Weathered and carnival-ed out.

It's been raining since very early this morning. This weekend the park that is my favorite flying spot has a carnival. I went to the park in Walker yesterday and got in a few flights with the new fuel and bigger engines. The castor I found is the same or better than the stuff I would have had to buy at more that twice the price. The grass needed cutting but I flew anyway..
  Today with the rain I did some cleaning in the shop and changed to a matched set of wheels on the newer Nomad plane. The next contest is in 5 weeks. It may take that long for the water to evaporate so I can fly again. The soil is all clay and nothing soaks in, it just slowly runs off or evaporates.
  Me and the Bootlegger went to the speed shop and bought some methanol. I got 15 gallons he got 5. I need to pay him for it as I didn't have enough money. We bought some about 6 months ago and the price was $4.00/gallon. This time it's $5.00/gallon. It's Bushes fault. That raised the price of a gallon of fuel to $10.25. That's still half the price of the store bought fuel.

A great find.

I burn a lot of model airplane fuel. The brand name fuel from a hobby shop is about $20.00 a gallon. I used to buy a 54 gallon drum from Red Max fuels but shortly after the haz mat fee just about doubled the cost. I started buying the components of the fuel and mixing them myself saving about 40% of the price of store bought fuel. Castor oil is the main ingredient for lubrication and nitro methane is the power ingredient methanol makes up the bulk of the fuel. I've been getting the methanol from drag strips, hardware stores and speed shops. The castor oil came from Fox who makes engines, fuel and parts for model airplanes. Fox stopped making and selling hobby related stuff a couple years ago and Sig Mfg. bought their inventory including the $20.00 a gallon castor oil. I had to buy 4 gallons a while back and Sig had raised the price to $25.00 a gallon which wasn't too bad. I was down to one gallon left and looked up the price on the Sig web site. Over $50.00 a gallon but they would be nice and sell it for $38.00 a gallon. Shipping is extra. I did a search on the web and found a place called Bulk Apothecary. They have castor oil for under $17.00 a gallon. But the question is is it usable for lubrication in model airplane engines? I took a chance and ordered a gallon to test. I mixed up a small batch and ran it in one of my engines here at the house. It worked fine for the test. I was confident enough to order a 5 gallon batch of castor and I used the first gallon to mix up a 5 gallon batch of fuel. I took the opportunity to test the fuel in the air this morning. I ran three flights using the new fuel and two flights using the old fuel. I couldn't see any change in power or anything between the fuels. I tried a second plane with the new fuel and it ran perfectly also. I still have one gallon of Sig castor and 5 more coming plus the five gallons of fuel I mixed and three gallons of fuel from the next to last gallon of Sig castor. I figure I have enough castor to make up 35 gallons of fuel not counting the 8 gallons of fuel I have mixed already.

Stormy.

The weather has been bad today. I may get in some flying Sunday morning as the forecast looks good for then.
I went to Office Depot yesterday and got copies of my Nomad plans made so I could spruce them up a bit. Since the flood and the regular person retiring I've had poor results from them. It seems they don't know how to use the 36 inch paper which would get the plans down on two sheets and not four sheets of 24 inch.Fortunately I had a full sheet of the ribs that I used for the first plane. Because I had enlarged the plans from a magazine centerfold they are slightly oversize but not too much.

Diesel fuel.

Big spender that I am I went to the gas station and ordered $1.20 on pump 4. I only wanted  that much as I figured the mower engine would be cleaned out by the time I used it up. Also I wanted an accurate measure of a gallon and this would give a spot to mark a half gallon for when I mix my fuel. I added a little 30 wt. oil to 10 ounces of diesel and filled the oil sump of the engine. I started it and ran it for a few seconds then shut it off. The drain still looked dirty so I repeated the procedure. After that I filled it with diesel and sloshed it back and forth for a while and dumped that out. That looked pretty good so I filled it with oil ready for use.
  I took the new Nomad to the field along with the remaining Flite Streak. The one that I burned my finger on yesterday. The Nomad flew perfectly throughout the full pattern of maneuvers on it's second flight. I can't point out any trim changes to be made either. The Flite Streak flew pretty good for what it is. I haven't flown it in a few years.

Old planes.

 I grabbed two older planes that haven't been flown in a couple years. It took a bit of work to clean them and a little work to start the engines. After that the Flite Streak was designed with a single wheel for landing gear. Unless I have another person to launch it the gyroscopic precession  of the spinning propeller will lean the wing onto the left tip. And without assistance that dragging tip will turn the plane into the circle where I am. So I removed that single gear and made up a set of normal two wheel gear for it. Only a badly burned finger so it was a success. The other plane has gear that I can use if it fails to fly right.
  I drained the oil from the rescued mower and it's still dirty tan color. Maybe a few more changes and things will be clean again.

