RE: What happens to my stuff when I die?
Well, being as I am in my 70’s now it is definitely time to start thinking about these things. I have accumulated a bunch of stuff from estate sales, some that I have bought and some that was given to me. The last time I did an inventory I had 21 planes, 23 engines, 14 un-built kits, 6 radios, 60 rolls of MonoKote and a healthy stack of balsa and ply and all the tools and equipment that comes with being in the hobby for many years. I don’t have any heirs that would be interested. We had all girls and the ones that are still married have husbands that are not worth the dynamite that it would take to blow them to hell. My wife don’t really need the money from the proceeds so my plan is to give it all to my primary flying club so they can have a club auction and have the proceeds to go to the club. Anything that doesn’t sell could either be put into a club raffle or held by the club and used to help new modelers get into the hobby. Free to kids and reduced price to all others.
Posted on: 11/29/2009 11:04 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "The Clubhouse"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=9288996

RE: trainer cord question
Ken, I don’t know if this solution will be the answer to your particular problem but it has worked for me in the past. I have seen the situation occur where the model required a lot of trim adjustment to get it to fly straight. The quick way is just to make the trim changes on your hotshot computer transmitter and just go flying. The problem comes up when you then try to hook up a buddy box to a transmitter that does not have the same adjustment range and the master transmitter. The solution is to make all the initial trim changes via mechanical adjustments on the model instead of making electronic adjustments from the transmitter. The end result here is to have all the trims on the TX to be centered or zero. Now minor trim changes from the buddy box TX will be within the range that can be adjusted. One additional thought. When setting up a buddy box I always make sure that the master TX flies the model with zero trim settings. I then check that all the control surfaces move in the correct direction. Then I fine tune by repeatedly press and release the trainer button and watch for movement of the control surfaces. If for instance the elevator moves slightly when control is switched to the trainer box I then adjust the trim on the trainer box so that there is no movement. Do the same to all the other controls. When you can switch from the master to the trainer and see no movement in the control surfaces you can go fly and the trims will be very close.
Posted on: 11/11/2009 7:38 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=9245497

RE: Just another stupid question about wallwart.
Wrheadnit, Technically you could use this charger to charge any of the batteries listed but my guess is that this charger is nothing more than a 10:1 transformer with a couple of diode rectifiers. It would not be the best application for any of them. Being as there is no current control, voltage sensing or checking for Delta V you could overcharge NiCd and destroy the battery over time. I did this to an electric screwdriver when I accidentally left it on charge for a few weeks. Big downer because it was not the kind of screwdriver that would allow me to easily replace the batteries. NiMh batteries share some of the same characteristics of NiCd but prefer to be charged with constant current. This chargers output is pulsating DC. You could use it to trickle charge your lead battery but it probably would never reach a full charge of >13.8 V and it would take forever to accomplish much of anything. My advice would be to spring for a good battery charger that is designed for NiCd/NiMh and be comfortable in the knowledge that you will be using the right tool for the right job.
Posted on: 10/15/2009 5:37 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Batteries & Chargers"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=9174693

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
Let me throw my hat in the ring as one of the cheapest RC hobbyist around. But first let me say that it is not because I can’t afford the hobby, I just love to restore and recycle still usable material out of crashed models. As an example: On all of my crashed models, (as well as what I recover from the trash barrel at the field), I will push out all the blind nuts and dig out all the nylon hinges and soak them in acetone, clean them up and put them back in my spare parts bin. I have boxes full of landing gear, motor mounts, fuel tanks and wheels that have been recycled. If a fuselage is totaled and there is a repairable wing and tail section, I save the repairable parts for future use. If the fuselage is repairable and the wing is toast I will save it and use it later when I mix and match parts to build totally new hybrid planes. If I decide that a part is too much trouble to repair I will just strip it down and cut out all of the usable wood and save it in my scrap box. All the wood in the scrap box is sorted by thickness so I can easily find some piece that I can use. Now I do have an inventory of fresh balsa and ply that would equal many hobby shops but I do enjoy gluing up two or three pieces of scrap to get a piece bit enough to use. I also am not above gluing up two pieces to get it to the desired thickness. Everyone in my club knows that I do this and they also know that if they need something there is always the chance that I have it or have something that can be made to work. If I don’t have anything invested in the part I usually will just give it away or just ask for a small fee to cover any sweat equity. Trainer planes provide a large part of the inventory because they tend to be short lived and many do not have the time or skills to do any repair. For all new flyers I advise them to spend their money on a good quality engine and computer radio and then come over and we go through the selection of wings, tails and fuselages and make up something that will get them in the air for $10 - $15 plus the cost of any fresh Monokote. (I also have a box where I keep scrap Monokote.) Many repairs and trim pieces also come out of the Monokote box and I have decided on a trim scheme based on what scrap pieces in have in the box. Cheap? You bet. But I don’t necessarily do it for the money for the most part I do it because it is fun.
Posted on: 10/9/2009 8:26 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "RC Humor"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=9158710

