ToolJoint

Balancing...I had never owned a bi-plane, and it was quickly determined that my balancing rig would not accommodate a Camel balanced on the top wing. Here is how I did it. I constructed two U-shaped hangars from 1" PVC pipe. I then covered the bottom pieces with foam pipe insulation and used plumbers tape to bolt one side of each "U" to the ceiling of the shop, spacing them so that the other side of the "U" would support the Camel in the X formed by the flying wires. After she was hanging by her upper wing, I inserted a piece of aluminum 1x1 angle iron span wise under the top wing so the two sides were resting on the U and the 'tip" was placed right along the 4" balance point recomended by the manual. TAIL HEAVY! What? Really?....even with the lead box full and the big Enya hung on the extreme front of her mounts? Well, I moved and mounted the battery pack on the underside of the engine mount, then put it all back together and tried again. The CG did not even budge. I then came here and began reading, paying special attention to the balancing posts. I was intrigued by MustangFevers thoughts on the CG being even further forward and became determined to place mine there. So I placed a few fishing sinkers under the cowl...nothing...then I went to our local track and field facility and swiped an 8 pound shot put and epoxied it into the forward fuse...NOPE....so I removed the head from a 16 lb. sledgehammer and mounted it under the Enya...NOT EVEN...I had a 455 Olds block with a crack in the water jacket, so I mounted it to the front airframe and finally got the nose to come down a little.[>:] Actually I made all of that up, but I did have to epoxy a butt load of lead around the cowl ring, and re-enforce the cowl mounts to get to the factory CG. I was a little worried that even there it would be difficult to fly, but I just could not bring my self to pack anymore weight in there, even after contemplating MF's sound logic on why it should be there. As time would allow, I would go to my shop over the winter and look at it, and dream about my first time with her. One time I took her down from my balancing contraption and left her to sit on the work bench. I could not get to her again for about two weeks and when I finally did, I hefted her and noticed extreme flat spots on the tires where it had been sitting. "Well, no freakin wonder" thought I as I remembered all that lead around the cowl ring. I hung it back up, but when I came back, I noticed the flat spots were STILL there. So after more reading from these august pages, I determined that the ugly fake foam stock wheels would have to go. After reading that some had seemed satisfied with the Williams Brothers, I set an alert on e-bay, and about two weeks and 15 bones later, a very nice, like new (never flown) set arrived and were installed.....now THAT was more like it.