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Petrol Patrol - 3/18/2005 7:23:20 AM   
scudrunner77



Posts: 641
Joined: 5/22/2003
From: Enumclaw, WA, USA
Status: offline 		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?

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< Message edited by scudrunner77 -- 3/18/2005 7:27:57 AM >
       Post #: 1

RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/18/2005 7:50:05 AM   
BMatthews



Posts: 8951
Joined: 10/4/2002
From: Burnaby, BC, CANADA
Status: offline 		Nice improvisation. And the model looks good as well. The accents from the bottle make it look very mechanical.


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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/18/2005 12:12:04 PM   
DICKEYBIRD



Posts: 2668
Joined: 4/8/2002
From: Collierville, TN, USA
Status: offline 		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!



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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/18/2005 12:20:45 PM   
Larry Driskill



Posts: 715
Joined: 6/2/2003
From: Lubbock, TX, USA
Status: online 		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?


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Kitting It Together

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/18/2005 2:47:03 PM   
ptulmer



Posts: 4770
Joined: 4/28/2003
From: Brunswick, GA, USA
Status: offline 		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!

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/19/2005 1:44:44 AM   
combatpigg



Posts: 9828
Joined: 11/22/2003
From: arlington, WA, USA
Status: online 		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 !

< Message edited by combatpigg -- 3/19/2005 1:52:03 AM >

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/19/2005 4:05:20 AM   
scudrunner77



Posts: 641
Joined: 5/22/2003
From: Enumclaw, WA, USA
Status: offline 		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....

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/19/2005 4:12:38 AM   
scudrunner77



Posts: 641
Joined: 5/22/2003
From: Enumclaw, WA, USA
Status: offline 		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.

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/19/2005 5:09:57 AM   
combatpigg



Posts: 9828
Joined: 11/22/2003
From: arlington, WA, USA
Status: online 		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.

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/19/2005 5:39:20 AM   
crankypants


 

Posts: 14
Joined: 11/20/2004
From: Kent, WA, USA
Status: offline 		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.

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/23/2005 4:49:49 AM   
scudrunner77



Posts: 641
Joined: 5/22/2003
From: Enumclaw, WA, USA
Status: offline 		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.

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/23/2005 5:28:35 AM   
combatpigg



Posts: 9828
Joined: 11/22/2003
From: arlington, WA, USA
Status: online 		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.

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/23/2005 1:16:45 PM   
ptulmer



Posts: 4770
Joined: 4/28/2003
From: Brunswick, GA, USA
Status: offline 		CP, does everyone make $55/hr or do you make more than others...

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RE: Petrol Patrol - 3/23/2005 5:53:40 PM   
combatpigg



Posts: 9828
Joined: 11/22/2003
From: arlington, WA, USA
Status: online 		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.

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Led Zeppelin is NOT "old fogie" music.

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