Family Photos

My wife took these from the back deck while I was working out of my basement workshop on setting up and running the RCGF-USA 10cc on my Ugly Stik. The wing is on so I could test the rogue aileron issue having also addressed the spark cable signal noise. This is such a nice plane!

New Carb, New Life, and Ignition Noise Ousted!

I have had issues with this RCGF-USA 10cc gas engine for several months after several years of great operation. I figured out there was something wrong with the old carb after a bit of screwing up the motor during a rebuild when I broke the piston ring and did something to the original carb that made it wonky. I replaced the piston ring, and I tried a smaller Walbro carb, I think 7 mm from the original 10mm as people argued the 10mm runs the smaller engine rich. I could not get the 7mm to run well. I bought a new 10mm stock carb from Joe Nelson at RCGF-USA and installed it today, and she ran well with minimal tuning. The high is a bit rich: mildly rough 4 cycling in the mid range and when pulled back from WOT she drops a bit lower in RPM then works her way up, but I tuned it as lean as she would allow and its mostly gone now. Runs great, will fly her in a couple of days.

John Hayes offered that my rogue ailerons at WOT was ignition noise. I pulled the ignition and the casing of the spark cord is frayed. It did not like being crammed into the forward compartment for all these years  Covered the frayed parts with electrical tape and shrink tubing, left the cable outside the compartment and voila, no problem!

7mm on the left, stock 10mm on the right.

I like that I can remove the throttle arm, which was short and a bit different than usual. I replaced it with an aluminum servo arm. This engine has a choke; the 7mm did not and was always a challenge to cold/dry start.

You can see the rubber cover is pulled away from the casing, and the wires of the cable frayed here, and a bit further down rubbed down a bit. I used thick shrink tube for the casing end and electrical tape for the middle fraying. The ignition noise is gone!

You can see I left the spark cable outside the compartment.

Underside view. You can see the choke arm and the throttle arm.

Another view of the choke and throttle.

Runs great, no ignition noise effecting the ailerons!

Can't wait to fly her day after tomorrow!

Baby learned a new trick...

I had a half day, and a bit later than I planned (lazy) I got out this morning with the MX-Bach. She started with the electric starter, and ran pretty well, though she had this stutter thing that I was pretty sure was just a little 4-cycling in a 2-stroke. But some of the pauses are pretty long and not a quick sputter.

I catch some of the 4-cycling behavior here, none of the solid pauses.

As she idled she initially seemed happy pre-flight, and out of the blue just stopped. Restarted, and she again ran fine throughout her range, ran her up and down a few times, every thing was fine. So I took her up, and she flew so incredibly fine, smooth like buttah, some light aerobatics, and running through her throttle range. Let her idle high up several times, sweet, no issues. Plenty of power. Ran her down the line at altitude WOT and suddenly nothing. It just quit. No slowing, stuttering, racing, just quit. So suddenly I would later wonder, "Did I hit the kill switch?" I trained myself so that when the engine does die after moment to ensure proper control (aviate-navigate-communicate) I instinctively hit the kill, so I don't know just when I actually did.

Sweet deadstick approach, landing a bit hot, touched down nicely but then bounced and...

Pleased with the approach and initial touchdown, but annoyed I let her bounce and ripped the gear out again. Lots of work to do. For now I am going to assume that this was a one off, and get the gear fixed, restart the engine after replacing the prop. Should I swap out the RCGF Ignition for new one I have on hand, or is this the Hall Sensor? Maybe I swap out the sensor first, least effort... If she just wasn't such a stable sweet and smooth flyer.

I noticed that only the right elevator moved when I set in some trim with the flaperons to give her a bit of nose down. Not sure why the left one didn't follow. Need to sort that out. Is it a mix? This wasn't a problem before...

Resetting the crash clock.

Hangar Day

I had to wait for the new DX8 Gen1 Antenna to arrive, and Amazon delivered it damn near next day. It arrived this afternoon and took me a couple of minutes to install. 

Once I had it installed, I took the MX-Bach outside and took Joe Nelson's (Owner RCGF-USA) advice and used my 12V electric starter to get the new 30cc engine to start. As he said it would, she started right up! Got her idle settled, I believe, so I am very, very happy about that. Was going to take her out to fly but someone said, "Lunch at the Beach Plum?", so that happened instead. 

When I got back I decided to fix the wonky and broke vertical stabilizer. on the Ugly Stik. That thing has taken a beating over the years.

I removed the vert stab, and if I had given it any thought whatsoever, I would have repaired the cote on it then, but no I did it the hard way, repairing it after I reinstalled it. Here I have removed the stab and drilled 4 holes for posts to help strengthen it.

I mirrored these on the bottom of the vert stab. Thought I had a pic of the posts... nope. I just used "match stick" wood.

I used 30 min epoxy to install it, and after a couple of hours, I epoxied in two runners, one on either side of the base of the vert stab to stiffen it, also using 30 min epoxy.

Re-coting the stab was not as easy as it could have been, but this thing has been repaired several times. The cote is quite a patchwork.

The "American" on this side interprets the German on the other, a play on  Shakespeare (see what I did there?).

