Instruction Immenant

Got an email back from Andy today; president of Capital Area Flyers. He's been busy with some projects at his house and hasn't hit his email in a while.

He has standing instructional times of 6:30PM Wednesdays at the Farm Field, and 2PM Sundays at the Klandestine Field. So, I'm going to meet him this Sunday and get the instruction I need to fly with at least a little confidence :-)

Repairs are coming along nicely; tho I'm going to kind of rush through them tonight/tomorrow so I can bring the equipment out on Sunday. Got the wing damage all repaired, and mostly covered a few nights back; working on fuselage damage today.

Wish me luck!
Drew

Day 1 : 30 seconds in the air, and crashed!

So, I took the fully prepped Purple Plane, temporarily code-named "Barney", down to the Klendestine Rd. field today.

Banded the wing on, fueled him up, pointed him down the field; hit the throttle, and felt the aderenaline! Going.. going.. "UP!" I said!

And it went up! It flew... climbing too much; needed elevator trim to compensate, but I wasn't fast enough to set it. So, it did one loop... then I thought I was regaining control; but it continued to loop a second time.. and BAM; into the ground.

So, I put down my antenna and did the walk of shame out to the plane.

It's really not bad; theres only 2 places where I have to replace wood, several areas I have to re-cover, but structurally things are still tight; the elevator and rudder area is un-scathed; the motor is fine, receiver and servos all still work. Also, the cross-bars that hold the servos in place all broke free, so Ill have to remount those.

I estimate the repairs at :

3-4 pieces of balsa,
1, 6' roll of purple monokote,
1 bottle glue
1 bottle Zip-Kicker (I loved this stuff!)
1 Tube of epoxy (Optional)
and, considering I haven't tried to cover a section of wing in 15 years, 4-6 hours labor time.

Then, once everything is once again in working order, Ill contact the club guys and make an appointment with an instructor :-) The 'bucket of patience' I sent for is on back-order; so I thought "Well, I was good at this 15 years ago, I should be able to handle the basics on my own.. what's the worst that could happen?"

Now I know :-)

Gettin' her started

After spending 3 hours trying to get the new OS Max .40 engine on the Purple Plane running, I decided to pack it all up and head over to the field(s) to see if anyone was around who could help me out.

Getting the 15 year old Fuel Pump working

The Strock Farm field was empty by the time I got there (3:45, it closes at 4..), but there were 3 pilots at the Klendestine field.  A *big* thanks to Eric and his son for helping me get the motor running!  It turns out that the specified 1.5 turns of the Lean/Rich needle was a FULL turn too short!  Pushed it up to 2.5 turns, and she kick right over.

He helped me adjust the motor to get it running at full speed; noo problems :-)

So, tomorrow, Memorial Day, I plan to head out to the Klandestine field, enjoy the sunny weather and take her up for the first flight in almost 15 years.

Wish us luck!

Information Gathering

In preparation for my motor to arrive, I've been reading up on the break-in procedure. Especially since they don't have "the papers" to provide with it (meaning the manual that explains break-in, I suspect).

So, just in case these sites go down, or go away, Im going to provide some re-posting here.


A *great* looking FAQ : http://www.mecoa.com/faq/index.htm

Forum Post by someone who seems to know what they're talking about :

All of the FP engines were ABC. Therefore you must use ABC break-in procedures if you don't want to ruin the engine.

I have an FP 40 ... that I just pulled out of mothballs myself this past week. Here's the procedure I took to get it started (I also had lost my manual.)

1. Open the needle about 3 turns (this is way to much, but it's better than too little.)

2. Don't connect glow plug yet. Place finger over carb. Flip about three times. You should see fuel come up the line to the carb on the first flip and then two more flips brings a little fuel into the engine. Remove finger from carb.

3. Flip the prop about 5 more times. This makes sure the right amount of fuel is in the cylinder so it will start easy (usually first flip.)

4. Connect glow plug ignitor. Open thottle to about 1/3 open. Flip prop and the engine should start. (Note: I use a leather work glove on my hand to protect my fingers... don't use your bare hand! You can also use an electric starter if you have one... however don't grind the engine over with the starter... just tap it... if you grind it you can flood your engine and just make things worse.) If engine doesn't start (or won't keep running), close needle valve 1/4 turn and go back to step 2.

5. Once the engine is running it will be running slow and rough. Try openning the throttle slowly... if the engine is about to stall go back to 1/3 thottle. Now turn needle valve in about 2 clicks. Wait 2 seconds. Try openning thottle again. Repeat until you can run full throttle.

6. Remove glow plug ignitor. Tune needle valve according to instructions on site listed above.

Note, that once you get to know your engine the trick of 3 flips with finger, 5 flips without and then 1 flip to start works about 90% of the time for me. In fact, I nolonger start my plane in the pits and then carry it to the flight line. Instead, I just carry the plane, a leather glove and a ni-starter to the flight line and just start it by hand there... this seems much safer than carrying a plane with a running motor.

