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.