Whipping them into shape.

Another club member and I are involved with a high school class that's building 22 small r/c planes. In the first week they have the fuselage just about built. I am able to be there every day and that is keeping problems to a minimum. I want to have the fuselage finished and at least half the wing built by next Friday. The students are paired because there isn't enough table space for all to be building. The wing shouldn't be too much of a problem and after that the other student can start their plane. I told them to be real careful to build a right and a left side, so far I'm the only one to build two right side fuselage sides. I traded it with another pair that hadn't gotten as far so it all worked out. No one but me has stuck their fingers to the plane either. I told them not to blow into the pippette to see if it's blocked and you guessed it. I chewed at the glue on my lip for a while. To start we gave a flight demo on the running track/football field one morning. It was calm winds and fog. I got in several flights as the r/c portion waited for the fog to lift a bit. Several other students walked by and some towns people too. I didn't know it but I cracked the stab on two planes. I didn't touch the ground or land hard so the corners must have done it. I repaired both and they are flying well again. I have found that using long lines, 64 feet, on .46 powered planes causes control problems. a few months ago i tried shorter lines and noticed a big difference in how the plane flew. I tried others with shorter lines, down to 61 or 62 feet, and they flew better. Now 62.5 foot lines are the longest I'm using. I had retired one plane because I couldn't get it trimmed right. Yesterday I removed an engine from one of the planes with the cracked stab. and put it on the retired plane. Today at Wrentham, MA I flew the plane and there was a noticeable improvement in the way it performed. I took the engine off the other plane because it wouldn't run right. I put it on the retired profile plane and that ran perfectly. I'm thinking it's overheating in the other plane. I took the Strega to Wrentham and got in two flights with it. Both flights had not so good engine runs. When I got home I ran it and tweaked the needle until it sounded right and put the tach. on it. 7400 rpm seems to be the magic number. I'll have to fly it soon to be sure. The club has a float fly tomorrow, Sunday. I'll probably pay a visit. The winter build has progressed to the point of installing the wing into the fuselage. I molded a turtle deck for it and it is looking like the drawing I made. I'm lucky to have bought the wing cores. I'm going to run the elevator push rod out the side of the fuselage for ease of adjustability. My Guru design has that feature and it works very well. I don't have to build in a hatch to get at the clevis. Of course I haven't had to touch the clevis on the Guru since it's out in the open. The McDonalds drinking straw sticking out of the wing will be to allow me to remove the push rod, cut the straw to length and tuck it into the wing which will allow me to slide the wing into the fuselage with out cutting the bottom off thereby making a weak spot. After getting the wing into position I can slide the push rod through the straw and find the heim joint on the bell crank. I've used that trick several times in the past. It's always worked. I re-located the upright on the flap horn to the right so the push rod will have a better angle out the rear side. The flaps and elevators have brass tubes for the horns to slide into.