Project 2 : Motor Update

I won!  I won the second OS Max 40 LA Motor that I bid on.. 

As you can see, they've moved the carborator adjustments back from .5" away from the spining propeller to behind the crank case!  Genious!

Now it's time to read up on breaking in and figure out what to do with this beauty when it arrives!

P.S. AMA doesn't have my number (from 1991) on file anymore, even tho I kept my card :-)  So, Ill have to register again; which is required for club membership; but I'm on my way!

Thanks for the link Dad : http://www.modelaircraft.org/

Hey Dad, do you want the Videos too?

Kae lent me her Digital Camera last night so I could take the photos for Project 3. When she was sharing them with me, she said "Oh yeah.. do you want the Photos and Video that I took at the Open House too?" ... OMG YEAH!

Drew Flying 1 : Buddy Box with Andy




Drew Flying 2 : Still on Buddy Box

Guest Flying the big-plane. This guy can FLY!

Here's a Slide-show of Photos from that day... LOVE IT!

Project 2 Update : Side-stepping

So, I really wanted to rebuild the motor in the Purple Plane.  Getting that thing running would teach me a lot about how these motors work, give me a chance to to learn some of the lessons I missed being 12 while my Dad did everything.

As I posted before I saw some videos on YouTube about replacing the berrings.  Now, I've soaked this engine in WD40 for almost a week.. and it's still not budging.  The guy at Hidden Hangar Hobbies told me the berrings that are in there are likely rusted, which is causing the motor to be locked up.  Of course, pulling them out requires taking a lot of other parts out of the motor (namely the cylinder casing, cylinder, and crank shaft), which I can't get to budge.. not even with heat.

Then theres the cost; the berrings are $35 from HHH, plus O-rings for the carborator (which is corroded, so it might not run well) and a new gasket for the backplate.. Im looking at about $60 in parts just to try and get this motor working.

"Why don't you just buy a new motor?  For $99 I can hand you an engine that you take home, mount, and start!" ...  Now, Liz and I have an agreement to do all research prior to recommending a purchase over $50, and then to get bi-spousal approval before making said purchase.  

I came home, hit up eBay.. and, much to my surprise.. I found a brand new OS Max 40 Engine for only $56.00!  So, I am currently waiting on the auction to end

Fret not, Project 2, I'm not giving up on you.. I'm just delaying the rebuild until I have some more time (like this winter).  Picking up a motor will get my flying as soon as next weekend!  Wish me luck on that auction!

Project 3 : The Radio

In the boxes of stuff I salvaged from Kelly's attic were 5 Radios!  So.. 5 Radios and 3 planes... hmm.. :-)  I'm sure the other 2 belong to past planes that are off flying "at the farm".

Figuring out which remote goes to which plane was the next challenge.  Thanks to the receiver  makers they put stickers on them that give it's frequency.  

And, my Dad and I had labeled the antenna's with large stickers.  We put these on so that other people would know what frequency we were using without even checking "the board".

Just to make sure tho, I found that on the radios they list the frequency too.  And what do you know.. the stickers match :-)  Good job Dad!

So.. I cracked open the battery comparments of the 2 radios I'm most interested in (Red (52) and Purple Planes (40))  and as I suspected, there was a lot of corrosion.  So, I pulled the batteries out of the radios, and headed over to Hidden Hangar Hobbies.

They had the exact right battery for both, but since the Red Plane will have to wait (due to money) anyway, I decided to only pick up a new battery for the Purple Planes remote.  The guy who helped me was really nice, despite being quite busy and my many questions :-)  Apparently they have changed how the internal electronics (with regards to power) work on some of these remotes, and so the plug that came on the battery wouldnt work.. but the size was right.

They are simple power wires, like speaker wire.. Red/Black.  So, his suggestion, was to just snip the end off that came with it (half at a time, of course.. Red.. then Black.. so I don't short it) and splice on the end from my old battery.

When I got home I was absolutely giddy!  I got the splice done, had charged the battery in the plane for a bit and then switched everything on... IT WORKS!

Elevator, Rudder, Thottle.. all still move; all of the servos are working!  So, I grabbed the wing (yes, I ran across my basement) and hooked it up to test the ailerons, and they are working too!  

So, I let everything charge up, and they seem to be tip top!  My only worry now is the battery life on the batt. in the plane.  I mean, it's an old battery.. so it may not hold charge nearly as well as the brand new battery in the remote.

I'll have to ask Dad, and Andy over at the field how to check the charge on the battery in the plane.  There isn't a handy meter on it like there is on the remote.

After I confirmed everything was working, I cleaned the remote with a Chlorox Disinfecting Wipe (or 3) and it looks like new!

