Joe, I love the checkered bottom. With MY old eyes, I NEED something more than purple on the bottom, especially in low or gray light.

But the real story of this plane is that Featherlite engine. I've never seen one (not saying much). Where do they make them? What size is it? Have you had it on another bird? That looks to be a very nice velocity stack on the carb. Is is standard?

My luck with Saito engines, bearing problems, general undependability, filthy with castor, fuel inefficiency (I HAVE ordered velocity stacks for 'em)---all may lead me to gas engines.

So tell us the story of the Featherlite.

Jack

P.S. Boy, I'd like to see that maiden flight.

The sun's come out but the wind is gusting to 32mph and the wind chill's in the nether regions of -30. BUT I put the wing on the Twist and took a picture just to show you guys what you're missing up here in snow country--and almost lost my fingers. Ya dasn't have ANY skin showing out there.

Also included is a picture of my homemake radio glove, soft, thick lining, wind/rain impermiable cover. You can't see the face of the radio (who ever looks?), but it's warm in there, well... warmer.

And, Joe, note the neon green and pink headlights on the wing. They wrap over the bottom of the wing, too, but towards evening when you get a head-on look of that thin wing/fuse profile coming at you, landing, those colors are like lights, show up even in very dim light.

Jack (warming his fingers on hot coco mug--forget beer!)

Jack,

Did you make your own skis or did you buy? Do you have one on the tail?

Folks you have to understand just how bad off Jack is right now. (First time I ever used those two words in reverse order before!) To get all bundled up like that and NOT fly that Twist must be killing him. Jack, I'm proud of you for giving these good folks something to laugh at (I mean think about)...I wouldn't do it, but I'm still proud of you. And I thought I had it bad! Sheeesh!

Jack, I have ten days off starting on Saturday and you know I'm flying come Hades or high water. (Oh, I forgot....they just froze over.) Well, anyway I'm flying till my thumbs are black, blue, blistered and bleeding everyday at Swedetown regardless of the windchill! We'll fire up the heaters and keep the hot chocolate brewing. Maybe we could cohearse WildWeasel to capture some of it on his new-fangled digital camcorder. That way you could really show them just how crazy flyers are around here! (Wadaya say there Wild, sound like a good idea?)

My next configuration?

Hello and thanks for the nice comments, The engine is off of a 21cc featherlite weed wacker, probably made by Poulan. I made quite a few modifications. Last run on the bench it was turning an APC 16x8 at 6200 revs. I will try flying first with a 15x8 and 15x6 first though. Probably won't get the performance of glow but fun to play with. The plane stays clean with 50:1 - gasil mix and fuel is only arond $2.50 a gallon. The engine runs about 3 minutes on an ounce of fuel. Four ounce fuel tank will give a 10 minute flight. I'll get some flight reports to you all in 2 weeks weather permitting. Joe Butch


I CUT the throttle, I think it hit the ground before the signal got there!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Just joined RCU. Twist looks bad a##. Twist flies great. Had 3.

Had three? That begs the question do you have any left?

Welcome aboard RCU TomF4U!!! What's the story on the 3 Twists??? Setups??? Reasons for more than one???

Learning the world of 3D. Self taught pilot. Can't tell myself that 20 mph is indeed too windy.

GREAT PAINT brush PIC Downt!!!!! Thats what I like to see. nice project, gonna call that plane the TWIT,

Jack I would have had to hand you my hat if you were in the chair and the twist was coming in hot behind you, But it was sitting there with you. That is tough, Thats what I must have looked like last week in the garage ready to start the twist and then realized No fuel,,,,Minus all the snow of course,, Dang... the patches of florescent mono-cote looks great too.

Welcome Tom, good to have another aboard and don't let it fool you, 20 mph winds ain't nothin!!! Fly on,

this weekend is around 5 degrees and who knows what the wind chill is -something,, the winds have been on and off all weekend too, ranging from 25 to 60 at times, but come wednesday there will be fuel and flights YEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! I don't care if the winds are coming in at 100mph, the twist will soar,, (Maybe to Ireland) but who cares, I'm TWISTIN !!!

Over confidence in an inexperienced flight leads to disaster when i am on the sticks. But i have a Goldberg 540 profile, amd a Wild Stick getting ready to go airborne. Hopefully they will be more blessed.

