combatpigg

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Pond Skipper has a nice bunch of .09 specimens..!
They are nice and compact, easy to cowl.
Especially the AP with the way the NV slants up to the head.

That was a great report by Hllywoodb...good looking birds, too.
I wonder if a gizmo could be rigged to deliver exhaust pressure to the TD Hummer...?
I don't think a TD needs both exhaust slits fully open to make max power...
If so, it would be a little bit easier to work with than some back plate nipple arrangements.

I flew the repaired .11 powered Pacer today. 35 degrees, light sprinkle, foggy, no wind...very nice for January.
6 x 4 APC E prop. Didn't tach it, but it was probably 18-19,000 in the hand. Nice even, steady launch. The prop pulls the plane nicely but there weren't any "Speed Passes" that need clocking. The vertical pull was amazing. I pointed it straight up and at about 300 feet it was too foggy to tell if it was just hovering or still making progress. All I know is that I needed to bring it out of the clouds. Just one flight, didn't lose the cowl or the engine and I'll be sure to check the tightness of all the screws. All machine screws got zapped with red Locktite and torqued down by my good friend, Lou Ferigno.
I took video, but the lens was too wet to view the replay.
This one needs to be set aside until the 6.3 x 4s come in. I checked the usual sources of ASP .12s with no luck.
Getting a replacement P / L set from Enya is not in the cards either. I checked on that many years ago and he wanted 2/3 of what a new engine costs.

Pond Skipper

Thank you CP, Im set to go with the next build engine wise for at least a 3 channel 09 plane.
2 RC 09's with mufflers one with a pressure tap and this latest throttle sleeve version for max power.

I think the AP is too heavy to use on the next plane perhaps one day it will find a home with the Mac pipe.

The 6.3 x 4 seem promising so look forward to your findings with your current engine.
Good to hear your plane is back up and running and zipping along with suprising results!

I did a search for the ASP .12
http://www.austars-model.com/12a-asp...ane_g6810.html

39 bucks shipping - USD $8.65 flat rate

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Thanks for doing that for me..!
I think that price is worth it, rather than wait who knows how long for Nitroplanes.
The ASP is a hot line of engines, but they fall into that "You get what you pay for" category.
I also wouldn't run one without doing a teardown to at least where you are holding a case with just a pair of bearings.
I'm not sure what ripped my "old" .12 up, but there were a number of failed launches with a low thrust speed prop that could have caused it.
Have you ever done any business with this Australian outfit...?

Pond Skipper

Yes no worries mate, they have been around for a while, I bought 6 EMP props from them.
It took about 2.5 wks for the package to show as I went with cheapo flat rate shipping

You might want to email them to confirm the engine is indeed in stock. That ASP .12 is getting very hard to find at a cheap price.

Pond Skipper

Alas the rain has been ongoing 3 days in a row from weds - friday the flat sparse grass field had standing water as of Sat.
With the muddy mess there is no way I want to land or maiden my new plane in that muck so will wait a week for it to dry out.
Till then it is building season, the rain and cold can't stop that. I was going to fly with the flaps locked as I haven't sorted the details with the radio.
This week I will make an effort to figure it out.

Rv7garage

My Feedback: (10)

All good. It's just an opportunity to put the finishing touches on. No rush!

Pond Skipper

Looks like mother nature is still on a roll - cold, rain with sleet and ice. Perhaps next weekend.

Put a cut out of a Skorch logo on the wing may take the time to razor cut and do a sticking ceremony.

Tony A.

Looks great Pond! Nice work!

hllywdb

I hear you on the weather. We've been struggling with sub 80 degree weather all week. But yesterday was almost dead calm so I braved the frigid 70 degree temps and flew the hummer. It flys much better with the good td on it. It's not a sport plane or a swr. But I can see why it was a popular club racer. It's so stable that it makes flying a perfect line around the pylons child's play. It would still be stronger with an 061 but the td will do. I had flown it a few days back but in 25 to 30mph gusts. The 5.7x3 was fine. If you held about 1/4 down elevator in the upwind turn it would only gain about 50ft in altitude. I did try a 4.2x4 big mistake. It made almost zero progress into the wind and any gust would rotate it 90 degrees. It's not a glh.

Pond Skipper

Lol funny!! You have been lucky to dodge the weather most of the country has been hit hard with this latest front. We are slated for change by next weekend upper 60's sure hope so! Went out for breakfast and froze my butt off till the car warmed up. The roads are dead minimal traffic no one wants to travel at this time.

Yea its real easy to see why anyone that has owned one will be drawn to their stable characteristics yet peppy performance. Its a low winger so this has most have their heart strings pulled and will at some point revisit the plane later in life.

The plane is big and needs some thrust to pull all that skin friction around regardless of weight. The APC 5.7 x 3 is a perfect solution in this case the tips narrow making the very most out of the dia and still delivering some rpm for that 3p. It would be nice if APC took it to the next level. A more narrow cord out of all carbon to allow the use of a thinner airfoil and thus a 5.7 x 3.5 could produce the same rpm as the original version without giving up the disk area.

