Loose engine again.

The Pathfinder that had brass inserts instead of "T" nuts to hold the engine down got removed and I made an aluminum plate that held the enigne and was screwed to the wood motor mounts. Even though I used 6 screws to hold the thing to the plane it again loosened after several flights. I considered several fixes and bit the bullet and drilled through the nose. I replaced the bolts that held the engine to the plane with 4-40 bolts and nylon insert lock nuts with a jamb nut on top of that.I drilled through the plate and the wood motor mounts and cut away the balsa on the other side of the fuselage so I could put more lock nuts on the other 4-40 bolts. I flew it this morning and things went well. Except for some dirt that got through the filter and into the spray bar causiing a lean condition. That ws cleaned up quickly. Yesterday, along with the Pathfinder, another of my designs had lean engine run. That was on the ground and I stopped the engine and went home. I found a piece of dirt that came out with the needle valve. There isn't enough room to put a filter in the fuel line inside the plane so I decieded to run the fuel line outside the fuselage with a filter in the line there. I flew that one too this morning and it went well also. The fuel filters I use are take apart to clean and some how I lost the filter screen in one of them. That one has been in the parts box for a while now. I asked about filter material on a forum and got a good answer. As it happens I bought a reusale coffee filter year ago and use it to fliter my fuel when I make a batch. The answer I got reminded me of the filter and I used a paper punch to get a usable filter piece. I fit right in and I installed the filter on one of the other planes. The new Pathfinder is coming along and I'm finishing the wing now. Lots of sanding and then covering with paper and dope. I have to do some work to the nose area so it blends with the prop spinner. Good old trusty "T" nuts on this one.

Doing it wrong.

I've always had to make line length adjustments on a new plane. Then quite often the plane would have a better turn in one direction than the other. I couldn't figure it out and thought it was the way I assembled it. A few weeks ago I thought that maybe the bellcrank was not square even though I took pains to assure that it was. After checking I found that the bellcrank was not square and therefore had more travel in one of the directions. Most often the down direction. I hung the plane by the leadouts and found that they were even and that the bellcrank was square to the fuselage. I put 3 ounce weight at the fuel tank location to make it more realistic like in flight and re adjusted the controls so the flaps and elevator are in line with the wing and stab. chord lines. That made a big difference in how the plane flys. The profiles were the easiest to fix but I had to cut a hole in the fuselage of the full body planes. During this I found one of the planes had a loose pushrod. On that one and the second one of that design I had made provisions for just this kind of problem and didn't have to cut the fuselages. My old Pathfinder is flying very well now and I bought another Pathfinder kit and I'm in the process of building it.

Back to school.

I attended a class for a gun license yesterday. Mine ws a renewal so I only had to put in 6 hours instead of 8. We all suffered. I did get to shoot a target. 3 rounds of 12 shots. My gun held 10 + 1. I loaded the 12th shot like a single shot and got through it. The new tires are going well so far. They are not as heavy duty as the other set. I should get 50,000 out of them at least. I finally did the unthinkable and cut a hole in the fuselage top to adjust the controls like the others. I found a decal that was able to cover the hole and put that on after the fix. After that I tackled the on submission of the paperwork form yesterday's class. It only took an hour, I wasn't able to print it out before sending it in and couldn't attach more than one photo. I did call our son and he got things straightened out after a bit of wrangling. We may have to go for fingerprints again s the police office that handles this stuff did't do background checks on a lot of applicants last time around. Not having to pay on the application is an ominus sign. State ploice headquarters isn't far for me but those from up state have a big problem. Betweeen the tires and the rain I haven't been to the park much this past week. I have added strips to the elevators on the Cardinal. With the new control adjustments it does fly better but it's not as stable as it should be. I made a new flap horn for it and that evend out the up and down nicely.

Flats and findings.

