I just got a dual tail motor for my heli. It was a good excuse because my kid brother had a competition for school comming up that he neededto build a prop powered car, more on that to come. Anyways after I bought this CNC dual tail holder, I realized that it didn't have a place for the tail skid to go. I also saw that the hobby shop has a CF fin for $12 bucks that I could get, but I'm not sure I want to go that way. I have the plastic fin from the super skids, but it doesn't seem strong enough to provide much function, so I am just wondering what everyone else does for tail skids. Pics would be great too =)

Ok now for the school project. My little bro came to me and brought a paper that said he had to make a propeller car for school. My mom judges/coordinates the competition, and she said that it is a rubber band powered propeller competition. Well I wanted to know, so I contacted the guy that is over the competition and he said that any motor would do as long as it only powers a propeller. I got the idea of using the tail rotor to power this car. Anyways attached is a pic of what my bro has built so far with my help and advice =). It goes the whole length of the gym in a track that is 8 feet wide, which is probaly where they will be testing them. I've got some balsa stock and some hinge material to make the car go straighter that we will add tomorrow. Right now it is powered by a 4 NiCD cell pack off of a Nikko car (in the pic is a 6 cell pack, and we've also run it with an 8 cell pack, but the 6 and 8 make it run really fast =P over 15mph by the time it gets to the other wall in the gym, too fast to chase after and stop). It works quite well. All the other kids aren't gona have a chance =P especially with subber band powered cars.

I am also making a 555 timer chip with adjustable pots that will power a relay to turn the motor on and off. What it will do is run for whatever the pot is adjusted to (1 to 60 seconds) and then the motor will shut off so you don't have to go chasing it down. I am also going to add a fuse to it to protect the motor from the short current if the motor stalls from a crash or a tip over or something. We're also gona CA a thin amount of foam to the wheels so that if they have the competition on concrete it will roll over the bumps without changing direction too much.

It's all in a temporary state right now just to see what we need to do to get it working, but there will be some changes made to make things more permanant.

Tell me what you think. Is there any thing you can think of that would roll straighter than that truck? There's gota be alot of things that would. It would also have to be able to run over cracks in cement without changing direction too much. Any ideas or feedback would be appreciated! Thanks!

mrasmm