as the weather warmed and the winds settled down. Getting my club application in today, made me a little itchy to shake off the COVID and winter blues, get downstairs and instead of just walking by, start cleaning and organizing the workshop, see what batteries I killed leaving them charged, and which engines are going to give me crap, see if I can get over being annoyed at how little it took to put serious hurt on the Waco I still haven't gotten around to wanting to fix.
At the top of the stairs to the basement. If I am running engines out back through the basement bulkhead I cat free the basement and then make sure no one listens to them crying to be let in.
Ah, the doorway to heaven. Or hell. Depends on my mood and how many parts my returning aircraft come down in. Painted the pole as people kept running into it.
I didn't even bother to put anything away last fall.... its a mess.
Here is my conundrum to start the season. My beloved UNFLOWN Hangar 9 Ultrastick 10cc that I have waited years to get and fly, is two pounds over her designed dry flying weight. I put the servos for the rudder and elevator aft as the equipment bay, as you can see here, is packed. This puts a bit of weigh aft out on a long lever. I had to put that 1 lb (500gm) lead weight there to get her on CG. Literal dead weight. Between that and the oversized receiver/ignition pack, she comes in at 9 lbs dry, her design weight is 7 lbs. I could save maybe a quarter pound (250gm) or so if I changed to a smaller LiPO. I am not sure it would save even that much, forget how much it weighs. Half that 5200 mAh is more than adequate, and I could always go with to swappable smaller LiPOs. I am pretty sure I am going to do that. 5200 mAh is far more than a days flying would need. I could move the aft servos to the bay and remove the lead, but thats going to take a lot more work than it might be worth. I am going to add a capacitor, which I am not optimistic will solve the weird left aileron twitch. (These are the same servos but not in the same place, and I think a different receiver, so no idea why the same servo twitches. I also have a Tech Aero IBEC that may help. More on this problem here. I have changed the servos before, and I have replacement ones on hand. I think I will step through it. Capacitor, IBEC, servos).
The tail servos aft.
I could squeeze those aft servos here, but still aft of CG, albeit not so far out on the lever.
I really don't want to go there... That block and spar support the satellite receiver.
The Waco spent all winter sitting there after I hurt her. I just don't want to find out what its going to take to fix her, but I do love this plane, so it won't be long.
And then there is the Spitfire and my long history with them... she has yet to be maidened and won't be until I get some fresh hours under my thumbs.
The Hangar 9 10cc Ultra Stick has her balanced prop on and is ready to go!
Got the cowl on the Phoenix Spitfire, and checked her CG: SPOT ON no changes necessary!
Looking good. I am ready to give this, my third Phoenix Spitfire a run for my money. I have had two previous ones perish on maidens. The first when I clipped a tree coming out of an intended stall, the second when she stalled on takeoff and torqued into the firmament. I have no doubt this one is the one.
Sold my Dx8 Gen 1 and used the proceeds towards finally buying the Hangar 9 Ultra Stick 10cc from my LHS, ABC Hobbies in Windham. I wanted an Ultra Stick for years, but they went discontinued. I ended up with an Ugky Stick, and I loved it! I planted it after many years of great flying, and in the interim, the new and improved Ultra Stick came out. For its simplicity its a bit pricey, but its worth it! Since the 60" wing comes in one piece, the box is over 60"long. I had to use panoramic view to get it all in!
Ginormous wing. Top side.
Underside.
For a few minutes I thought about using the stock CA hinges, but they always come loose. I wasn't sure I was in the mood for installing Du-Bro Nylon hinges, but I prefer them.
So, that's what I did.
One of the things I don't love about them is that they take so many steps, others are keeping epoxy out of the hinge, and if one of them goes slightly off angle the surface moves stiffly. I line them up dry fitting both side and mark the centers, use my Du-Bro hinge cutting tools to make the wider space required for the nylon hinges, great the hinge lightly to keep epoxy out, then using 30 min epoxy set them kne surface at a time.
Everything looske lined up! Only one hing went slightly askew, on the right flap. It works fine, however. The only reason that happened is the epoxy was curing faster than expected...
The Ugly Stick had a nice Tru-Turn bullet spinner on it, but this airframe is more slick and sporty, so I went with a 2.25 inch aluminum cone spinner from Amazon. I am using the well running Evolution 10cc gas engine. I tried to find a Pitt style muffler from Evolution as it would be affordable, but there are none left for the 10cc. Horizon Hobby, for some reason, discontinued the Evolution gas engines. I don't think they even make nitros anymore. I would very much prefer one... but it won't be cheap.
I like that the servo trays are already built. There is no skill to it, its just busy work, so having it already done is fine by me.
The ailerons and flaps are on a Y. You have to be careful with these setups, as was seen on the Spitfire, to get the servos facing the correct way to allow oposite aileron movement, and identical flap movement.
Wing is done!
Close up of the aileron and flap Ys.
I did this over a couple of days. I am looking forward to getting to the fuse next!
I have been working on this RCGF 10cc engine for a few weeks on the Spitfire. I rebuilt the carburetor and did a thing fixing the stripped sparky with an adapter. I got it running finally today! Decent albeit slightly high idle, nice smooth acceleration, and a powerful WOT with 5.2 lbs thrust swinging the 14x6 Master Airscrew! And then all of the sudden I couldn't get it to run. What the heck? Wait, no compression? Turns out the pressure and heat blew the stainless adapter out of the crappy metal cylinder of this first generation RCGF engine. This problem of soft metal has been addressed in the current RCGF-USA 10cc engines.
