da Rock

Since that area is behind the CG, why not use a little carbon fiber attached with CA to keep the weight down. Or run a spruce "spar" like a backbone out to the tail. If the spar were fairly thin it would be light and still provide adequate strength.

gcb

Somewhere between the light weight fuselage that breaks and one with plywood doublers comes an alternative of using 1/4" hard "C" grain balsa. Just a little heavier and a lot stronger than the kit fuselage. Something to consider.

George

Pro from Dover

The Wizard is pretty capable of several manuvers. I was fortunate enough to be taught to do some stunting with a Wizard in my early 20's (about 20+ years ago). Yes, a Wizard. I was tutored by a gent who was a control line combat champion when he was in the US Army stationed in Korea in the early 60's. I was showing him what a hotshot I was with the Wizard I had built in college. I was at the stage where I was doing some near wingovers... I asked if he wanted to fly it and he said sure, even though it's a trainer. I cranked it up and on the second lap he flew it inverted (albeit quite nose high...). After a lap or two of that he started doing loops. After he showed me the finer points I was doing them myself.

The Wizard requires you to enter these manuvers with some energy so I typically would start with a healthy down line. You have to walk into the loop a bit to help it around. The Wizard will also sink when you do go for inverted flight so make sure you have some altitude. I was (and still am) running a Black Widow on it. I doubt if the old bird may be able to do those stunts with a regular BabyBee. A great trainer none the less. It can do some stunts. Not great but it can do them...

After I flew the Wizard I flew a Cox PT-19 and realized what a slug the PT-19 was. My brother was a big PT-19 flier. The PT-19 made the Wizard feel like a snappy race plane. Of course to be fair I was running the Black Widow.

I have checked out numerous folks on the Wizard and it still flies dependably. I finally had to retire my first airframe because there was more CA glue than balsa... Ship 2 is twenty years old and still flying...

I'm getting ready to get a couple of Brodak Wizard kits for my son. The beat goes on...

Bill

Thumprding

This was my first balsa control line plane. I was about 9 or 10 I think when I purchased it with some birth day money. I flew that plane countless times until the gas soaked front end gave up. Funny to see the engine fly off the plane. It was a stable easy to fly plane. Much better than the COX plastic planes from Kmart. I flew mine with a Baby Bee and later with a golden bee. Fond memories of that plane.

Tom Nied

I learned Controline on the Cox PT-19. A dog for sure, but flyable. The Wizard my friend had was much snappier and he let fly it on occasion. In order to be a little different, I built the Stuntman 23. Flew fine but so early in my Controline history, I wasn't doing much more than climbs and dives, maybe a wingover. Never flew it inverted. The Buster allowed me to learn that. Getting to a more capable plane made a world of difference. Even the Baby Ringmaster was a hoot and quite stuntable.

Tom Nied

hey Bob, hows the controline flying. I've been flying a beater Flite Streak for the last month now and having a blast re-learning Controline. Not to mention flying with a couple of Controline buddies that I haven't flown with for awhile. Hope your Controline flying is progressing. Best Regard, Tom

Tom Nied

posted twice by accident

Centurion13

I still have the Wizard in the box. My own design for my son worked beautifully, until the sixth time it rammed the ground from a wingover. The firewall just fell off. I salvaged the plane and we are reinforcing the fuselage box for the next plane, which is the same thing (I cut three sets of balsa parts for each design to save effort).

He likes flying. Can you believe it?

Now I just have to get him to enjoy building them....

Cent13

green river rc

My Feedback: (2)

Heres mine, as you can see it's been around the horn a few times. Notice the Monokote trim sheet repair for an elevator hinge. Can't squeese out a loop with the Cox Babe Bee though, should I be able to?

build light

I think you should get a loop out of it. What fuel are you using, prop size and pitch and length and type lines?

Robert

green river rc

My Feedback: (2)

Thimble Drone 6x3 (cut down to about 5 1/2"), 42' dycron with Wildcat 20-20, 5-5 1/2 second lap times.

gcb

Where does it balance. Probably should be about 1/2" behind the leading edge. Bet it's nose heavy.

George

build light

Prop sounds OK fuel could be better at 25% nitro but you aren't far off there. Line length sounds good too but you would be far better off with .008 wire lines. The ones you are using... far too draggy.
...Um balance good on the prop? This could rob much needed power too.

I also have to go with George with the CG. All these things add up to increase or decrease performance.

Robert

green river rc

My Feedback: (2)

I have some .008" lines, may try them along with checking the CG and a new prop. It got about 1/4" chipped off one end so I just evened them up a little....Come on guys, we have all done it[sm=72_72.gif].

