I'd like to install a smoke system in my SM F16. Ali is bringing me one to Classic jets at Abingdon on friday.

Are there any issues or do's and donts when installing a smoke system within a tailpipe??

Any thoughts or suggestions welcomed. This is my first smoke system so......kind of in the dark a little about these things.

Also how do I get different colour smoke, an I right in saying that diesel is used as the smoke liquid and sprayed into the hot jet efflux to create the smoke. But what about getting different colours? Red Diesel?

Cheers

Will

Will, wish I had your short drive to Ab! Smoke yes I have some experience, you need to spray the diesel about 2inches behind the jet efflux just outside the exhaust nozzle. I use 4mm brass tube with the end flattened, the secret is to pump as much fluid as you can as quick as you can, 2 litres lasts me 4 minutes!

Coloured smoke.........when, if you achieve that you will be famous

m

Will, if you have a pipe and you spray diesel in it, it may stick the walls of the pipe and it will smell badly! If you have the engine mounted at the tail you will be ok. Spraying a lot of smoke sometimes causes it to ignite. So, increase the smoke volume gradually till you get ignition then back it off...This is at full throttle. We use dry smoke here in the US from tower hobbies and it is very clean, smokes great and smell free....keep the smoke pump away from radio stuff. Good luck!!

there is no such thing as coloured smoke unless one uses an explosive. No matter what colour liquid one burns, the smoke will be white.

How do the full scale jet demo teams get their brilliant smoke colors? Reds, greens, blues, etc.?

seems like exhaust has to be really hot and you need some good chemistry...
http://aerobatics.ws/email_summaries/colored_smoke.html

http://home.clara.net/arianrhod/Alde...lf/Pyro01.html says that there are smoke canisters that go into the smoke machines they use on stage, and they come in different colours, maybe if you mount one directly behind, or next to, the exhaust you'll get a trail of colour ....

::edit:: maybe the most relevant, http://www.raf.mod.uk/reds/dyeteam.html, seems that the stuff is already coloured before going thru the engine...

Takes me 30 mins! The Classic Jets meets are probably 50% of the reason I got into jets.


Will try yours and others suggestions.


I was concerned about that. And obviously the fire aspect of it too. Hmmmmmm.......

I used Tams nozzle a couple of inches behind the exhaust cone, but well inside the tail pipe. great smoke, wiht SuperDri, however, it does leave a bit of an oily residue. The first couple of times we got oil inside the pipe when refilling the smoke tank (didn't know you had to pinch off the nozzle line) Fully expected a fire on start up but it just blew a puff of smoke out the back.

I don't think I would try diesel unless is was injected behind the tailpipe -externally. The Snowbirds were one team that tried coloured smoke for one year. The necessary chemicals were found to be extremely messy and somewhat toxic, so the concept was abandoned after that show season...

Use an on/off valve in the line between the nozzles and the pump, close it when pumping the oil into the tank, then open it when ready to fly or smoke , if you burn all of your smoke fluid when flying you most likely run the pump dry, next time that you refuel ( oil ) open the valve then pump the oil slowly to re-prime the pump then close the valve and continue filling the oil tank. If you happened to forget to close the valve during refueling ( oil ) make sure that you drain all the oil from the engine and pipe ( very important ) or you could have during start, a) a fire, b) a big bang from the excess amount of oil been burn, this could ruin your pipe.

I test my smoke right after starting the engine with half throttle, no less. It happened to me once, after TO. I try to do some smoke but nothing happened ( dry pump ).

That's all I have for now.

Not true. There is such a thing, very much so in fact.

The full size use multiple injectors, one for the basic white, and the others to inject the various color dyes (look at a red arrow hawk from behind, you will see 3 tubes). The reds use a textile dye on biological basis, not sure on other teams, but i'm sure they have similar stuff....you can get it from just about every textile shop around.

As to models: it's been done a lot. The Phantomstaffel had it a while, Stephan Völker apparently had it going in south africa from what i heard....they all did not stick to it as it was a huge mess on the plane, in cars, on your hands and everywhere the smoke got (all over the airport). Peter Mayer of jetwelt apparently sells the stuff in red, blue and yellow in a single-injection ready to go system from what i recollect. Not as colorful as if it were injected seperately, but less technical stuff to carry along :-)

Best regards
Hank

Hi Will,

Coloured smoke isn't uncommon in model jets...it was used at the SA JWM I seem to remember.

Red diesel will not do the job, you need a proper dye like the one Hank mentioned that the Reds use. I came by a couple of litres each of their red and blue dye a couple of years back and it did work quite well...but it needed a heck of a lot of dye mixed in with the diesel to produce a decent colour and the cost, if you have to buy it, is quite astonomic (can't remember how much, John Palmer researched and came up with a price for the minimum amount - 50 gallons - and he's at AB tomorrow so maybe talk to him about it). The other thing about this dye is that one small spot on your finger/whatever, will cover everything...it's a nightmare if you have a leak (witness the blue interior of my old Foxjet!), and it will not come off.

See you tomorrow,

Cheers,

Dick

PS...Mick...often wondered why you don't join the Swindon Club so you can stay over on the Friday and fly on Saturday too!

Ok, I meant only oil mixtures...not externally injected systems...that are complicated imo.