Project 2 : The Motor on the Purple Plane

Since the Purple Plane's skin is completely in tact, and is a good trainer plane, I decided to start working on it first. The motor, is siezed, and doesn't turn at all.

So, first thing was to remove it from the plane.


Next, I remove the propeller and nost cone assembly, then the backplate and carborator.

So, I now have a mostly dis-assembled motor, that won't budge. I've been following these You-Tube Videos on how to replace the barrings, since I surely will need to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuzEco3EDUM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSoXPLGzOI

And this article on cleaning an RC Plane Engine:

http://www.flyrc.com/articles/07-02-07_glow_engine_maintenance.shtml

So far, I've only gotten the pison to move a little bit, after heating the motor up in our oven (350 degrees, 5 minutes) and then tapping the piston down with a dowel rod.

What I think I need to do next is go out and get myself some synthetic oil, and a bottle with a dropper end on it, to start lubricating parts until I can get things moving. I'm not positive that I need the lubrication to get the piston casing out, but still it seems like a good idea.

Project 1 : The Rack

First order of business when I got the planes to the basement was to find a home for them. Our basement is already pretty full, and we like how things are (except, of course, for the 20 boxes we haven't unpacked since we moved in).

When I was a kid, my Dad had the same problem; so he designed a rack to vertically store the planes. It was 2 columns of dowel rods suspended about 3' apart from each other, with dowels every few inches down the column. He used several dowel rods, a few lengths of Coax Cable, and some screws to put this rack together. I decided to try and improve on it a bit. I would use clothes line (the coax tended to want to curl) and simple knots with washers on them to hold the dowels up (instead of screws).

Parts List :

7x48" Dowels

We will cut each into 3 pieces, 21x 16" rods

40x Washers

With a big enough hole to fit on the clothes line

4x Eye hooks

To attach the columns to the ceiling

1 Length of clothes line at least 22'.

I bought a 100' length.

When you get the parts home, first thing to do is cut the dowels down to their length, 16" each. (You'll have one left over). Next, grab a drill and bit that are big enough to make holes that your clothes line will fit in. It can be a bit bigger, and this will make threading the line easier.

Mark a dot on the dowels, 1/2" back from each tip without turning the dowel. Drill a hole at each end of the dowels, for the clothes line. Next, attach the eye hooks to the ceiling by simple drilling a hole and screwing them in, appx. 22" width between them. Now, it's time to start threading. You want to thread one column of dowels with clothes line, leaving plenty of extra line at both ends of the line (for tying to the ceiling, expansion, etc.).

Biggest problem remaining : nylon clothes line frays when it's cut. So, take a page from my Boy Scout manual, and "fuse" the end. This is done by taking a lighter, and gently melting the end. If you squeeze (with gloves, or paper over it to protect your finger tips) the tip while it's hot you'll make the end into a needle of sorts, with about 1" of hard plastic at the end. This makes it *much* easier to thread with.

Ok, thread one set of dowels.. that's all 10 dowels, both sides. This will take a bit. Once you're set there.. hang up your column, on the eye hooks where you will mount it. Next, pull each dowel up, and eye ball the clearence you want for each wing and fuselage. I judged approximately 3" per wing, and 12" per Fuselage. Once you get a dowel in place, use a clothes pin to pinch the line below the dowel, holding it in place.

Once you have all of your dowels set, carefully take the column down, and lay it out on the floor. The next step is to assemble the other column, but this time.. do one dowel at a time, matching up it's distance on the line to the ones on the marked column. I did mine from teh bottom up.. so it was dowel, washer, position, tie a knot. Then, pull the dowel down on the washer, snug with the knot. As you attach each dowel, try and make it straight and even with the one next to it, so your rack will be even.

Once you're done with that column you're ready to un-thread the 'spacer' column, and use the finished column to align the second column.

Once both columns are complete, hang them on your eye-hooks with whatever knot you prefer (I used taught-lines so I could adjust each side afterwards.. but Im kind of a knot geek).. and hang your planes!

Ressurection

3 weeks ago (April 2009) my family (myself, Liz and Kaeleigh) were walking through the mall near our house in Camp Hill. Kae spotted a group of tables in the center of the mall covered in RC Planes.. there must have been 15 of them. As we walked around, my eyes gleaming with past memories, we past one that was covered in see-through Mono-kote. I started to explain how they are built, and how the ribs of the wing are constructed first, and all glued together from a pattern, and then the mono-kote is applied, along with some heat and it firms up against the wood to form a skin.

As Im finishing up my story, the club president for the flying club who's planes they were approached me and said "Sounds like you know a thing or two about this stuff, you fly?" So I told him a bit of this story, and then Liz took a flyer. They were having an open house the next weekend, and we should go.

