049flyer

My Feedback: (18)

So a couple of friends I hang out with flying control line planes decided to build 1/2a pylon racers and race together at the field. The only rule is the plane has to be powered by a reed valve engine. I scratched a GLH together, one guy designed his own and another found a 1/2a racer kit and built it.

Well I just returned from a perfect evening racing with my buds at the field. Nice cool temps, no wind and clear skies. All of our Cox Surestarts ran flawlessly and we had a BLAST! Amazingly the fellow that designed his own managed to make his plane come out under 8 oz while my GLH was 14 oz and the other fellows was 14 1/2 oz. The GLH was only slightly slower than the light weight plane but it was MUCH smoother and easier to fly around the Pylons.

Great fun was had by all. Didn't even get my Jr Falcon out of the car to fly. I was having so much fun with the GLH chasing the others around the field.

Amazing how much fun you can have with a $20.00 engine, $5.00 worth of balsa and 2 oz of fuel!

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

they are a blastto race around..we do it at the carolina 1/2a crew meets, too bad yor so far away...Rog

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

For a short while the engines were only $6.00.

Like Rog said, we have had a bunch of fun with them.

av8rsodt

My Feedback: (23)

Half the fun is seeing what everyone shows up with... GLH's, scratch design, kit planes, etc.

Lots of 1/2A pylon race designs in the magazines over the years.

You guys need to post some pics to share!

Looking forward to another Carolina Crew pylon race this Spring (fingers crossed).

Vic - laughed about our comment I read today on Spencer and his deep voice. My Nathan is not far behind

Brian

Dan Vincent

Any pictures of the Reed-Racers.

Wingspan, Wing area?

049flyer

My Feedback: (18)

OK OK! We are going to fly tomorrow morning. I'll post some pics tomorrow night. My plane is an Ace GLH, plans are easy to find online. I cut my own wing out of 3/4 inch building insulation foam from Lowes and covered the entire plane with Doculam with a little red tissue for color underneath. Oh yea I also painted some of the wood surfaces with cheap acrylic paint from Walmart before covering with Doculam.

Built the plane with wood from my scrap pile. The foam is about $6.00 for enough to cut about 8 wing cores. I doubt I have $5.00 in the plane. Best flying $5.00 plane I've ever flown! Nice and smooth! And turns tight around the pylons. Next GLH is going to be a little smaller, maybe 10% smaller to get the weight down to about 12 oz although it flies great at 14 oz with a Surestart on 15% fuel and a Cox 5 x 3 prop.

If you build a GLH you should shorten the nose about an inch, mine came out nose heavy, had to move the battery back quite a bit to get it to balance.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Nice to hear about some guys with enough energy and ambition to build some 1/2A racers and have some fun .
Put in as many [mind numbing] practice laps as you can..! It really pays off.

049flyer

My Feedback: (18)

Here are a few pics of our racers and my flying buddy Tracy

Steve Westphal

We have been toying with the idea of small pylon racing. Our idea was to have an .020 class and an .049/.051 class. I have scaled down some racer plans for both classes. I have always loved the "Rivets" and have a plans for an .020 one. If I could get ahold of John(?) at Glaskraft I would love to get one of his fiberglas "Rivets" kits. They are beautiful!! I have also liked the "Shoestring" pylon racer for years. I know there are faster aircraft than these "oldies" but the sentimental value is appealing. I found a copy of the 1/2A pylon racing rules but we are discussing our own rules using theirs as a reference. We have discussed several different classes including "Vintage" "Modern"(stock and modified) and "Unlimited". My brother has done some ingenius mods to the TD .020, but, as there are not many around to experiment with, he does a little at a time. A planed head makes some difference along with high nitro fuel. I have heard of guys "stroking" their .020's but he is afraid to experiment with that as we only have a couple of TD .020's to work with. Boring the cylinder would be nice ,BUT, what piston would one use???? Thankfully, we wouldn't need throttles which would ramp the price up! I guess we could practice on "Pee Wee's" as we have a bag of them. Anybody out there who has had success with mods to the .020? Let me know as this would be cheap racing,and, fun compared to the big stuff!

