How big of a tank do you have on your Venus ll with that 120 AX and how long does it last in flight?

I have the Venus ll and debating what engine to use on it.

I'd like to know.....

Stock tank, which looks like 16oz. Probably getting about 8 minutes, but not sure. If you ask me again in a week or so I'll have a better idea as I get this pump working properly and engine tuned right.

It's a perfect combo - easy to use/run/tune, lots of power, not too heavy. I only needed 1/8oz on the tail (servos mounted in rear). There's a VII thread in the pattern forum that will tell you everything you need to know. If you're serious about this plane, you will be disappointed (according to others) with a 90 two stroke or a 120 four stroke, so the most common setups are a 120AX and a YS 110.

I get roughly 10 to 12 minutes with the OS 1.20 AX with a 15-10 prop using the stock tank. I have a 16-8 that I am going to try one of these fine days.

Ummm... what pump? Where did you put your tank? I run mine just fine without a pump.. never had a dead-stick and my tank is right behind the firewall.

CGr

It it were me Id get a YS110fz into about any plane I could.

Originally I agreed with this, but due to the nature of YS engines and the pressurized tank system, it was suggested to me by many pattern pilots to get a familiar 2 stroke and just get some good stick time. Being my first plane, my attention needs to be devoted to flying, not tweaking a new style of engine. This also is partly due to NO YS engines at my field, so a sure lack of assistance for this newcomer. I'll definitely have a YS on my next plane

CG,

A lot of guys are installing the fuel tank over the center of gravity in their Venus II's so they don't have as much of a trim change during flight. Moving the tank back like that then requires a pump to maintain good fuel flow the engine.

I recently ran my Venus w/1.20 out of fuel while practicing, I forgot to start the timer. According to another pilot for some reason he had timed the flight. I got right at 13 minutes with the stock tank I was flying mostly at half throttle. I normally set the timer for a ten minutes to remind me of fuel status.

CG, that's the first time I have seen anyone mention the straight line, I had that pounded into me over and over.I don't follow it anymore but I did at one time. I was also taught by A pattern guy that preached take off and landings. I have never had A lot of trouble with the take off part.
Eric, not everyone needs A YS. I'm A YS guy but I put two of my students into Saito when they wanted four strokes. It's just much easier on all of us that way, I need some stick time too, can't always be setting things up and teaching. After the Saitos then maybe A nice YS for them?? The 1.20 AX will do the trick nicely in that plane!![8D] Maybe even better then the YS?? I haven't flown one so I really don't know but I sure like the looks of it!!

Unless you're into competition a .91 2-stroke will do just fine in that Venus ll. I saw a review video with a guy flying a .61FX 2 stroke in it and it flew just fine!

After all, it only requires a .61 - .91 2 stroke.

The review was from rcgroups but here it is....

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=544852

Have you flown the Venus II with any of the engines mentioned? I have flown it with a piped .91 and a standard muffler 1.20, I wouldn't reccomend putting
anything less that a piped .91 which is more expensive than a standard 1.20. I would love to fly it with a Saito 1.25 or YS 1.10.
Dick, how about you buy a four stroke and we'll try it out

I haven't actually flown the Venus ll yet but I do have one waiting for assembly NIB and a new 91fx I was thinking about using for power.

Some guys in RCU say the 91fx is enough for it and some say it isn't.

I have a Tiger 60 like you have in your dossier and I wasen't happy with a 61fx on it. I wanted more speed so I stuck a st G90 on it but then the issue of fuel consumption came up.

If I wasen't so "hungryandbroke" I suppose the 120 ax would go on My venus ll like most others on here recommend. []

hungryandbroke - if you could find the SuperTigre 75, that one worked great on my 60 Tiger, plenty of power, good speed. No difficulties at all in tuning it. If I did it again, I would go with a Saito 91 like I have on my Venture. I think it does better on fuel.

Hi Chris.

Weeeellll... I would dearly love to buy and own a YS 110.. however... ha.. The Venus does just fine with the OS 1.20 AX.. as you've seen.. I ought to let you fly mine. I still needs some trim adjustments to get everything right.. the dual elevator controls need some tweaking as do the dual aileron controls, but that take some time to do, as you know.

I have not flown it in a few months now.. hell, I've not flown much in the past few months (shame on me.. ) but the job seems to take an awful lot of my time with all the darned travel lately.. Massachusetts this weekend, England on Wednesday for about two weeks, then Salzburg, Austria for a week, then Florida for a week, followed by another FAA Florida trip early November.. I ought to get lots of frequent flyer miles this fall!!!

How about YOU buy the YS and we can try it out on my Venus!!!

Dick

Hi Steve.

Yeah, I knew that, but was wondering if gaRCfield had installed his tank in the center. I don't recall him saying that so I was wondering if he had been having problems with it at the firewall or with it in the center (pump probems that is). Now, with that said, I did have an unexplained dead-stick the last time out with the Venus, about mid-tank, but was never really able to identify the problem.

I need to get my butt back out flying.. when all this travel ends. Busy busy!!!!

Later..

Dick.

When you do fly it, you will love it. After a few people let me fly one, I was hooked. I was going to order one but Piedmont came out with the Focus Sport
and it flies much more like a 2meter ship.

I have a .91FX on my tiger 60 and I can't complain at all. it does use some fuel, but after flying 1.60 pattern planes with 20OZ tanks fuel consumption is
a relative term.

If you have a .91 already, go for it. if you do decide you want a little more power Karl Mueller makes excellent headers, and ES pipes are one of the best.

CGretired, I am probably going to put a YS 140 in a focus II next year, and YES you can take a test flight.

Chris,
We had a great day in Jackson today. Got 3 rounds in today, light wind, plenty of sun.

