scudrunner77

Crankypants and I work together and thought this would be fun to build our contest plane as a team effort. Our inspiration is the Castrol motor oil bottle. We think it looks pretty good as a fictional WWII era war bird cowl. Makes the plane look half engine!

This is Crankypants first balsa build and it's scratch build at that. He is doing a great job. I built some of the structure, but am mainly in charge of covering, installing the radio gear, and getting it dialed in. Its been pretty fun so far!

As of now it weighs 13oz, hoping to keep it below 20oz. Will have AP .061, HS55 and HS-81 servos, Electron 6 RX. It is very nose heavy so the battery might end up in the tail. Landing gear is from a Hobbyzone J3 cut in half.

Any comments are welcome. We think maybe the fuse is too short. Also the tail features look a little small compared to the wing... can this make it unstable?

BMatthews

Nice improvisation. And the model looks good as well. The accents from the bottle make it look very mechanical.

DICKEYBIRD

That's a trait we 1/2A'ers seem to have etched into our core: using cheap things to build into our planes. Very nice idea guys!

The tail group doesn't look too small in the picture but the tail moment definitely looks too short in relation to the wingspan and the nose moment. It'll fly but the CG will have to be well forward to help with the pitch (and yaw) stability. All that side area in the nose forward of the CG will reduce the verticle stab's effectiveness. Can you splice on a section at the rear of the fuse? That'd be the easiest way.

Go to http://www.aalmps.com/ and click on "Free Stuff." Take a look at the T.V.C. and CG calculations. Plug in the numbers from your design and it'll give you a starting point for your CG.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Larry Driskill

Over at Small Net a fellow named Timothy recently posted this:

" Horizontal stabilizer area should be about 20% of the wing area; Vertical tail area should be about 12%; Distance from CG to leading edge of stabilizer should be from 2 to 2.5 times the mean wing chord"

How do those numbers fit with your design?

ptulmer

My Feedback: (5)

Larry, those numbers depend on what your doing. I think Scud's going to be ok... Maybe some of the c/l guys like you might recognize what I was doing here.

Scud, the big thing is how much does that bottle weigh? If it's too heavy you'll be shortening that nose! The battery in the back may not be enough. Just eyeballing, but your tail looks ok....stop thinking like that!

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

SR77 , that cowl is AWESOME! You are a visionary genius! I was just giving ANDREW D a hard time about his, "build the plane to match the dime store cowl" technique, and then you come up with this! I'll bet that plastic is heavy though, is there any way you could shorten the bottle and still retain the coolness factor? If you have a scale, weigh that sucker. I wouldn't allow myself more than an oz of weight allowance for the cowl, and hopefully less than that. That plane would still look very cool if you cut over half of the cowl away[ IMHO]. If you shorten the nose then you will be moving in the direction that DB mentioned so it's a win- win situation if you can lose weight and gain better flying characteristics at the same time. And we gotta have a talk about that landing gear too.......it's just for display, huh?

BTW, the SAFEWAY job ended, so I am going to have lots of free time for awhile now, and I'll be in touch to set up a plane smashing session with ya!

scudrunner77

Thanks for the replies. I will do some number crunching for the tail....but I get the point your making with that pict ptulmer.
And DickeyBird thanks for pointing out that the nose might counter act the vert stab... so at least maybe we should make that bigger.

About the oil can-
First of all it was Crankypants' brilliant idea...I can't take credit for that one, but I got some other dime store cowl ideas. I once made an all balsa cowl for a HOB T-6 and after going through that, everything plastic starts to look like a cowl to me! I don't have the cut oil can on me right now, but an uncut one weights 2.75 oz [:-] A lot of the thicker plastic is at the bottom and the neck and these are cut off, so I'm guessing that its around 2oz. I know part of the nose heavy is because of the length of it too, but we don't want to take too much away from the bottle either. Hhmmm....

scudrunner77

CP- What's wrong with landing gear? Nothing looks better than a real takeoff

Just PM me when you'd like to get together. I know the last weekend of this month is booked already... sometime April is looking better for me. You must have been involved with a remodel...? They are doing the Safeway out here now.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Well, the only problem with the gear is that it is heavy and once you break ground with it, it will tend to put a damper on what the plane can do. The absolute heaviest that a .061 plane this size can weigh and still be somewhat sporty is about 16 ozs. Light planes do everything better, including withstanding less than perfect landings. The lighter your plane is, the fewer less than perfect landings you will have also. The AUBURN SAFEWAY job is a huge warehouse facility with a pair of 600'x1800' buildings. At the peak of scheduling there were about 100 electricians out there, which put the daily payroll at about $44,000!. I had the huge paved parking area to myself last Summer for speed planes at lunch time. This place is so huge, it made the planes seem relatively slow.

crankypants

Hello
As it sits in the picture it weighs around 13 oz. After we got done hacking away at it, the bottle weighs about 1.75oz. It might be possible to take off more material, but scud and I really wanted to highlight the fact that it was an oil bottle flying. It looks like we will be extending the whole tail section to compensate for the longer nose. thank you for all your input. I am really having a great time with this project.
More pics are on the contest site.

