That's funny, those are the three I have, the 190, Macchi and Hurricane. You are right, they are decent for Bronze with enough power. You can't get there with a .46 though. I have piped YS .60's in the Macchi and FW 190. Both can break out in Bronze but not by a lot. The Hurri had a YS 1.10 and was a good Silver plane but crashed hard when the battery came unplugged in a turn. They all felt sluggish to me in the turns though some might consider them smooth. One good thing about them is that no one would complain about them being not scale enough even though the wings are not very scale in shape.

I fly a Nitroplanes Zero that flies pretty good. It has a YS 1.10 in it and can easily break out in Silver.

Blessings, Terry

Being unfamiliar with the Nitromodels Zero, how would you compare the quality, and build to that of a VQ kit?

Here are some pics of the planes I mentioned above.

It is not as good of quality as the VQ models. It has a fiberglass fuse and built up wings and stab. It needs the weight of the big block up front to balance so the 1.10 works great. The wing is 515 squares and it flies very well. The first one I built, I put a YS .63 in it. It needed a bunch of lead on the firewall to make it balance and it wasn't even a good Bronze plane. With the 1.10 it can almost go gold. The hardware is junk but for $88 you can easily toss it out and put good stuff in it. One good thing is that the front is a full fiberglass wrap with the ply firewall behind so it is pretty tough.

Blessings, Terry

Terry,
The SAM guys refer to the 110 as a small block.... the BIG BLOCK is the 120/140 in our world.
Skids......

Skids
The 120 and 140 are small blocks in our world. The 170 is the real YS big block!!
lol

still4given are you talking about the VQ model or the nitro planes model above?

It's all relative. I was comparing it to the .63. The extra weight of the 1.10 was perfect. The plane was designed for a .40 so the 1.10 feels like a big block. I'm mounting a 1.40 in a custom built P-51 as we speak. Then it will be time to experiment with Fuel and props. The 1.70 is too rich for my blood right now.

Blessings, Terry

I believe the 120 and larger share the same size case. So they are the same "big block", the 170 is just more of a monster. The .91 - 1.15 are the small block and I guess the .53 - .70 are the hybrid(?).

Skids

mini mouse
mouse
and rat

Official classifications

Hi Spencer,

If you are referring to post #54, I was talking about the Nitroplanes Zero. I have built three of them, mainly because there were cheap, but they actually fly very well. The first one broke when I cartwheeled it trying to land it dead stick in a cross wind. The second one snapped the wing when I flew it on 60% nitro after too many rough landings and gear mount repair. It comes with retracts and I think I busted up the ribs on each side of the gear blocks with too many hard landings on our old dirt field. I'm much more careful on landings now.

I'm not real crazy about the VQ models. The covering is not my favorite and it gets to looking funky right away. The wing design makes for a good sport flyer but too sluggish for my liking in a race. The Nitroplanes Zero is fun to race. It is pretty quick considering the draggy fuse and very nimble in the turns. Way more work to build because of the poor hardware an fiberglass fuse though.

Blessings, Terry

Terry,

What is it that happens with the covering??? Anything that can prevent??? Reason I ask is I bought one of the Zero's about 10 days ago... In your experience what do I need to put in this plane to make it a competetive silver plane??? I have the following available: OS 61, OS 91, YS 91, Saito 100, Webra 120. How much torque do I need in the various servos at silver speeds??? Trying to have a plane for both bronze and silver to make the long trip worth the 2 days.

Thanks,

Ken V.

The VQ covering is not a monokote but more like a printed vinyl or plastic, pretty weird stuff. Mine lasted for a while, but eventually is starts to wrinkle and shrink and putting heat to it with a gun does not do a thing to fix it, and can actually make it worse. The material itself starts to shrink back over time where there are seems, and it gets bad to where bare wood is exposed on the wings, the fuse, control, surfaces, you name it. My Macchi lasted two season, but now I have to recover it because it was getting "unsafe" bad. Mine lasted two demanding race season before I pulled it out of rotation to recover. It took its fair share of heat and weather abuse before it got to that stage. So right now I am prepping the Macchi for recovering, which can be a little labor intensive, but the plane is worth recovering since it flys so well. To me this is the only real negative about these planes. Other than the hardware, it is a good plane. Just ditch the crappy stock pushrods and get some good stuff in there.

Like Terry has mentioned. The VQ Zero is not a good one to fly stock for silver. The wing is not fully sheeted, the airfoil is too fat, and the wing is too long for the higher speed demands. I could see that long wing snapping in a high speed pylon turn .

Well I haven't put pics on in awhile so here is my progress.........

That Sea Fury is coming along nice, but will it be ready by April? I neet to get my 190D done, but until I figure out the landing gear situation, on the shelf it stays.

