Master Airknives

Removing the 3 blade MA 12x8x3 from the Suhoi when my finger brushed the back of the blade. That MF be sharp...

MX--Bach 30cc Re-conversion

Today I pulled the Turnigy Rotomax 1.40 and the Hobbywing Platinum Pro 100 amp HV and the cooling fan, and the harness, from the MX-Bach. I had foorgotten about the engine mount I had made for it. Pretty nice Mcgyver of what I had, some nice engineering.

I will be putting this up for sale as a kit soon. Its new, flown 3 times.

There are some cracks in the base of the equipment tray that I repaired and then added tongue depressor wood to both sides to add strength.

The new 10 oz tank in the Sukhoi.

I took the 14 oz  gas tank out of the 10cc Sukhoi because it really was too big for it, having replaced the orinignal 8 oz tank. I got a new 10 oz tank and put it in the Sukhoi. The Tech-Aero IBEC in the mail today, have a fuel vent and T connector for the fuel system coming.  The electric power switch is in the equipment bay, and I will have to decide if I am going to keep it, or change it to an external switch.  I have an old fuel dot I can install in hand. I am now searching for a used 30cc gas engine, but may end up putting a new one in, likely an RCGF-USA  Stinger.

I am prettty excited about this. She has just sat there since I didn't have the batteries to fly her. This way I have another gasser that I can fly for years!

Pulse XT60 Update

Something about the Pulse XT60 has been bugging me.

The thrust line is a tad south of midline. Can't really tell from these pics...  This is stock at the firewall so maybe it's supposed to be this way? I realized this after having to modify the cowl, and later thought I should have made an adjustment in the engine mount before changing the cowl. You can see the down angle here.

Better here. Not just the low lying shaft, but the angle.

This isn't the best pic, but I put about 1-2mm (2 washers) of washers on the lower mounts to raise the thrust angle a bit. This does that. I fell better, but we'll see.

MX-Bach Revisited

I am rethinking the MX-Bach. She started life as Kenny's 30cc MX2, and he gave me the airframe as he was breaking it up flying like a madman. I turned it into a 1.40 equivalent 10S electric (6S wouldn't fit). I had flown her I think a couple times, and broke her wing when an Ent grabbed her out of the sky. I still had the wings from my 30cc Sbach and thought, " why not?", and the MX-Bach was born. I flew her once. She has always been a bit underpowered, really needed 6S. I toyed with the idea but batteries are waaaay too expensive these days. I am not likely to fly her this way, and did try to sell her, but no takers, likely for the same reason.

I think I need to convert her back to a 30cc gasser.

This setup has 3-4 flights on it... I will be selling it when I remove it.

I'm looking for a used 30cc gas engine. I may end up buying new, but since she is a basher used seems more appropriate.

Pulse XT60 RCGF-USA 20cc Flight Ready

Took the Pulse XT60 out to the garage, put her wing on and checked the controls. Realized the ailerons were on a Y, changed it to separate channels since it has them, and setup flaperons because I could. No mix yet, will see how she behaves first.

First start took forever. She was lean and dry. Tried my 12V starter, and burned it out while melting the plastic on the spinner. Oops... Have another Hangar 9 Pro 12V starter coming from Amazon Prime. This one was over 5 yrs old.

Took a long time to get the carb fuel. This being her break-in tank, i ran her at half throttles and less, occasionally WOT, setting the needles just to get her to run. By half tank (30 min) she wanted more. It was neat seeing her performance improve as time passed bd I ajusted her tuning. She would quit, take forever to restart, but each time less and less quits and shorter restarts with less need for choke. By the end found a decent idle, powerful WOT.  Full tank gave more than an hour! 15x6 Zoar.

Pretty much ready to go. Throttle in 1.2 sec arc speed to allow a nice gentle transition. She shook her pants off, literally... The idle keeps getting better.

  

Got back in the shop, cut the cowl in. The holes were already drilled and were off... In the end decided it was better to try to keep the holes and instead modify the front opening, as the holes were off just enough to mess up the cowl if re-drilled. Ended up modifying two top holes slighlty, still.  Final adjustments and everything clears.

Cut in nicely.

Sweet!

Using a larger cone spinner worked out to cover up the large oblong front  opening.

Actually worked out, not perfect but pretty nice.

Howard.

Will need to check CG again. And then maiden!

Got her wheel pants back on. The screws were wood, needed bolts, replaced in reinstall, will post a pic later.

Sukhoi 10cc Back in Flight Ready Status

The other day I once again peeled the landing gear off the Sukhoi 10cc. This airframe has been with me for 4 years now, and her only issue has been her weak knees. I have always held to the practice that it's better the landing gear than the entire bottom of the plane, but I have had nothing but trouble keeping the gear on at all. Since I am quite willing to go back to the 10cc Sukhoi with the red Honda livery, I decided to build this baby up like a fortress. If she crashes the only thing left standing will the the frickin' landing gear!

So a landing in a head wind, a foot off the ground, wind stops, plane drops, should be no problem, but here we are.

And ate a bit of dirt... You can see the gear cleanly came off.

There really wasn't more than a middle block of wood left as the front attachment. This and some epoxy is all that held the front end of the gear in.  The screws were not strong, just RTL Fastener Servo Screws. She tore clean off as designed, just should not have.

This plank of wood on the right is tucked under each side of the fuse, so it's buttressed well. Covered the entire thing with epoxy. The left piece bears no stress as the back of the hardpoint has tabs into the back wall of the landing gear box.

Installed two beams of wood to fortify the fuse and the back of the landing gear box. These are wrapped in epoxy, and the upper piece (closest to the bottom of the fuse) is buttressed under the sides of the fuse.

The gear hardpoint with T-nuts, epoxied in place with 30 min epoxy. The left end (aft) has two large tabs that are in the buttressed and fortified back wall of the box. Put a piece of wood at the near end of the box to fortify this end, the other has one.

Put two long countersunk wood screws straight down into the base. Didn't want to weaken the hardpoint with the countersink, but had to for obvious reasons. This anchors the hardpoint to the piece of wood that is buttressed into the fuse. This is now very damn solid.

Further insurance. I put another long wood screw through the center of the landing gear through the hardpoint into the box. And if that's not enough, I threw two more through a piece of wood that is CA'd to the front wall and the landing gear, angled into the front wall of the box. Like I said, this will be the only part left in a crash. I didn't try to get it perfectly centered...

Painted with gloss black to make it a little less ugly.

Took a moment to install the 14 oz (414cc) Du-Bro tank. It had an 8 oz (255cc) tank. She will fly all day...

The previous post is about my surprise to find a black rubber stopper in the old tank. I usually spend more for the gas stopper I think they should just include. The old tank was splitting at the stopper so it was leaking, but the stopper itself is in perfect condition. I decided to use the new black one that came with the tank.

The Sukhoi 10cc is flight ready!

Black Rubber Stopper and Gas Fuel

4 years, worked out just fine... And the Tygon is still soft!