The wait begins.

I have the new Cardinal assembled and just about ready for paint. And there it sits. I'm having the usual problem trying to come up with a color scheme. So I just putter with it while I try to find something that apeales to me and is easy to copy. The Nobler in the previous post is waiting for the Cardinal's completion so I can spray the clear on both planes at the same time. I'll have two first flights at the same time.

Good flying weather.

It rained for several days and then stopped. The temps have been in the high 70's and light winds in the morning when I go fly. Ihaven't been bothered by the local farm animals either. I try to fly all my planes once in a while to keep the engine/fuel system loose and ready for a contest. I built a Pathfinder several years ago with a .51 size engine that didn't work out. I had shortened the nose 1/4 inch to compensate for the engine weight. I sold the engine and instlled the one on the plans. I hadn't flown it in several months so I took it out for loosening flights. I really like the way it flew. I don't know what happened as I don't remember it flying this well before the lay off. I have a new way to start planes with inverted engines. I used to fuel them and turn them upside down, attached to the stooge, and start them and turn them upright. I managed to run my hand through the prop doing this. Now before fueling and hooking to the stooge I turn the plane over and run at least 3 primes through the engine. The big boys call this burping the enigne. On the very expensive engines they use they all use after run oil when putting the plane away after a session. Burping flushes the oil out. I burp the engine to warm it up a bit. If it's below 50 degreesI pre warm the engine with hot water so it will run the prime out. This puts residual fuel in the system and it's like the engine just finished a flight. I upright the plane, hook it to the stooge and fuel it. A flip of choke and it fires right up safely without having to turn the running engine over and set the plane on the ground. It's just further proof of "Perry's Law" that "Pain is an excellent teacher". My fuel supply ws getting low so I mixed up another 5 gallon batch a week ago. After today I will start using the new batch which won't be any different than the old one. I had ordered 2 gallons from a guy but he wan't able to make the El Dorado contest due to weather so I had to got to the hobby shop and buy a gallon of the fuel I used to use in my batches. My castor oil suppplier raised his prices from 17/gallon to 27/gallon. Still a lot cheaper than getting it from Sig Mfg. Klotz synthetic oil didn't change from the last time I bought it but net time it may change. I haven't checked with my methanol supplier so I don'tknow agout that price. Flying the electric planes extend the fuel supply.

Using the Adjusto-Jig.

I've had this tool for over 20 years. I've probably built 100 wings on it.I finally figured out the best way to build a wing on it. I set up the template for drilling the jig rod holes so that I can put the top and bottom leading edge sheeting on, the top rib cap strips and the top center sheeting before removing the wing from the jig. This kit, the Brodak Cardinal, is set up with their own jig rod holes but that makes you build one half of the wing at a time and I'd rather build the whole wing in one shot. The Adjusto-Jig lets me do that but with smaller jig rod holes. In order to set the holes so that I can assemble most of the wing in the jig I have to tape most of the knock-outs in place and drill the rod holes in the knock outs. I install shear webs between the spars and between the trailing edge sheeting while in the jig. I also carve and sand the leading edge to shape in the jig using the "shoe shine" sanding method. Then I make a radius gage and check that the leading edge is as close to the same along the entire wing as possible. I always use a suspended bellcrank on my planes for max strength. The Cardinal has two center ribs close together. The jig is open in the center area so I used the provided thingy and glued it to a 3/8 balse piece and used that to align the center ribs. The jig rods passed over the balse and through the center ribs.

El Dorado contest is in the books.

Saturday was a bit cool with a light breeze. I flew in Old Time Stunt and Profile expert class stunt. I got first in Old Time and second in profile. On Sunday more experts showed up bringing the total to 10 in my class. I managed to place 5th which is good for me with that bunch of people. I have been trying toget the ElCamino to idle smoothly ever since I installed the new engine 12 years ago. I finally asked our son about it and he said it was the PCV valve. I plugged the hole in the carb. and the idle smoothed out instantly. I bought a new valve and installed it but it didn't idle as smooth as plugging the hole so I took the PCV out of the system. Now when I start it cold it will keep running without pulling the choke out.