Im happy to hear your wee ones are working out and showing you a taste of what it was like back when the hummer was ripping the skies on a regular bases.
If you have the opportunity Im sure we would all drool over a posted vid. I bet the color really pops in the air.

hllywdb

Yes my first one in the 70's had full size gear, a stock td and a choice of 5x3 or 6x3 prop. By my second one I still had heavy gear but I had a KK needle and backplate presure and was cutting the 6x3 down to 5.5. Today light gear, good props and a strong td makes it so much easier to fly.

Pond Skipper

I was off looking at vids of the hummer found this he claims its an .09 on the nose. I have this AP engine spotted per the spinner nut mine is a new old stock .061 though perhaps they made a .09 version at one time??

http://aviationstation.net/2003-projects/hummer/

2003 build by the late great Archie Sipes

aspeed

I think it is a clerical error. Pretty sure it is the .06.

Pond Skipper

Ok updates on the 1/2A Skorch,

I was wanting 11oz RTF what I ended up with is 11.2347 oz so off by .24 not too shabby!!

Wing set up worked out great for now I have the flap set up to deploy down via the landing gear switch. The flap switch on the transmitter has a longer throw arm that may get knocked by mistake so for now the smaller switch arm will be better till I dial it in ultimately in preparation to mix with the elevator for stunt flaps and preset landing mode.

The original engine ended up being too heavy with the tarno carb and the tatone muffler. To my surprise it was nose heavy the tail end was lighter than anticipated being ply with large surfaces wasn't enough to offset the original engine as seen in previous photos.

So now I am using a cox carb and a cox buggy muffler ment for SPI engines it has a intake hole opposing the mufflers exhaust tube to intake air. To get consistency with fuel flow I added a pressure tap to the exhaust tube this prove to work very well and drained the tank bone dry! The cox carb works great idle air bleed screw had to be closed half way. I ran the engine rich to break in the new old stock engine. With a high compression head it runs very well shown with a black rubber cox 5 x 4 for the maiden flight just in case I boink it in a few times during my learning curve. I have the flaps at 60% with the dual rate off till I sort out the characteristics of flap use on a speed wing. I have a brand new Sanik 400mah pack for the 5 hungry servos. I will fly 4 flights and stop for the day then use my smart charger to find out how many mah I used up from there I hope to fly 5 flights per outing using all the servos throughout the flights. The 2/3 AAA 400mah bats came in at 32g with wire/plug. They are the latest high mah batts you can get as nimh in this size. I have many indoor 2/3 AAA batteries from 2002 labeled MAXX NH 220 AAA in light green for their time they where the shizzle back then now we have almost double the capacity today.

I could have flown this weekend but would have pushed it to fly in time do to last minute changes to improve CG Im glad I did as with a full tank it is still pushing on the limits and may require up trim on launch till some of the weight comes out of the tank. I had to slip in 4g of lead in the tail to get a slightly rearward CG less fuel. I had exceeded by weight goal prior to the 4g lead trick coming in under 11oz at 10.834 oz. This is very light for a 5ch 1/2A plane with landing gear and steerable tail wheel. Had I not used an aluminum spinner rather a short bolt and washer I wouldn't have needed the .4g of lead. Truly down to the wire. Even prop types had been weight checked for best CG selection. The muffler seems to breath pretty good and only takes out the treble crack giving the ears a reasonable break. The additional hole for the SPI function has a considerable amount of exhaust pressure coming out at a higher velocity than the square tube side for size reference of the exhaust tube I have taken a pic. Goo diversion seems reasonable thus far with this style muffler still found for sale on the cox web sites and ebay. Should fly soon had my hat mounted video camera charged was ready to pull the trigger but don't want to fly unless I feel all is in order.

Rv7garage

My Feedback: (10)

You said "the shizzle", loll

Pond skipper, this is a truly awesome creation. I don't just want flight pics. I need a video!!!

Mr Cox

I've always assumed that the little hole was for priming? I doubt you'll get any fresh air coming "in" through a tiny hole in the exhaust collector...

Have you tached the engine? Would be interesting to hear about rpm differences between the exhaust collector and the Tatone muffler you had on before?

Pond Skipper

Thank you and yes for sure will vid the maiden flight, also great tool to review the flying characteristics, speed, duration how slow it landed etc.
I will try and seek out a flat spot at the park, low compacted grass to ROG using 1.5in foam wheels to be Johnny on the spot with the sticks.
Good time to use the flaps to pop off the deck at a slower speed while dail in all the trims.

On a side note I bought some Norvel Revlite .074's and in anticipation of a crappy spinner bought some TD .15 spinners. Makes for a much
better look with the big finned engine giving some balance. I also just had to polish the prop back plate as a finishing touch.