First let me offer my heartfelt apologies to all you folks in cold country. Hang in there; your day will come. In a few months you will be enjoying nice spring days and we will already be suffering the heat of summer. Anyway, I took a trip down to Trona and had a great day flying with some new friends. It was a chilly 50 deg. and a slight wind. The Twist performed flawlessly. This far in the boondocks, three pilots is a fly-in.

We make them. I hadn't been putting ANYthing on the tail, just letting her drag. THEN I caught an elevator on crusty snow and broke the port side elevator tongue off the Twist. [I did it earlier this year on my Can Do .40--you'd think I'd learn, but I thought that was a one in a 1000 problem.] NOW I put a small piece of plastic on the rear wheel bracket, too, hoping to keep those elevator tongues clear. In soft snow, no worries, but on a dead stick landing, elevator full up, those tongues are straight DOWN!

I'll see if I can find a picture of our skis. We used, past tense, gray PVC, bent them with a torch, and attached 'em with rivets to an aluminum angle iron. The 82a Twist has a pair of last year's PVC skis. The OS .61 Twist, not pictured, has the new Lexan skis. We also tried the sides of a plastic drywall bucket, the 5 gal size. Worked but not well. But we used aluminum rivets and they WOULD wear off. We sometimes land on the road which has open spots or icy spots with sand on it. Either way, those aluminum heads would wear through and pop. NOW we use Lexan for the skis and STEEL rivets. They'll last the whole winter season--and into next, I hope.

The pic I found shows only the plastic bucket skis and the PVC skis. I have a set of DuBro skis for comparison in the pic. They cost 10 bucks each. I made FOUR pairs in an hour with the Lexan (which can be expensive unless you talk your local glazier out of his bits and pieces--as I did). My cost? About 8 bucks--for four pair--and I have enough material to make four more pair, no extra cost. Mine are just under 3 inches wide and about 10 inches long--for the Twist.

Jack

Waldo, what the photog missed was me getting that stuff outside. First I ran around with the Twist above my head going BRRROOM, BROOMMMM all the while. Then my lips froze. Flame-out. But I brought her down okay--and it wasn't easy in that wind.

Tom, will you consider going in with DownT and me on buying a gross of Twists? That just may last til next year. I'm already on Twist #5, like Down, but my #4 (made of parts from #s 2, 3, and 4) is still going strong with the 82a Saito. [Ha, nobody noticed the purple/pink strip over the port wing is truncated--where I had to repair it.]

Wild, it's time you got that Uproar in the air. We'll plan for next week. The Twist is soon to come for you.

Jack

I'm on my 4th Twist Jack. You're using them up faster than me!

I had the first one for about 25 flights, then destruction. It went in full bore after trying to pull out of a downwind harrier. #2 went in while trying to spot land cross ways on a road 8ft wide, got it once, messed up on 2nd attempt. #3 got gutsy and flew too tail heavy. You know what happened there. As for the gross of twists, I don't know if that would last a year or not with me in control. Or out of control is probably a better statement.

Tim, Down and I have loads of respect for "self-taught" pilots. That's the way we learned, too, no buddy cords. Well, that's not quite true, when I came back to the hobby after a 25 year hiatus, I built a Dazzler, and Down put me up with it on my first flight.

[Down, do you know how happy I am, NOW, that it wasn't Steve who put me up with the Dazz? Thanks again.]

As I think on it, though, I'm really happy the hobby has changed, so easy to use buddy cords and NOT wreck those birds on the first flights. I can't recall how many bad flights I had, how many birds I put in, first flight, learning it all. I think I've had five or six different, new pilots up with buddy cords and we have yet to crash a bird. Down hasn't had quite as much good luck, but I'll let him tell you about "the perfessor," who has a learning curve approximating the EKG line of a dead man.

About winds: the wind is your friend. We've said it a hundred times. It slows everything down, 'cept on the downwind leg. And as long as I don't flame out, I can have fun in winds up to 30 mph gusts. After that it's hard to safely get the plane from the car to the table to the ground. And forget taxiing anywhere but upwind.

Down and I often look at one another, while flying in such winds, and say, "You're crazy." "No, YOU'RE crazy." We often wonder what an intelligent, rational person would think if they looked in our faces, concentrating on the bird in the air, with tears in our eyes, noses running because we don't take time to wipe them.