Found one.

Mice had ruined the headliner in the El Camino several years ago. I tried a few times to find someone who could replace it here in Louisiana but failed. At the contest here I was talking to one of the club memberss and out of the blue he mentioned that his son did upholstery work. The son attended the contest on Saturday and I talked to him and set up something to replace the headliner if I could find one. I called several places and they are all out. I fnally found one at National Parts Group in Florida called and set up a date for the installation. He did a very good job and the cost was the same as the first one. Now I'm trying to find the reason for the rough idle. Vacuum leaks are high on the list. The El Dorado contest is this weekend and I've been beating on the Jamison in preparation. I added a half ounce of nose weight and widened the handle spacing one hole each line, changed the elevator drag strips to 1/8 inch high from 1/16. It does improve the flying charastics some and that's good.

A good contest.

The weather was just about perfect. It was warm and sunny with light wind. I flew in Profile Nostalgia 30 Old time stunt and precision aerobatics. I used the same pland, the Mo'Best, for all but old time stunt. Almost uneventful except that I installed the wrong battery for one of the flights and may have caused it harm. It charged up but I didn't get a chance to fly it. Probably tomorrow. I finished first in Nostalgit 30 and third in Old time. Forth in profile and about fifth in precision. I got a kit in the raffle, sold another kit for 50 bucks and sold a plane for 50 more. I put 5 planes in the raffle and that lowered my fleet to 19 planes. 20 after I build the new kit. I think the next contest in El Dorado, Ar will have the same events as this one so I don't need to use another plane. And just for kicks there will be a combat contest at the club field in mid november. Fun to watch.

Getting contest ready.

The local stunt contest is this weekend the 15 and 16. I'vebeen flying the Jamison and got the fuel load down to a bit less than 2 ounces for the old time pattern. I've made a few changes tothe handle to even out the control. The Mo'Best is flying well. I re installed the gap seals using a diferent technique. I also added about a half ounce of tail weight. I was shocked at the quickness of the corners now. It will take all week to get comfy with the new set up. I must have hit the perfect spot for the balance as the plane sits level in the glide when the power shuts off. I plan to use the Jamison for old time stunt and the Mo'Best for the profile, nostalgia 30 and P.A. on Sunday. I boxed up the plastic kits to bring to the contest. Almost free just leave a donation to the club. I also boxed up stuff I had laying around that I won't use and will give that away free for the taking. Then I have 5 models for the raffle. That will open up some space in the shop. The long range weather forecast is for great weather for the contest weekend. I should have an O.S. .65LA engine coming soon. I've heard about this engine but never seen one until I saw an ad for it. I looked at the specs.and it's on the heavy side but should be fun to play with. That is the main reason no one used it for control line planes. R/C doesn't matter.

New venturi test.

I started the engine without any trouble. It sounded about right at 8800 rpm. I launched it and it went into a 2 stroke and flew the plane at a 5.2 seconds per lap. I had put 3.5 ounces of fuel in the tank and did the old time stunt pattern. The engine ran for 41 laps after the last maneuver and that's too much. The next flight I put in 3.25 ounces of fuel and it ran for 37 laps at the end. Next flight I put in 3.0 ounces and got 38 laps extra. Forth flight I put 2.75 ounces in and it ran for 20 laps at the end. The next time out I'll start with a bit over 2.5 ounces in the tank. I have to get it down to a max. of 10 laps extra for contests. I don't need any extra power for this combination but I could install an O.S. spray bar which is .020 smaller in diameter and that would bring my fuel burn up and require more testing to find the right amount for each flight.

.40LA test flights.

It took a bit of trying to get the engine started at the field. It spit the prop off only once but got running. The engine wouldn't hold a needle setting and speeded up at release. I tried several cures but they didn't work. I suspected the venturi was too big and at home I measured it and found it was a bit over .300 i.d. I removed the engine from the plane and searched for a suitable replacement. I found one that was .250 and drilled it out to .260. I ran it on the stand and as usual it was a lot easier to control. On the plane it generally is different. Anyway it's ready for another test tomorrow. Even with the engine running in a solid two stroke the plane isn't much of a hondful to get through the old time maneuvers. It does have the strips on the elevator and they help a lot.

