Good idea, bad planning.

A couple years ago I had a flat tire on my Dodge pickup. I wasn't home and had to use the scissor jack that comes with the truck. It took a long time to get the flat tire off the ground and changed. After that I figured that a small hydraulic bottle jack would be much better at lifting the future flat tire off the ground with a lot less effort. I didn't have the chance to try it out on a flat but whenit came time to rotate the tires I gave it a try. It did the fob but was very slow pumping up. After that excercize I realized that the bottle jack just fit under the front "A" arm with the tire at full inflation. If the tire was flat the jack would be useless and I'd be stuck having to use the scissor jack again. I looked at Amazon for small floor jacks and they had one that would fit the bill. I asked my son about a small jack and he pointed at the one he had and we had used at the drag strip. He got it at Harbor Freight. I went to the Harbor Freight store in Zachary, La and bought two of them, one for each truck. I'm ready for a flat now.

Trouble at the hangar.

Last year I was given three O.S. S-35 engines. I didn't really have a need for them at the time. I also got 2 more Brodak .40 engines that came to be a real good engine for my small designs. I put one of the 40's in my Jamison old time stunt plane to replace the heavier more powerful LA .46. Then I won a kit of the Dee Rice designed Oriental. I never had one and it turned out to be a good flying plane. The plans show a Fox .35 engine whick is very light at 6.5 ounces. The LA weighs around 9 ounces. The plane camne out quite light at 40 ounces so I decided to install one of the Brodak .40's and remove the LA .46. That was just what the Oriental needed as the performance improved quite a bit. Then I got the idea to install one of the .35's into one of the small models, my design "Wild Thing".I flew that and it's another winner. The local hobby shop had a kit of the Oriental on the shelf at about half price so I bought it. I'm about half way through framing it up and I needed to install the engine to move along with the fuselage. I amd going to use the Brodak 40 in this plane so I went to the Jamison that I had put one in and removed the engine and installed it in the Oriental fuselage. A couple hours later i remembered that I had removed the Brodak and installed a .35 in the Jamison and them used it to mark and drill the mounting bolt holes. I didn't realize that I was using the wrong engine until too late. When I got home I removed the brodak from the first Oriental and fitted it into the new Oriental. Luckily the holes are the same for the O.S. 35, the LA 40/46 and the Brodak 40. Even the spinner clearance is good for both engines.

Still trimming.

I had put over an ounce of weight on the tail of the Oriental to bring it into balance or close to it. The weather didn't cooperate today so I was left thinking about the Oriental problem. It occurred to me that the plans show the plane with a Fox .35 engine. The Fox is very light compared to the LA .46 I put on the plane. That along with a heavy APC propeller is the problem. I removeed one of the Brodak .40's from one of the Wild Thing's. The Brodak engine is also very light compared to the LA .46. I used the wood prop that was on the Brodak and had to put a .080 spacerunder the prop to get it away from the nose of the fuselage. The Brodak is about 1/4 inch shorter in the nose. The mounting bold holes are the same or very close to the .46 and it bolted in without any problem. I weighed it after the engine swap and it's 3.5 ounces lighter. Total weight at 40.1 ounces. I may get in a flgiht tomorrow if it stops raining. I ordered some show rubbers so I don't get my feet wet in the morning wet grass. Either dew or rain the grass is always wet in the morning here.

Trim flights

I've had several sessions with both planes so far. I'm getting close to where I think the planes should be. The Nomad has a vicious turn that I'm calming down and the Oriental has a lazy turn I'm trying to turn up. I did get a pattern in on the Oriental so that is going good. The Nomad flys too fast so I have installed a prop with less pitch. It's poor weather today so there isn't any flying. The Oriental was designed for the very light Fox .35 engine and I have an engine that is 4 ounces heavier so it is nose heavy. I have added about 1.5 ounces of lead to the tail to bring the balance aft of the point shown in the plans. That sould improve the turns a lot. I also ardered some shoe covers so I don't get wet feet walking through the grass in the mornings.

First flights.

I waited 24 hours until I started to final assemble the two planes. Everything was pre made or drilled except fot the fuel tanks. I had a 6 ounce round Sullivan tank and put it on the Nomad with the S/T .51 engine. I borrowed a 4 ounce Du-Bro tank for the Oriental. I had a set of wheels for the Oriental but had to make a tail wheel out of a dowel. I knew the Oriental wing has a twist and it showed up right after takeoff. I tweaked the flaps and that helped but I put a tab on the outer wing when I got home. I also put the APC 11.5 x 4 prop back on as it needs some nose weight. The Nomad flew good as it was not a new build. The engine didn't run that well but did have plenty of power. The conversion to glow power created a tail heavy condition which I countered with an APC 12 x 5 prop over the wood prop and a stock Evolution muffler over the tongue muffler. That switch created some drilling as the muffler mounting holes didn't line up with the engine holes. Both planes are readuy for another trimming session.

Final assembly soon.

After the mess I made of the paint job on the repaired Wild Thing I ordered some urethane spray paint for the other two planes. The paint came in yesterday and the dew point dropped out of sight so I got busy and sprayed the clear coats on the last two planes. They are curing now and should be ready for final assembly tomorrow. If I can wait that long. Either way test flights next week.

Shoulda waited longer.

I wanted to use dope paint for most of the re builds. I used Rustoelum lacquer for the white on the "Wild Thing". I gave it that same trim design as the other one. When I sprayed the butyrate clear dope over the white things didn't go well. It ended up looking like a weathered paint job. When I saw that I ordered two cans of two part urethane clear for the other two planes. I flew the Wild Thing this morning and it flew well but needed some tweaking as I expected. The engine ran well but needed more elevator throw whick I took care of at home after the session. I also flew the Vector 40 which I haden't flown since March 31. I had put the Brodak 40 back in with a metal tank so I figured there would be some problems. It took a couple short flights to clear the gunk out of things and the plane was very touchy. I made some adjustments at home and flushed the fuel system. Back in March the vector was not steady in level flight. Since then I have found that lmaking the leading edge of the stabilizer pointed instead of round makes a big difference in how stable the plane is. I have tried this on others in the fleet and got very good results. I taped pieces of 1/8 diameter carbon rod to the leading edge and the Vector was nice and stable in level flight. As with the others, all 1/2 inch thick stabilizers, I glued the rods to the leading edges and covered them with trim kote. As an aside, a hawk was sitting on the baseball back stops while the field was being mowed and while I was flying not far away. I was surprised that the bird stayed so close while the other activitys were going on. The newly mowed grass gave him better hunting.