MormonMike

My Feedback: (2)

Anyone know if were going to wind-up paying about $24 bucks a gallon for fuel this upcoming flying season. What's the word about Nitromethane production in Red China... er... I mean, our friends in the far east ? Are we still dependent on them to help make our hobby fuel ? Any chance we'll see a decent price drop on this stuff or is it there to stay ? MM

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

It has been going down according to the owner of my local Hobby People store. They just had a sale and it was $15.00 for 15% Power Master. They sell it for what ever the main outlet prices it at.

Jester241

Your gas prices wont go down until everyone starts NOT buying it,and making thier own(like me and many others now). The good news is,home brewing is becoming more popular every day...........so,maybe your prices will go down soon,lol.


Its just like the gas you put in your car prices a few months ago. They were only going up till everyone starting threatening with "alternative" fuels. That scared them so bad(and rightfully so),that they dropped thier prices to record lows just to take the attention off alternative fuels. Now they'll start going back up slowly again until T. Boone Pickens starts getting back on TV pushing for these other fuel sources,lol.

Live Wire

Just like your SUV you want to drive you pay the price

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

One thing has become very clear. There is NO nitro shortage in the world! When suppliers in China quote quantities in 100's of tons "in stock" for immediate delivery, you don't have a shortage.

huck1199

As more people switch to electric power there will be less demand for glow fuel. This should lower prices for a short time until the supply shrinks to find the equilibrium. As this happens several times the price will eventually rise because glow fuel will become a specialty product with low demand and little incentive for it's manufacture.

Our club members have been converting to electric much faster than I ever imagined would happen.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope for electrics taking over the hobby, I know a lot of people flying them but it's usually one electric stuffed in the back of there haulers and several wet powered planes. I was just approched by one of my club members asking about brewing up our own fuel. If done in batches of fifty gallons and sold to club members it could work. As to brewing up my own just for myself, I'm switching back to gassers again and only keeping a few glow powered planes so it isn't worth the trouble for one person. I can fly a very long time on a case of fuel. At $15.00 a gallon bought two gallons at a time during the winter when on sale it doesn't hurt my pocket too bad, I end up with enough fuel to get me through the season. My other club buys it by the pallet and sells it to club members in case lots at $14.00 a gallon, not a bad idea. There are ways to work around the higher prices.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

I buy my fuel once a year at the big model shows like Perry Ga or Toledo Ohio

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

I have always found your best deals if you can buy in some quantity and also try to buy a year in advance. Used to make the Trek to a blender in LA but now purchase in Las Vegas. This is my last trip a couple of months ago and is down somewhat from what I used to try and purchase. I think the biggest I batch I ever got was 48 gallons, that one saved quite a bit of money.

larrysogla

JohnBuckner,
You have enough juice stashed in there to fly around the world several times. The long distance model airplane record was established by a Coleman lantern fuel powered model airplane weighing less than 11 pounds with a wingspan of 72 inches flying at an average of 42 mph with less than 3 quarts of lantern fuel onboard and the specially tuned engine burning 2.01 ounces/hour of fuel flying at an altitude of around 1,000 feet at a distance of 1,888 miles across the Atlantic from Canada to Ireland in 38 hours 53 minutes whose creator is legally blind. The super tuned model engine was flying the model plane at a fuel mileage of 3,000 miles per gallon. The model plane was launched and landed by an RC pilot on both Canada and Ireland but the rest of the very long flight was flown by an auto pilot and telemetry tracked by satellite with ground speed, altitude and heading information. Now if you could only find a way to load your stash of juice on some long ranging RC plane and establish some world record, that will be heck of a way to burn the juice in your "warehouse".
P.S. I fly duplicate airplanes(Hobbico Twinstar and Seagull DualAce) in both brushless electric motors and glow powered engines, so in the process by alternating electric and glow, I manage to save on burning expensive glow fuel.
larry

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

Yes Larry it seems a lot however do remember it is a full years supply for me and I find it very difficult to run to the lhs over a hundred miles away in my wheelchair to buy just a few gallons. Of course the byproduct of that kind of buying can provide substancial saving over published prices and that was the point of my post.