1 week later, at the request of my family (which just makes me feel VERY good, I love that my family would opt to spend their Saturday with me, immersed in a past love) I was standing on a flying field, much like the one the Exeter Flying Eagles had put together, surrounded by RC Planes and their pilots.

I got to watch several exciting flights, they have some highly skilled pilots. I also got to go up with an instructor, Andy, who has a "Buddy Box". A buddy box is is a pair of remotes, tied together with a PS1 cable, that allows the instructor to take off, flip a switch and let the student fly, then if the student gets in trouble, flip it back and correct the mistake.. or, you know, land :-) It.. was.. AWESOME.

The very next day I was on the phone with my sister, "Hey.. you still have those planes?"

As I climbed the steps of her attic, now 8 years after the last time I had, and I got my first glimpse of the old planes from my childhood, it almost brought me to tears. So many happy memories over 4 of the forming years of my life, such good times with my Dad, and I had done so little to pack it up and move it to this attic it was almost as if we had just dropped the planes off the day before... except for the 1/4" of dust and dirt on everything!

Kae helped me get them cleaned up before packing everything into the cars. I found the heat machines we used for the mono-kote, the remotes, spare motor parts, and even.. my crown jewel. A completely un-touched stunt plane kit that we bought just months before we stopped flying.. plans and wood in tact, motor for it in tact.

We had 3 planes that were working when we stopped flying, a white trainer, a purple trainer, and a red bi-plane (which was Dad's favorite). The bi-plane has some holes in the bottom wing, which should help me learn how the mono-kote works. The white trainer has some rutter damage (the apoxy that held it down has broken loose, and so it's not attached to the fuselage very well anymore. The purple trainer, however, is in excellent condition. Its' skin is 100%, parts are all firm, and strong.

The motors, however, are another story. One of them turns... with some coaxing, the others won't budge. I assume they are quite dirty as the oil and grease in them wasn't well cared for when we flew, and they now have 12 years of dirt built up on and in them. 2 of the motors' throttles were left open.

The electronics are all in good condition. There's no water damage of any kind, and most of the servos seem to turn with a little help from me. The batteries are all completely shot, even tho I have a cycler, I'm not even sure it's worth trying. I still have yet to inspect these carefully for corrosion, and they need cleaned; but they seem salvagable.

So, I decided to start this blog to detail the work I will have to do to get back in the air, and share with you the learning to catch up this enthusiast on the sport, and fill in the gaps that were left because I was 12 when we flew, and my Dad was the one who needed the real knowledge.

The Backstory

Before I get into the projects, I feel like I should share some backstory with you.

When I was young, my brothers and sisters had already moved out of the house, and my parents were fighting.  It was 1992, I was about 12 at the time.  My father, Joe, needed a hobbie to get him out of the house and give him something to do with his time that was positive, and he had always loved model planes.  When he was a boy he flew the kind that you controlled on 2 strings as you spun in circles as a way to cope with his father (my grandfather)'s death (my father was 12 when his father died).

Naturally, I thought it was the coolest thing ever!  We started off with an inexpensive, "ready to fly" foam plane.  Didnt know the first thing about how to fly it, but we had drive and determination to learn how and have fun.  

I'll never forget that Saturday morning.. sun was shining, perfect temp, no wind.   We drove to my elementary school which was only a few blocks away, and unpacked the plane.  We set it up in the parking lot next to the school.  My Dad took the controls.  I started the motor, stood back and watched.  He hit the gas.. taxi'd about 20 feet.. took off straight into the air.  

"WOW.. WOOHOO!" I heard him shout from behind me as he continued to hold the elevator control slightly back to climb.  Then, I watched it arc.. straight up... turning over.. upside down.. it flew straight over our heads and BOOM into the side of the building.  My Dad was laughing so hard I almost thought he was crying.. so naturally I scrambled with a garbage bag to try and salvage every piece of shattered foam, as if we could repair it.

That first flight was about 15 seconds, and the landing was... questionable :-) but it was the start of something big.

A week or so later we drove down to the hobby shop and started asking questions.  We bought a balsa RC Plane kit, a motor, a radio, and got directions to a flying club near our house.. the Exeter Flying Eagles. Over the next 4 years we would learn a lot about super glue, zip-kicker, apoxy, plane fuel, properller strength... how to "lean" out an engine, and best of all how to roll, loop and land!

By 1996 (or so) the divorce was final, we weren't really flying anymore,  and my Dad moved out.  He didn't have room for the planes at his new place, so they stayed in my Mom's garage.  In 2001 I graduated from college and my Mom said "Drew, you need to find a place to keep these or I'm throwing them out".  Can't say I blame her.. 5 years taking up 1/4 of the garage with no use.. I'd throw them out too :-)

My sister, Kelly, was in the middle of building an addition onto her house, which included a very large attic, and they had nothing to put in it; so I helped them out :-)