Steve Westphal

We have been toying with the idea of small pylon racing. Our idea was to have an .020 class and an .049/.051 class. I have scaled down some racer plans for both classes. I have always loved the "Rivets" and have a plans for an .020 one. If I could get ahold of John(?) at Glaskraft I would love to get one of his fiberglas "Rivets" kits. They are beautiful!! I have also liked the "Shoestring" pylon racer for years. I know there are faster aircraft than these "oldies" but the sentimental value is appealing. I found a copy of the 1/2A pylon racing rules but we are discussing our own rules using theirs as a reference. We have discussed several different classes including "Vintage" "Modern"(stock and modified) and "Unlimited". My brother has done some ingenius mods to the TD .020, but, as there are not many around to experiment with, he does a little at a time. A planed head makes some difference along with high nitro fuel. I have heard of guys "stroking" their .020's but he is afraid to experiment with that as we only have a couple of TD .020's to work with. Boring the cylinder would be nice ,BUT, what piston would one use???? Thankfully, we wouldn't need throttles which would ramp the price up! I guess we could practice on "Pee Wee's" as we have a bag of them. Anybody out there who has had success with mods to the .020? Let me know as this would be cheap racing,and, fun compared to the big stuff!

skaliwag

My Feedback: (1)

The Pee Wee and TD shared the Piston / Cylinder / Head from quite early on.

Steve Westphal

Wags......Then what makes the TD so much more powerful? Is it the venturi on the front as opposed to the reed setup? Thanks.

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

Steve,
I think what made our races so much fun is the lack of rules. We have two classes, the Reedie is just that an .049 reedie for power. Other than that, run whatcha brung. Then we have the unlimited, anything goes up to .074.
Keep in mind that spending a bunch of money to win doesn't usually equal the most fun.

DeviousDave

Two things off of the top of my head: 1) the TD has timed intake, where the PeeWee just works off of positive and negative case pressure, and 2) the PeeWee's reed valve doesn't flow air/fuel mixture very well or help in any way with directing the incoming mixture or maintaining velocity as it comes thru the reed and makes it's way up the intake runners. Reed valves are convenient but they aren't a great thing for power.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Hear Ye, Hear Ye...the more rules you make, the more rules you have to break.
Don't give anyone who is 1/2 way interested in racing 1/2 a reason not to.... by imposing rules that might exclude a certain aircraft. 100% of the initial work is to figure out how to include as many guys as possible who might have a 1/2A plane stashed away somewhere.
Stock reed valve engines on any airframe are a great way to get started.
A local club has a 200 square inch, 1 inch minimum airfoil and 16 ounce rule. It might sound a little bit large, but it flys real competitively on a 300 foot, 2 pole course. Smaller planes can tend to be too squirrely..consider that the racing needs to be very precise and tight, plus I don't want to be on the same course with a squirrely design that's making the pilot look like he's drunk. So, 200 square inches and a minimum of 16 ozs should make it an even playing field for wood and composite planes to fly together.

PS..The KillerBee reedy is the most powerful Cox .049 I've ever handled and I've competed with many a TD .049

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

To be sure, the fastest airplane has rarely won a reedie race...if Ever.
It is more about getting it running and keeping it that way for all the laps.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Vic, you are obviously a guy who puts in the time to do the practice laps and get your plane dialed in so that it is ready for action well before the day of the race and throughout the year.
The problem I've seen with with 1/2A competitions in year's past [AMA events that I've entered] has been the amount of DNFs compared with the larger classes. The majority of entrants spend their time on the .35 - .40 sized classes and looked at 1/2A as just something "cute" to enter.
So far, the best 1/2A pylon programs I've ever heard of were in Utah and one down in Mexico.
The program in Utah evolved into pretty serious business that would have excluded "newbees"...[unless they were willing to pay a machinist to prepare a competitive engine or do it themselves].
I'm all for unlimited racing..but the foundation of any program ought to be about the skill of the pilot with his entry level machine.

