Man, it's dismal in here.... Where is everyone, turkey shopping? Only a couple of people active right now.

Well, let's see. Day before yesterday I took two Gas/Glow planes out to fly; my Giant Big Stik (Poulan 42cc) and my Twist 60 3d (Super Tiger .90). I needed to fine tune the carb on the Giant Stik as I had rebuilt it, and just as I was finishing up and getting ready to fly, the carb linkage fell off!! My bad; a solder link I had done came "unglued". Oh well, better on the ground than in the air, but I had no way to fix it at the field. So I flew my Twist 60 several times. That thing sure flies great with the Super Tiger .90 on Gas/Glow, and it is definitely cheaper than flying pure glow!!

So I have now fixed the carb link on the Giant Stik, and just for grins I put a set of floats on my Mach 1 (World Models) that I use for training. Tomorrow I'm going to go to an estuary nearby, and try float flying for the first time. I am also going to take the Giant Stik, so if I "splash" the Mach 1, I'll still be able to fly!

Hope you are all either finding great deals on turkeys, or are locked in your workshops discovering, inventing, and building great new things!

AV8TOR

Hello, Hope you dont mind me butting in but i sit back and read all the new post and learn from all the other questions but i dont buttin offten. I fly with Bullwinkles Flying Aces out of Greenville Michigan, I really enjoy it, I see you post a lot in here, Can i ask how long you have been flying? First i'm happly married so please do not take this wrong but a couple of our pilots keep guessing so i wanted to find out. Is that you or your wife or child in your picture? I'm not being smart really. I have been married for 31 years now so i'm not looking. Also you said you are going to start float flying, I live on a very large lake here and i think i prefer to fly off the water. It slows the plane down a little but its great fun. I fly off the water better than on land. Also what do you mean by flying on Gas/Glo fuel? Do you mix gas and glo togeather? Thanks for your time and happy landings.....
Jim Scofield (just watching)

Hi,

Hmmm.... going to make me give away my age huh? Well, I've been flying and repairing full size airplanes, ultralight airplanes, and model airplanes for over 30 years. The gal in the pic is my wife. We have been together about 6 years or so, and have a two year old daughter together. I'm a lucky guy!!

Gas/Glow is a system we've come up with to use a mixed fuel and operate gasoline engines with a glow plug. We mix 1 part of 10% oil/10% nitro glow fuel to two parts of high test gasoline. Throw away the ignition system (and it's weight & cost), install a spark plug to glow plug adapter and a four stroke glow plug, and go fly! Works pretty slick. I have 5 airplanes flying the system at this time. Here's the thread where we discuss it: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_12...page_74/tm.htm

We'll see today about the float flying. It's something I've always wanted to try, but just now getting around to it. I REALLY don't want to dunk the plane though, as I will be flying off of saltwater....

Here's a pic of my baby from last summer when we were camping on the beach. The baby's name is Sofia, and the second word she ever said was "airplane".... My "Gas/Glow" Giant Stik is in the background. Sharp eyes might also find my gas powered Margarita-maker in the pic as well....

AV8TOR

Sorry; can't resist "bragging"...

BTW, my wife knows and approves of the pictures here. The Mexican culture is a little less.... "repressed?". A while back one of the model mags posted a pic of her as well.

AV8TOR

I've been trying to get my '52cc Pioneer up and going, but the turkey day stuff keeps getting in the way... last night I made a 14mm to 10mm spark plug adapter out of a used plug from work, worked out well. just got the electric ignition unit in the mail on friday (figured I'd give it a try), now I just have to figure out how to mount the sensor and figure out where to put the magnet and it'll be done. I set up my transmitter for the plane the engine is going in and think I have a bad reciever, I'll investigate more later. before it gets airborn and running I have to get a pulse line for the carb and put the ignition on, then setup the throttle linkage

I've got a lot of project engines on the list, I have a 18cc featherlight I want to play with on gas/glow, see what it'll do on a 40 size US Aircore Barnstormer (blue and yellow coroplast biplane). from there I have a whole list of other engines I'll start working on soon...

