Hi Chevy,

I had to alter the figures in my other post as I had my head on back to front when I typed it up !

I know that this mix will fly and throttle O.K as it is nearer to a normal commercial mix than my first attempts with modifying ordinary cooking oil.

There were no issues with the cheaper mix based on cheap cooking oil apart from that mix needed increased compression and needle settings. The totally non-ether mixes that I have tested also flew and throttled well, they just required a high ether prime or two to get them started.

Having tested a variety of veggie based fuel mixes this one, although by no means the cheapest, has similar engine settings to a normal 30% ether mix and is based on the desire to turn 1 gallon of expensive 30 % ether mix into 3 gallons of cheaper fuel.

A gallon of diesel fuel costs me £30 or USA $56.4

In order to get a gallon of fuel it costs me £7 or USA $13 delivery. Making the original 1 gallon become 3 gallons looks an attractive proposition

There are only 2 suppliers licensed to post fuel in the UK. If they stopped trading I would be reduced to only being able to buy 1 litre cans in the hobby shops as they have trouble getting the fuel in more than 1 litre tins. My need is to "magically" increase the amount of fuel which I had delivered.

I can get the necessary ingredients locally to do the "magic" transformation of 1 gallon into 3 so there are no extra delivery costs involved.

The fuel mix I posted is a SAFE mix. I know it will fly and throttle and I also know that it is putting no extra strain on the engine... it runs at the same settings as a 30% ether mix. As a bonus it starts very easily by just fetching fuel up to the carb and then a quick spin with the starter.... and that is from cold !

That mix is one that I can use on a regular basis and if I use castor, which will mix O.K due to the 10% ether then there should be no engine problems.

Having a mix that does what I need is good. However, messing about with different mixes, including non-ether ones has shown me that I can make totally non-ether fuels that will run and throttle OK.

My 10% ether mix has given me 3 gallons of fuel, that gives me a LOT of flying time while I continue experimenting with the "sacrificial" PAW engine, veggie oil lube and non-ether fuel.

If commercial diesel fuel or any of it's ingredients becomes difficult to get then I know how to make and use an alternative.

Thanks to Andy, who sparked the whole thing off, he set me to experimenting and that has led to interesting results for me, so far.

I have a mix that enables me to fly with safe engine settings and I also intend to do more testing on
totally non-ether mixes using olive oil as the lubricant. I also need to establish the optimum amount of ignition improver... this is relatively expensive so using more than is necessary make the mix dearer, I have put a figure of 10% but it is more likely to be 5% or so.

Your fuel mix is totally different and provides an alternative way of going about it. It will also work out very cheap and that's a desirable thing You have shown that there is another alternative which uses ingredients that anyone can easily get hold of, but there are some constraints... higher compression settings and a need to give some thought to starting and more messy.... but..... IT WORKS !

Andy meanwhile is off on a voyage of discovery that could lead to.... well who can guess ?

What happened to the wing on your Big Stick ? It appears that it got damaged but what was the cause ?

Reg