ORIGINAL: kingaltair
ORIGINAL: billberry189
I am curious about your reference to the 120 2 stroke as I am about to order an OS motor for my Simla this morning. I have been planning on the OS 95 AX (wow, I just heard the shuttle Atlantis' last double sonic booms), but a 120 AX would not be out of the question. What do think?
Off topic: I was 10 years old when Alan Shephard made his first suborbital Mercury flight. I remember they wheeled a TV into our 1st grade classroom so we could witness it. I was always an avid Space Program fan, and did several reports on it where I'd send away to NASA for information on this or that. I have a collection of info from NASA, and magazine and newspaper articles that trace the space program throughout the 1960s. My whole life since then I have followed our national space program...it just seems impossible to believe that we as a nation will go back to the position where we CAN'T send someone into space; we have to rely on our former cold-war enemies to take us there at 60 million a person.[
]
I think the national manned space program is kind-of a commentary on what is happening in this country in general...we ''can't afford'' to have a space program, but we supposedly CAN afford so much other useless spending and national debt. Well, enough personal commentary unrelated to planes.
If I were you, I'd go for the 120AX. It's always better to have more power rather than less. On the 90 OS the plane is
adequately powered, but for aerobatics there are definite limits. I'd prefer to have the larger powerplant that Ed couldn't have, and throttle back, but then have the expra power for verticals when desired...besides, you would be ''blazing a trail'' in the continuing Simla project research to see how the plane performs with more power. In addition, I'd like someone to build the Simla in the 96'' wingspan NATS version to see how that compares performance-wise, and eventually somebody is going to have to put a .60 in it to see how it flies with the power Ed had. Experimentation, (and continuing to move forward rather than backward), is what we should be doing IMHO.
Duane
From Post #2433
Kingaltair, I was thinking about your comment about the 60 used originally. Being of that time and era, the fuels were very hi nitro and offered much more power than it would today. In fact, many articles were written warning that if your fuel smelled like shoe polish, don't use it because it was too hi. They were figuring out around late 60's and early 70's the old fuels were pretty much gutting the engines especially the bushed engines. My dad and I had a Sonic Cruizer by Hal deBolt in 66' with an FP 35 and it flew really good. No doubt the fuel had a lot to do with it. I think the person now trying it with the 60 might fly it with 15% fuel and then some 60% rc car fuel and see the difference. Just don't over lean it or the best part of that engine will exit the exhaust! hehe!
Just one of my many thoughts.
Thanks King.
bird.