My name is Jack, and I'm a Twistoholic.

Oops, it was TOM who mentioned he was self-taught.

Why there is nothing like learning to fly on your own, I'm a self taught guy myself, and every winter a buddy of mine and myself would build an army of home made planes (around 8) for the summer, we never knew if it was us or the design of the plane, we had an old Futaba 4 channel radio and an Os .20 & .40 within 2 weeks every plane would be dust, but every chance we could, we would try, and it was always a treat to see us progress 10 feet further each time, until one day it all clicked, Hence, our first take off, flight & landing, all in one shot, of course that was the Carl Goldberg Eagle, not ours, (Thanks Carl) I flew everyday, rain, wind, shine or snow after that, and I have been hooked ever since.

Nice winter boots for the ol Twist there Jack. we made ours out of an old plastic moble sign and wood half rounded blocks for the axle to slip through, they worked great as well, $0.00 we love free.

Thanks Tim for your winter condolences, you are right, we will be warm soon enough I hope.

I learned by myself as Jack stated earlier, but I started in electrics with the Firebird Commander. I moved to the Zagi XS which I later hopped up to brushless, which exposed me to "acceleration". Wouldn't you know it, I had to invest $400 in batteries just to be able to fly all day and even then I was pushing the quickcharger near the end of the day. Then I bought a used Dirty Birdy(Sturdy Bird) from WildWeasel and I haven't looked back since. Sure it was nice not having to clean the castor off the covering, but there's something to be said for noise and smoke too! I have to add that I had decided to take a year off of cabinet building/construction in order to decide what I wanted to do with the remainder of my days here on terra firma and this "free time" was all I needed. I was burning almost a gallon a day, until I met Jack and then the both of us were using a gallon plus/ day at times. What a riot! I don't recall one instance when I had called Jack and he didn't take me up on my invite to fly! Now that's a flying buddy! Having said that, I don't want to leave WildWeasel out of the picture either, he has a young family at home and wasn't as flexible, but he was there when I stepped into this hobby and he did witness my first flights. Jack and I have high hopes of getting him airborne this year. We're not taking "no" for an answer, are we Jack?
I had been gazing at RC magazines since I was a kid and when we traveled to any place that had a hobby store, I was transfixed! I watched, unblinking, whenever I saw someone flying RC and wouldn't you know it, it was WildWeasel's future father-in-law that I watched the most. (R.I.P. JS) I ordered the catalogs year after year and the idea was always in the back of mind. Then WildWeasel pulled up in his green Dodge and started chewing the fat as he waited for his girls to gather their things. That chance encounter would eventually bring me to where I am today...A Twistaholic through and through. Thanks Wild. My first Twist was also the second gas airplane I ever owned. It lasted for 10 flights (did you ever try to fly an airplane when the aileron servo switch is reversed? I couldn't!) It's mostly put back together as are two others, but that's another story.
So I've made two great friends and I've realized a childhood dream come true. Not bad, huh? So if I wax poetic from time to time know that after a full day of flying, Jack and I stand silent... sipping ice-cold Godiva and watch the sun set behind snow-covered cedars from which an owl calls to the approaching night. Peace.

YeeeeeeeHawwwww.....The sun just poked out so I gave Jack a call and we're going flying. 13" of new fluff.......those planes are going to sink! Peace

Down, you are hopelessly addicted. [sm=bananahead.gif] [sm=lol.gif]

HI All:

Hey Down very nice story but you left out some details. First you forgot to inform everyone that I was your personal parts depot .Second chew the fat ??? Just be honest it was pork rinds with a RC Cola. lolo.

Wyld Weasel

P.S. sorry there were no moon pies to go with the RC Cola.

Great Story Down, I love to hear how people got started, and yes there are a lot of great flying buddies out there as you said, who are there everytime you call or if you are called yourself, it is tougher for the family owned fliers, to get away all the time, but I consider them great flying buddies too, and I end up feeling bad when I say I'm going and they just can't, well only a little bad, I am going flying. I'm sure that just eats em up.

MOONPIES !!!! I love MOONPIES !!!!

Have fun Twistin' you lucky boys, gotta love fresh fluff.