here is the first fuse for an SSC plane i'm trying out. very cheap and solid yet should have enough give to take a few hits.
parts are: $ store bat, and two golf club protectors, zip-ties and music wire. tail not shown will be 4 mil coro. it will have a motor mount on top of the bat that fastens on with rubber bands, but could be fixed solid if ya wanna. 7.30 ounces at this stage. cost so far $4.00 built in an hour or so. once one is good to go 1 hour to build would be resonable. battery and rx will be in the nose, throttle servo on the motor mount, elevons servos in the wing. the coro shown is just for spacing. the pieces from the handle act as reinforcers where the music wire goes through. tail coro will zip-tie in between the tubes. there will not be an elevator, ruder could be an option but not planned on at this time.

My collection of OS .15s with cracked crankcases has led me to wonder just how slow and survivable SSC really is. With a rigidly mounted engine on the front of a 40 oz "piledriver", the engines have been coming away as junk after a crash. An easy to shear mount has got to be the answer. The glow .15s are a little bit too hot for this class to be really and truly "SSC". Diesel .15s give enough power for combat and drop the speed down to a level that is truly "SSC".

yup, tired of dead 15s too, so thats why the motor mount will be rubber banded on to the top of the bat ...hence the forward music wire
the mount is still in the researh and development stage. [sm=72_72.gif]

I have got to see what this thing looks like when it's all together!! PLEASE....PLEASE POST THE FINISHED PICS!!!

what and remove all the mystery?? yeah i'll post the rest as it gets built

I wonder if it's something about the OS LAs that result in guys having problems with them breaking. Where do they break? The Magnums I run can sometimes break around the carb if it gets jammed back, but that's easy to fix with some JB Weld. I have 3 or 4 engines that have been repaired that way. (Including a TT Pro .46 that a guy crashed and was going to throw away. It runs great now).

[sm=spinnyeyes.gif]well of course there IS a reason so many la 15s are having problems in crashes. it is because there simply are so many la 15s on the front of combat SSC planes. they are the most often used engine because of their reliability and low price. any engine on the front of a combat plane is in for a rough life .... "its combat baby" .... so we try to design to help the situation knowing there can never be a cure. the la bushing set up makes for a lousy pusher so that's out, and complicated mid engine designs are just that "complicated". (come up with a simple mid engine tractor design that flies well and become famous!!) several of the guys that kit and fly really good SSC fighters have implemented breakaway motor mounting, its not new. but we strive to make things like this better if we can and bouncing new ideas off the rascals on this forum almost always helps beside its so much fun to RAZ you characters!

My OS .15s have cracks in the case that required surgery with JB Weld. The backplate mounted needle leveraged the threaded hole in the case to the point of failure with 2 engines. A couple of FPs have the lugs sheared off and jammed up carbs. My 2 PAW .15 diesels have been flown over the past 3 summers a combined 2400 combat minutes [2 x 20 minutes for a full length match] and have never needed more than just the dirt blown out of them. The old nylon 8x6 props almost never break, either. The planes only get burn barreled after they get too funky to clean, they're almost impossible to damage badly enough from mid airs to get deep sixed. This is truly SSC combat and all the planes are is 80 mph C/L foamies converted to elevon control and wing tip fins. The PAWS turn the 6 pitch prop about 12,000 rpm, the planes look like they're doing about 40 mph.The motor mounts are aluminum rails that are held to the center rib with 1 bolt, which allows the whole works to swing to the side in a crash, like a hinge. I discovered this feature by accident after losing one of the 2 mount bolts, and noticing that the engine still stayed put during normal flight. The down side is the stench and that diesel fuel takes more effort to get and to store, otherwise it is fun for a change of pace.

this fuse is generic as it will work for many sized planes. it seems that it would be a good sub for any of the spad alum rail fuses. a coro horizontal stab/elevator could be fastened under the aft tubes quite easily.[:-]

i think i forgot to mention that this is based on the .15 simitar SLOW MOTION plans from AMA. i am simply using combat construction methods but not really changing any part of the design aerodynamically. any one who has done any combat will recognize the building methods. ive been slow to build much this season do to some problems with my neck but will get that fixed soon so keep checking. hope to fly some combat this fall.