Tax free in Europe generally doesn't mean lots cheaper relative to USA costs and it often just means cheaper relative to local region and Andorra is super neat place to get stuff imported into to dodge higher cost Spanish and French tax rates but the cost with transport shipping are often way more than USA local prices with the high cost shipping across the pond costs

Re:1705493-AndyW
Quote "I have a Frog of some sort of displacement. Watch out, mine bites back."
I forgot that detail
yeah memory lane stuff I remember with my small teenager fingers getting chopped up starting frog cussing that motor in those good old days as being a real biter especially in cold winter days


Re:1705493-AndyW

Quote "With only 2% arable land, I suppose flying fields are harder to acquire in Andorra. And with mountains everywhere, I guess the only way to fly is straight up?"

My work straddles the French Spanish border so rather than offend either party best to say neutral Andorra local politics are interesting in the mountains and I am a blow in outsider neither Spanish or French so I don't want to step on toes but I generaly only flew chuck gliders and slope soares there as it to messy to get involved with the local rules and since then I am now based more often on the Atlantic side Bilbao and Pau region but work being what it is I could be sent north or south at the whim of any of the the bosses in Madrid or Paris so next week could be Portugal who know so no point in updating profile

My Graupner Biplane Ultimate 1400mm or 54 Inch wing span plane meant for a sedate 15cc (90 cu inch) 2 stroke or sedate 20cc (120 cu inch ) four stroke with my suitably tuned pipe enhanced version to be able to lift itself and tow 2 to 3 meter gliders up vertical has a thumping big (26cc 160 MVVS tuned pipe and 18*10 prop )and hauls with plus ~12kg (~30lbs ) of prop push on a #5kg (~ 12lbs )
ERRR just to prove the point boring old codgers are morphing towards sedate scale biplanes until they see it barrel up vertically often twinkle toes rolling as it bores vertically into the sky and arrives at 500 feet from take of in less than 5 seconds [X(]
and then club jaws drop to the floor
Que Passe "" what happened " "incroyable puissance "" incredible power "
and it suits the whole Pyrenees mountian and Andorra region when I am there as the whole region for hundred of square kilometers is similar to Alpine mountains Range stuff very walled in valleys and vertical climbing is a useful attribute

But for locals modelers in the mountains its generally go fly in Espana (Spain) or France as there is gobs and gobs of real outback uninhabited empty space in those regions and great slope soaring sites and lower altitudes are better and more flatter are often much much warmer regions especially in winter[X(] as cold sucks big time [&:]

Unfortunately just a very Few friendly local clubs non who generally cant speak English so being limited to fairly OK French and broken Spanish I just get by
Also its mostly flying solo stuff ("a VOL savage" (flying outback style)) or mostly flying from unprepared regions like side road truck stop lay byes and unprepared fields forest clearing side roads whatever so as near as possible to preferably fly 3d hover vertical take offs and landing are better attributes in planes and net catching even better in steep slopes for slope soarer's


When I get a larger 6 meter glider and the wind doesn't blow up the slope I will just strap my Scale Ultimate onto the back of it with suitable release mechanism and have a second pilot to pilot the plane Ultimate back down when its released(I have already got two radios just need the glider )

Later when funds allow hopefully both planes will have some sorta UAV solutions so I can bring Ultimate back down while glider loiters around on UAV and then take over Glider as there is a severe dearth of locally based good pilots that want to fly the big massively overpowered tow planes I like to use


I often go to bigger clubs in Spain or France where they sometimes practice the black art of Pulse jets at the clubs or more often (VOL A Guerrilla (hit and run Guerrilla style method of flying or better called fly a while and pack up and leave before the posse arrives to check out the racket )) basically arrive to outback location fly the real noisy jets there that day and next time another location so as to spread the LOUD sound around and make it difficult to get banned from one region with making PULSAR noise 150 dbs

Much as I prefer the low costs and simplicity of the PULSARS I figure My eventual strategy is probably to get a turbine craft 160 Newton type non scale similar to Boomerang or simplex delta probably second hand and go to the South American Brazil turbine speed competition and do the speed RUN competition where they fly as fast as possible from dives past the runway and speeds exceeding 400MPH have been done using those Turbine solutions

Accept I hopefully I will also have (developed bought or made ) my liquid fueled rockets strapped on [[X(] that will boost speeds even faster for a few seconds and wake up the Brazilians who invented this absurdly fast fun sport

