1/4A Pylon Racer
 

:D Thought you other small engine lovers might enjoy this little plane. The plane below is the second 1/4 A pylon racer I have designed. It is called the Veloce (Italian for RAPID). I built this to race against some of the local guys. Matter of fact, DickeyBird posted one of my challenger's great lookin little planes called the Hotshot, designed by Brian Pate.
Anyway, the plane has just under 100 square inches of wing area, and approximately a 24 " wingspan. With an 8% airfoil, the built up wing is less than 3/8" thick at the tip. Ready to fly weight is just under 9oz's.
I test flew this plane in a field adjacent to my apartment complex at 6am while on the way to the Little Rock Small Festival.
With a Cox TeeDee .020 spinning a little APC prop on 25% nitro, the little thing really moves. It is easily the smoothest/grooviest small plane I have ever flown.

(This little plane is also the basis for my upcoming 1/2A Unlimited pylon racer!!!!)

I hope y'all like it.

'nuther pic
 

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Very Cool......
 

Wow!

Nice looking racer...... Scale this baby up for a 1/2a, it looks like it'll rip! Nice Job.... a aaa 200 sq in please! good flying......

Jeff

1/4A Pylon Racer
 

Tooooo freeekin cool man! I agree, we need a 1/2A for the .061's. I bet that dude would smoke in the 1/2A class. Scaled up of course. Did someone say course? Let's race!!!!! GO!!

1/4a
 

What a little piece of crap, I will only offer you $100 for it, (He he he he) dude you got it going on with this one!!!! Whats it covered with??

Thanks guys
 

Thanks guys! :D

Fastlash, the little thing is covered in clear and white monokote. Fuse is built square with extensive tri-stocking. I then sanded the entire fuse to a round cross section.
My unlimited plane is essentially a long wing version of this plane with a slightly longer nose to better balance the plane and provide more room for the fuel tank. The little canopy is actually functional. It houses/streamlines the aileron servo which is sunk inverted through the wing. I have not yet decided whether or not to use a Vtail on the Unlimited.


:cool:

1/4A Pylon Racer
 

How long a run do you get with the tank mount? I'm trying to decide whether to use it or put a regular tank in the fuselage.

1/4A Pylon Racer
 

Looks nice. Just a question- why does the fuselage extend beyond the back of the tail feathers? Hans

answers to two questions....
 

I would suggest that you use the backplate mount and forget the little tankmount. I am about to change this one over to the backplate and put a tank inside. I do not remember how much the tank holds, but on a good run I can get about 2 and a half minutes out of it. Unfortunately, my tank is very used and quite old, and therefore it leaks quite often. Problem with putting the tank inside is finding one that will fit! I am either gonna make it from a cut down cigar tube, or solder a little brass sheet one together.

The fuse extending behind the tail is a byproduct of my need to find a better way to mount little v-tails. After building another little 1/4A racer with a Vtail that was crooked, I came up with a different way.
For lack of a better description- the area the v-tail mounts to is built into a perfectly square box (instead of having the fuse come to a point under the tail) with the fuselage tapering down after the box. After building and squaring the box, I then perfectly align the wing with the little box using an incidence meter (0-0degrees). Then I simply epoxy the tail into the box. By doing it this way, it makes it almost impossible to mount the tail at anything but 0 degrees incidence.
I may have built it a little too long on this one, but it sure looks cool in the air! :D

1/4A Pylon Racer
 

My plane won't be a pylon racer. Any suggestions what to use for a clunk if I use the cigar tube idea?

Clunks.....
 

I am not personally going to use a clunk. I need to have a fixed pickup so that I can roll the plane inverted to kill it.

However, we have been using film cannisters as fuel tanks here in the mid-south (fuji film cannisters). Inside them we have successfully used Cox Dragonfly clunks (hard to find), homemade clunks (kinda fiddly) and turned down fullsize clunks. When you turn a fullsize down (can use a lathe or a drill press) make sure to make it smaller in diameter, and to make the tip much pointier. This will make sure that the tip of the clunk will pick up the last little bit of fuel in the tank.

Good Luck.

Tanks a lot......
 

Matchless,

When you use the film canister for the tank are you sealing it with anything? When you install the pickup and the vent tubes do you seal them? how do you keep them from leaking? Can they be used in crankcase pressure applications? Rgds,

Jeff......

Film cannister tank
 

Jeff, we do not use any sealant on the cap end of the tank. Just pop it in. However we do not use any pressure with these little tanks. I think pressure would blow the cap off. :eek:

Fuel line and breather lines are created by the following.... I drill a 3/16" (I think) hole in the center of the bottom. I then drill the breather line hole(same size) halfway in between the center and the wall. I then insert a 3/8" long piece of red fuel tubing(the stiffer red silicone fuel tubing at the LHS) in each hole. Next I insert a 5/8" long piece of 1/8 or 3/32" brass tubing through the red fuel tubing. (the red tubing seals the holes). Then bend the vent up to the roof (pick one, the tank is round) and attach the clunk line and clunk. Pop on the cap and go.

The only problem I have had is with the plastic in between the two holes splitting. Creates quite a mess, but then again, this is the cheapest fuel tank I have ever had! A TD on one will run a good 7 minutes..... :p

BTW, I did not figure out any of this by myself. DickeyBird taught me how to make these. Thanks Dickeybird

1/4A Pylon Racer
 

Thanks for the tips. I keep finding this Dickeybird guy all over this forum. He must be a good man to know.

Tanks Again
 

Matchless,

Thanks to you and Dickiebird for the tank info. The reason I'm interested in the film cannister is weight. I use the Sullivan 1 or 2 0z. round tanks in my racers and they weigh .6-.8 oz. depending on the size. That's quite a bit when you figure my racers are at 12.+ oz. I'd really like to find a tank that is 1 1/2 oz. that would shave a few tenths of my current tank weight. I'm going to test a film can and see if I can make it work. Rgds,

Jeff.....

1/4A Pylon Racer
 

hey guys ive got a 1/2a shrike an i use a sullivan (i think) 1oz tank, and it does really good inverted yu know clunk following the fuel around, i didnt think itd do very good cause the clunk line was pretty stiff, and im pretty sure the tank dont leak, but if you need a cheap and lite racing tank i think a film canister is the way to go

1/4A Pylon Racer
 

Hello Jet Jock. I'm almost finished building a shrike and am going to use a Cox .049. What did you use and how can i expect it to fly? Thanks.

1/4A Pylon Racer
 

I've seen Jet Jock's Shrike, and you can expect it to fly FAST for its size. Just keep it light. I'm experimenting with mine to use only the ailerons as elevators. The guy that built it put 2 aileron servos in it, and it was kinda heavy. I cant put new tourque rods in, so I'm just going to make it a flying wing type plane. It should be intresting. The glide tests show that it should fly!