Back home and no rain.

The ditches around the house have finally firmed up enough so that I could mow them. I used a push mower first to get the grass down to manageable heights. The park hasn;t been mowed either and I had to stop flying because of it. They did manage to mow and there is a lot of clippings clogging the ditches. The ground is flyable that's all I care about. I took the Mo'Best down and charged the batteries. One of the batteries has a dead cell and can't be used, you get what you pay for. That leaves me with three batteries for that plane. I have others that are heavier but will swap right in without any other changes. I got 6 flights on it anyway. Today I took the Jamison out and got in some old time patterns and then a normal pattern. It's the first time I flew the new pattern with the plane and it did quite well. I can use it for old time and classic events. My plan is to use the Mo'Best for the profile, nostalgia 30 and precision aerobatics (PA) events. A lot less stuff to carry. The Jamison was powered by an O.S. .46LA. I had one .40LA doing nothing from the three I put back together. I swapped the .46 out for the .40. I needed Fox .35 muffler instead of the tongue muffler as the .46 had a one ounce spinner weight under the plastic spinner. I didn't put that on the .40 and the slightly heavier muffler brings the balance back where it was. I bought three .40's many years ago off EBAY and didn't quite understand how they needed to run. The .40 and .46 share several parts so I bought what I needed to make 3 .46's. I reversed the process a few months ago and bought the parts I used for the .46's to put the .40's back into service. I have since learned how to run them. Using my fuel mix I can run them the same as the .46's with the same props and a bit higher rpm's. Fuel consumption is the same as the .46's and the power is a bit less but they run quite well. I think the .40 will work well in the Jamison. I'll try it tomorrow. The two Twisters have a .40 in the nose and fly very well. The Jamison is about the same size. I tried to start the El Camino last week and the second hand me down battery had lost it's power. I got a new one and installed it and the engine fired right up. I drove it around a bit and it was down on power. At home I put a brick on the gas pedal (the engine wasn't running) and found the carburator only opened half way. I made adjustments and got it to open all the way but now there was a sticky spot off idle. Several tweaks and bends later I think it is where it should be. The transmission kick down cable is very draggy. It's the original. It takes a lot of pull to get it to pull out. It may be the system in the transmission, it's been rebuilt. I just left it off. It shifts fine without it. It took longer to recover from the adventure into Oklahoma and Texas. I figured I wouldn't be able to make the Georgia contest and was undecieded about the Oklahoma contest. I thought there was 2 weeks between them. (Which is going on this weekend one week after Georgia.) A few years ago I would have made one of them. I can make the local contest in October and the season final in El Dorado in November. I miss the raffles most. Last year a neighbor gave 14 boxes of aviation books. I managed to give them all away. A week ago she gave me 50 or so plastic airplane kits to give away. In one of the boxes was some old engines that were never run. They are not very valuable but could be used after converting them from r/c to c/l. That's converting from a carburator to a venturi intake system.

We made it.

The temps. at Noble, Ok, Ennis, Tx and Tulsa, Ok were in the 90's for the whole week. We put about 900 miles on the 37 Ford total and only had one problem when a fuselink in the electric radiator fan failed. But it failed after we completed the whole 6 day event. The fuse holder was partof the wiring that came on the fan so it was nothing we did. The Ford managed to average 11.8 seconds in the quarter mile in the four days of racing at all tracks. On Friday, the last day of racing, we loaded the car back on the trailer, hooked the equipment trailer, that was towed had to the tracks by the Ford, back to my pickup for the ride back home. We learned a lot about the event and about the Ford race car. The fuel injection is very reliable as is the new custon built Gear Star 4 speed auto. transmission. We needed the 4th gear overdrive to compensate for the 4.10 : 1 gears in the rear end. We took the chance to get the car weighed at Ennis, Tx. 3060 pounds. After I finished building the car in the late 90's I had it weighed and it was a bit over 3300 pounds. So the changes made to make a race car out of it reduced the weight a lot. We were just looking to finish the events even if the car had major problems. But finishing without any problems was great. On top of reaching our goal of finishing getting the 11.8 sec. average was gravy and frosting on the cake. (it's a Southern thing) I mowed the lawn before we left for the Rocky Mountain Race Week 2.0. It had rained every day for 2 months and I had to avoid the ditches. When we got home 12 days later the lawn was not too high but the ditches were still too soft to mow. Since returning it hasn't rained and today I got the chance to push mow the ditches. The park was mowed about a week ago and the grass was high but barely flyable. I got in 3 flights and will wait until it gets mowed again.