Oh well... Turkey day is still a good thing. Luckily, I think we will do turkey day itself, and then go "Fly Camping" for Friday, Sat. and Sun.!!

Hey, yesterday I couldn't spell "Float pilot" and today I am one!

Just got back, and it went well. (For the most part.) I did several take offs and landings, including touch and goes, and then I got over-confident. I came in a touch hot, didn't flare enough, soon enough, and did a typical "nose of the float dig in/face plant." But, just as advertised, the high wing with it's dihedral kept the radio high and dry. The fuselage on the Mach 1 has extensions in front, kind of like a fake cowl. The water grabbed one of those and peeled the fuselage back to the second former on one side. But other than that no other damage. I flushed the water out of the engine and re-started it and brought it up to operating temp, then ran it dry and after run oiled it. The fuselage side is repaired and the epoxy is "drying" as we speak. It's almost ready to go again.

But hey, if that lesson is all it costs me more or less to learn the basics of float flying, that's cool. It was fun!

Now let's see.... My Giant Stik with the Poulan 42cc rolls about 15 feet and then climbs straight up with no problem. Maybe I should start building some floats for it.... []

Hey, rangerfredbob: whats a good source for coroplast? I'm thinking about building a "throw it in the air anytime/anyplace" cheap electric plane and that might be just the stuff....

AV8TOR

It has been kind of slow around here lately. Last weekend I got a few flights on the Echo 23.6 powered (yeah, the one with the left hand threads) Funtana 90 using an A123 battery pack I made from the Black&Decker VPX batteries. I recharged after three flights and the Cellpro charger told me that I still had 78% of the battery left. It only took about 4 minutes to top the battery off and took only 182mah. These A123s have to be the simplest, safest, fastest, most foolproof batteries yet. Will be changing everything over to them, can't beat buying your batteries at Wal-Mart or Lowes.

I got my coroplast from Harbor sales

it's just past election season, try a want ad on craigslist for people with leftover signs... could work...

I actually got the plane for free from a guy that didn't want it, it's pretty much all there, even has some old futaba stuff in it, an old radio with G style connectors (whatever they are where the servo has male pins), it wasn't a very popular plane, anything I found online said it was hard to fly and underpowered with a standard .40 engine, so I figure it ought to be better with the 18cc engine I have set aside... the thing weighs 58oz with prop, adapter, flywheel, magneto and the stock fuel tank (I haven't completely converted it), I figure I'll work in steps seeing what everything does to improve it's performance and weight. start off with stock magneto ignition, then go to gas/glow and go from there, see what porting or anything is needed to get it powerful enough to be worth doing... I know I'm going to have to shorten the nose of the plane, and it'll be iffy at 750sqin wing area so it'll need to have some power... I can dream, right? I should have kept that 90 size profile mustang I got from the same pile...

I've got an engine set aside for the blender idea too, now I just need a yard sale blender to butcher. the engine is an old Craftsman 32cc blower, with the ryobi type setup, it's got a nice little fan shroud cover and cowling with integrated pull start, if it had a clutch I'd opt for a boat or something, so I figure the blender should be a good use

Yeah, my blender is a kick. People sure like it and are always trying to buy it from me. It has a Homelite 25cc engine. As I was making it, I wondered if it might need a clutch, and I figured, "Well, I'm going to try it without and see what happens." Wow, no clutch needed! It will munch up whatever you put in there at an idle. Revving it up is purely for effect as it's not necessary. Look for one with a metal base and a glass jar if possible. Easy to make really....

Flipflop... now you've done it..... I'm going to finally have to look into those 123 batteries... []

Have fun,
AV8TOR

Hello aviator,buck from down here in superior but your probably not up north still.anyway,i have some coroplast that i was going to make into a plane but im not going to bother now.If ya want it ill send it toya.i have a couple big sheets.the biggest being 4x4 foot square.its folded in half right now.Ive been working on a few engines and practicing with my new lathe i bought 3 months ago.Just sold 3 planes at an auction.Let me know what size of sheets ya need and how many or dimensions if ya can.i have 1 that has the word DORAL on it.

