It's not stopping.

It's April 27th and the weather is still abnormal. The wind is very tricky at the park plus the rain comes when it feels like it. I've been able to get some flights in but not what I want. I've deceided on the Pathfinder for the profile event at El Dorado in mid May. The L-17 Navion will be the warbird entry and I'm trying to find the best plane for Sunday's event. I should be able to get that one by contest time. I was goint to scratch build another plane and was drawing one up when I noticed that the Twister has never been built as a full fuselage plane. I'm in the middle of cutting the parts out of the spare balsa I have. I need to make a hobby shop run for more balsa and hardware. I'm streatching the wing 2.5 inches to make up for the width of the fuselage. The fuselage is 2 inches longer than the plans show but that mod really helps the kit plane fly better. It's raining again.

Bad weather.

I figured out a way to use a spray bar that had no needle. Without both it's useless, until now. I do have remote needle valve assemblies that came with the engines but the spray bar is too small for what I want to do with the engines so I remove the stock one and replace it with an aftermarket unit. I have two units that didn't have needles. They got broke in hard inverted landings. I soldered closed the end that the needle goes in and installed the remote unit except for the stock spray bar. The weather calmed down a bit and I got to the field and flew the new set up. It worked perfectly. The weather turned bad again and I was sitting in the shop trying to figure out what planes to bring to the upcoming contests. The Mo'Bestgot the nod but I figured I could improve on the control system. I measured the plans for control system set up and found it to be less than optimum. I couldn't get the push rods in holes that were the same distance as the plans. I found a flap control horn that was made for the Pathfinder and after some work got it mounted and hooked up. A few other tweaks to the plane and it's ready for a test flight.

A new test and an old problem.

Most of the engines I use on my planes, the OS .40/.46LA, come new with a remote needle valve. I use an after market needle valve asembly that has a larger diameter spray bar which restrics air flow giving me the type of engine run I'm looking for. This style puts the part that I have to turn to adjust engine RPM real close to the propeller. This morning I had the idea to use the larger spray bar with the remote needle valve. The larger unit has an open ended spray bar as the fuel goes in one end and the needle screws into the other which adjusts the amount of fuel getting into the engine. The original remote unit has only one end open so I soldered the open end of the larger unit so it would act like the ssmaller remote spray bar. I hooked the engine up on the test stand and started it. It ran very well on the stand. I'll have to try it on a plane in flight when the winds cooperate. My seven year old toilet started to fill when it wasn't supposed to. There is a leak in the flush valve seals somewhere. I watched several posts on youtube and got the parts to fix things and when I tried to take the valve apart it didn't want to budge. Snaping and cracking noises made me very wary of what is going to happen so I stopped. While sitting outside after breakfast a plumbers truck pulled into the neighbors yard. I talked to them and got a card and made an appointment with the office to have them look at the situation and fix it. We will probably go to an ACE hardware store and look at electric mowers today.