RE: Beginner to Pro overnight?
peregrin8r I applaud your enthusiasm! All of the advice and opinions that have been offered in the previous post are valid but I would like to suggest something a bit different. In my opinion there are two kind of modelers, one is the builder the other is the flyer. In general, all modelers have skills in each area, but some times you find an excellent builder that has little interest in flying and I know many excellent flyers that that do not enjoy building. If you want to be a builder, this is an excellent choice for a hobby and I believe that you can hone your skills and pick up a few bucks in the process. Start by going to visit the hobby shops and clubs in your area and get to know the people and learn some of the basics. Invest in a reasonability simple kit and build it to show as an example of your work. Offer the plane for sale and also offer to build/repair models for flyers that do not have the time or skills to do their own work. If you do acceptable work at a reasonable price you will find that people will beat a path to your door. Use the money you earn to buy the tools and shop equipment that you will need in order to make the work easier. Use this experience as an apprenticeship to gain the advanced skills required to build on the professional level. I am an old retired dude and have been modeling off and on since the middle 60’s. Even though I hate ARFs I will assembly one for $50 and will re-glue every joint that I can reach and beef up the firewall and gear mounting the process. For $100 I will also do the radio installation and test fly it. In general I will charge 3X the price of the kit to build it plus the cost of the covering material. Fiberglass and paint are negotiable. I get as much repair work as I do building and in general I charge $5 hr. plus material. So if money is an issue you can do some work for others and have a hobby that pays for itself in the bargain.
Posted on: 8/31/2009 8:24 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=9058322

RE: ultra stick nylon bolts
Kyonic, I love the Ultra Stick and have owned a number of them. My primary use is to fly them in various fun fly events. As good as the U Stick is it still is an ARF and built by people that do not fly models and do not understand the stresses involved. I recommend that you beef up the area around the landing gear and the firewall. I have been flying for 40 years and can grease every landing in a normal situation. However, I am in the habit of attempting high speed touch and go landings that occasionally put high stress on the gear. This is particularly tough if you fly off grass and it hasn’t been cut recently or is not very smooth. I don’t think that you will be happy just changing from metal to nylon bolts. It won’t take much to break off the small nylon bolts. Going to larger metal bolts will just cause gear to pull out the ply mounting plate in the fuselage. So what I do is to remove the original blind nuts and epoxy in a larger piece of ¼� ply that is at least 1� longer than the original piece. Then reinforce that with ½� triangle stock to the fuselage sides and firewall. Then I redrill the gear and mount 4 each 1/4X20 blind nuts and secure the gear with 1/4X20 brass screws. Now with this setup you can land as hard as you want and the gear will stay intact. I have survived hard landings that cause the gear to be bent out to the point that the fuselage is on the ground and I just bend the gear back in place and keep flying. I know that some will say that this is overkill but if you anticipate making some hard landings this will save you a lot of repair work.
Posted on: 8/8/2009 7:28 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "ARF or RTF"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8999382

RE: 2 stroke carburetor tips
OK guys’ thanks for your responses. This afternoon I figured out the problem. I had an opportunity to compare the carburetor on my OS 60FP with a carburetor off another OS 60FP engine and noted that the HSN seat (which should extend to the center of the barrel) was broken off. I am more than a little annoyed that the fellow that sold me the engine failed to mention this little fact. Sometimes those good bargains don’t work out to be as good as we expected.
Posted on: 6/15/2009 5:31 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8854401

