Built a 15 size Peacemaker with profile body. Goes like hell but when I put it into a loop it flies in a large loop circle anf seems to fall in on me (bloody thing chases me around the padock) I have the engine offset 2 Degrees pointing to the outer of the circle and I have a rurrer set according to the plan. No wing warp is visible. Any ideas?

G'day mate,

Before I can give an informed opinion, let us know what motor you're using, prop, line length and the color of your undies before it starts chasing you.

sounds a bit like something is not aligned properly. Maybe the elevator not square ?? Check the alignment from the front of the model, looking down the propshaft, to make sue everything is dead square.

Is the motor still pulling strongly at the top of the loop?

Let's know the answers to above and I'm sure the answers will follow.

Regards

Greg

Motor is an Enya 15 bb, prop 8x4, undies brown. It pulls well to within a bees whisker of the top of the loop at which point it seems to fall out of the sky (I'm sure its to chase me or why else would it do it?). During the fall the lines go slack however, therudder kicks in and the bugger then flies away from me - breaking at leasr one line - of course. A mystery to me!

Are there enough pieces left to check the alignments?

Sounds Like a monster, I have a much over weight Peacemaker, flies like it's on rails Motor is a Magnum gp 15, plenty of power on a 8x4.

How much elevator travel? too much of course can cause the model to stall, with results like you describe.
Do you fly with experienced fliers who can spot porblems from outside the circle? It often helps to have eyes from a differnet aspect checking.

I didn't really want to know about your undies[8D]

Greg

I'm not familiar with a Peacemaker, but tried to find a description or picture with Google, and no luck, so...........

It sounds like a speed design. They usually don't have the wing area for high-g pitch maneuvering. They usually have small wings and high wing loading.

Ever heard the phrase, "pigs don't fly"?

If it has enough wing area, and has engine offset (not really important) and rudder offset then think about what remains.

Check to see how far the CG is left-to-right. Or more exactly, how far the CG is inside-to-outside.

Check to make sure the wing is equally long inside to outside. I've seen a stunter built that was supposed to have a longer inside panel but had been built the opposite.

Do you have any wingtip weight in the sucker? Why not?

Rake the lines back on the wingtip and try it again.

Don't think George Aldritch ever flew any pigs,but he did design the Peacemaker around 1958,it'll fly triangular loops without the aid of flaps.Originally designed for combat but was too vulnerable with that sheet fuselage.

.

Aeromodellers BIGGEST selling plan of any type ever.





Is your cg as shown on the plan?

The CG on the plan looks about right. You should only need about 20 degrees each way of up and down on the elevator. Too much elevator throw can stall the tail with the result that loops get bigger with more control (did some experiments on this).

The advice to move the leadouts back is wrong. Having leadouts too far back results in a loss of line tension up high. If they are where the plans show they should not be your problem unless your CG is too far forward.

The Peacemaker is known in the US as a Flite Streak.

The FliteStreak has a larger span than the Peacemaker (36.5" vs 42").

GMA used to fly a FliteStreak with an Oliver Tiger with 15% engine offset - something that John Allcock has recently tried here in the UK with a Peacemaker.

Tony

Well by golly, I guess us Yanks missed something the readers of AERO MODELLER got and we didn't. Hey, sorry but we seldom saw that magazine over here in the 50s. And seldom saw airplanes like that in combat since we were moving to wings like the VooDoo. And we were flying 35 engines in combat. None of us screwed around with 15s unless we were planning to fly in WCs. And back then almost nobody even considered going where FAI was flown. chuckle.... what else?

And I'm sorry to have given wrong advice about the leadouts. I should have taken more time and given the whole suggestion, "move the leadouts backward or forward and try it, and if moving them one way doesn't help, move them the other." It's actually not a given which way moving them will affect the flying unless your airplane has no other problems. When it's got an unknown problem, you're trying stuff to troubleshoot and best not expect all the known solutions to work the way they're known to work.

Kewl copies of that article. It's actually quite a laugher for a Yank like me. Selling you guys on that airplane being a US combat design. If I remember correctly, most of Europe was flying diesels on combat planes about then weren't you? Truth is, about the only time we heard anything about Europe was every couple of years when there was a WC and a couple of Yanks would give it a try.

But hey, sorry about the bad advice.

Actually, he told me about at least one. Aldrich was sort of a funny guy. But honest. He did engine work for years and often showed up at Nats and talked shop with the guys. But seemed sorta burned out on stunters.

Thought I would show you a Peacemaker under constraction. I believe my looping problem is in fact toooooo much elevator creating a stall. How critical is the CG point.?

The profile Peacemaker is somewhere between the Flite Streak and the Flite Streak Junior in size. There are LOTS of similarities, including building method.

In the USA, GMA designed a Peacemaker with full fuselage...also similar in outline...also powered by the famed Oliver Tiger.

George

Edit: Kahuna, what size lines are you using? Something like .012x52' should be about right.

The CG should be close to the plan position as you can get it to start out with. Then move it around if you choose.

I'm not clear whether George designed the Peacemaker before, during, or after the Flitestreaks. I took Army training at Ft. Chaffee Arkansas, next to Ft. Smith, where the Fox factory is. At that time George was working for Duke. When I got my first weekend pass in January, 1958, I went to visit George. He was packed up to leave the next day, having quit Duke. He showed me the Peacemaker plans and said Aeromodeller gave him an Oliver Tiger for the article. A couple of years ago George's original Peacemaker templates passed through my hands. I sent them to Brodak in the hope of a later kit production. You can get a short kit here. http://www.replikit.com/index.html It is on page 2 in the control line section. I think at one time the Peacemaker plan was Aeromodeller's best seller. It is still a popular airplane in England.