Found it finger loose. Tightening it was unsuccessful, it just kept slipping.
Stripped...
So... I have a good carb on this engine, and a good cylinder on the other that has a carb problem, I hope. I swapped the carbs, and am now using the new cylinder and crankcase Joe Nelson gave me. One of the carb flapper valve plate carb securing holes on this new engine stripped with no real force! Maybe that's why the "carb" was bad? So, I went back to the failed cylinder, pulled the flapper valve adapter, and swapped it out. The bad cylinder is now a parts farm... which I hate, so eventually will rebuild it. Went ahead and replaced the carb gasket.
So... brand new cylinder and crankcase, swapped flapper valve adapter plate, and the original good carb, installed. Got late for running an engine, so will have to wait until tomorrow. Disappointed, that orginal was running almost perfectly today! Tomorrow I hope to finally get the Spitty up and running and flight ready!
My iX12 Mojo came back today from Horizon/Spektrum. Fixed the switch for free and the transmitter got a clean bill of health!
Thanks, Chris N from Horizon Hobby!
Tested two packs on the UMX Tundra. No issues!
I was surprised that I never programmed the Eflite Alpha 450 Sport (another wonderful balsa abandoned by Eflite). So I did that today, made a few minor changes to the electronics, and took her to the local park for some flight time. Got 2 packs in before a pickup soccer game showed up. I don't fly over people, so I called it a day. No issues! Everything worked fine.
The 10mm - 1/4 32 adapter came in today too! I drilled it out to 8.5 mm as the online guide suggested for a 10mm tap, and using some cutting oil and patient technique got a sweet tap.
The adapter and the new threads.
Now this was curious. The adapter is steel, thank goodness, the cylinder head aluminum. The tap was as vertical as I could get it. But every time I tried to thread the tap it would seat on one side, but lift on the other! This wouldn't start until half way screwed in. After several tries and seeing this edge that was lift make its way around the clock hours, and re-tapping it (clean, no change), I used a percussive technique to level it and then completed a nice tight screw in. I also used some JB Weld to seal the threads, and for good measure filled in the gaps of the hex head and the cylinder head. I will let this cure overnight and tomorrow put the whole thing back together, see if it will run.
All good! Tomorrow I will see if the returned 10cc engine will run in the Spitty. Once that's assured, I want to fly a few more times on the iX12, though I confident with it, before maidening the Spitfire. Given my past history with Spitfires I want no doubts.
The Phoenix Waco is one of my absolutely favorite planes to fly. For that reason I didn't rush to program her into the Spektrum iX12, which is a good thing considering how it misbehaved recently. It hangs in a special prominent ceiling corner of my basement shop where I can gaze upon it in love and admiration. Since the iX12 is in the shop, and I haven't removed any of the aircraft from my DX8, I decided to go ahead and set up the Waco for the season. Its very late this year... but conditions have not been favorable for flying this summer with remarkably windy days, even for a big girl like the Waco. Today is clam but with frequent gusts to 20-25 mph... typical this year.
Last year
She had an Orange stabilization system that functioned quite well, but since I am moving away from Orange electronics, and have a Hobby Eagle A3-L V2 stabilization system on hand, I decided to replace it and give the A3 a try. Here it is, installed on a platform for it, that also keeps the battery pack and the gas tank in place. The foam covers up a rat's nest of wiring, but the wiring for the A3 is quite simple and basically what it is on all of these. None that I have had do dual ailerons, though the failed Spektrum Alpha6 was supposed to it never did. Now I had planned on using this on the 10cc Spitfire, but the instructions clearly state its not for gas engines. I don't think any of the stabilization are, technically, but they work quite well. She seemed to have no problems during engine run up tests.
The system allows on board button/LED adjustments to all of its settings, and is easy to use. I set up the Flight Mode 3 way switch through AUX1 to allow me to dynamically and remotely switch modes from ON to OFF to 3D (this mode holds the planes last attitude when activated, like a knife edge). I will let you know how it works out, but I have high expectations and plan to put one on the Spitty too.
I pulled the tank to change the clunk line from Tygothane (which was quite supple still) to Vygon, as I am doing with all of my gassers, expecting that to last a few years. The original lines are the yellow Tygon, which if not stiff on the external fuel lines I leave alone. I check them otherwise once a year. The NiMH battery packs for ignition and receiver I replaced with a 2S 2200 mAh LiPO with a dual Futaba plug line off an EC3 on the battery. Nice. I do charge these in the plane, being low voltage and amperage, at 1C, so its kinda buried, alongside the tank, port side under that middle platform. The wheel pants needed a touch up, and I had broken the attachment to the right one when I hung the plane up and almost dropped it last fall. Fixed it, repainted both of the pants, and reinstalled. I peeled all the cote and tape off around the junction of the gear gaiters, redid it much lighter, and painted the exhaust stain area under the fuse.
The dulcet tones of the RCGF-USA 26cc gas engine. This plane is planned for a 15cc, but the 26cc fits nicely and gives her a lot of power. There is a lot of room under that cowl, a 30cc would fit, but would be a lot for this plane.
To fit her in my car, let alone get her out of the basement, I detach the left wing. The plane does not come with supports for the wings, an idea I got from my Eflite Stearman (original). I never take the wings of the Stearman. The supports for it are too small for the Waco. I just made one out of a Amazon box.
Cleaned up, ran up, and coated with an "Armor All" knock-off, ready to go!