First flight.

I put one ounce of fuel in the tank which would give me about 2 minutes of flight time. The plane flew perfectly without any tweaks to anything. The second flight will be a full pattern flight, it's that good. I'm getting better at "bench trimming" that's what it's called when you adjust everything to where you figure it should be before flying it. The new landing gear and gear covers are visible in the picture.

Gear change.

I didn't like the look of bare wire showing on the landing gear. I also had bent the wire wrong. When I bent the 90 degree for the wheel axle I had it pointing towards the wing tip instead of towards the fuselage. I noticed that a few days ago when I went to make some spats to cover the wire. I had enough 1/8 inch music wire so I made a new set of landing gears and cut out a pair of gear covers to hide the wire. A heavy coat of Gloss Cherry paint and some glue and the wires are covered.There's a good chance I'll bring it to Doyle's Bayou Park tomorrow and try to get in a first flight with it.

Ready to fly.

The new Nomad is done and waiting for the first flight. Tomorrow, Friday, or Saturday at the Bi-Liners field. The thing about doing it tomorrow is no one will see it. And if it doesn't go well the plane never existed. That's a big benny there.

A gathering of mowers.

Today is trash pickup day. Most everyone in the neighborhood put their trash out yesterday afternoon just to be safe, I guess. My wife noticed that one of the neighbors put a push mower next to the trash can. So she went and asked if we could have it knowing that I like to tinker with them. The owner said he couldn't get it started so out it goes. It's a Bohlens brand by MTD with a Briggs overhead valve engine and sold through Lowes. I started tinkering with it this morning and could barely get a pop out of the thing. I removed the tank and carb. cleaned them out and put things back together. The oil was way over full so I drained that and put fresh oil in. The old oil was a tan color which indicates it was in the flood. I checked for and found spark at the spark plug and removed the flywheel to check the condition of the key. I wasn't damaged so I put that back together. I squirted fuel into the carb. and after several pulls there would be a pop or two. I kept doing that until the primer would do the same thing. After several more primes it started up but stopped. After several starts and stops it kept running for about a minute and stopped again. It restarted and ran for several minutes. then it started and kept running. Probably water in the carb. bowl got flushed out. I removed the blade and sharpened it and re installed it. The thing I like about it is that it has easily adjustable wheel height. Now it's in the shed ready for use, I hope.
  While waiting for the red paint to dry I read the directions on the can and found that this paint only needs two days until re coating. I installed the control surfaces and the glue is drying now. I sprayed a test panel before painting the plane so I'll hit it with some clear I have to see what happens. I've been using a new formula Rustoleum spray paint and this stuff is the old slow drying enamel paint. While the other paint would dry and be swept up like dust after painting the old original paint made a big mess of the floor. I poured some lacquer thinner on the floor and tried to wipe it up with so so results. It's still a swirly looking mess.

Local business.

My lawn tractor stopped running after mowing last week. I checked things and figured that the fuel pump wasn't doing it's job. I looked one up on the Kohler web site and then found a local Kohler shop. Instead of ordering it through the web site I went to the local business and ordered one. I came in and when I got home the in and out connectors were not there. I couldn't use the ones off the old pump as they are different styles. I called the shop and they called the warehouse and ordered another one. It came today and with all the parts. I installed it and got the engine running again.
  I settled on a paint scheme for the new Nomad. Yellow wings and tail with red fuselage and trim.  Final weight should be close to 50 ounces. It's drying now. One flap and the elevator halves have been removed. I can't apply any more paint for 5 days.

Coming along.

I finished building the wing and fitting the flaps. Now I'm in the process of sanding, filling and more sanding.It's the worse of both worlds. It takes too long but I just look at the Smoothy that I started building and find the courage to keep going. I don't know what the designer was thinking or maybe the kit manufacturer changed the way it's built but I don't like it.
  I'm trying some of the planes on longer lines and they are responding quite well. I made a set of 65 footers today to complement the set I made last fall.

First fit up.

The new Nomad is coming along nicely. I made the landing gear and flap pushrod this morning. I need to sheet the center section, add cap strips to the ribs and build the wing tips.
  The winds were within limits so I brought the ARF Oriental to the field. I made some changes to the handle but the corners are still too soft. I'm going to try and remove some nose weight and see what happens. It was designed in the late 60's I think or earlier.