AV8TOR: Nice photos! Now to the airplanes....I flew off water a lot one summer. First it was off a dock on Fremont Lake. Boy...there is one thing you want to watch out for. If on take-off one float breaks off first, sometimes the wing on that side will raise fast and the other wing will dip into water. This causes a violent spin of the airplane and the tail will break when it hits the water. We soon learned to take off carefully. Then I started flying off the Muskegon river that has current and plenty of trees on both banks. That was real tricky. Someplace I have a photo of that. Take care, Capt,n

Hey thanks for the offer Buck. But down here it would be a little difficult for me to arrange shipping. If I get up that way anytime soon I'll give you a yell though....

Thanks again, and thanks for the compliments everyone.
AV8TOR

AV8TOR, what beach were the photos taken on? Gotta make me one of those blenders, that's just way cool.

Those particular photos were taken on various beaches in the Puerto Penasco, (Rocky Point) Mexico area. There are very large tide movements there, and at low tide there are tidal flats that make what I call "The largest airport in the world!" Literally miles and miles of flat packed sand. Lots of fun.

I now fly from a large tidal flat in San Carlos, Sonora Mexico, and from the old abandoned airstrip from the movie "Catch 22". Sorry, no pics of those sites right now as my camera is FUBAR, but here's a better pic of the blender.

Happy Thanksgiving,
AV8TOR

Thanks av8tor, you and the family have a Happy Thanksgiving as well.

Thanks!

I found a pic of mine that shows what I mean by "Worlds biggest airport". It was a bit breezy that day so the water left some ripples in the sand before the tide went out, but the airplanes didn't seem to mind. Many times the sand is very flat and without even those ripples.

AV8TOR

Hi av8tor1977
i love your blender, also i just wanted to tell you about one of my experiances while float flying, i was in our float fly for the hotel on Clifford lake it free for the spectators and really packs the people in for the restrant. we have 10 -30 planes of every description flying and i like useing my telemaster sr. with a 8' wing span, it should fly with a 40-60 but me being me i have a magnum 91 4 stroke on it. It has execlent take off(about 4' rollout) and vertical power, anyway we had a real windy day so i waited and decided to put mine away, after putting it away one of my friends talked me into getting it out again cause the wind finaly died right down. Anyway i put it togeather real quick and got it on the water and took off. I flew a while and was doing some touch and go's and loops. On about the 7-8th touch and go on lift off the front of my floats drooped straight down being only held by the back mounts. i knew i had a problem and thought i could get it in close to shore for a rough landing but just then the back mounts riped off the plane so the floats were hanging by the rudder cable, that threw the plane way out of balance dragging the floats through the air and it went straight up for a second then turned straight down and i had just enough time to cut the engine and it hit the water. It broke up the fuse a little but i had that fixed the next day, anyway i got the whole crowd up and on their feet and clapping. I had put the front nuts on finger tight and went to putting the back mounts on to set everything up but being in a hurry i forgot to tighten the fron mounting nuts.... It was a beautiful sight then a comical sight then a sad sight all in a few minutes. But i learned the hard way to re check everything and haven't done it again.... it was a blast a real heart thumper Just thought you might get a kick out of it. JimS [&o]

Definitely don't have to worry about where or which way to land. That's a beautiful area. Sticks sure are great flying planes, my first gaser was a giant sweet and low with a Quadra 35 on it. That was about 20 or 21 yrs ago. Took a cat for a ride on it and never figured out whether she liked it or not. She never came back around for me to ask. LOL Have a great one.

Thanks for sharing the stories. Too funny! I sure was shocked when the nose of the float dug in on landing. In the blink of an eye the airplane was stopped and flipped upside down. Luckily very little damage and I had it fixed after about 10 minutes of work later at home. But I learned a lesson! Another thing was since I had set the controls very mild for training people with this plane, I was fighting it just a bit to get a really nice flare for landing. Before the next outing I'm going to give it a bit more elevator travel. But the bottom line really was that after several successful take offs and landings, I got over-confident and just didn't land it properly. It was fun though, and worth a try for anyone that hasn't tried it and has accesss to water.

AV8TOR