We left the park and the truck seemed to be pulling to the left a bit. I got a short distance ffrom the park and the truck was pulling left harder. I pulld into the Wallgreen's and had to change the left front tire. A first for me to change one "on the road". After some research I found an entry on the trucks book for the tires. Installed in 2009 and coing the math the tires have 92110 miles on them. Michelin's. I found a set on Amazon and they arrived yesterday. Now to get them on the truck. Two weeks ago I stumbled on something that made my planes fly better. When I built them I always adjust the controls for neutral before closing up the full fuselage ones and do the same for the porfiles. Then I adjust the line lengths to get them to fly right, not good but right. I've done this forever it seems. It occurred to me that it wasn't quite right. I compared my best flying planes to the others and found that by hanging them from the leadouts, using equal length connectors, the better flying planes were much closer to having the flaps and elevators in a neutral position. I usualy mark the neutral spot on the fuselage for the flaps and go from there. The first plane that was an OK flyer got the new set up and it flew a lot better. As did the second and third. This morning I finished the last plane in the fleet of 22. It was a pretty good flyer but not quite good enough. It took a half turn of the flap clevis and a half turn of the elevator clevis to zero out the controls. I built in an opening for the flap clevis on the full fuselage plane but only on two of the planes. I have two others that have to go with different length line connectors at the plane end. That seems like it should work but it offsets the bell crank and gives a false neutral which gives more up or down than the other way. There's no good way to hide a hole in the top of the fuselage. On one of the planes I found a lot of slop in the controls and had to change some hardware in the system to rid the plane of the slop. I used ball links on that one and it's the only one that has given me trouble. "Z" bends and clevis's for me.

First flights.

I finished the new Cardinal and Profile Nobler finally. I didn't have spare engines for both so I used the only spare available, a .40LA. I flew the Cardial first and it's working out pretty good. I swapped the engine into the Nobler and it flew quite well also. I knew that swapping engines wasn't going to work so we went to the hobby shop and I bought a used .46LA for the Cardinal. I ran it on the bench for two ounces of fuel to loosen it up and set the needle. I installed it in the Cardinal and it's ready for more testing this morning. The hobby shop has a used ASP .52 just like the one I already have in Nomad 4 tht runs very well. I didn'thave enough money for two engines but I'll go back in a week or so.

Window of opportunity closes.

I've been flying the Pathfinder and it's going very well. There was a problem with the stock muffler on this engine that I've not had with other engines. Even though there was a lot of exhaust smoke the engine would be quite hot after a flight. I re-bolted the engine securely to the plane and changed to a Fox .35 muffler. Being an ounce or so lighter than the stock muffler I figured there would be a change in how it flys. I was surprised that it flew about the same but the turn was improved a lot. Now if it doesn't break a wing I'll be happy. I got the chance to clear coat the two planes yesterday and got them prepared for painting. I set everything up so there wouldn't be any wasted time after I mixed the two part clear paint. I started to measure the paint and hardener when I found the hardner was a gooey mass in the can. I ordered two cans of spray paint. Maybe next week I'll get the job done.

Locked gate saves plane.

I've been flying the Pathfinder a lot lately. It has been flying very well. We went to the park and found the gate locked so we went home. I had removed the spray bar for cleaning and was going to re set the needle for flight at the park. At home I figured I could run the engine and get the setting close without flying. As the engine was running I noticed the flaps and elevators flopping around more than usual. After a short inspection I saw the flap control horn had broken. I shut the engine down and started to figure how to fix the broken horn. Had this happened in flight I would have had no control and crashed. The vibration had fatigued the metal to failure. Possibly the metal had been chrystalized during the brazing process. Either way

it was no longer usable and had to be repaired somehow. My first option was to install a plastic horn like the one that comes with the kit. Then I rembered that I could make a horn out of aluminum angle that would be much stronger and work just as well or better than the broken part. The plans show a horn that should give better performance so I duplicated it on the aluminum angle. Some hacksaw and file and drilling work and the new horn was ready for installation. I used 4 screws to hold the new part on the flap and a piece of plywood underneath for the screws to anchor in. The weather isn't cooperating right now but may get better a bit later for a trial flight, if the gate isn't locked.