bradh70

My Feedback: (1)

Do they make a set of snow skis for a twist 3d? Maybe this is a dumb question!!! The snow is right around the corner here in michigan.

johnboyrc

Dubro makes some skis, have them on my super sportster. Perfect for 40 size. In soft snow they sink in maybe a inch at most, but on snow with even the slightest bit of crust and they stay up and sometimes it's hard to slow down fast. Tailwheel will work fine in the snow.

Dave trimmer

With snow skiis can you land on ice.[sm=thumbdown.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]

BWooster

You mean they make planes without skis?!?[X(]

d_bodary

My Feedback: (85)

Brad the dubro ski's will work fine. curious where you are flying being from romulas. in the morning the snow will have a hard crust well like ice make sure you can kill the engine. i had a plane just keep going and going really slow but right into a fence. only busted a prop. but if the wind would have been going the other way could have just as easy been in the pits. A second thought would be a set of gee bee floats. i have a set on a 50 inch wingspan plane and they work nice.
Dennis

d_bodary

My Feedback: (85)

in fact i plan on going out saturday late morning or early afternoon and get some flying in off the snow. And you guys from canada it does'nt always snow up there.
Dennis

jlobster88

My Feedback: (1)

don't forget that if you have ski's on your plane the wind is going to effect the plane more, for the wind sometimes will catch the ski's and act like a sail !!!!

Newc

There's a couple of suggestions that I can make. The first if that it's not at all difficult to make your own skis. Attached is a picture of one of the wood skis that I made a number of years ago for a 40-size plane. Notice the kerfing on the top of the 1/16" aircraft plywood that's at the spot that the ski curves upward and is attached to the spine.

Then, if ground control is a problem - which it usually is - you can attach a skeg to the bottom of the skis. The second photo shows aluminum skegs pop-riveted to DuBro aluminum skiis. You can attach similar skegs to what I believe are the current (plastic) DuBro skis as well, and they will greatly enhance the ground handling, enabling the rudder to allow you to turn (and avoid such things as those fences) since the skegs will keep the skis from side-sliding.

d_bodary

My Feedback: (85)

jlnewc

That was some good info on the skegs i heard of that but plain forgot about it. I think it was Model Airplane News that had an article about making wood skis in one of their how to books. is that where you got the idea from? My set of skis was homemade out of aluminum and about four times heavier then the dubros. Any better photos maybe i'll give the wood ones a try to make.

Dennis

The PIPE

Dear BradH70:

The PIPE here once more...if you check at the AMA Digital Archive, and look at the February 1989 AMA magazine issue article titled "Skis for Snow or Grass" by Graham Hicks...on pages 52 through 56 (concluded on pages 164 & 165 of that issue)...

...as well as the Ray Gareau article titled "Skis for Snow Operations" in the November 2000 issue of the AMA mag, shown on pages 60 through 65 (a SIX page article)...

you'll have SOME ideas on making a set of snow skis for your needs!

Hope these tips helped on where to look on HOW to make them...

Yours Sincerely,

The PIPE!

johnboyrc

The dubro skis have a small skeg on them, and they don't have a major change on CG. Just need to raise the tips a little, not a lot. If you raise the tips to much, you'll easily notice a change in flight characteristics, otherwise they don't affect the plane much. Bigger skis might affect the plane more, but on a 40 size plane you really don't need to go big. The springs that keep the tips up seem stiff, but actually flex rather well and they still keep the tips up in deep snow.
Stopping takes more effort on hard crust or ice, but acceleration happens quicker (ready with the rudder). Turning on the ground isn't too bad as long as the wind isn't too strong.
On softer snow, a little up elevator with a little more throttle is needed when taxiing, as well as when landing. The soft snow slows you down quicker.
A big issue is how to keep warm...

d_bodary

My Feedback: (85)

Well today bright sunny and snow covered runway. Hardly any wind. Made two flights with the gee bee seahawk awesome weather awesome flying. put together the lanier sea bird to remind myself on why i hate it checked control throws third winter flying it. filled it up started it. took off. starting to roll to the right add full left rudder and full left aileron now it's on knife edge. I'm in trouble and i know it. Thinking to myself it's gonna wreck and leave it at full throttle so it will be totaled. Wham bahm it hits. Walk out to it Stupid wings broke in half. thinking to myself as i'm walking back did i dumb thumb it or maybe have the ailerons reversed? Don't think so. get back pull the wing off and lo and behold one of the wires from the aileron servo was popped out at the connector. wiggled it and the aileron servo worked again. Feel better it was'nt my flying. Went back put four more flights on the seahawk. Took the seabird in the basement and a couple hours later it's fixed.

Dang thing is sunday is supposed to be fifty degrees and probably no snow left. so now i feel really dumb/stupid because it probably stopped working when the engine was running and did'nt notice/check it before i made the take off run.

Oh well maybe another chance to fly it next time it snows.

A not so sad day. at least no one was at the field to witness it. Now there's only 200,000 members on rcu that heard about my crash.

Dennis

Newc

d bodary - Here's some additional pictures I just took alongside scales so that you get some idea of the dimensions. The photos are for the main ski, a nose ski (for a tricycle gear set-up) and a tail ski (for a tail dragger).

Some further info on these skis - The nose ski has a skeg that's 1/8" x 1/8" x 4" and the tip is 7/8" up. On the tail ski the skeg is 1//8" x 1/8" x 2" and the tip is 1/4" raised, and when in the air the tail ski is at about a 45 degree angle. The same 1/8" x 1/8" skeg material is used on the mains, with them being 6" long. Their tip is 3/4" up.