Summer rain.

For the past two months it has rained every day. There was only two days that it didn't rain. The park has stopped mowing because the ground is too soft for the mowers. I stopped flying there a week ago as my planes would tip over on landing. I don't have a small trailer to bring my own mowers to carve out a circle. I figured that the park in the next twon would be suitable for flying but their grass is longer that the park here. We finally got in a couple passes with the 37 Ford. It took two weeks to get a dry Friday night. It was the first outing for the newly completed car and the new transmission and suspension and roll cage. We found some areas that needed attention and they have been handled along with some other things that would have gone unnoticed.We head for Noble, Ok Friday morning. It should be a great adventure.

Testing a new theory.

I saw what is being called "Gurney flaps" in the spring. I have tried them on several of my planes with some success. Mention was finally made of them on a forum. I have found that they work on some planes and not on other designs. I have 18 planes to test with. I think the thickness of the elevators has something to do with how effective the "flaps" are. (The flaps are only 1/8 x 1/4 strips on the elevator trailing edges.) If the elevators are tapered to a point the flaps may be more effective than on a thick, 1/4 inch, elevator trailing edge. I have two Twisters with stab. and elev. made from the same, 3/16, balsa sheet. I didn't taper anything so the elevators end in a square edge. I put strips of 1/16 x 1/8 balsa on the trailing edges of the elevators and will give that a try as soon as it stops raining. The curret design philosophy is to have the stab. thicker than the elevators. Why is not up to me to know and I don't. Generally the elevators are 1/8 inch thinner than the stab. If you sand the elevators to a point the elevators are slow to react. By putting a thick piece (1/8 high) on the trailing edge that puts the flap 1/16 into the airstream at all times. There are some that are about an inch tall total but not full elevator span. Plus there is a bit of drag induced by the strips which helps keep the tail in place. Much like an arrow with no feathers vs. an arrow with feathers. The arrow with feathers will go straighter than the other one. Which brings me back to my early childhood. I was less that 10 years old helping my father make a concrete step. I was out of position, according to my father, and he told me to "get your ass behind you". If I had feathers I may have understood what he was trying to say. He did finally explain what he meant. "Turn around and face the other way". At the field with the Twister I got in a flight and the Gurney flaps didn't do much of anything on the flat plate elevators. I didn't think they would as the elevators are in the air flow at all times not like ones that are thinner than the stab. and tapered to boot.

Some success with the cute little plane.

The up thrust helped even out the up and down control. That is what I was trying to do but the design just isn't up to standards. It will be a fine plane for a rank beginner to learn on and do loops and round eights but any squares will bring out the Charmin. It has a nasty stall at the bottom of the inside square and triangle. So it's going back in the raffle.

Some success with the Go Devil.

After putting the back plate back on the engine it ran a lot better. I got a few flights this morning and the controls are a lot more even. I still don't like the way it flys so it's back on the raffle list. The second plane with the same control problem is up next. I added a one degree shim under the engine and will fly it in the morning to see how well that worked.I measured the up/down thrust and found a 7/16" difference between the prop at top and bottom. I don't know what it was before adding the shim but it couldn't have been much at all. That should be enough to make a noticable change in how it flys. It's a pretty little plane but if I can't get it to fly the way I want the raffle is waiting.

The multi winged plane is from a contest in Wrentham, Ma several years ago. I needed to put it here so I can use it to post on a forum.

More Go Devil.