Displayed with a Tornado 7 x 4 nice thin airfoil should get 17k ish after break in on 30% nitro.
After reading some threads on this engine I found out it's no rpm monster so if with a 5 x 5 at 17k / 80 mph.
I have some MA 6.5 x 3.5 props and APC 6.3 x 4 to try. Most found the 7 x 3 to work best for general
sport flying and good thrust.

Pond Skipper

The original buggy muffler came with no hole. Later Cox used a small hole to increase performance the 3rd generation has the large hole shown in the pic. I have 6 of these mufflers two with small holes one with no hole and 3 with larger holes as shown in the pic this will for sure help SPI function.

In the second pic notice the center muffler in stock form the exhaust outlet is smaller than the tube itself so on the other two examples I have used a small square file to open this up to at least match the exhaust tube. These examples have not been polished like the one on the plane.

Tatone muffler 15.7g Cox muffler 2.1g

Pond Skipper

For sure the tatone will allow better breathing and sounds better to the ears it killed me to have to remove it! I went ahead and switched from the non SPI cylinder to a SPI to make further use of the forced change. I had to pay a high price to obtain one of these mufflers was new old stock in the original packaging.

The Cox muffler on the engine had one more trick done to it. I used a small rat tail file to round out the square edges creating a flume to further increase exhaust flow.

Here is a facsimile of the effort.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

I've never seen those exhaust stacks before.
Sometimes it seems like I've only laid eyes on about 50% of everything they ever made.
As a kid, the only day out of the year that I ever saw Cox toys in action was Xmas morning at the local school yard.

Pond Skipper

I remember the only way you learned anything about the hobby was reading about it out of a magazine (I use to have hundreds of them) and going to the flying field to see how things got done then trying it yourself. We are all very spoiled these days with so much information and products online.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Yes sirrreee...the magazines used to be such a great thing to look forward to each month.
Thankfully in the nearest town there was a great hobby store where the owner was an avid flyer of just about anything. He was actually running a bike shop, but sold fuel, plugs, props, tanks, etc. to help keep the rest of the gang well supported. In it's "hey day" this shop was a very busy place on pay day.
the shop owner WAS my "internet" back hen because he stayed current on all the latest and greatest stuff that his many customers passed on to him every day. Eventually, he had to open up a separate store just to handle RC stuff.
Since RCU's 1/2 A forum came on line, that really accelerated the amount of incoming info. Guys like Dickeybird and Larry Driskill shared quite a few tricks that were up their sleeves. A guy who worked for Cox [Design Man] also chimed in once in a while.
By this time, all sorts of information was coming in at a pace that no magazine was keeping up with.
The model magazines that I've hung onto aren't many but I've never tossed a single issue of Stunt News. I think it's only published a few times a year and it's devoted to control line. The thing is, a lot of info relates well to 1/2 A RC since these guys are the masters of building light.

Pond Skipper

Yeessa damn I forgot to make an honorable mention to ye ol hobby store for sure a great source and soaking in time. Back in early 2k there was a shop called 2nd chance hobby always hoppin with the local gang selling and buying each others stuff lol and well stocked for the scratch builder having an owner who flew himself he knew what goodies to stock the shelves with that was current and keeping up with our progressive needs. Shame he retired and sold off the lot no one stepped up to take over. Of course the best way to learn any of this is to roll up the sleeves and dive in each effort have epic success down to so so learning from it all the same finding what suits you best. The great thing about the forum all that input from the past still can be sourced through the search function building up an impressive amount of experience to tap into. I get more of a thrill out of the design build then flying these days its easy to fly them the challenge is making a new design adhere to anticipated parameters. Its really important that folks chip in and post their builds here and video the results as less and less is documented in other formats. More of us small plane enthusiasts have become solo acts flying alone rather than joining a club. So we have to keep sharing for the next generation in hopes it will still be thriving for when we are too old to participate we can still have the forum to enjoy, reflect and share our past memories.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

One of the best arrangements I ever heard of was Ole Bill Winter had a younger friend who collaberated with him to varying degrees on scratch builds. I think all the way to the end of Bill's life, while his partner finished the last project without him.
I think small glow will always maintain a small glow in populariy as it rides on the coat tails of small electric moving forward.
If our flying sites continue to get bull dozed in favor of a growing population, fewer and fewer large plane flyers will have access to nearby club fields. Those kind of venues will get driven further and further into the boondocks. Some of these folks will give up the hobby and others might consider down sizing [at least somewhat] so they can fly at a field close to home.
There will ALWAYS be a select few who are attracted to small fuel burners much the same as those who will ALWAYS be attracted to those nasty little toy Chihuahuas..

Andrew

The little town I live in would be considered the boondocks by many, even without going out to the country. Luckily, we have access to a privately owned airstrip and the owner is receptive to anything that gets into the air: private planes, homebuilts, ultralights, helicopters and models. It's about an 7 minute drive. The only downside is that we share the strip with deer, turkeys, geese and ducks. Can't imagine what a midair with a Canada goose would be like.

I also have an 8 acre field about a 2 minute walk from my house.