I don't know what it about a Peacemaker but it is usually a joy to fly, ( no doubt like the Jnr Flite Streak )

With a good .15 / .19 on the right prop it can be a perfetly good combat plane as it can be set to fly pretty darn fast and can be turned quickly and "placed" accurately, the latter being a good thing when aiming for that streamer

Great for "friendly / polite" combat ( though these bouts often bring on the red mist, despite the promises by both parties to "fly carefully"

On the other hand, with a bigger, lower pitch prop and set a bit rich, it can perform the full pattern with no problems.

Not a very forgiving fuse though if you try a "powered landing" !!

I am on my latest one right now and I forget how many I have had over the years.

Build it light and have fun

EDIT = Oh, the O.P. question !! - check G of G - no more than 30 Deg elevator AND PRETTY IMPORTANT check the pushrod is not prone to deflecting on up elevator. Many folks put a lil support bracket half way between the wing and the tail, on the fuse, to prevent this happening.

Back in "the day" when model builders used everything they could, some of us used Ambroid tube caps (which at that time were screw eyes) for that purpose. The empty tubes themselves became wing tip weights.

Sigh...

George

George --

You're starting to date yourself now. In my diminished mental capacity (well, maybe it's as good as it ever was), I had forgotton about the screw eyes. Nothing like building with orange!!!

Hi. Sounds to me like your lines are too long , about 52 feet should be about right. Also if your lines are too heavy you can have problems as described. Regards.Paul.

I've built many, many Peacemakers over the last 48 years (GMA's plan published in Feb '58 Aeromodeller) and if built as plan and balanced as plan they all flew great. At school I used to build them and sell thyem to finance my modelling.

My last one however was a bit "light on the lines" so I gave the rudder more offset and removed a little of the tail weight to bring the CG forward.

Here are a couple of pics of my present Peacemaker. Flies excellently, plenty of line tension and tight loops

Charles

I've just had a quick read through the Aeromodeller article. George says his did square four-leaf clovers. I never managed THAT.

I think he favoured Oliver Tigers, so that's probably what he was using. My best ever Peacemaker used a Cox Olympic .15 turning an 8x4 nylon. I still have two of these great motors but dare not use them here because they "howl" - and I can't figure out an effective silencer.

At present I use an original PAW 2.49 with additional home-made silencer (from an asthma inhaler) that reduces the noise dramatically

Charles

Prima facie, if it flies fine upright with strong line tension for class, it sounds most like you do have a warped wing which is causing the model to roll in on you as you enter the inverted phase of your loop. Once that occurs and you start to lose line tension, well....you already know the rest.

But you say there's no wing warping. Examine your CG. If it's too far aft and you are executing the manoeuvre by abruptly jamming in lotsa/max elevator, especially with excessive throw exacerbated if the outer wing has any washin, it'll be prone to stalling at the outer tip and characteristically rolling in. If it's OK, the other contender is wing/fuse alignment. If the fuselage body is misaligned to the wing (not square) so that the outside wing leads, aerodynamically it will develop more lift such that it creates a rolling moment inward with subsequent effect upon line tension, but this occurs both upright and inverted. If you have inadvertantly built in an incidence angle rather than having the wing set in parallel with the thrust line, this can set up rolling moment if there's sufficient lift differential inverted vs upright to create an inward rolling moment. But looking at other possible contributary causes. If you've set the line exits as per plan, then they won't contributory/a cause of the symptoms you describe.

Presumably you are flying it on 52"' lines of no larger diameter than .015".

Secondly, when you commence your loop, you are commencing it leeward or as the model is just past the downwind side of the circle?

Thirdly, what .15 engine are you using, what prop have you fitted to it, and confirm you are tuning it so it develops its peak power. ie: sufficient power to execute te manoeuvre with that model.

Finally, what does your Peacemaker weigh RTF without fuel (dry)? The Peacemaker has 300in² of area and a generous section, so it will carry bloat (excess weight) fairly well provided the engine has sufficient grunt.

If you build 'em light, there's nothing in the classic pattern a typical cross-flow or Schnuerle ported PB .15 glow (Enya, OS or TT) powered Peacemaker can't do on 52' lines in reasonable wind conditions. Along with Modelhob's Smousen, George's venerable Peacemaker is one of my two favourite sport profile models in class.

If it's a ballraced (BB?) Enya .15, it should have a ton of power and it is underpropped with an 8X4. If however, you are referring to Enya's plain bearing .15 III or IV (crossflow heads) or their V (Schnuerled), an 8x4 Master, 8.5 X 4 Bolly or 8x5 APC is about right. The APC and Bolly blades are more efficient and offer smaller area, so you want a bit more pitch or diameter on the Enyas III & IV in particular which aren't particularly high reving engines like O.S.' Schnuerled ABN FP and LA.

Do you have a tacho?

The APS "Peacemaker"plan was specifically redesigned by George as a free plan inclusion for "The Aeromodeller" at the time. Essentially it was the already established in the U.S. now legendary "Flite Streak" scaled down to suit the available power of the typical single and dual ballraced diesel competition combat engines of the day then in common use, viz. Oliver Tiger. With engine development over the years, any respectable contemporary muffled PB glow .15 has ample power to fly the design well as long as it's not built with leftover logs or an excessively doped and painted covering job.

Even a non-competition contemporary TBR diesel engine such as a PAW 2.5 diesel will fly the "Peacemaker"built per plan like a super hot combat model of its own era, and truly flies it way too fast with execessive power available to be enjoyable for ordinary sport stunt flying.