RE: 2 stroke carburetor tips
Great info on the carbs, thanks a bunch. I have been adjusting the mixture on model engines for a number of years but I have an OS 60 FP with an air bleed carb that has me temporarly stumped. This is an engine that was installed in a model that I bought used. It doesn't appear to have a lot of time on it and has excellent compression and runs very strong on the top end and with a 12X4 APC will pull a 4 lb. 12 oz. model straight up till it is out of sight. I adjust the HSN about 300 RPM below peak but if I pull the throttle back to 50% it immediately load up and eventually dies. The only way to get it to lean out again is to pinch off the fuel line. While the throttle is at 50% it is blowing fuel out the exhaust and will empty a full tank in just a couple of minutes. Here is the deal. The tank with all new plumbing is installed with the tank outlet on the same line with the HSN. Tried two different brands of 15% fuel. Tried 2 new glow plugs with different heat ranges with no change. Disassembled and cleaned the carb with no change. Checked the low speed air bleed hole by sticking a small allen wrench the same size through the hole and it is not clogged. Adjusted the servo throw and throttle stop adjustment for max open and close. Adjusted the LSN so that the air bleed is completely uncovered. Even completely removed the LSN and put it in my pocket, no change. The next thing that I am going to try is to drill out the air bleed so it is a little bit larger. If that doesn't fix it I guess I will have to spring for a carb with a fuel adjustment on the LSN. To my thinking, any air leaks around the backplate, carb seat or HSN assembly would cause it to run lean, not rich. Any clues?
Posted on: 6/12/2009 10:53 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8846602

RE: Do All UltraSticks Howl?
Yep, all Ultra Sticks howl. I always thought the howl was the wind noise generated by the flat front end. It isn’t very aerodynamic in that area. Other stick type models make a similar noise but to a lesser degree.
Posted on: 5/7/2009 8:40 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "ARF or RTF"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8747993

