Nearing the finish line.

I put the Chief together for the final time today. I had to make clearance for the muffler in the top block so that needs a bit of touch up paint. Before the clear coat and tip weight it's at 42.6 ounces.

More tests and changes.

I replaced the APC 11.5 x 4 prop and put one of new propellers on the Nomad. I couldn't see any difference in the way the plane flew. Same rpm same amount of fuel same everything except cost. The new props are $2.79 more expensive than the APC. The only other difference is weight. The APC is 0.2 ounces heavier. Today I replaced a wood 12 x 6 BY&O prop with a 12.5 x 5.5 Yoshioka plastic prop. Again very little difference. The wood prop is $1.00 cheaper on this size. I have flown the plane with APC props and they perform well and are cheaper still.  I do have some new control line coming. It's made in Ukraine.
  After several designs and colors I threw them all out and went with pre WW-2 color scheme. Bright yellow wings and tail and Bright blue fuselage. One of the planes depicted on the plans has a scheme similar to this. I got the yellow on and probably tomorrow I'll mask it and spray the blue.
 On the way to the park this morning I saw an accident. A Jeep, CJ type, was in the right travel lane on it's roll cage roof. That stretch of road doesn't have ditches and I didn't see another car with damage. The only thing missing was the ditch and fire.

Beginning of the end.

I've been in the market for a pilot figure for the Chief. Today I got some new propellers from Brodak and was checking the balance on one of them when I spotted a pilot figure on the shelf from the crashed Strega. After some sanding and balsa cutting I had it fitting under the canopy I painted the under canopy area and glued in the pilot figure. I have a color scheme penciled on the plane and the paint ready to spray. The original was all red so this one will be red with black and white trim.
  Many years ago at a contest at Quonset Point RI I bought a propeller from a vendor and tried it on my plane. There was a visible improvement in the planes performance. I used that prop for a long time. I couldn't find any other of that brand anywhere. I've read of the same brand prop being spoken of highly on the forums and still none to be had. A copy was being made but that too was hard to come by. A week ago there was a post that the original brand was available in sizes that are usable for control line planes. I ordered 6 props from Brodak last week and they came in  today. I want to try them very soon but we are going out for breakfast in the morning and wont be home until noon. Maybe the weather will cooperate.
  I also changed the pixels on my camera and this is the first picture using it. I'm led to believe that after reducing the picture so it will fit on the forums that it will enlarge more. We will see. This isn't reduced so it will blow up a lot.

A little progress.

I didn't want to do it but I did. I have a roll of Poly Span covering and against my better judgement I started to cover the wing and pieces with it. I didn't have any clear dope paint to stick it on with so I poked a tiny hole in the to of a spray can of clear and used that. After the pressure was released I pried the top off and poured the paint into a coffee can. I used it to stick the fiberglass cloth to the fuselage and put a couple coats around the perimeter of the small parts. I started with the fin/rudder and it worked pretty good. The poly span is heat shrinkable so I used the heat gun to tighten it up before applying two coats of clear to the whole thing. On the elevators and flaps I figured the monokote iron could do the shrinking so I could have more control over the heat as the covering opens up if it gets too hot. I used one piece of covering on each part like I do with monokote. Trying to get the covering to bend sharply around a corner and waiting for the paint to dry enough to hold it there is a problem. I used the iron over the edge of the corner to crease the covering and force it into place. That worked very well just like monokote. I still have the wing to cover but I need a fan to remove the paint fumes first. After that the whole plane needs some coats of clear and filler and sanding then colors and more sanding then another coat of clear and more sanding. If I used monokote it would be flying by now. The plans say that the original plane only had 6 coats of paint to keep the weight down.That was around 1950 long before monokote coverings.
  The temperature has been very warm so far this spring. In the 90's 30 of the 31 days in may and still going in early June. I try to get to the park early and am able to get in only 2 flights before the gnats and heat drive me out. There has been no wind to speak of either which makes it tough because I have to walk backwards to keep the plane out of it's wake turbulence. I learned that the hard way. But it's perfect conditions to check the trim of the plane in flight.