Crankypants.

scudrunner77

Well we just want it to fly, does not have to be a super performer....

Forget the parking lot, with buildings that big you could fly inside them!! Lets see $44K divided by 100 electricians...yea I'm in the wrong business.[&o]

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

HI SR77, What ever business you happen to be in HAS TO BE BETTER than the one I'm in! I need a hobby like this one to ESCAPE FROM REALITY! The owner of this company has been in the trade 8 years longer than I have, and it is amazing to see what he has grown the company up to! I was tempted to fly inside when the building was just a shell, but there are 12"x12" steel columns every 50 feet square, so it would be an unforgiving pylon course.

ptulmer

My Feedback: (5)

CP, does everyone make $55/hr or do you make more than others...[X(]

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

I wish it was like that........ union scale here is $33.50, but the whole package is more like $44.00, and last summer half the crew at any given time was working 5 tens and maybe an 8 on SATURDAY. I worked graveyard last SUMMER for 15% extra. I don't know what % of the contract goes to labor, but it sure is a staggering sum! The wages is relative to the cost of housing, in the SEATTLE area, the average cost is around $400,000 !!

That oil bottle cowl sure has me looking at items on the store shelves differently now........I wonder if there's a way to market a plane where most of the major components are off the shelf items that can be found at a 99 cent store? The plastic kites could be worked in there somehow.

ptulmer

My Feedback: (5)

Spars and covering...Quick on the feet, that's our PIGG.

Average cost of house is 400k?! Man, you'd croak if you saw what I just built for 1/2 that.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

That figure [400K] is misleading because there are so many millionaires out here to bump up the average. I'll bet you got quite a nice place and much more for the dollar.

scudrunner77

I got a lot for my money out here.... but what do you expect at the foot of a volcano! Friends of mine in my line of work make 15-25% more than me working downtown, but on the other hand I don't have to deal with traffic, which has some value in itself. Not that an extra 25% would let me afford a Seattle house anyways.

Once you get the bug, everything starts to look like an airplane part. The Dole or Delmonte plastic fruit cups look like nice little cowls too... kinda have a Cessna 195 look to them.
The HOB T-6 instructions say to use the black cap that use to be on the bottom of 2-liter pop bottles... they don't make them anymore. I have seem quite a few creative cowls as a result.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

SR77, I'll take your angle of approach anyday over what I've been doing for the past 20 years, which is spend 1/8th of my life on I-5!

scudrunner77

What are these guys smiling about.....

Well I did some number crunching and the stabilizers were too small. So I completely remade the vertical stab and added an inch in front of the horizontal stab. We thought the battery would have to go into the tail section to balance out...well we were surprised. The plane balanced with the battery up against the fire wall (leading edge of wing)... Set the CG at 25% MAC that is 1.59 inches behind the leading edge. Weighs 21.6 oz.

So it came time to fly.... landing gear were not far enough forward and the plane kept nosing over. So they came off and we just hand launched it. Launch #1- wind got it and it rolled hard left and nosed in. Quick CA fix and tried again. Launch #2- Just did not want to get air born- maybe wind again. 3rd time was a charm! It flew right out. I had to fly this thing at all times, but it was a blast. The tail wags a little coming out of turns. prob due to the short fuse. Got two great flights in today.... This has been great fun!

1/2a is pretty new to me still... I built a Hornet and was going to practice with it so the contest plane would have a chance at flying. Well I tried to fly the Hornet twice and crashed it twice... so moral was low going into today. But I gave the Hornet another try first thing and finally go it dialed in...fun plane too! Then moved my RX to Petrol Patrol and flew it too....! I'm really enjoying 1/2a now. Turned out to be a great day!

We should have video in the next couple days at the contest web site.

This team build has been a blast...thanks Crankpants!

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Way to go you guys![8D]! You pulled it off! The plane does look pretty sharp, looks like a war bird to me. The gear give it a mean stance, just like the real thing. Are you guys flying next weekend?

William Robison

My Feedback: (3)

Everything in the store looks like an airplane part?

Check this engine cowling. It's the bottom of a Schlitz beer can.

Bill.

scudrunner77

Very nice Bill!

I like it.....

William Robison

My Feedback: (3)

I has intended to use Coke cans, but when I got to the store the Schlitz Malt Liquor six pack was less money than the six pack of Coke. Being basically cheap I went for the Schlitz. Naturally.

Bill.

PS Thanks for the nice words. wr.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

BILL, people don't drink SML because they love beer[:'(][sm=bananahead.gif]!!

crankypants

Thanks guys. this was alot of fun for us. We look forward to next years contest. The video is posted on the contest site if you wish to see it.
crankypants