RE: How did YOU get your start in the hobby?
This has been an interesting forum and it got me to thinking about how I got started in the hobby. My wife accuses me of being somewhat longwinded so I will apologize in advance in case it ends up being too long. Back in the late 40’s when I was about 7 or 8 years old I was fascinated with airplanes and decided to build one of those rubber band powered stick models that Comet used to produce. I remember that for 10 cents you could get a model with about a 12� wingspan. For 25 cents you could go a little bigger and get one with an 18� span and for 50 cents you could go first class and get the 24� model. I saved my earnings from cutting grass and bought the small 12� model. When I got home I opened the box and noted that it had been packed with tissue paper. I immediately thought that this was packing material and quickly threw that away. Now, being a young man of the world I didn’t waste any time reading the instructions, I just looked at the plans and started gluing together the sticks while holding them in my hands. My dad was never any help because he wasn’t sober long enough. I finally got it somewhat framed up and then realized that it should be covered with something. Ok, now is time to read the instructions. Oh crap, the tissue paper was what I was supposed to use to cover the plane. I am thinking to myself that paper is paper so I used a few sheets of lined tablet paper and because I didn’t have any dope to apply it I just glued it on. Now that was some sorry mess. I didn’t even try to take it out and test glide it, I knew it was hopeless. I just threw it in the trash. A few weeks later my family was visiting relatives and they had a boy that was a couple of years older than me and he was interested in model planes as well. He was showing me his models and I was impressed with how good a job he had done. The wings weren’t warped and the fuselage was straight and it looked perfect. I ask him how did he get it so straight and he showed me how he had pinned the parts down on the plans. I was too embarrassed to tell him how I had done mine and made a mental note next time to buy some straight pins. I saved my grass cutting money and decided to upgrade to the 18� kit along with some pins and clear dope. This time it went a little better except that I ended up gluing all the parts to the plans. He didn’t tell me that I was supposed to put wax paper over it. I covered the wings and fuselage with the tissue and when it shrunk it ended up with some bad warps. It was so bad that when I tried to straighten it out I could hear the wood starting to crack. I decided that because both wings were warped in the same direction maybe it would still be all right. I wound up the rubber band motor and gave it a toss. No, it wasn’t all right; it just spiraled into the ground. After a couple of more tries I thought it had looked pretty cool as it dove into the ground and decided it would look even better if it were on fire. I doused it with kerosene and lit it and enjoyed its last flight. The down side was that I wasn’t able to make money cutting grass for a while because I had set the front yard on fire and had to wait for it to grow out again. After each effort I thought that I was learning something and for my next kit I bought the 50 cent model with the 24� span. As I remember, it was a J3 Cub and had some hideous green tissue paper to use for covering. I used the wax paper to pin the balsa to the plans and pinned the parts down to a straight surface while the tissue was drying. The result was that I finally had a straight airframe and a good covering job. I was a proud young lad. Now, in my neighborhood out in the country our telephone service was a bit primitive. We couldn’t get a private line and had to share a party line with three other neighbors. One of the families on our line was the Benedicts. They had a boy named Richard that was about 12 years old and he was the neighborhood bully. Richard went by the name of Dick and all the kids that I hung out with made great sport in making up limericks about Dick Benedict. Naturally we would not repeat them in front of him for fear of getting a major league butt whooping. One afternoon I was talking on the phone with one of my friends and I heard someone pick up on the party line. They didn’t say anything but just continued to listen in. I ask them to hang up because I was using the line but to no avail. I was pretty well versed in the use of profanity and I made some unkind references about his momma and how he had been conceived. As it turned out, that was a bad mistake. A few days later I was taking my latest aeronautical creation down the street to show it to one of my friends and who should I meet but my old nemesis Dick Benedict. I thought to myself that I might be in trouble here but it was to late to turn and run. He asks to see my new model and while holding it he reminded me of our latest phone conversation. I told him that I didn’t know that it was him and I was sorry if I had offended him. But it didn’t make any difference, he just broke the J3 over his knee and stomped the remaining pieces on the ground. Oh that hurt, I would have rather had the butt whooping. After that episode I didn’t build any models for a while. As long as I was still in the neighborhood with Dick Benedict I figured that they wouldn’t last very long. A few years later we did move into town and I thought it would be safe to start building models again. My next effort was a kind of shoulder wing trainer with a rubber band motor and for the first time I ended up with something that flew pretty well. I got some good flights by standing on a small rise and tossing it down into a grass field. I decided that in order to get in some longer flights I had to start from a higher elevation. The tallest thing that I could find was the bell tower at the local Baptist church. I made my way up to the bell tower, wound up the motor, checked the wind and gave it a toss. It floated down in a large circle with an occasional gentle stall. It landed in the front yard and I made a mental note to add some nose weight and ran back down stairs and made it outside just in time to see a couple of kids on bicycles peddling off down the street with my plane under their arm. That did it for me for a while and I didn’t build any more models until I started in high school. In my freshman year in high school I had the occasion to see one of the seniors flying a control line model in the school parking lot. There are a lot of things that I remember about that day. One is that the boy’s name was Billy and he had an almost new cream colored ’51 Ford convertible and always had a crowd of giggling girls crowding around him and his fancy car. The other thing is that he had a red Ringmaster with a McCoy 35 Redhead on it. He would fly it and do loops and wingovers and I couldn’t decide which I liked best, his car or his plane or the girls. He wasn’t in much of a mood to talk to a freshman but I did find out where he bought the kit and basically how it worked. I would have to figure out the girls later. I had moved up from cutting grass for a living and now had a paper route and after saving for a few weeks I went to the hobby shop to get me a Ringmaster and a McCoy Redhead. But it was not to be. He didn’t have the Ringmaster or the McCoy in stock. All he had was a Yak 9 and a Fox 35 stunt. I didn’t want any Russian airplane with a Fox engine I wanted a Ringmaster but I was desperate and bought the Yak with the Fox 35. After a few false starts and numerous repair sessions I learned how to fly control line. I kept up with it for a couple of years and flew intermittently until I was old enough to buy my first car. Once I got that ’40 Ford my whole area of interest changed and I put away the models and focused my interest on more adult activities. I stayed out of modeling for a few years and after a stint in the Navy and I got out and got a job and a wife. One weekend in about ’64 we were at City Park where they had put up a control line circle for the folks to fly models. After only one afternoon I was hooked again and started back up with control line flying. My first plane was a scale SE5 biplane. It was heavy and underpowered and the trim was so screwed up it I always started the day by making a sharp left turn after takeoff and putting slack in the lines. The day would end with me being chased across the park by an angry biplane. Great fun for the spectators, big embarrassment for me. I went back to flying profile models and got good service from the Flight Streak that was popular at the time. With that I started flying slow combat with a bunch of my buddies. That progressed into fast combat and my plane of choice for that was a flying wing called Big Iron. I bought a kit and used the parts as templates and built three a week. I would fly Saturday and maybe Sunday as long as those three airplanes would last and then I would build three more for the next week. From there it was a natural migration into RC models. My first RC plane was a Senior Falcon with a Super Tiger 60.and L&M radio. $600 for that stinking radio and it was the worse piece of crap that had ever been invented. But that is a whole different story. Back then there was no such thing as a buddy box and I didn’t know anybody that could fly much better than I did so it took me three Senior Falcons before I taught myself how to fly it. Over the last 45 years I have been in and out of the hobby three or four times but now I think that I am in it for good.
Posted on: 4/1/2009 5:59 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Sport Flying"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8639301