Indeed Mr Hills accomplishments are legendary and no none of my aircraft including my multi's will ever come close to that kind of efficiency but make no apology for preferring Glow power even though I do have and enjoy a few electrics.

dhal22

maybe more people but not all. you couldn't give me electric power. i'll never leave glow or gas.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

I gave all my electric junk away to a newbie. He had it about a year and he gave it away too.

summerwind

ahhh electric...................all 6 minutes of flight time is really a blast eh?
i got hooked into it and soon realized that although electrics have all the performance one could ask for, there just isn't enough flight time to enjoy the hassle of all the upkeep required to keep those expensive lipos up to tiptop shape.
sold (practically gave away) 2 3DHobby shop planes and went back to fuel breathers.

fuel prices will probably be back around 15-18 bucks a gallon soon.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

The guy came out to the field and flew his absolutely fantastic 3D electric job. - unbelievable -

He puts it away

Flies glow the rest of the day

Why is that?

summerwind

it's neat stuff, and it is nice to not have to clean things up once in a while, but i gotta tell ya, i miss the oily hands after a nice day of flyin my fuel powered birds.
with electrics it's all about the batteries still, and while lipos preform, they fall way short of decent high performance flight times.
in all i spent well over 2 grand for a couple 3DHS planes (that land like crap BTW) baterries and what not and i was lucky to get 50cents on the dollar for all that stuff.

my current project will be flown with a Laser 200 twin running 15%...................or should i invest in electric for the Nieuport 28?

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Lets not be bashing E power, I think it's kinda cool. Someday I will have a lot of hundred dollar bills in my pocket and instead of lighting my smokes with them I will be able to afford one of those way cool fifty dollar gliders.
John, what shop in Vegas are you buying your fuel from?? There are a lot of pilots in the area wanting to get together and buy in big lots.
For myself it's not a big deal anymore with all the sales that come up. I'm only burning between 8 and 10 gallons a season of glow fuel these days.

jetmech05

Here's what my LHS guru told me.....there is no nitro shortage...there was no nitro shortage...this rumor of a shortage went like wildfire through the hobby...people started hoarding fuel, which means the demand went up...when demand goes up with no increase in production...prices go up.....we have done this to ourselves....just imagine what it would be like if everyone just bought 1 extra gallon of fuel when they needed to re-fuel...except those that buy or get their fuel in bulk....the demand would double..
W8ye are you going to Perry this year? I plan on going up Sat morning

MormonMike

My Feedback: (2)

It appears my LHS has'nt received the word yet. I too, make my own fuel [ around 40 gallons a batch ] and go through quite a bit every year. But, let's hear more from you guys first before I say anymore. MM

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

I lived in the South East for three years in recent times

I was a regular at Mac Hodges in Andersonville and every year to Perry.

Now I'm back in Ohio and In a couple months will be at the Toledo show which is about 75 miles away.

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

My club is doing another bulk fuel buy this year (55 gallon drums), and it looks like it will run us about $12/gallon for 15% nitro fuel plane fuel (18% synthentic oil and 2% castor). That's only about a buck/gallon more than last year. The actual cost to the club is a buck or two less per gallon than that, and the club makes a little profit for its trouble.

I've got about 16 gallons stocked, and am looking to get more into electrics in the future, so I'm going to use up my existing stock before buying anymore.

jetmech05

what's the formula for making your own fuel?

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

FAI fuel 80% methanol and 20% castor oil

MormonMike

My Feedback: (2)

Jetmech, When making a large amount of fuel, You have to be precise doing it. It's quite the calculation job depending on the amount of nitro/oil percentage you want. I sat down with a friend and spent two days on calculations. A number of times we came up with different numbers and started all over again. You may think "what's so hard about figuring out the right percentages" but believe me even with calculators, there is a little difficulty doing it. Here's what I came up with. For 15% nitro with 18% oil, you need, 23ozs of Klotz oil [that's 2% castor,16% synthetic], 19.2 ozs of nitro [15%] and 85.8 ozs of Methanol [ 66.7% ] That all equals 130 fluid ounces or, just a little over one gallon. Methanol is not too difficult to find but the nitro, well, ..... try the race tracks, you might find a good link-up there. It is sold by Klotz oil but it's not cheap. Now I don't know if I'm braking a cardinal rule here on RCU for devulging a fuel formula [ we'll see if I'm kicked off RCU ] Or if I have to keep looking over my shoulder like Karen Silkwood had to before she had a mysterious "accident", but, here's the formula my planes are happy to fly with, all thirty-two of them, two and four stroke. MM

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

Without naming it directly its the one In Henderson and after my yearly trek there we pop over to Twice Nice and explore the rat maze trails that I can get my chair through