Dan Vincent

What radio and servo types are you using these days for 1/2-A?

MJD

My Feedback: (1)

Combatpigg turned me on to Hitec HS65's a while ago and I haven't bought anything since for 1/2A models with any performance - they border on overkill but are compact and light enough. Done with HS-55's, they strip gears too easily for me. But they always worked well until I banged a control surface on something.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

The HS-55 servo teeth are so tiny/brittle they can just turn into powder due to vibration. I tried various off beat brand Chinese "micro" servos with high rpm 1/2A stuff and that was like playing Russian Roulette too.
The original G&Z .061 SWR and Fora .049 Mustang SWR used HS-55s and GWS park flyer RXs.............
but I've failed dozens of HS-55s in other planes.
So far the HS 65s can handle anything "1/2A" related I've used them on...and that must add up to more than 10 scratch built projects.
They won't last very long on .15 powered 3D planes, though.

Dan Vincent

Good to know. What's your choice of receiver?

I had eye surgery a couple of years ago for a detached retina and doubt if I'll ever do any racing again but am thinking about getting a lightweight radio system for 1/2 A to .09 size aircraft.

I'm getting the itch to build something slow and easy to get back into flying.

049flyer

My Feedback: (18)

I like the HS81 servos for my 1/2 a stuff. It' powerful, reliable, rugged and best of all inexpensive. I still fly 72 mhz so the receivers I've been using are the Castle Creations series of Berg receivers with great success. Airborne pack is powered by 350 ma AAA Nicad batteries. I don't trust NIMH batteries or Lipo batteries.

I flew my 1/2a reedy racer about 5 flights of maybe 5 min each and when I got home the battery still had 300 ma left in it! I could have used a 100ma pack and saved 1/2 oz!

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

You can't go wrong with HS-81s. Way back when [1988?] Futaba came out 1st with basically the same servo..the S-133. They cost $27 each back when that much money was enough for a tank of gas. They used a lot of current and the gears didn't last long.
When Hitek came out with the HS-81 that was quite a step forward for 1/2A flyers.

I've gotten away from using Berg RXs and use the small Hitek 4ch RX or sometimes use a Spektrum 2.4Ghz Park Flyer radio system for 1/2A. The Berg RXs have had the solder traces break where the servo pins attach to the board. Some fault rests with me not using on/off switches on most planes and swapping RXs from plane to plane pretty often. The Berg RX also uses very fine/tiny gauge antenna wire. They're great for the ultimate space saving and light weight full range RX....but I think the larger Hitek is more durable.

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

I like GWS for both Rx and servos in my little guys. FWIW, I think GWS servos are head and shoulders above anything Hitec ever made. I've never had a hitec servo last a year in one plane much less several years in multiple planes like GWS.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

I used GWS RXs but had too many crashes that seemed to be linked to them. Out at that big hay field most of the crashes before harvest never reach the ground so I had a chance one day to do some detective work. I pulled a plane that was still running out of the tall grass [that had just crashed]... that was locked on to a TX that I left on back at the pilot area and went for a long walk. Low and behold I came upon a spot where the servos went ape. It was fairly close to the edge of the field near some buildings and as it turned out there was an indoor RC car dirt track that people paid to drive their cars at. Their car radios were making the GWS airplane RX jumpy..!
There was another spot at that same field where the servos would glitch occassionaly and I believe that there is an underground gas pipe line running through there with it's own radio control / monitoring.
The final insult to injury that a GWS RX ever gave me was when I plugged in a brand new one and it instantly caught fire. I remember taking a picture of that and posting it here many years ago.....