Got the AX/pump/Venus dialed in nicely - what a difference with the pump set up properly!!! So much power, nice transition (took a few flights and fine tuning of the new pump, and yes my tank is at the CG.)

I am very proud of this setup, now I have to learn to fly it to capacity

Speaking of AX's, I just finished the break in on my new .55 AX. Its my first "new" O.S. I think that the O.S. stands for "OH SNAP" too put it cleanly. That's what I was saying after I tuned it to turn the huge to me 13x7 prop I put on it. Dang she's got some power!

Yeah, Brette.. I have a couple of .75's and three 1.20's and they all behave the same way. They all start up immediately, take minimal tuning, and run very good and strong. I really enjoy them all. I don't have a .55 yet.. may get one for my club trainer, (Alpha trainer that replaced a Hobbico Super Star RTF that I destroyed early one morning) but I also have a fairly new .46 that is gathering dust.. so I might as well use it.

GaRCfield.. glad to see you had a good day at Jackson. I now understand the reason for the pump.. tank on the CG. If you met Ron and Dave Lockhart, well, and if they gave you any advice, stick to it. These guys are the pros. One bit of advice they always give me and Chris is to burn fuel. Get experience. Learn the straight lines. The maneuvers follow and need a straight and level entry. Think ahead of the plane.. in other words, plan on two maneuvers away.. meaning once you exit a maneuver, you should already be set for the next not trying to think about it. You should be thinking of exiting the next maneuver and setting up for the one after that. And this all takes practice practice practice.

I don't get near enough flying, so I end up starting from scratch almost every time I head to the field... basically learning to fly (believe me.. if you get away from it for a few weeks, you are doing just that) and getting your flights normalized landings straight lines, trim, everything seems a burden at first.. but if you fly a lot, you don't tend to lose that and you spend less time getting rid of the cob-webs.

CG,
I did meet the Lockharts and got some great advice. I hear what you're saying about downtime - just working on getting my plane set up is equivalent to downtime, and it took me a couple of flights just to get warmed up. My final round was surely my best, and I scored pretty well on it. I still haven't had much of a chance to fly this plane with proper setup (pump running right), at my own field, without crazy wind or crowded skies! I think next year will be a very good year

And, of course, the best advice is BURN FUEL!!! Practice practice practice!!!!!

Geez.. I wish I could follow that advice!!! [&o]

Update - I thought my wonderful 120AX was making a little extra noise, seemingly coming from the rear bearing. I took it apart to check things out and found a slight rub between the con rod and the crank case. I did a separate post (which I'm learning not to do) and ended up calling Hobby Services for advice. They advised to send it in. Within one full day of their receipt of the engine they shipped me out a brand new 120AX engine.

Obviously we don't live in a perfect world, and things don't always get manufactured perfectly - it happens to everyone. OS/Hobby Services offers very, very strong support and warranty service along with their amazing products.

While I am trying my best to take the suggestions of others and not limit myself to a single brand, OS makes it very difficult to look elsewhere. For ease of use and tuning, reliability, and exceptional service, OS engines has the market cornered. I understand and agree that there are other engines on the market, and depending on what you want they might even be better options (like a YS for power, Saito for light weight, etc.). But, for this beginner who needs nothing but practice and airtime, OS has been the choice for me, and I am one satisfied customer.

The people at Hobbico customer service are unbelievable. I honestly don't know how they afford to be so generous when it comes to warranties and service but I'm glad they are. It does make it difficult to shop elsewhere when you know you'll get such good treatment if things go wrong with a product. If only all businesses could learn that lesson.

Do a customer Right and they will tell 10 people.

Do a customer Wrong and they will tell 100!

I had an OS FS 91 surpass that needed $175 in parts alone after a crash. I sent it in for repair and they sent it back fixed for FREE! They told me "Compliments of customer service".

Now that's what I call excellant service.

And I tried there service twice and have never gone back to them for anything, see how that works. This was long before the company did the employee sell off thing?? Can't remember what that was all about, I never really followed Tower. Anyway, from what I hear there service has gone way up and it sounds like Joe did OK. Other then Towers repair service I had never had any problems with them but the same thing goes for the other bigger companys too.
Hungry, if you ever worked retail you would understand how they can do these things, they don't pay for it, one short form and it's free, it's an OS problem and OS stands behind there engines. When I worked retail I used to love it when every three months we would devide up all the returned items the factorys didn't want returned back to them, it was like Xmas for us. [8D]

Horizon is also very good. I sent them a Spektrum receiver that had been in a crash. I specifically told them that the receiver was NOT at fault and instructed them to call me or mail me a repair estimate and that I was willing to pay for repairs. Instead they just sent me a receiver back with all of the necessary repairs at no charge. Needless to say, I was very satisfied.

I wish some of the vendors I deal with at work were that generous. One in particular goes out of there way to do everything possible to deny warranty to end users. Then they wonder why they have such a bad reputation. Some people just don't get it.

This is off the beaten path, but the basic subject of the past few posts sort of offer an opening to this. I had (still have) a Garmin Street Pilot car GPS receiver. When I had surgery on my left knee, I had trouble getting in and out of my car for a couple of weeks. I would lean on the center console to gain leveage to get my leg outside the car and then I could move out. Well, I put the GPS in the center console storage area, and without realizing it, I smashed the touch screen on the GPS receiver.

After a couple of months, I sent it back to Garmin. I got it back withing 5 working days (turn around time was incredible!). But what really surprized me was that there was no cost to the repair. It was beyond warranty and, it was not their fault.. was clearly mine, and I told them so. But, they fixed it and returned it. And, they updated the mapping software!!! How's that for service!!

CGr.