Originally Posted by
Tom Nied
init4fun, looking at your last photo I noticed the Enya .19 and metal spinner. Now I am open to be corrected here, but I think the Enya's were a bit on the heavy side and that metal spinner only works against you, even if it might be alloy. Switch to an aluminum spinner nut , move the engine back, and you would need less weight in the tail. John B., what do you think?
Originally Posted by
049flyer
That looks like a Brodak trainer. You’ll want it to be a bit on the nose heavh side for training. Much more stable that way.
Thank You for the responses guys
Tom is right about the weight distribution , moving the engine back and loosing the aluminum spinner would have resulted in needing less tailweight . The plane came to me already put together (yard sale purchase) and was finished badly , I jokingly called it "Ugly Betty" when it first got here . I stripped off all the old covering and recovered it and noted that not only was it built badly , it had never been properly balanced , it was WAY too nose heavy and had no weight in the outboard wing to counterbalance the lines . Since the opening in the fuselage for the engine was only as deep as it was manufactured , the engine went as far back as it could without removing more wood from behind the engine and as to the aluminum spinner , I have had a couple of plastic ones fail while running so I always use the metal ones on every engine powered plane I own , right up to my Saito 270 twin . I know I could have used a spinner nut but this was more of a "run what ya got" rebuild and I was determined to use what I had kicking around the shop (including the red and yellow Monokote) .
As to training , I figure one of two things are gonna happen here ;
I flew C/L all through the 1960s and 1970s , up to and including my trusty Sterling Ringmaster and a .45 stallion powered Nobler , untill R/C became affordable enough for the common man . In that time I toyed around with some old vacuum tube "tailwagger" escapement equipped models , basically somewhat steerable free flight models that the TX may or may not signal the rudder , depending on mood and atmospheric conditions . I had gotten to the point that I could reliably fly the AMA C/L stunt pattern and was a member of a fairly large C/L club when I bought my first "real" R/C set and from then on I never had a C/L handle in my hand again . Fast forward almost 50 years and a good friend and flying buddy bought this C/L plane for me at a yard sale because I had casually mentioned one time in conversation how I'd love to see if I can still fly C/L , and so this project was born .
I figure this will go one of two ways , It'll be like they say about riding a bicycle , once you learn you never forget and I'll fly that plane like I always did , OR , my extended time away from C/L flying will result in a smoking hole in the ground . When it finally does have it's day it the field , I'll post up the results good or bad here in this thread