I flew it yesterday and the engine was low on power. I didn't think much of it being a .40 in a good size plane. Today I got 2 laps and the engine quit. I couldn't get it started so I took out the Jamison. At home I removed the engine from the Go Devil and the back plate stayed in the plane. The screws had fallen out and they were still hanging around the engine bay. I bought parts for 3 .40's and returned them back into usable engines. I probably didn't tighten this one as the other two are in Twisters and working well. I suppose I should check those back plates to make sure they are tight. I was trying to check the changes I made to the controls to even the up and down control. I may be on the right track. I have two planes with the same problem and I'm using a different fix on each one. Something as to work.

The "Go Devil" saga.

I had the almost finished plane given to me a year ago or so. When I flew it the inside turn was slothful and the outside turn was viscious. I tried several fixes to no avail so I set it aside for the raffle. Having nothing to do and doing it quite well I tried one more fix. I adjusted the bellcrank to flap push rod so I only have about 15 degrees of down elevator and a lot of up.I put a spare O.S. .40LA in the nose with an APC 11 x 4 prop.I'll give it a try in the morning after I check the thrust lines of the engine. I've been having perfect weather for trimming flights all summer so far. It has rained almost every afternoon for a month now too. But not enough to fill the ditches too much.

On again, off again, back on again, back off again.

The raffle plane flys pretty well in level flight but I can't even the turn rates out. Sluggish in inside and sensitive in the outsides. So the raffle plane is a raffle plane once again. I'm always trying to make things cheap but effective. I came across an empty jug of Tide concentrated laundry detergent. The inside of the jug had a coating of the detergent so I put some water in and swirled it around to incorporate the soap with the water. Then I added half a spray bottle to my plane cleaner and I'm using that to clean the planes It works quit well so far.

Back to the Raffle plane.

I changed mufflers on the second Twister from a stock one to a Fox .35. It's the same as the Last Twister. I'm out of in line fuel filters. I lost the filter screen from a couple filters so I cut some panty hose and installed that in the filter shell. It may be wadding up as the engine is acting strange. I need to make a trip to the hobby shop or call the filter maker and see if I can get some fliter elements. I flew the Raffle plane this morning. It still flys well compared to what it did before I cut down the flaps. I'm thinking it is nose heavy and I removed one ounce of weight from the nose. It's a loose copy of the Veco Squaw but the Wagner plans don't show the balance point of the Squaw so I could have some starting point. Using the placement of the leadouts on the plans I made a change to the nose weight. I changed handles so I can get more line spacing adjustment, actually less spacing. I'll test that next time out. Probably tomorrow morning. It was only 73 and 73 degree dew point when I started out today so I brought two planes and was able to fly them both before the shade left the pits. The hot rod is a little something I bilt in 1997/98. I built it as a street rod, reliable and powerful. A Chevy 502 engine and TH400 transmission. My son has it now and has converted it into a reliable and more powerful Drag and Drive car. Holley fuel injection,special built Gear Star overdrive transmission 3500 stall speed converter to help with the 4:10 rear gears on the highway. A ladder bar rear suspension to replace the weak street rod parallel 4 bar suspension. That original set up bent on the first ever run down the strip. It has a 8 point cage in it also with light weight seats. He's putting it through it's shake down paces to be ready for Noble, Ok in Sept.

Trimming the second Twister.

The "Last Twister" flew great right away. I expected the "Second Twister" to do the same. It didn't. I finally got a handle on it by adjusting the elevator to flap alignment. Now I'm zeroing in on the tip weight. I had about an ounce and now it's down to a quarter ouce or less. I just cut a corner off so I don't know really what it weighs. The engine is the same as the one on the Last Twister,.40LA, except for the mufflers. I have a stock muffler on the second one and a Fox .35 muffler on the Last one. Other than that the set ups are the same. The Last ones engine used 3.75 ounces for the pattern and the second uses 3.0 ounces. There's no reason that I can find for the fuel economy difference. Neither engine is running at a high speed, launching at 8500rpm. Over 5 second lap times and good line tension on both. This is one of the 3 engines that I bought parts for and put back in service a month ago. Crankshafts and connecting rods are the only parts that would effect performance that I bought. I used the original parts to make 3 .46's several years ago. The planes are flying well, that's the bottom line.

Trouble shooting an E.S.C.

