Vacation

The last two weeks were spent in the town of Slaughter,LA. My son lives there. Before I left I checked my modeling magazine to see if there were any flying contests when I was there. There was. A control line contest at the city park in Baton Rouge. My son and I drove around the park several times when the contest was supposed to be going on but couldn't find it. The next day we had to go to Fort Polk to deliver some furniture and went back to the park around 3pm. Still nothing. I knew that the contest CD lived a mile from my son and my wife bumped into him and set up our meeting. We talked for a while and he gave me ideas on trimming the first toy as it had a bad "hunt" when flying. I got several other ideas and noticed he had built a model with a Nobler wing like mine. Only the leadout lines on his were far forward of where mine are. We got home and I went to work on the first change to the plane. I re-did the wing tip so the leadouts matched the other plane. I also removed one ounce of tip weight. I went to the old school in Oneco and got in a short flight to test the change. I'm headed in the right direction. The plane didn't hunt. The wind was blowing too hard to try anything fancy so I packed up and went home. I figure that the aft placement of the leadouts turned the plane to the outside of the circle and created turbulence over the elevator causing erratic flight. When the wind slacks off and I can fly it again I'll be able to decide on other changes if needed. I have figured out how to get a plane to LA so I can fly or compete in the fall contest.I plan to order a Sig Primary Force A.R.F. and complete the recommended changes to the control system and hinges then pack it back up in the same box it came in and send it to LA. When I get there I'll assemble the model and it should be ready to fly.The CD, Gil, mentioned that the designer of the Primary Force sells laser cut short kits so I ordered one to build while waiting to order the ready built one. Sig also has a kit of the Acromaster, a .15 size model that sells for 23.99. This will be able to fly in my sons yard on 40 foot lines. A good trainer. All this is in the works including fixing up a 71 El Camino for the road.
Perry Rose

Newest planes

After swapping engines I got the weight and balance of the planes into reasonable range. The maple core red one is lighter than the almost all balsa yellow one. But with all the holes I drilled in the maple core I figured it would be flyable. Now it has a .45 engine and the other has the .40 size engine. The yellow one has a 54 inch wing span and 580 sq. in. at 55 ounces. The red one has 53 inch span and 554 sq. in. at 52 ounces. Monokote on the wings and stabs with Luster kote spray paint on the fuse. I painted the red one on a very humid day and it truned white with trapped humidity in the paint. Luckily after drying two days I hit it again and the new paint covered the mess quite well. The engine swap caused minor damage to the balsa triplers as I had to make cutouts for the engine holddown bolts and nuts. I even put wheel pants on the models. A first for me. Just flat pieces of plastic though, profile pants for profile planes.
Perry Rose

Time to cover and paint the toys.

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine gave me a big bunch of balsa wood, metal parts and a box with about twenty rolls of covering material, monokote, ultrakote, etc. On the model I built second I figured to make it yellow and blue and red. There wasn't any white in the box and my stash only had a half roll. Not enough to do the model. I did have monokote and ultrakote in the same color of yellow so I figured to go with it. I must say that the ultrakote went on very well. It felt a little thicker than monokote though. I made hinges with it and assembeled the flaps and elevator. After sticking down all four wing panels, top, bottom, left and right, I got out the heat gun to shrink the covering tight. After several tries to get one panel tight I realized it wasn't going to get any tighter.Wrinkles, sags, and bags everywhere. Not acceptable. I agonized over what to do but it was clear the ultrakote had to come off. I carefully removed the covering and applied yellow monokote to the wing and stab. This time it shrunk up nice. I've been using Top Flite Monokote ever since it came out in the early 60's. It still works. I put some blue and red trim kote on the wings and stab. Then I took a good look at the fin and rudder. I just didn't look right. I sawed the fin off and made a new one of angular shape rather than round. It looks much better now. I'm up to painting the fuselage now. I was reading the forum site and one guy showed how he made a control horn from aluminum angle. He did it because his plastic horn was too flexible. The plastic horn on my modified twister is flexible. I didn't have any angle so I bent a piece of alum. 90 degrees and drilled holes and bolted it to the flaps. I got in a test flight tonight of this afternoon and what a diferance. The loops are the right size not ground to seventy degrees up. The limit is 5 feet to 45 degrees up. That was the only plane with a plastic control horn on the flaps. All the rest have metal.
Perry Rose