In preparation for the new 10mm stock replacement carb I ordered from Joe, I removed the 7mm smaller carb I tried out. I don't know, maybe it would work fine, but I have had more trouble getting and keeping her running and tuned since putting the smaller carb on. The thought is that the 10mm carb is big for this size engine and tends to run it rich. That may be, but I think this small engine prefers to be rich because even when I had her tuned as well as I could, I could not get her not to stall out on pulling the throttle back quickly from WOT or half even if I slowed the servo speed. If I eased it back, she tolerated it. I am going to send that smaller carb to Joe to play with. It wasn't designed for RC aircraft, but he is good with this sort of thing and it may be better for the engine in the right hands.  Once the carb is in, I need to check out the ignition and maybe replace it to see if that is the cause of the ailerons going rogue, usually full RT roll, left full down, right full up in a spasm, then it returns to normal, just at WOT.  Is there a noise leak? It happens with the two receivers I tried so I know that's not the problem. The receiver is way back in the fuse. I need to research how to further shield it...

The Stik has been ridden hard since I got her back in July 2016. She has been my go to gasser, capable, stable and predictable, my Alpha 450 with power. Her engine has also been the most cantankerous... but I have learned a tremendous amount from her. Looking forward to getting her back to reliable flight status.

Well, this is good.

She starts and runs awesome! She stopped running in flight the other day and I could not get her to start. She has been very challenging to hand start. When I mentioned this to Joe Nelson of RCGF-USA he smiled (it was an email, but I know he thought ti funny I was working my wimpy biceps so hard) and suggested not trying to hand start her until a couple of gallons went through her. I put my 12V starter on and shaboom.! Right away, ENGINE NOISE!  Adjusted the idle, which I think lead to the deadstick, and she seems rather happy. Once she warms a bit and breaks in more, I expect to be able to lower the idle a tad more, she is just barely producing thrust at idle.

I did swap out the nice carbon fiber nose cone for the painted Ultimate Style one so I don't mar the nice one.

This motor tried to lift the back of the table off the ground! Some kinda power, and what a sweet sound!

Baby, Daddy's goin' flyin'!

Exhausted

Long day... I am worn out.

Took the MX-Bach RCGF-USA 30cc, with the correct wings, and the nudgey Stik RCGF-USA 10cc out to the field to get some quality air time.

I expected some engine tuning for the RCGF 10cc, but the receiver seemed to crap out. When I got home it worked fine when I rebound it. In the one engine run up the ailerons went rogue again at WOT. John Hayes suggested it was ignition noise, which makes sense because it only does it at WOT.  Grounded. 

At home I removed the stabilization system from the setup (it's still physically attached to the fuse), but run-ups once I got the receiver rebound showed that the rogue aileron issue is probably ignition related. I just could not get the damn engine to run right. When it would seem to be set, it would stop when pulling suddenly back to idle from WOT or half. I just could not find a sweet spot. Since the ignition wire is leaking signal affecting the receiver, and the engine just won't find its happy place, I am going to try a new ignition. I spent 3 hours in the backyard heat and humidity trying to get this to run. I don't know that it's the smaller carb, but I think I am going back to the original 10mm.

Adding insult to injury. the rudder came loose and then the vertical stab snapped when I turned it over to change the 3-way from a filter with a leaky to air gasket to a solid piece to reduce air leaking into the fuel line, which did decrease air in the line.

Lots of work to do.

This wasn't a crash...  I got the MX-Bach into the air after spending nearly 20 minutes trying to get her to start. Once she started I ran it for a while, then stopped, refueled, and she started up. Took to the skies sweet, well behaved, balanced, lots of power! Flew for about 10 minutes, basic maneuvers for trim and to see how she behaved, trimmed her slightly, wow, flying wonderfully. Threw the sticks around and had great control in aerobatics! Brought her down a bit, and pulled back the throttle, she backed down, idled, then stopped. She was high, and about 50 yds from the end of the runway, no wind. I dropped the nose and she nicely lost altitude, picked up a lot of speed of course, no room really to bleed it off, thought a moment about the flaperons, opted to keep going without. She touched hot and bounced a little, then came down but was doing a really hot speed. Rather than try a sharp turn I let her bleed off speed and she stopped at the edge of the grass. No harm, no crash.

And I could not get her to start again... Is it the carb? She was getting a lot of gas when I was working to start her, and runs well. Is it the ignition? It's brand new... I have no idea, but after a few tries to start it I decided I wasn't going to spend the afternoon at Mt Hudson doing the same thing over and over again with the same results, so defueled and packed her up. 

It was really time to go home. Meanwhile Clarence took his FMS Tundra up several times. I think I am going to start bringing an electric so I have something reliable to fly.

And then this... Despite being careful it snapped off, again, and moments later the wire broke. Poke me in the eye with a fork... This is why they now have solid masts. Guess I am buying another one. At some point I need to buy a new radio. This one is about 6 yrs old. I was hoping to find some kind of mod that was stronger... I may put a bolt through the hinge.

I am wiped out. I am not having fun. I think the idea of bringing a reliable electric plane out every time is something I need to give serious thought.

Wrong wings? No problem!

Finally my vid is out of Google Video Processing Purgatory!

Took the MX-Bach out t the field to "maiden" with the new RCGF-USA Stinger 30cc gas engine, and brought the wrong wings.... I wanted to get time on the engine, so I drove it around for a while. Right now she is really difficult to start, but once the carb is wet and she runs, she really runs sweet!

Planning to fine my mojo and get out to the field today to fly her. sorry about my finger in the vid, trying to operate the radio and hold the phone at the same time. I never quite get her to WOT as she really hauled butt...