Scratched out this Lil Satan this week

I have a Norvel .049 with the plastic tank mount but I don't like the tank configuration. I might try it. The plastic tanks leak and the pickup tube isn't in the correct spot so this will take some surgery. The Norvel mount shares the same pattern as a integral tanked Cox Bee. I have a good selection of Black Widow's on hand.

Ken Cook wrote:I have a Norvel .049 with the plastic tank mount but I don't like the tank configuration. I might try it. The plastic tanks leak and the pickup tube isn't in the correct spot so this will take some surgery. The Norvel mount shares the same pattern as a integral tanked Cox Bee. I have a good selection of Black Widow's on hand.

The Black widow should pull it around fine.

Love it!......great job!

Looks good Ken. Bet that you have a Fora that has a radial mount. A bladder could be stuffed in the ribs or over the top of the wing. Oh, sorry, was that out loud?

These planes are really small compared to modern 1/2A's. I have a Combat Kitten with a TD which is really fast. These just fly like dump trucks compared to the modern equivalents. Fun nonetheless and a fellow club member asked about putting up a match. Flying combat with Cox equipment is very difficult. The times I've tried it, it became so frustrating I almost gave up. I'm willing to give it a go again and hopefully I can make it work. The problem is one gets running, the other won't start, the other one is running backwards, the guys who launch them launches them into the circle. It becomes a comedy of errors that takes the fun out. The reed valve engines are just a major pain in the rear and between the frustration and short run times, I deal with them very little anymore. I do own Fora's and they're just the cat's meow when it comes to using them. Runs on 5-10% nitro all day long without a issue and starts on one flip.

If you can get a decent run with a tanked reedie I am all ears. I never had much luck in inverted flight. Even with doing all your tips and tricks.

Ron

I'd be lying if I said I was a fan of reedies, but a golden bee ran OK upside down with the pickup tube in the centre of the tank, up a bit from the normal. They are still leaky and erratic runners in my experience, which was 45 years ago. I still like the TDs though.

I got to fly the Satan today. Engine run was a bit off. Inverted, it would fly about 6 laps and then it would start suffering for fuel. I think the pickup is a little off and might need to be raised. I've been running 50% nitro lately and it works quite well. I just keep the engine rich and it just is such a improvement over the standard 1/2A fuel. Starting, needling, consistent running are all benefits. I had a APC 5x3 and that wasn't giving me the speed I was looking for. I switched to a Grish 5 1/4 x 4 and this worked pretty good.

Video Ken, or it didn’t happen I think my best is one full lap inverted before crapping out. I can see how raising the pickup would help. The stunt tank really isn’t designed like a conventional stunt tank.

Makes me wonder if anyone has flown a full pattern on a Cox reed engine. It would be a miracle and a fast pattern too. You don’t have enough time to do a couple laps between stunts.

Cribbs74 wrote:If you can get a decent run with a tanked reedie I am all ears. I never had much luck in inverted flight. Even with doing all your tips and tricks.

Ron

Man!  I really wish I had remembered to put an SD card in my camera a couple of weeks ago when I had the local club hotshot fly my new Baby Ringmaster.  The FrankenBee engine flew great inverted as he put it through its paces.  Not a burp or sag.  Ran strong until it ran out of gas.

The engine has a Black Widow tank, a generic crankcase from out of my spares box and a Sure Start cylinder.  Those Sure Start cylinders never got the love they deserved.  Man!  I wish I'd known about Estes selling the Sure Starts on close out at $7.00 a piece.  I would have bought a couple dozen...  I'm not sure, but I may have done Paul Gibeault's trick with the fuel feed tube in the tank.  

I'm definitely not the big cheese engine rebuilder here, but unless there's a physical problem with one of the engine components, I've never had a problem with a reedie if it's been recently overhauled to make sure everything is clean and tight.  

The Fanboy Mark

Cribbs74 wrote:Makes me wonder if anyone has flown a full pattern on a Cox reed engine. It would be a miracle and a fast pattern too. You don’t have enough time to do a couple laps between stunts.

I know I've read in Model Builder (I think) how back in the 70's, at the Nats they held unofficial competitions with the Cox ME-109 Super Stunters.  They flew the full pattern, and allowed for one re-fueling mid-pattern. Not a tank, I know, but still. You might ask this over on the 1/2A board on Stunthangar. They had a 1/2A competition flying the pattern with only one lap between maneuvers at the last Brodak's.

The Historian Mark

Interesting. I can build a decent engine for performance, but have trouble with just getting a bog stock worked over tanked reed engine to stunt. I’ll say the same thing to you Mark... Video or it didn’t happen

Seriously though. I tried very hard for a couple years to get reedies stuntable. No bueno, massive frustration and I listened and tried everyones tips. Loops and level flight all day long, go inverted, one lap then a fart lap and then a slow death.

I’d love to see it, better yet would love to see the disassembled engine that did it.