The spines for the mains and nose skis are out of 3/8" x 3/4" balsa. I gave the skis a coating of epoxy to water proof them as well as to provide a really smooth surface, though polyurethane would probably work as well.

I like to set up my skis so that they are at about a 30 degree angle in the air, as this allows some fun touch-n-gos with only the trailing edge of the skis touching the snow and kicking up a roostertail. When changing from wheels to skis I need to dial in some down trim, as the angle of the skis provides additional lift (or at least nose up attitude) to the plane.

By the way, before moving down here to Indiana I lived in Farmington Hills and was a member of Ribcrackers and we would fly at the field at 10 Mile and Wixom Rd., sometimes needing a four-wheel drive vehicle to get through the snow and to the field. The field on Grand River east of Milford Road was better for snow flying since there's an unused - but plowed and still snow covered - road running perpendicular to the runway, and we would use it for TO and landings when the snow was really deep.

d_bodary

My Feedback: (85)

Thanks for the pictures. I never flew at the ribcrackers field before. although when i worked at the Taylor Rider's a couple of years ago i remember someone that came in from indiana. Who had a daughter that flew a Goldberg Tiger 2. It'll give me something to build now that the rain is here and the snow is all gone.

Dennis

red head

Dennis --- Don't you stand behind your plane when taxing out ? That's the last time to check your controls and it's a GREAT habit to get into. AS far as I'm concerned that's a MUST. ENJOY !!! RED

d_bodary

My Feedback: (85)

Red your killing me here. Normally i do that. But and this is a big but. Because of the snow i started it on the table instead of the ground. So i got out of my rhythm. And stuff happens i'm sure the pin vibrated while the engine was started and i only checked it before the engine was running. and when i set it down being i changed my routine i just did'nt do it. No excuses my fault. Just explaining my screw up. That way 200,000 people can belittle me.

Dennis

Newc

Most fliers that I know - me included - have done this before or had the ailerons completely reversed - so I wouldn't worry about too many folks ridiculing or belittling you!

jak_kkaall

This is my own design of skis. I've been using the same material for many years with great success. They look more complex, but that's how I like them , it is a mater of preference and they've always worked flawlessly. The material is plastic(here in apartments it is used in bathrooms to cover the pipes behind the sink from floor to ceiling, the bathroom mirror it's on it). The springs of the skis allow the small movement necessary to taxi,and land, once in the air they stay parallel with the fuselage. I like better to fly in winter, and now I also have the Transmitter glove and heat system in it. Here is a video edited from many videos with multiple cameras, of my 1,9m Cessna 182 Skylane - winter flying. And the pictures are of my GP CAP 232 50cc. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGyoiWCIg2g

Propworn

My Feedback: (3)

This is my Lazy Ace on skis. Skis are made from door skin or 1/16 ply or light ply. Kerf cuts just through the skin on the front where the ski curves up helps form the rise. Longer skis help with soft snow and I never had to worry about a skeg for steering.

Dennis

JL1

My Feedback: (93)

Floats work very well also, especially if they are "V" bottomed. I prefer them to skis.

kwblake

Hey. This is an old thread that seems to be resurrected, so...... I put DuBro skis on my Nexstar, and after it met a tree, I put them on my Pulse. The one thing I did do a little different, from what some have posted, is, I put a DuBro park flyer ski, in place of the tail wheel. Worked for me. Looks kind of cool too. Hey, jak-kkaall, very cool skis. As you posted, complex, but still cool. The only person you have to please, is yourself. Second edit.... and I went and looked at some of your video. 18 minutes is a bit much for me, but....... I love the shots, looking back over the horizontal stab. Very well done!

jak_kkaall

Uau! You are right Kwblake now that I look better I see that I've resurrected the thread after a 8 years coma! I've used the search engine, otherwise I would have probably never find the thread. Thank you for your appreciation! It is a little long the vid, you're right...I've cut so much from about 2 hrs of multiple filming that I didn't want to cut anymore and lose some frames although many look the same, but they aren't. I like editing. Great to see you put a ski in the tail too.

Flypaper 2

Something you might try is the stabilizer wing on the back of the skis they used on the DC3 way back when. I think it's one of those things that got lost on the horizon. On the series ICE PILOTS they were retrofitting these skis to the DC3. They could drop the wheels down through the skis for runway use, then retract them. The skis could also be retracted up agains the engine nacelles. I'm using them on a few electric planes and they work very well and are as simple as you can get. No need for springs, wires or rubber bands. After the build, pick them up in the spot where they balance level and put the pivot bushing here. I retrofitted them to old skis that were already mounted and had to add a bit of weight at the nose for balance. Aerobatics are fine with them as they just follow the airflow.
Tried to upload pics but that didn't work. Sorry.

kwblake

Hey Flypaper 2. Now you got my attention!! There was a show I saw, a while back, on Discovery. The U.S. Military has some C-130's outfitted with skis, and the existing landing gear. These planes took off from a conventional runway, and I believe the skis lowered into place to land on snow. Some how, I don't think they could retract the landing gear, with the skis in place. Not 100% sure on this though. I have never seen the ones you are describing, for the DC-3. Enquiring minds want to know!!! We need your photos.

Flypaper 2

Hi Kevin: I tried to make the pic work but can't figure out why it won't download here. I know I'm a computer klutz but didn't think I was that bad. I'll give it another shot. Meanwhile Google it under "DC3 on skis" and it will show what they look like. I have them on the micro Beast as well as planes up to 40 size.