I was flying the Cardinal and didn't get too far when the motor quit. I didn't know if the battery was dead or some other part had failed. I installed another battery and it flew like normal which pointed me towards the battery. I flew another battery and it worked normal. At home I checked the remaining voltage in the suspect battery and it was about what i figured it should be given the short flight. I installed a forth battery and ran it on the ground. It didn't even start this time which now points me towards the electronic speed controller or E.S.C. I had a new one and installed it on the plane and ran it for a minute and it worked fine. The next day I went to the park and got in 4 flights with the new parts and everything worke perfectly. Back at home I removed the shrink wrap from the suspect E.S.C. and gave it a 5X inspection. I found what looked like some dirt of some kind on one of the processor connections. I cleaned it off and installed the E.S.C. back on the test mule plane. At the field I lew it 4 times with no problems. I'll keep testing it more before trusting it on a more important plane. I did order another new one from Brodak. At the field today I got in more flights with the suspect E.S.C. and a quirk with the timer bugged me. It ads power in several stages during the flight. Back at the shop I removed the timer (FM 0c Hubin) and put a programmable timer on a FM9 hubin timer. Tomorrow I'll try that combo. This timer and E.S.C. should give me a steady rpm throughout the flight. P.S. I flew the new set up this morning. I had to increase the rpm to 10500 to get a 5.3 sec. per lap time. I used 3 batteries to arrive at that time and one full pattern flight. It gave a nice steady rpm throughout the flights. Success at last.

Cardinal photo from hell.

For some reason I can't get this photo to attach to a forum that I had no trouble attaching photo's in the past.

Raffle plane part2.

The flight didn't improve. Back at home I just stared at it for a while. I could see that the flaps were a bit large for a model this size. Just for the heck of it I trimmed the flaps down a bit. That made a big difference in how it flys. Now it's back in the line up for fun flying. The weather is quite warm and I have to get to the park at 0700 and out by 0830. The shade goes away by 0800 and that makes it rough to put up with. I've been flying most of the planes I have ready to go just to keep them ready for use. The electrics are working well.

Next to last Twister.

I have a hard time believing how well the Twister flys. The new engine is finally breaking in and I'm finding things that may be causing poor runs and fixing them. At the El Dorado contest raffle I won another Twister kit and a Chipmonk kit. I got the New Last Twister built,covered and painted. I have to wait for some dry weather soI can spray on the clear without it fogging. That may take a while now. I hope it flys as well as the Last Twister. I took out one of the planes that is scheduled for the raffle in October and got it ready for flight again. It has a shortened Twister wing and with what I have learned flying the Last Twister I figure I can change things and try it again.

New power for the Twister.

A long time ago, probably 2005, I bought 3 OS .40LA engines off ebay. I messed with them for a while and then switched to the .46LA. I had a lot better luck getting the .46 to run right. I collected several .46's and found that the .40 and .46 shared some of the same parts. I ordered the missing parts from O.S. Engines in Japan and took the rest from the .40 engines and made three more .46's. About 10 years have passed since then. I was looking at the .40's the other day and went to ebay to see if I could find enough parts to build a running .40 engine. I found what I needed, a crankshaft, from a vendor in Minneapolis. Then I contacted him and inquired about other parts I didn't see on his site. He replied that he had them in stock. He made up and order for me to buy through ebay. Reasonable prices and free shipping. I ordered them and a second crankshaft. The first crankshaft came in yesterday and I assembled one of the .40's put it on the test stand and ran it to see how it liked it's new parts. I installed it in the Twister and it's ready for action. The third engine has broken mounting hole and can be made usable if need be but for now it's just sitting. I was flying at the park a few days ago and a bird almost made it through the circle. I felt the lines pull and the plane twitched as the bird hit the lines. I figured the bird would be dead but I couldn't find anything, not even a feather. Hitting a bird is a first for me.

The last Twister.

