So I've moved on up to 50cc. I said I would never get anything bigger than 30cc because it doesnt really fit in my truck. never say never.

i just uploaded the first of what will hopefully be a cool series of videos for me to do. what im doing is taking both onboard video and headcam video simultaneously and editing them together. let me know what ya'll think.

The Bee - Dual Video flight 8-15-2012 (4 min 0 sec)

Finally got my Yak in the air and she flies beautifully! Had to do some pretty extensive modification to keep the engine from shaking this airframe to pieces, but it was worth it. Originally this plane was made to be electric so it is built super light weight. the 35cc is really too much engine but necessary considering the size of prop I need to clear the cowl.

video to come.

video should be live here shortly:

SD Models Yak 54 3D w/ 35cc gas conversion (10 min 0 sec)

I have this DLE 20 installed in my newly fixed U Can Deux, and the dang thing refuses to run. the first day i had it out it would not prime by hand. i had to use a starter. once i had it primed it would run but only WOT, and quite lean at that. opening the needles had almost no effect. an idle resulted in either it killing or it not settling down to idle at all.... UNLESS the carb butterfly was completely closed, at which case sometimes it MIGHT sit there and tick over but not choke.

so...

I bought a rebuild kit for a Walbro 793, which is the closest equivalent to the DLE 20 stock carb. when i opened the carb i found the old diaphragm was shot, so i replaced it with new + a new gasket. I then flipped the carb over to inspect the pump diaphragm. this also seemed a bit stretched out and stiff, so i replaced it with the blue acetate diaphragm from the walbro kit and a new gasket. I also replaced the old crudded up filter screen with a new one. I cleaned the entire carburetor with carb cleaner, and even removed the H and L needle valves and sprayed cleaner through all the jets, including the small brass jet on the main diaphragm side, the two jets on the pump side, the intake jet, and i sprayed up through the jet where it enters the carb barrel, through the spring driven mixture needle. i did not remove the needle under the diaphragm. i actuated the arm and sprayed through it. this thing was clean.

now, the engine refuses to run. I can prime it but it will still not...Continue Reading

Well here she is at the field today, all done up. i put the old canopy on temporarily. the new one is on backorder at TH.

No maiden today as I couldnt get the DLE to idle. seemed like it was sucking air. it had an intermittent idle, and even when i backed the needle out a good ways i couldnt get it rich enough to stop. hmm...





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So I acquired this U Can Do 60 in a trade with a friend. it had been stored in a loft area above his garage. when I got ahold of it, it looked to be okay so I decided to go ahead and fix it.

once I started though, I discovered that it was kind of a wreck. it had a lot of little things wrong with it and a few big things. I knew that i would have to tear it down and start from the bones or just throw it away.

Im not much on trashing planes, so I decided to go ahead and fix it. Once i started covering this beast, I realized exactly how big of a plane this really is. I have much respect for those guys that build those really BIIGG planes and cover them. when it came time to cover it though, I discovered that all I really had was a few primary colors in Econocote.. and most of it was Yellow circa 1997. oh well... I decided to use it anyway. I figured if I took my time it would come out okay.

A few weeks after I started, I finally have the structure and the covering done.. so here she is..





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i got some new bearings from RCBearings.com and installed them in my FA-91. here is a video i made showing the difference.

Saito FA-91 Bearing Comparison (1 min 36 sec)

heres a short little video of my Decathlon. enjoy

Seagull Decathlon 75-90 w/ Saito .91 (3 min 25 sec)

Beautiful day + a little too breezy to fly = Picture time!
So I finally completed my Decathlon, and wanted to show it off. here she be.

Door is attached with magnets.




I made some cowl supports out of lite ply, and fiberglassed them into the inside of the cowl. i then attached it to the firewall with magnets and two screws that i can get to through the front vents. no ugly screws on the outside.
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heres a short vid of my Saito Fa-91 after a rebuild. MAS K-Series 14x6, Omega 10%, Fox Miracle plug. the idle wasnt set super low in this video. This is the engine that I installed in my Decathlon.

Rebuilt Saito .91 (1 min 39 sec)

I just finished assembling this airplane. The instructions and hardware left a bit to be desired, but build quality was top notch and really came out to be a beautiful airplane.





this is a 71" wing span and comes out to be about 7lbs. very light for its size. I powered it with a Saito Fa-91S turning a 14x6 prop. this engine pulls the plane around beautifully and it flies very smooth. sounds great when its in the air too.

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So, after the first escapade I had self destructed on its first trip to the field and ended up totally destroyed (sending my engine into the lake in the process) i got this one as a replacement. i assembled it and then waited for a non-windy day to maiden. finally got one after waiting a few months.

in my haste to get it in the air, i didnt check to make sure my engine was idling reliably. coming out of a spin i had a flameout. i was able to recover, but on the final approach a gust of wind blew my poor escapade directly on course with a big wooden sign at the upwind side of the field.
a combination of being downwind and not enough elevator throw to be able to turn into the wind and WHACK! nose first into the sign. i hit it dead center. i ended up with this:



the wings to look to be in good shape but when i got it home i found that they were completely separated in the middle and cracked throughout. the force of the impact caused the center ribs to shatter and destroyed the front of the aircraft as well as popping the fuse apart at the joints down to the rear of the wing seat. the rudder and vertical fin were also cracked at the joints. oddly enough i didnt break the prop.

lesson learned: if the engine isnt running reliably, dont try to "just go with it." try to minimize any variables.

I decided to repair. i had to rebuild the front of the fuse along with a new firewall and front brace where the canopy attaches. after rebuilding and slapping on some new covering i have escapade 2.0:



im thinking of naming her 9 Lives. let me know what you guys think.

i recently got my hands on a nice Sullivan Hi-Tork, and a Powercore.. well the battery was dead in the Powercore, so i was left with just the case. after doing some digging i found two old 2000mAh NiCad packs from my racing days. they both cycled just fine. which is awesome considering they are over a decade old!

i decided to put it all together and make me a nice portable rechargeable starter.

First thing was to tie the packs in series.



then i took some binding posts, and drilled the powercore case to fit them. i used the old spade connectors on the new binding posts because the ones that came with the posts were very thin.



the trick was finding a way to fit the two packs as they were just barely too big to fit inside of the PC case. so i had to cut off the little tabs inside the case. Then i put them in at an angle to each other.

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I finally finished my Escapade .40 ARF build. i ended up taking some pictures along the way, so i figured i would make a blog post here to give ya'll some of my impressions of the kit.

upon opening the box i was greeted with a well packaged ARF kit. everything seemed to be in good shape. all of the various "hole poking" bits like torque rods and the like were covered with a block of styrofoam which i thought was a nice touch. it was also quite effective at keeping the wing and tail bays from being damaged.



(please excuse the yellow blob there. that would in fact be my stomach. i could complain about it, but considering i can still fit into my high school gym shirt -which is the one i happen to be wearing in the pic- i guess i cant complain. moving on..)

from here the build went pretty quickly. i didnt get many pictures of the initial unpacking or assembly but the planed seemed to be very well built. there were no squeaky bits and all of the joints seemed to be cut and joined very well. there were a couple of areas i went over with a bit of thick CA. one of these was the landing gear block.



though it seemed well built and felt sturdy, the joints here were a little "dry" for me. so a touch of CA wont hurt.

i also noticed that the place where the wing attached to the fuse was a simple single ply former with a window cut in it to fit the protrusions on the wing ribs. though im sure this is plenty strong enough, i do plan on powering this plane...Continue Reading