RCU Forums - View Single Post - Baby Spitfire
Thread: Baby Spitfire
View Single Post
Old 02-24-2014, 09:05 PM
  #1  
MJD
My Feedback: (1)
 
MJD's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Orangeville, ON, CANADA
Posts: 8,658
Likes: 0
Received 2 Likes on 2 Posts
Default Baby Spitfire

I pulled this out of the festering 1/2A drawer last week and looked it over. It came from a friend's estate sale years ago and I ain't run it yet. So I limbered it up which went very easily, it feels like it is in good shape. I then pulled the head - well rather the whole cylinder because the head was really tight - and looked inside, looked like a not-broken engine. I also wanted to checkout the glow on my panel and find a good setting. Looked good all round. So I primed it and pulled it through a number of times, took some time to work the goo out of it but got many encouraging pops. I was holding it in my hand at the time (tsk tsk, that's irresponsible, but I've felt more power from a few strands of 1/4" rubber). After a while I pulled the old 5" wood prop and bolted on a 6-3 MA, figuring the flywheel action wouldn't hurt. Lots of intake prime, a shot in the exhaust, blow it through... and a mighty flick.. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp! Finally, it generated enough power to increase in rpm from my hand start..

A few more times and it loosened up nicely and generally started to feel like a willing participant. So I hacked out a ply mounting plate and will fire it up shortly, using some nice castory fuel with a medium dose of nitromethane, probably 15%. I noticed that a Cox .049 plug wrench (C type) filed down a hair thinner will fit the head nicely .I might have 2 or 3 old short Fireball plugs somewhere or whatever they are called. What heat range would you suggest for this thing?

Now I need a Sniffer kit.. the two are made for each other. It would be fun to see and hear this gently brrrrrrrrrrrrping a little RC free flight around.

64 years apart.. and a few rpm.
Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version

Name:	IMG_0940.jpg
Views:	375
Size:	167.0 KB
ID:	1972125   Click image for larger version

Name:	IMG_0941.jpg
Views:	321
Size:	179.1 KB
ID:	1972126