No, Sig is still making them. It's the last one I will build. It seems that I've always had a Twister. Even when flying R/C I had one and would take it to the field about once a year and get in a flight. Fox .35 in the nose. Since then I have built several from kits and from scratch. None flew that well. I was out of projects and ws looking at the kits in the hobby shop and the Twister was the cheapest so I bought another one. For some reason I almost built it without changing things. I had some silk span and used it to cover the whole plane. I did extend the fuselage 2 inches at the rear. I never liked the canopy shape so I changed that a bit. I added a piece of 3/8 balsa to the nose to ad strength. That's about it. I used dope for the fill coats and white base then Dupli-Color engine paints for the trim colors. I sprayed on some two part clear for the final touch. I had an OS .46 LA I wasn't using so that is on the nose. A stock muffler puts the balance in the right spot. I am amazed at how well this plane flys. All my usual changes got left out and I built it mostly to the plans except for the 2 inch etension.

I still don't like it.

The proper venturi on the engine let the engine run well. It pulled the plane around with authority. I still don't like the way the plane flies. I've had several Flite Streaks and none flew that well. It makes a good trainer though. The weather has been tricky. The wind at the surface is nice but 40 feet up is a nightmare. I have taken to building another Twister. Maybe for the Nostalgia 30 event if it flies good enough. I bought some old silk span at the hobby shop a few months ago and will use it to cover the plane. It's a lot more work but a lot better than monokote that lets oil get under it. I'm at the covering stage and should start that soon. I got a new phone and I don't understand it. I can make calls and turn it on and off.

O.S. .20FP on Flite Streak.

I won this in a raffle a few years ago. I could not get it to behave and fly properly. i didn't expect much as I have bad luck with ARF planes in general. I read up on the proper set up for the plane and the engine and it flew a lot better but the engine wouldn't slow down. I measured the venturi and found it to be for a .46 size engine which would make this smaller engine go crazy. I had a proper size venturi for it and installled it. There was a big change in the needle setting and the engine ran much better.Same prop and fuel. I didn't get a chance ot flight test it today maybe tomorrow.

Time waits for no one.

A month ago I put the YS 120F on the shelf. It runs and that is about as much as I can do with it. The weather has been good and I've got in a lot of flying. i found out that I have been missing an important part of the trimming process. I mark the spot the flaps need to be to stay in line with the wing but not getting the elevator in line with the flaps and that has caused a lot of trim problems. The Mo' Bast has fairings that are in line with both controls and is easy to set up.The fleet flys much better with things in the right position. We are still waiting on the fabricator to bring the hot rod to be fixed. I finally bought a new fuel tank sender and a fuel gauge for the El Camino. I didn't know which was not working and didn't want to wait for the right part to come in. As it worked out the fuel tank sender didn't work. I remoed the tank and replaced the old one and put the tank back in. Not that easy but with a floor jack it wasn't too bad. I found that the sender float didn't touch the bottom of the tank and with 3 gallons it read empty. I took the tank out again and bent the float down until I got a reading with the tank on the floor. Back in it goes. I have a reading one the gauge and I'm h appy until I remember I didn't lock the sender into the tank. Out it comes again and I fix it. Then back in and button it up. We went for a short ride for a bit of gas and the gauge showed an increase and so far no leaks. I had looked for a replacement gauge but nothing matched the original so if it came to that I was going to put the new one under the dash. The whole dash panel has to come out to get at the fuel gauge and I didn't want to take it out. I took it out when I fixed it up several years ago.

Two days and a manual later.

I removed the bakes on mud nests and started to dismantle the engine. Parts were stuck and needed heat and persuasion to come loose and out. Everything was covered in black goo from the oil residue. I found a live larva when I cleaned the carburator intake port. The carb. butterflys had to be pressed out in the vise. After cleaning and re assembling I got the engine to run on prime. Finally I gave up and found a manual on line which pointed out a few things I was doing wrong. After adjusting things per the manual I flooded it real good. I cleared the excess fuel out and hit it with the starter and it fired right up and kept running. Now I have a very powerful engine I'll most probably never use or give it back to my son who most probably will never use it again. I will seal it up so the bugs can't get into it again.

The Bee's and the YS.

Will it run again?

At the park.

I tried the Go Devil again and it flew a bit better but not good enough. It's back to the raffle for that one. I got in some flights with the Nomad though.