ORIGINAL: Rcpilet
The original poster asked for help on his FIRST gasser.
The BEST thing that more experienced modelers could do to help him, would be to recommend that he follow the manufacturers recommendations when getting used to these new engines. He's a glow guy. He wants to get his first gas engine (I'm betting it won't be his last
). The BEST chance that he has at success, is to follow the manufacturers recommendations until he has a couple years of gasser operation under his belt. That will just about ensure 100% success for him. And we WANT him to be successful, don't we?
Making blanket statements that you are NOT following the manufacturers recommendations isn't really helping the newbie. It just creates confusion for him. It might be working for YOU, but wouldn't you be helping him the most by simply telling him to "follow the directions"?
Just a thought or two after reflecting on my own transition to gassers and right now trying to help my brother do the same.
As a rule, I prefer to follow manufacturer recommendations but there are conflicts which arise when trying to do so, i.e. you get a model that comes from the manufacturer and it is designed for a gasser with the servo mount for the throttle servo right in the engine box. They publish instructions on where to mount things and flight test information for the model using their install locations. Now what recommendation do you use? The radio guys in the pubished info from at least one manufacturer I can think of, still say 12" between those two. So do you redesign the model to accomodate that?
Now this "how close can the throttle servo be to the engine or rx?" question has been beat to death around the forums with some saying you HAVE to use the 12" "rule" and others like myself having no problems with the throttle/choke servos within 4" of the engine and batteries within 12" of the rx, so who's right?
Then there is the "where can I put the batteries/switches?" debate. Same 12" recommendation from some while others use different criteria mostly due to the size/configuration of the model being assembled doesn't allow for those kind of distances.
I tend to agree that a lot of the impetus for the 12" rule was as Bob mentioned since I kind of violated it right from the start using 72MHz radio stuff and things worked out just fine. Now the 2.4GHz radios offer even more resistance to RF interference from various sources, but you can still get bit if you don't do a clean install and pre-flight range checking.
So I would suggest he do some more research like he's started doing with Tom's article and the handbook from Don's helps as well, but some of that information is dated. Then dig around the forums and ask questions, that's what I did and it really helped getting the input from others who've already done this stuff. It's not too hard to figure out which way to go after doing some research and seeing the various replies. You'll eventually see a consensus of opinion on what to do, and it won't take long to figure out who really knows what they are talking about either. Just remember that with very few exceptions, there is more than one way to do things.
And here's the disclaimer; JMHO, YMMV...
