Well at the end of the flying season I was trying to get the toe-in correct on my me109 CMP, made an adjustment and did not realize it was badly toed in till I got to the field. This plane is one of those born under a dark star, it had a YS-150L for power for the first 5 flights but it never ran well and all 5 flights ended dead stick. So when I switched to electric I had to come up with something to go from mounting rails to motor and what I came up with was poor at best. Balancing the 6+ inch spinner delayed the first electric flight for 2 or 3 years while I upgraded my equipment to handle that size spinner.

So when I got out to the runway and it would not move like I had breaks on it. I realized it was the toe in, the thought crossed my mind I should really pack this back in the car and fix it but it’s a dark star plane and at some point the constant failing has to stop. I even remember adding up the number of times to the field with out flying, and the number of failed flights (30 trips, 9 flights, 5 dead stick landings). So I added full left rudder and it started to turn released it and correct for torque and she was running down the runway. I let it run extra long then rotated. As usual I unloaded the wing and it dropped like a rock. I’m only a foot of the runway so I added some of the E back for the full power landing. I don’t think it hit the runway, but my son and the other onlookers say it did. The retracts where an old set of rhom airs so it it hit they were toast as they were only good for 12# planes and this one is 20#. But it popped back into the air into a wingover to the left and I went into get the nose down and wings level mode. I managed to do so before it landed on the mains hard then skidded to a stop.

So I threw it into a corner and forgot about model planes for 5 months. This weekend I pulled it out and looked it over, the rhom-airs mounting brackets are bent all the war aft and the #2 screw that held them together are broken off at the heads in three places, but the mounts that I had installed and the oleo’s are solid and I did not bust out any of the wing bays with the LG. The motor mount was busted too.

As is usual right after completing the first engine mount I realized the better way to do it so I started that this weekend. Initially I had built a firewall on the engine rails, making the high stress area right where the firewall was attached to the rails and where it broke. This time I plane to mount ¼ ply to the back of the annular ring’s ¼ inch ply and mount the motor to that. so this weekend turned into finding out what I don’t have. I had to switch from the prop adapter mounted to the front of the can to the one that tightens on to the shaft. The spinner adapter I have for the mounts on the can is M8 x 1.0 and the one that tightens on the shaft is M8 x 1.25, so I ordered that. now I have to find some flat head screws for the annular ring to the ¼ ply motor mount.

Joe