Even more good news.

I was getting settled into my new flying spot when the park manager stopped by and told me I could drive around to the old flying spot as long as I stayed on the perimeter and it was dry. I started flying at my old spot and the grass had grown over my launch spot. I've been looking for it with no luck I'm surprised that the grass took over so fast as the ground was bare from exhaust oil. The center where I stand to fly is still bare. The grass has softened up and didn't grab the wheels and tip the plane over on landing. I got a call from the club vice president saying I should fly at the contest this weekend as everything is covered and I have only made one contest so far this season. Now I'm scrambling to come up with planes I have flown recently. I did find that the Pathfinder profile is Nostalgia 30 legal and legal for the profile event and for the main event on Sunday. I could use the same plane for three events but I'll fly my Pixie Bob 2 on Sunday instead.

Some good news.

I found a new spot to fly in the center of the field at the park. The grass has been thick and giving me trouble with taildragger planes so I've been flying tricycle gear planes. They are resistant to nosing over on takeoff and landing. Today as I was packing up to leave the park manager stopped by and told me I could drive on the field to get to my old flying spot as long as it was dry. Tomorrow I'll give that a try. The contest is in two weeks and me and the club president have been preparing for the raffle. We hit the hobby shop for a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff and I have put together a bunch of stuff to sell and what doesn't sell goes into the raffle. Plus I'll give the PT-19 to the youngest member of the club. We have had two cold fronts that deflected two hurricanes away from us in the past two weeks. Florida has been the recipient of both storms. Big mess.

Big changes at the park.

The grass situation has made me make up a mower to cut the grass shorter. The grass stalls the engine. I was going to talk to the guy in charge about cutting my spot lower and today I tried to see him. I pulled into the park and at the turn I take to get to my spot there is now two posts in the road way. No way to drive to my spot. no sense talking ot him now. I can walk to the spot if I want, about 500 feet. We had checked out the North Park site and found some soft ball fields that would be as perfect as I can get and a parking lot that has possibilities. On the way home today I stopped at the park to measure the parking lot. The grounds crew was mowing the ball fields when I got there. The parking lot is 125 feet across and that is a few feet short of what I need to fly a small plane. I got out the Nomad 6 and two batteries when I got home and will charge them for an outing tomorrow. These soft ball fields have a smooth clay infield and grass outfields so taking off is as good as it can get.

Running in the high grass.

The first time I heard that saying I was in the Rhode Island Air National Guard. It refers to someone being sneaky around home. In other words staying out of sight while doing bad deeds. "On the front lawn" is the opposite. But here it means that the grass at the park is high and giving me problems taking off and landing. The only way I can defeat it is to use one of the Pathfinders that has a nose wheel. The PT-19 is flying as good as I can get it. The Evo .36 engine is running well and has a bunch of power. I ended up with 61 foot lines and the Evolution propeller that came with the kit. It's sitting ready for use. The weather turned around and it's been raining for the last 3 days. So far in my yard I've got over 8 inches of rain. It's tapering off though. I fixed a lawn mower that will cut much lower than the park is cutting and is light enough for me to put in the truck.It may be dry enough to mow a bit tomorrow. The club has settled on a contest director for the October contest. It was me but a newly minted director took over. Now I can fly. I did win the Publishers Clearing House 5 million dollars for the 5th time today.

The PT-19 lives.

I got to the park early again to beat the heat. I had changed lines back to the 59 footers that was on it. The Evo .36 starteed quickly and I richened it a coupld of clicks on the needle valve. That got me about 9200 rpm. I got to the handle and pulled the release line and the plane had a bit of trouble with the high grass as usual but got off the ground smartly. i had put real 2 degree offset wedges under the engine as the others were 1 degree even though they had 2 on the wedge. That alone cured the tendency to track a bit into the circle. I managed to do the whole beginner pattern with it even though the down elevator was not equal to the up elevator. The engine ran steady through the flight which was nice. I got in a couple more flights and the engine performed well. At home I heated the solder on the pushrod clevis and adusted it so I could even out the up and down elevator movement. That should make it even better. All in all I'm really happy with how it flys and how the engine is running. I may have to install a different elevator horn if I need a bit more elevator travel.

Another good one.

I got to the park a bit early as I wanted to get in a few trim flights with the .46 powered PT-19 with longer lines. I made a change to one of the lines to make the plane fly a bit lower but still high enough for what I wanted to accomplish. When we got down to business things were going well until I tried to start the engine for about the 6th flight. The fuel line inside the plastic tank had fallen off and wasn't in the delivering any fuel to the engine. I hd brought a second plane just in case something happened to the primary plane. I got that ready and did a warm up flight just to see how it was behaving. I handed it over to the other person and he got in several flights with a competition proven plane. At home I removed the .46 from the PT-19 and installed the .36 again as it's running much better. I took the fuel tank apart and put the fuel pickup line back on and re installed the tank on the PT-19. Everything is set for the next session.

PT-19 problems and fixes.

The Evo .36 was too weak so I installed the OS .46. I went to the park this morning and got in two flights with the new comnbo. First up I tried a loop and it was so big the plane pancaked into the turf. It shouldn't have done that so I looked it over real good. I found that the clevis thats attached to the elevator end of the pushrod wasn't the same thread as the thread on the pushrod. Vibration had worn the threads down enough that the clevis had slid on the pushrod giving me very little up control. I squeezed the clevis to tighten the threads and flew it again. I had to hold a lot of up as the clevis slid on the pushrod again. I ran the fuel out and landed without too much drama. I also had to bend the landing gear back inot shape as they got bent backwards in the first flight. I tried to remove them to bend eash but the person that assembled the plane in the first palce had glued then into the wing. Notrhing cracked when I bent then so I guess all is well. I put the lines away in favor of a set of 62 foot lines. That will give me more lap time with the more powerful engine in the plane. At home I cleaned the threads on both pieces and tinned the pushrod threads. Then I slid the clevis on where it should be, I hope, and soldered it in front of and behind the clevis. I shouldn't move. I had run the Evo .36 yesterday and couln't get above 8500 rpm. Today I removed the venturi and ran a .250 drill through it to give it more room for air to pass. Then I ran the tapered reamer into the top and bottom of the venturi and put it back into the engine. I ran it again with the same propeller and was able to get 9800 rpm with a bit more on tap. Should the Os .46 prove to be too much for the plane I'll put the .36 back on.