Tee Bee

We just got home from Little Rock and had an uneventful trip. It was great to see lots of the folks again and meet some new ones. I'd like to thank Steve Staples for his work as CD this year. He made sure everything worked out and everyone had fun. I did a lot of Cox engine flying for several days. After a couple of showers and clothing changes, I think I still smell like burnt glow fuel. I posted a few more pics at that other place but reserved most of the glow-oriented stuff for this forum.

My recently completed Page Boy. It's running my oldest and best running TD .010. It got lots of airtime over several days. It's a 1962 Ken Willard design. Back then it was the smallest rc plane in the world with it's rudder escapement. I thought it would be a fitting model to build for this year's SMALL but I cheated and installed a 2.4GHz radio with operating rudder and elevator to mix modern technology with classic design.

Tee Bee

An 80s-era Cox Cessna Skylane and some of hfenn's models. It was nice to finally meet him. That foam-wing Little Stick with the TD .020 goes like stink! Not pictured but worth mentioning is his PAW 03-powered Lady Bug. It would scream around on rails, then when he throttled back, it would float along with the coolest sounding idle. Even the die-hard electric guys liked the sound of it.

Tee Bee

A couple of Skydrills. Mine and hfenn's. We never managed to get them up at the same time but they were both flown quite a bit over the weekend. These things are a lot of fun to fly and track very nicely.

Tee Bee

Chris Sweeney of Aerial Locomotion fame designed these cool shirts for this year's event. Thanks a lot!

Tee Bee

Most of the fleet we brought. We got lazy and left a few at the hotel. The tiny black one(El Pongito) got donked in right in the pit area early Saturday morning. Needs a fuselage repair. That's my son, Nick, in the chair sulking over the fate of his BF109G seen on the right(Got too slow and spun in). The Das Splat Jr ran and flew great Thursday and Friday but had fuel tank issues on Saturday, followed by a hard landing. It will also need repairs and has a fuel-soaked fuselage now. Since Brian(av8rsodt) showed up planeless again this year, I felt sorry for him and coerced him to fly the green Pong Two with the Cox .09. I hate it when other people fly my planes better than I do.

Tee Bee

Cox Free Flight anyone? The usual characters were there and up to their usual antics. I attempted to join in for a while until my out-of-control Cox Skyjumper heli attempted to kill someone sitting in the pits. It was a close call and I felt very bad about it. I decided to stick to rc from that point on.

They even dug up an old Testors hovercraft and cranked it before a tense crowd of spectators. It was awesome to watch it run and do .................. nothing! That's hfenn giving it a flip and Kevin Wilfong standing by with the bandaids.

Tee Bee

Floyd Harp's reduced-size Skoots with throttled TD .010. This plane moves out really fast and does nice axial rudder rolls. He flies it very well. Nice guy, too. He was quick to offer assistance when I was having trouble starting my TD .049.

Tee Bee

The legendary Joe Wagner(Veco Joe) was there again as well as Eric Clutton AKA Doctor Diesel and his bird Willie. Between those two guys, I don't think there's a glow or diesel engine problem that could arise in the pits that they couldn't figure out. Eric brought his vendor display of books and diesel engines for sale.

Tee Bee

Here's Kevin Wilfong's Cox .049-powered Dakota biplane designed by Joe Wagner in the 50s. Kevin tromped around in the tall grass braving chiggers and ticks to fly it for our entertainment. There was also an electric rc version constructed of foam flying beautifully at the indoor event. I believe Bob Selman built it as a tribute to Joe.

Tee Bee

I bet a lot of us on this forum have our own version of a Cox box. Here's an .074 Queen Bee that Kevin bought during the event. He had lots of help working on it but I'm not sure if it ever ran or not. I think they might have added too many oatmeal cookies to that quart of fuel.

Does anyone recognize the mystery parts man?

Tee Bee

Someone actually stopped by and commented "Man that thing really screams. Who makes that little engine?" And the times they are a changin'.

Tee Bee

A group of Scoundrels and their planes finally gather together. Pictured from the left are Chris Sweeney, Steve Staples, designer Steve Adams, and myself. These are pre-production versions of a kit that should be available soon from Select Hobbies. To demonstrate some versatility, Steve had us equip them with various powerplant setups. Electric, PAW 03 diesel, and Cox .049 Surestart. The design seemed to be a hit with the crowd. I flew mine regularly each day.

Mr. Adams(skaliwag) had a booth set up with kits and other goodies. I stocked up on a few servos for a future project.

Tee Bee

The electric models probably outnumbered the piston engine models by 10 to 1. Some of them were amazing to say the least. This event really attracts some skilled designers, builders, and pilots. I felt a bit embarrased to share the pits and flightline with people like Pat Tritle, Keith Sparks, Paul Willenborg, etc. Those guys are on the cutting edge of design and construction techniques and it's very interesting to see what they will show up with each year. Here's Keith's newest C-130. It flies very realistically and is equipped with operating cargo door and can drop miniature equipment such as hummers, tanks, etc. as well as paratroopers one at a time in sequence as it moves down the flightline. Quite a show.

skaliwag

My Feedback: (1)

You had to have been there to see how expertly Cpt. Keith "Sparkey" Sparks expertly taxied and parked his C-130 after each successful sortie.

His Hurkie Birds look and sound so real, just like the real thing that are based at Jackson AFB just down the road from the "Gathering".

hfenn

SMALL 2010 was a lot of fun for me. It was nice to get to meet TEE BEE and get to know the man behind the keyboard. He builds some fine airplanes and has a lot of fun with them. I doubt the the total time in air of glow/diesel flown there by other pilots would exceed the combined time of TEE BEE and me.
Here is a picture of the Lady Bug he mentioned. The PAW .03 on it is a fine engine. It is the best throttling small engine I have.

hfenn

This Charybdis was Pee Wee .020 powered. Dan flew it and chased it a lot (free flight), but he had a motor bike there to retrieve with.

hfenn

Mystery Man is George Smith, and he had not one, but two, COX boxes. He is the proud owner of the Queen Bee. Kevin was just helping him get it to run.

He did get the .074 to run. They were using a small CL tank. He just wanted to run it long enough to be sure it would. I told him to be proud of his purchase because he now has an engine with all the power of an .049 and all the weight of an .09!

Mr Cox

Nice pictures!

The QBs are not that bad, he just has to replace that stock head with a proper one from an 09 and it will be everybit as powerful as a brand new TT07...

Tee Bee

There are a lot more pics being posted on the last few pages of this thread: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...0+wrightsville