RE: Elevator use during landing approachs
Well guys, I guess my “approach� to landing is a bit different from those described above. Because we have some trees off each end of the 600’ grass runway I prefer to make a carrier approach with the touch down about 100’ from the turn on final. Because of the side viewing angle of the model I can better judge the speed and decent rate. I don’t like long straight in approaches because of the trees for one and because the down the throat viewing angle makes it difficult to judge the speed on final. Plus when the sun is at the right angle and you are looking right down the throat, the model may not appear to move at all. Add that to the trees in the background adding to the clutter and sometimes the model just about disappears. So my approach will be to throttle back to idle on downwind and play the throttle to maintain my altitude and decent rate on base and final. I have my models balanced to be a bit tail heavy so that as I slow down the nose comes up naturally. I make my turns with a good bit of rudder and try to keep the wings fairly level in order to give better pitch control. When I am on final, I am already over the runway and 1/3 of the way down from the threshold. Depending on the wind and how far away I am from my intended touchdown point I will keep a bit of throttle on until the model is right in front of me then ease the throttle back for the landing on the mains. I may use a bit of elevator for a full stall landing or keep the throttle on for a wheel landing. The short field approach works well for me if there is a cross wind because the model will not be subject to the wind as long as it would be on a long straight in approach. Plus, using the rudder on final will help set up the crab angle on final. With a cross wind, I will try to hold a little more speed on final.
Posted on: 2/17/2009 11:17 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8471818

RE: HITEC ECLIPSE 7 ADVANCED DIGITAL RADIO
Richardci, You can’t go wrong with the Eclipse 7 & Spectra Module. I have owned mine for a few years and couldn’t be happier. Being as I am the sort of a guy that can’t resist a bargain, I have accumulated receivers from every major manufacturer as well as some of the lesser known brands. They are all on 72 Mhz FM and I have never had any problem flying any of them with the Eclipse 7. That being said, I would like to see Hitec (as well as some other manufacturers), offer a larger model memory. I currently have 12 models geared up and ready to fly but only have a 7 model memory. That is reduced to six because I always reserve #7 for setting up as a buddy box when needed. I have pattern planes, pylon planes, fun fly planes, sport planes and 3D planes each with it’s own unique setups in memory. If I want to fly something different then I have to copy down the memory settings before I can use the space to program another model. It would also be great if Hitec would offer a USB port on the TX so as to allow the memory to be downloaded to a PC and later restored. I recently had to send my TX back to Hitec for repair after I pulled a bone headed stunt and screwed it up. It took 5 days to get it to Poway CA, 2 day turnaround and 5 days to get it back. You can’t get any better service than that. That is typical service for Hitec not the exception. While it was gone for repair I decided to look around and see if I could find another (used) one for sale. There were none to be had. It appears that the people who own them want to keep them.
Posted on: 1/26/2009 9:54 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8402680

RE: Prop wont fit
Ok guys, I guess that now is the time for you to make me look foolish. I have owned two or three stepped reamers, some that I have bought and some that I have inherited. I have the same problem with all of them. The resulting hole is either too large or too small. I have tried to use them on engines from .15 to .90 and different manufacturers all with the same result. It makes me wonder if they are made in two different specifications, one for SAE and one for metric. So the solution for me is to give them away to someone that is not as picky as me and just use the tapered reamer. I use a high aspect ratio reamer and carefully ream each side until the prop slides on with a snug fit and I always ream before I balance. Am I the only one that has this problem?
Posted on: 1/21/2009 8:25 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8383176

RE: Which plane would an instructor fear the most?
I agree with NorforkSouthern on the Raptor. We had a novice pilot show up at the field with a new Raptor and wanted some help getting it set up and training. I went over the plane and run a couple of tanks through it before I took it up. It was a pig. I checked the stall characteristics at altitude and decided that I would have to keep the speed up on final. It took me two passes before I got it on the ground and for the next flight I turned it over to one of the other senior pilots. Even with a few words of warning he stalled it about two feet off the ground on landing and broke the nose off right at the second bulkhead. The new pilot was very disappointed and that was the last we ever saw of him. There is one plane that I have never flown and have refused the opportunity when offered. That is the GeeBee. I have never seen one complete the first flight. They always look like a bull ride at the rodeo before they end up as a pile of sticks. As trainers go my least favorite is the NextStar. It is a flyable airplane but goes at the bottom of my list as a trainer. At the top of my trainer list is the SIG LT-40. Anyone that can’t learn to fly that will never be able to fly at all. The Senior and Seniorita round out the top three.
Posted on: 1/3/2009 9:09 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8312657