Centurion13

Not me. Not only do I not have the skill at balancing the prop after trimming it, I would be afraid of ruining the bearing on the engine. Maybe I need to grow more spine, but those little engines are not very forgiving. I tighten the pistons every so often with that nifty gadget Davis Diesel sells, but if the prop gets a nick, I just get another prop. They're cheaper than a sixty-dollar engine.

Cent13

da Rock

Not to worry if you know what you're doing.

Got a balancer? NO? Then don't do it.

Yes, and not to worry.
You can make a very, VERY cheap and accurate tool to help get the blades equal in length. Find a wood dowel or machine bolt that's the size of the engine's prop shaft. Drill a hole in a piece of plywood or any flat piece of wood the size of the prop shaft. Stick the dowel/bolt/whatever into the hole. Place the prop over that dowel/bolt/whatever and mark the short blade length on the plywood. Rotate the prop so the long blade comes around to the mark. Mark the long prop blade. Now you can trim that back to equal the other blade and you got a better prop. Now balance the sucker.

Expect the shorter prop to turn higher rpm.

Very often, I run props on my airplanes that better suit the airplane/engine combination but aren't sold in any hobby shop. They are made from bigger props with the pitch I'm looking for but too much diameter. And I change that diameter to suit. Works like gangbusters.

Got a couple of 46AX engines that love the 11.5x5 props I cut from 12x5s. Got enought surface area and not too much diameter and the right pitch. The pitch isn't exactly what would be on the blades had they been designed to the shorter lengths, but you know what...... neither I nor the engines care one bit. I get a better match to the airplane/engine by adjusting the diameter. 11.75x5s didn't quite get it. 11.25x5s didn't either.

build light

Quote by da Rock:
"Expect the shorter prop to turn higher rpm."

This is a really good thing for the Cox engines and the main reason I asked the question about prop size in the first place.
Cox engines fare very well with High nitro and high RPMs. The more the merrier! The one exception is the Texaco version but you need not concern yourself about that.

Making the blade lengths exactly equal IS important but not nearly as important as the balance. If the prop is balanced and you wind up with one blade length 1/32" longer than the other, you will be just fine. This is more likely to happen with wood props where the wood will vary with density along its length but with the modern molded props is nearly non-existant.

You want your Cox turning up really high RPMs to get the performance you need. I always fine tune the needle valve to get the highest possible RPMs on the ground, then richen the mixture about an eighth of a turn so that when the plane becomes airborne, the prop will be able to unload and turn up fast but not starve to death from being too lean.

Robert

cutaway

I made some "perfect circle" bits of plywood with that dowel type fixture.

Roughed the circle on my band saw, drilled a 1/4" hole in a board and put the blank on the edge of it, eased it into a belt sander until I got the diameter I wanted, then clamped the fixture to the belt sander table, then just slowly rotated the blank around.

Perfect circles every time. The same scheme with a belt sander/fixture should work for cutting down props evenly on both sides.

da Rock

It does, depending on the pivot. The dowel in the board needs to be a snug fit into the hole in the prop and a tight fit into the board.

But keep in mind that the tip that results will be a very large radius (whatever the radius of the prop is), round tip if the prop is rotated completely past the sanding surface. Not a big deal unless you're looking for square tips, or want something like Top Flites Power Tips. If you want only the LE of the tip to be round, then bring the blade into the sanding surface with the LE leading and stop it when it's perpendicular to the sandpaper.

Ivanhoe

Would anyone have a scan of the Carl Goldberg Lil' Wizard decal sheet that they'd be prepared to post here, or email to me?
I'm looking mainly for the tail flash with the CG logo, so the Brodack decals are no use, since they replace it with their own name.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated

Wilf

PuddlePyrate

I know nothing about control wire flying or the model I have, but I bought a seemingly pretty old Li'l Wizard model kit today for a price I couldn't refuse. It looks mostly complete, possibly the rod that runs to the tail is missing, but all the other parts still appear to be in plastic bags or attached to wood. It also has a never ran engine in it that I don't even know how to crank! lol. I run r/c nitro trucks but have never played with a plane. Anyway, I noticed someone wanted a scan of the decals, so here are the ones I got with the kit. If you need a higher resolution or different format just let me know.
R/T

Tom Nied

Wow, that's pretty cool. Some guys are probably looking for that. neat.

PuddlePyrate

I've also got the original instruction sheet if it's needed, including the "How to get your pilots license" instructions

Ivanhoe

Many thanks for this. Much appreciated

PuddlePyrate

You are most welcome!