Ah, beautiful day, fair winds but gusts to 15 mph expected. Sometimes they over estimate, so I took both the MX-Bach RCGF-USA 30cc and the Sbach Evolution 10cc out. At the very least I could run the engine. This Evo is the only non-RCGF-USA engine I have as those of you who know me know I am something of a RCGF-USA and Joe Nelson (owner) FanBoy.
In the car. Same ones came back in the same condition, so it was a great day!
Windsock straight out in a 45 deg cross wind.
Light winds.
Wagner Field 360!
Clarence, that grass is something else! BZ!
Mx-Bach, my "Hangar Queen" to "Lead Flyer"
thanks to the RCGF-USA 30cc engine from Joe Nelson!
New sneakers look good!
Sweet sound with the exhaust silencer from Mile High RC. Takes the piercing high notes out and gives her a nicer deep voice.
A boy and his toy.
Sbach Evolution 10cc
Another 2 days and another fly day!
(BTW, who are these people who look to be living in my house?)
I could not find a collar with a tail wheel rod connection without buying an entire tailwheel set. This piece fails a lot, so I found it curious there's no replacement collars. But I don't like that design anyway, preferring something more robust. So I did this.
I bought this on eBay because it looks robust, is the right size and a fair price. The link may expire someday...
Compared to the original. You can see the rusted collar on the top of the old wheel. I used the same CF brace.
I came up with the idea of using a blue servo arm I have that allows the top to screw down tight against the servo spline. This fit nicely and tightened up sweet. A drop of CA for good purchase but it wasn't slipping at all. I used a snug fitting rubber grommet as a bearing, allowing a little shock absorption and there is a little play in the ball link connector screw. I don't have a ball link big enough to fit the M3 screw. I trimmed about 5mm off the top of the tail wheel axle.
I used a 600 size helicopter control rod turnbuckle to act as an arm. I angled the blue servo arm a bit to allow things to fit, and to allow a clean full side to side range of motion.
You can see the plywood plate I put in on the end of the fuse as the tail wheel hardpoint, epoxied in place, and then 3 large wood screws attach the CF wheel brace to the hardpoint, with a touch of CA as well.
Seen nicely in this pick, I used an M4 bolt into the rudder, about 2cm deep secured with epoxy, with vertical play allowing it to move up and down as the wheel bounces, and it too has a tad amount of play between the bolt and the ball link connector. All of the play amounts to very little but needed movement.
Here is full range of motion! Solid stuff right there.
Now that is what a tail wheel assembly should look like!
I had snapped off the functional exposed end of a Spektrum satellite antenna, and I didn't want to buy a new one if all I needed was a replacment. Surely someone makes a replacment. This wasn't the first, not likely to be the last time I break one. So I went online and found a lot of single antenna for the price for which I got 20 for. The attachment looked right. What the heck, I ordered them. As with Amazon, even not Prime, it got here quick. I went and did the repair today.
These ar the ones I got, $12 shipped.
The case opened easily, two tiny screws on one end, clamshelled open. You can see that the antenna is missing the thinner piece.
The antenna easily unsnaps and comes out with the guard which is not rigidly attached. Its held in place with the case, no glue or snapping in. This slips right off.
You can see here that the attachments are different sizes but the same design, the new one being smaller. Turns out the difference is the original big one snaps over the outside of the circuit board connector, and the smaller new one snaps inside that connector. Coaxial connection just the same.
The new antenna is longer. You can trim this down if you want, just make sure that the exposed functional inner antenna is at least 3.2 cm long for 2.4ghz. Place the guard on the new antenna, snap it in, reattach the case and that's it!
The black radio opaque covered part of the antenna is not active, and I wanted to protect the attached end, so I used shrink tube. I decided to keep the antenna long.
I installed it back to the reciever and it bound to the transmitter with a nice solid orange light without rebindibg! Done!
All my planes are in flying status! I also figured out that I had somehow changed my phone camera to the lowest video quality setting, which I fixed, but this next one is poor quality...
The Pulse XT60 with its nicely tuned RCGF-USA 10cc with the new throttle servo is running smoothly. I also put another magnet on the front hatch hoping to keep the air pressure from popping the back up. I think that's how I lost the original. I may have to create a vent in the underside of the back of the fuse. There isn't a lot of airflow under the cowl, that may need to be addressed too.
I picked up an exhaust silencer from MileHighRC for the very loud RCGF-USA 30cc on the MX-Bach. I know there is a small WOT RPM loss but think it should be minor. For some reason this engine is very loud.
The silencer slips into the exhaust pipe.
And sits loosely just a bit out on top.
I cut an appropriate length of the silicone and used one of the supplied thin ties to secure the end of the silencer, and one of my wider ties to secure the silicone to the exhaust. I had to stretch the tubing a bit, so it fits very tight on the exhaust and the silencer. I doubt it will go anywhere. We'll see how she runs with it.
UPDATE: Video with and without the silencer. I will eventually do decibel measurements. All in all it does seem to have a less high pitched sound, and the effect on RPM/Power seems qualitatively negligible. When I do the more formal test, I will record them and provide better quality video.
Without the silencer. Poor quality video and sound. Not really good to compare.
With the silencer. IRL you can appreciate that it takes out the piercing high tones and gives the engine a deeper voice.
Beautiful weather, got some flying in today. I brought out the MX-Bach RCGF-USA 30cc newly sorted out, and the Stik with its cranky RCGF-USA 10cc.
Given the large openings in the cowl, I used a piece of filter material and created a flap of it over the intake of the carb. Works perfectly, allowing full movement of the choke, yet pretty much covering the entire intake. Between the back facing intake and this thick piece of filter, I think we got most crap covered.
It always something... The tail wheel lost its turning lever so it's castering about. Worked fine, in fact, not in any hurry to fix it.
Preflight.
Curiously off center pic... She flew AMAZING. Started right up, no tuning, and flew with some incredible power. While stable, in turns she requires your full attention and a little opposite rudder or she drops like a stone. But boy, can she maneuver and haul butt! She sounds amazing! The landing gear held up nicely.
The video saved in some crappy format, sorry for the poor quality.
For scale. She is a big, big plane. Flew her for a full tank then took the Stik back up. You know that feeling you get just before you break your leg in that "just one more ski run and we'll call it a day" ? I got that when I thought about ending my day with another tank, so I called it quits.
I actually started with the Stik. Not to disappoint, she took 10-15 minutes to sweeten her tune, but then she flew perfectly. One foray into the weeds when she would not veer right on takeoff and didn't have enough to climb over the weeds, but other than that, she flew wonderfully. She still has this rare habit of quitting at idle for no apparent reason, no stuttering, slowing just stops. Came in for a landing, taxied back round for another take off, paused and she quit. Started right up and acted like nothing happened. I flew a couple of tanks in her. Stupendous!
Right after she stopped. Was about to film how sweet she sounded...
One of the two reasons I don't fly bigger than 30cc. Its the biggest that will fit in my car, and the cost is at my upper end of willingness to spend.
At some point during the drive over I poked a hole in the right horizontal stab, used "field cote" to cover it, repaired it when I got home.
Nice to have a very successful day flying. Went with two, came back with two, and nobody took all day to run right!