RE: Advice on ARF build.
MPW, It has been my experience that all ARF’s suffer from the same shortcomings. They do not adequately glue the high stress points such as the firewall and gear and they do not fuel proof the engine and tank area. My suggestions are to reinforce the firewall by adding ¼� triangle stock. Sometimes there may already be some reinforcement there but you should check that it is not just held in place by hot melt glue instead of being adequately glued. I once had a H9 J3 that I could pick out the triangle stock with my fingernail. It looked good at first glance but was completely worthless as reinforcement. The next high stress area is the landing gear. I have seen many ARF’s that will shed the gear during a normal landing on moderately rough grass. Some members of my club suggest that the lightweight gear acts as a mechanical fuse and will break away easily there by saving more extensive damage to the rest of the airframe. They make a good point, but the gear should at least be able to withstand a bounce or two without parting company. I don’t know of any company that fuel proofs the engine compartment and tank area. You should have to take care of that little chore as well. I like to add a few more hinges to the control surfaces in addition to what is supplied with the kit and keep the gaps as small as possible. High speed flutter can either tear off the control surface or jerk the gears out of your servos. Double check the reinforcement around the fin and stab as well as the wing hold downs. Sometimes these can use a little touch up. Then go fly and have fun, secure in the knowledge that it should not come apart right in the middle of some elegantly preformed maneuver.
Posted on: 1/3/2009 8:38 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "ARF or RTF"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8312600

RE: Help ? straighten Fuse sides?
Popriv, It has been my experience that this is caused by one fuselage side being stiffer than the other. You have two options; 1. Take apart the bulkheads you have already installed and re-cut and replace one of the sides with a like sheet of balsa. You can have either two stiff sides or two soft sides but they must be close to the same density. 2. I draw a straight line on my building surface that is a little longer than the fuselage length. You can use the plans here if you have a topside view of the fuselage. I temporarily fit the bulkheads and align the fuselage centered over the line/plans and see if they are going to bend approximately the same amount. If that looks ok I glue in the first three bulkheads and then clamp or weight down the front half while I temporarily install the remaining bulkheads and pull together the sides at the tail, being careful to keep the fuselage sides centered on the line previously drawn. If it doesn’t want to align up straight then you can wet the outside of the fuselage side that doesn’t want to bend. This will cause that side to expand and bend a little better. After everything is straight then glue everything in place and clamp everything in place and wait for it to dry. Good luck and let us know how it works out.
Posted on: 12/21/2008 8:45 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8267002

RE: did I ruin it?
My05, I have seen this situation before for both TX and RX batteries. Some chargers require that it see some voltage on the pack before it will begin charging. This is how these chargers determine the number of cells present and what charge rate to use. What I have done in the past is to remove the battery and place it across a basic 5V power supply for a few minutes. I use an old PC power supply and it does not have any intelligence, it just pumps out the current at approximately 5V and 12V. After a few minutes take a reading with your voltmeter and if the reading is around 4.5 to 5 volts on a RX pack or 8 to 9 volts on a TX pack then put it on the intelligent charger. Discharging any battery down to zero does not do it any good. If the battery was in good shape to start with it will recover but will have decreased performance, and will be reduced something on the order of 1% to 2%. It could be more based on the battery chemistry and age.
Posted on: 12/7/2008 7:50 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8220865

RE: Gluing Spar into Foam Core Wing
Well, I don’t think that it makes any difference! The adhesion of any of the glues mentioned is stronger than the foam. Any stress put on the bond between the spar and the foam will cause the foam to fail first. (Voice of experience) However, with that said I use polyurethane.
Posted on: 12/2/2008 4:00 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8205611

RE: Sheeting Foam wings
Ok guys, I know I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I am having trouble visualizing how you are using weights and/or clamps to apply a uniform pressure to a sheeted foam wing. It would make sense to me if anyone said that they put the sheeted wing back in the shucks. That would help apply a uniform pressure to the whole surface, but nobody mentioned that possibility. By the descriptions given, what I visualize is a wing with an airfoil shape laying on a flat surface with a flat board or whatever lying on top. It appears to me that the wing surface would have a very small footprint on both the top and bottom where the pressure would be applied. I have sheeted foam wings in the past and have always used contact cement, usually a spray adhesive that will not attack foam on the cores and regular old brush on contact cement on the balsa sheet. After it dries past the tacky state, carefully roll it on being careful to position it right the first time because when it touches it sticks and it’s there permanently. No weights necessary, just press it down good to get out the air bubbles. I think that the downside to using this method is the extra weight added to the wing from the contact cement and I am assuming that you folks are using some kind of epoxy. That would explain the need for weights or vacuum bagging. When you get to be 70+ and are from the South folks need to speak slowly and distinctly for you to understand. So please type your answers very slow so I can keep up. Thanks
Posted on: 12/2/2008 8:23 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Q-500 Racing"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8204367