Got the VQ 190 all done today. Could not find any silver solder in Willits or Ukiah, so I tried something different and am pleased. For the pushrods for the flaps and ailerons I am using 4-40 fully threaded stock and Dubro clevises. I thought it might have been the black paint on the clevis, and sanded it off to see if that would help, but no go. Bought a pencil torch to try and heat some regular solder, but it did not do a thing except incincerate the solder. Now I have done my other linkages in the past in the original manner with no problems so I am not sure what the problem is this go around. When I soldered the pushrods for the elevator and rudder I had no issues but that was with 4-40 stock with threadiing only on the ends. Anyways....
I went ahead and just used the clear gorilla glue to see if it would hold and I am impressed with it. Since the pushrods are fully threaded I am not worried about the pushrod slipping off the clevis, just if it vibrates and twists off the threads. The Gorilla glue did a bang up job, and I tried my hardest twist it off and it did not budge or crack or nothing. Will try it out tomorrow, should be just fine though. As long as the weather is good, the maiden looks like it is tomorrow. Wish me luck guys. Should be some pics.

Jake:
Yeah, for soldering you need the silver or brass plated clevises. I use red LockTite on all of my metal threaded clevises. They don't come loose again unless you heat them up with a torch.

Casey:
The Sea Fury looks great. It's always been one of my favorite planes. Get 'er done!

Did you ever have one of those days where you literally had to fight tooth and nail to get one plane in the air? I had one of those days.

First I tried to fly my Parkzone 109G. Something happened to the ESC because I could get the control surfaces working but the motor would not do a thing. Brought it home and changed out the esc and now it works fine. Sending the stock one back to Horizion, what a piece of S%#$!

Took me a while to get the motor on the VQ 190 started, but once I did it started running great. Took me about 5-6 restarts to get it down the runway because the grass is so tall and wet since there has been little to no dry days or sunshine. It just kept nosing over just trying to taxi the thing. Got it up in the air and on takeoff one of the wheels decided to turn parallel with the wing. So I flew it for about 4 minutes and with the gear up I slid her in. Slid real nice on the wet grass with no damage or even a scratch. I was going to tighte the set screw on the landing gear when I heard some rattling in the cowling when I lifted it up. two metric screws came out of the bottom of the cowling that must have come off the motor somewhere. I just got the motor back from YS parts and service so either they did not tighten them down or stripped the threads on the motor. I will find out this evening when I open it up. The maiden of the plane was O.K. I guess since I did not crash the thing, but it was just such a pain for the whole day at the field I just wish I would have stayed home [&o].

Will report back later when I know what is up with the motor.

Opened her up and finally found where the screws came from. The two bottom screws of the backplate had come out. Screwed them back in and they fit real snug so at least they were not stripped (thank God!). Put them back in with a tiny bit of blue locktite to keep them from backing out again. Next is the wheel, that should not be to big of a chore.

Thanks guys, the Sea Fury is coming along nicely but is still alot of work. I think it's gonna be worth it. I love the Sea Fury and it's one of my favorite planes as well. Hopefully my next pictures of this thing will be when it's almost done. I'm getting excited seeing how it's gonna look. I'm gettin 'er done!

Well got the 190 all ready for another flight, but until we get a few a days to dry out and get the grass mowed, it ain't happening. Looks like next weeks weather looks like crap too so maybe in two weeks. It is starting to look like March now.

Started to get dirty with the Macchi. Since the 190 is not hogging up the space I can work on it indoors. Getting the covering off pretty fast and using the eraser is working well with getting the glue off. Need to replace some of the sheeting on the front since there is a little fuel exposure. What is the best way to leach the fuel out of the wood. I tried baking soda but it was not that impressive? Any home remedies out there? Since the weather is so crappy and I have a four day weekend next week, I should be able to get a lot done. Here are a few pics.

Corn Starch for pulling fuel out of the wood.
Or if you can find the old K2R spot remover. Good luck on that though.

K2R at Amazon

Since I already have the corn starch here at home I am going to go with that first. What is the best application process? Just rub it in and let it sit and wipe it off? Or is there a different procedure? Thanks for the link Barry, I think I will pick up a can of that k2R. You never know when you will need a can of some fuel cleaning whoop *****!

With the cs I think you sprinkle it on the affected area and wait a couple hrs ad tghen brush off the residue that will have the oil in it.

It has been a while since my last report in, so here we go.

Used the corn starch to recover some of the wood and it worked well enough. So I stripped off the really bad fuel damaged skin and put some new balsa on. Worked fine and have now completely taken the covering and adhesive off the plane. Time consuming it was, but I am real happy with the results. The old standard school eraser worked well. Will start recovering soon. Here is a pic. I think it is still optimistic to say this will be done before the first race, but we shall see. I still have an entire wing to do. Got my replacement parts, such as canopy and fillets from Tomas at VQwarbirds.com. When we are done we shall see what the total tally is for resotration on this bad boy. Here is a pic to show some progress.

Jake