But to succeed at that I need to ( find develop or make or buy ) do whatever these suitable rocketry solutions can supply and so far these motors don't exist commercially and thus far rocketry forums have proved to chock a block full of no sayers with there heads stuck up rulebooks who cant possibly understand that it is possible to attach rockets to cars boats planes and still have fun
The Rocket forums all seem to suffer from some sort of PAPA FRITTES brain affect that rockets only go vertically up syndrome

So therefore I am forced to experiment but thats modeling for you

But for rocketry fuel experimenting its a real headache as the three places have different rules on oxide fuels and as my experiments are mostly land based for now tethered rocket cars or static tests and this fuel procurement is a real headache if you want to get exotic fuels as you often need a license or SARL Company LTD INC. Corperation account holder etc which is often a complex expensive process and HAZMAT rules are stiff even for the mundane model plane fuels which makes even neat Methanol ~$12 a USA gal in the cheap places 400 plus kilometres away (Barcelona Narbonne etc) and often unobtainable as separate components so often expect pre-made formulas in LHS and expect costs to exceed ~$20 USA gallon on 5% nitro which I often have to cut down from 18% oil to 10% oil with neat methanol for my bigger engines and then top up with neat nitroMethane (which often exceeds $90 a USA gal)

Once I do find the suitable fuel that accuatly works I can go to the trouble to go through the licence form hoops to get rocket fuels oxides whatever in bulk but as it all just for fun experimenting I don't want to go there until its absolutely that there is no other possibility and there is a Myriad of potentially useful fuels and some could have shock sensitive issues if I get the formulation wrong so its thread carefully


I also want to start to convert some bigger motors 10cc to 80cc to diesel for future glider tow and UAV work so as to reduce fuel costs gain more power and hopefully solve ignition failure issues and I would just be running diesel motors at full tilt WOT nearly all of the climbing up to height flight mode and just opt to glide back down if the motor quits on tick over on the descent mode

Some guys have increased compression ratio on glow from 9.5 :1 to 13:1 or higher in fixed increments and gained in excess of 25% extra power and been able to run very well and powerfully on zero nitro fuel saving a fortune in fuel costs so the variable compression glow could be very interesting solution also


Keep us posted on the diesel stuff that has the potential to really seriously reduce costs in big motors as fuel cost in Europe are often more than the double of the USA or Canada and model glow fuels can easily be the double and often 4 to 10 times as costly as USA or Canada


Re:1705493-AndyW
Quote"As I recall, the engine seemed to like olives a lot and seemed to run better. Need to fly a whole season to prove that out though. What we need is a lube oil that also acts like a cetane booster. I've read that biodiesel derived from coconut oil can do that."

For deisel engines olive oil is fairly cheap here especially direct from local farmers keep me posted
Coconut oil sounds really interesting but might be more expensive to get locally but if it can do fuel and lubrication at the same time could be a real winner fuel


Then It might become revenge of the Diesel as it makes a come back against glow

Re:1705493-AndyW
Quote"The 2 in my recommendation is Amsoil cetane booster. A quart was some 7 dollars, there are no hazardous shipping fees and you can order online."

EDIT SCRATCH BELOW I HAVE LOCATED THE LINK http://www.amsoil.com/ form youtube vidio diesel Norvell

and they wont cross the pond
quote from site
"The AMSOIL Store is available only for U.S. and Canada customers at this time"

Where do you order Amsoil cetane booster from in case its not over this side of the pond /END EDIT

$7 a guart ~$30 a USA gal makes it even if shipping was $30 a gallon (total $60 a gal ) would be cheaper than Nitro at $90 a USA gal local prices if it could replace nitro as Oxidizer

or I could just retire and hang up my 150mph plus eletric s400 pylon racers which really wakes up go faster Spanish modeling clubs and whip out the 160 MVVS and replace it with low power sedate OS90 learn to be content with sedate slow scale biplanes that fly at the more sleepy clubs and settle for slow coach cheaper pulsars that can only do a mere 250MPH [sm=thumbs_down.gif]



or keep experimenting getting more power and faster speeeeeds [sm=thumbs_up.gif]

forget raw live it fast on the ragged edge

some pre taster rocket inspiring videos from those actively doing the rocket motor stuff that could possibly enhance model aircraft speeds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtIL_VjBUGo
x! rocket launched from 20 foot wing span scale bomber

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8kG2...eature=related
simple to build powerful solid fuel rocket time to make a few minutes

Balsaeater