RE: Who here has went from sim to flying with no instructor?
I have personally seen a success story of a guy that trained himself on a flight simulator. We had a new member join the club and he originally started out with a small electric. He soon bought a 40 size trainer and I took him up on the buddy box a couple of times. Then I didn’t see him for almost a year. I thought he might have just given up on learning to fly. One afternoon I was just getting finished cutting the grass at the field and I see him drive up and start unloading his planes. As I was putting the mower back on the trailer he got out his electric and completed a short flight without problems. Next he started to get his 40 trainer ready and I walked over and ask him if he needed any help. He politely said no thank you so I walked back to where I was parked and told the wife to stay behind the truck because he was going to try to solo himself. There was no one at the field but us so there was no chance that he would hurt anyone else if things went wrong. I watched him do his preflight checks and again offered to help and he again said no thank you. I told the wife to “watch this, he probably will not recover from the first turn after takeoff�. I was pleasantly surprised when he made a perfect take off and flew without a bobble for about five minutes. He then throttled back and came around for a perfect landing. Needless to say I was surprised and I walked over and ask him if he had been flying with an instructor at another field. He said no and that he had just been flying the Great Planes simulator for the past year. He explained that he had been working long and irregular hours and didn’t have chance to get to the field. So he just got on the simulator when he had a little time. I was impressed, it took a year but he is the only one that I know of in my area that taught himself to fly strictly with the simulator.
Posted on: 11/24/2008 6:57 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "RC Flight Simulator Software"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8179518

RE: Why discontinued?!?!?
PanzerTank, A number of weeks ago there was a fairly long thread on the Tribute detailing the problems with the weakness of the fuselage. The problem was the fuselage would break right behind the wing or right in front of the tail section. The fuselage is constructed from 1/16� ply and has very large lightning holes to keep the weight down. It was pretty much guaranteed that a hard snap or worse yet, a blender would have the Tribute fluttering down like a shot dove. One of my club members had his break in half on the maiden flight. He didn’t stress it very hard, just a full throttle turn while climbing out after takeoff. I had just won one in a club raffle and with that in mind I decided to strip the cover off the fuselage and install a ¼� carbon fiber rod down the center of the fuselage from about the center section of the wing all the way to the tail. This stiffened up the fuselage a good bit without adding much weight. I flew it for a few weeks and finally screwed up the fuselage after an engine flame out and an off field landing. I used the old fuselage as a template and built another using 1/8" lite ply and made the lightning holes smaller. I added about 5 oz. to the overall weight but it was much stronger. I permanently glued in the wing and canopy section to give it some strength in the wing area. Even at that some cracks started to appear and I had to go in and add 1/32" ply gussets to the fuselage sides right at the trailing edge of the wing. I am flying it with a TT Pro 46 and since the last fixes were installed I have seriously abused the plane with high stress maneuvers and it is still holding up. I think that most folks are not willing to buy a new plane and immediately have to strip it down and correct the inherent weaknesses. That is probably why the Tribute has fallen from favor.
Posted on: 11/22/2008 3:28 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Profile and Fun Flying Planes"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8172737

RE: 9 year old a little punchy on sticks
It is a pretty common thing for the 9-15 yr. old group and I am sure that it comes from the video games. It has been my experience that it is hard to break them of the habit because it is harder to unlearn some bad habit than learn the right way in the first place. Blipping the sticks is common and I try to get the youngsters to hold the sticks rather than blip with thumbs only. I tell them that it is Ok to fly with thumbs only as long as they can fly in a smooth and controlled manner. When they persist, I can always hear the boing, boing sound of the stick slamming back to neutral under spring tension. When I hear that I just do the same thing on the master TX and remind them that they shouldn’t be doing that. After a while when the student hears me blip the sticks they say “Ok, Ok I hear it� but it doesn’t correct anything because within 60 seconds they are doing it again. I sometimes get the impression that some students just don’t want to learn to fly in a safe and controlled manner. All they want to do is just see how many wild gyrations they can get the model to do and they know you will save their bacon when they get in too deep. What does work sometime is to reach over and re-adjust the aileron or elevator trim and then have them fly the plane when it is out of trim. They will not turn loose of the sticks then or they will crash. Of course I always bail them out if they get into trouble. Another ploy is just to tell them that we can’t start take-off and landing practice until they can fly smoothly without over-controlling. I have had students just get frustrated and want to quit because they just can’t learn to fly in a smooth and controlled manner. I feel bad about that and I usually try to pass them off to another instructor to see if a different teaching technique will do the trick. Sometimes a different instructor will get them to solo but the new pilot never really turns into a competent pilot if they continue their old ways. They always end up crashing a lot of planes and having all the club members hiding behind their trucks every time they turn final to land.
Posted on: 11/3/2008 4:05 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8111627

RE: prop balancing
Ok, let me add a little fuel to the fire here. How many of you that balance your props after it has been reamed and balance them in more than one orientation? You can count me firmly in the camp that balances their props and I go one step further. After the prop is balanced so that it hangs level I then rotate it 180 deg. and see if it still is in balance. Sometimes it will try to rotate back to the previous orientation on it’s own. If it does this I then drop it in the trash. I have tried to correct this out of balance problem by drilling holes in the hub and using CA and filling with solder but I eventually quit this practice. The cause of this kind of out of balance condition is most often caused by the hole not being reamed correctly. What I would really like to do is to find a way to accurately orientate the prop relative to the crank so as to aid in balancing the engine similar to the harmonic balancer on the old Chevy 454. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this?
Posted on: 10/22/2008 5:40 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8074750

RE: How often do you replace Rx battery?
Vasek, You are on the right track but you do not measure how much power it takes to charge the battery to full capacity but see how much power you can get out it after it is charged. The battery charge process is not 100% efficient so you will always have to put in more than you will get out. The difference is usually dissipated as heat. I start by charging the battery at a low rate, about .3C. The last one I checked a couple of days ago was a 1000 mAh NiCd that came in a used plane that I purchased. I charged it at 300 mA until delta V. I then did a discharge cycle at 300 mA and recorded the discharge current until the battery was discharged down to 4.4 volts. On my charger I get a direct readout in mAh. After I repeated the cycle 3 times I determined that it would deliver 845 mAh. That figures out to be delivering 84.5% of its rated capacity. Don’t be alarmed if a new battery does not test out to its rated capacity. Some battery manufacturers will quote the maximum capacity achieved under laboratory conditions. These conditions are not easily duplicated in the field with a $100 charger/discharger. I hope this helps.
Posted on: 10/20/2008 4:14 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Batteries & Chargers"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8067133

RE: O.S. LA 15 carb problems
Grinder, No, I don’t replace the spray bar, just the plastic nipple housing. I JB Weld the copper tubing to the end of the spray bar. After you remove the plastic nipple housing from the carb you will see the end of the spray bar. Once you take it apart you will see what I am talking about. Unfortunately I recently sold all my SSC combat engines to a club member so I can’t post any pictures. I have done this repair to 3 engines total, 2 of mine and 1 for a friend.
Posted on: 10/20/2008 3:30 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "RC Combat"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8067009

RE: O.S. LA 15 carb problems
Grinder, The repair is pretty easy. The plastic nipple assembly is a press fit into the carburetor body. You can usually grab it with a set of slip joint pliers and work it out. Next take a 2� length of copper tubing like is used in the fuel tank and carefully bend to a 90 deg. angle insuring that you do not generate any crimps. I usually bend it around a screwdriver handle or something similar. With a Dremel tool cut off about ¼� of the end that will fit onto the carburetor and bevel the end at about 45 deg. so that it fits the hole nicely. This will keep it from sticking out too far and provide a tight fit for the next step. Next JB Weld the new copper nipple to the opening in the carburetor being careful to keep the needle end pointing toward the needle valve. Be generous with the JB Weld. You may have to sit and hold it for a few minutes while the JB Weld sets up. I have never had one to fail after this repair.
Posted on: 10/20/2008 9:20 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "RC Combat"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8066064

RE: ultimate bipe engine question
Check the following site: [link]http://www.fraserker.com/heli/uniflow/how_uniflow_works.htm[/link]
Posted on: 9/25/2008 2:51 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Glow Engines"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=7989990

RE: Abbreviations and acronyms
CGRetired, The boomers were good duty, I would have had to ship for six in order to get on the nuke boats. I stayed on the old WWII diesel electric boats instead. To this day every time I smell diesel fuel and hydraulic oil I am reminded of having to blow the oil slick off the top if my coffee cup before I took a sip. USS Pompon SSR267
Posted on: 9/20/2008 3:21 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=7973199

RE: Abbreviations and acronyms
CGRetired – I heard that you had to be over 6 ft. tall before you could enlist in the Coast Guard. That is because if the boat ever sinks you can always walk back to shore. OSS (Old Sub Sailor)
Posted on: 9/19/2008 6:52 PM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Beginners"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=7970993

RE: which way to go with thrust??
Take out some of the downthrust.
Posted on: 8/27/2008 5:49 AM by Author "Regent" in the forum "Aerodynamics"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=7890734