Re: Jim Walker Bonanza etc.

TD ABUSER Sat Sep 07, 2024 4:02 pm

rsv1cox wrote:
TD ABUSER wrote:She looks great..!
The suspense of waiting to see it fly is unbearable.....
What does it need for wing tip weight...?

I hadn't thought of it. Dacron lines look to be short. I'm looking for just an uninterupted circle to make me happy. What it needs is nose weight, lead from a .22 cartridge ought to do it. Fresh paint needs a week or two to settle, but my every intention is to give it a try, that and the natural Bonanza too. First thing to leave the model will be the wheel pants. Expendable.

Many years ago I saw a control line plane with wing dihedral fly and from what I recall it did pretty good. Lots of dihedral the 2 channel RC planes use to make the rudder more effective tend to dance around from side to side a little bit like a tight rope walker maintaining an even keel on a wire.
Balancing one of those wings from side to side is very important if you want the plane to turn equally well in both directions.
I'm not sure if having lots of dihedral on a C/L plane lessens the need for outboard wingtip weight, or if the dihedral has a self correcting effect ...?

rsv1cox Sat Sep 07, 2024 4:56 pm

In the past I have used nickles, pennies, but mostly washers of various sizes. I will probably stick something under there. One of my planes has a dollar bill stuck in the fuselage, forgot which one. Not much dihedral in the painted version. The natural finished Bonanza has whatever JW designed in with his precut wing brace. I'm kinda anxious to see how it does too.

Ken Cook Sat Sep 07, 2024 5:03 pm

I would strongly advise anyone not to use washers under the front engine lugs. It's a very poor practice which will come loose and cause excessive engine vibration. It's not going to save a airplane by regaining line tension. The wood will crush and prior to it crushing, the engine will shake so much it will loosen making black oil all over the model. The more it shakes, the leaner the engine run and this will certainly not be beneficial. If your looking to insure line tension, make certain your gear is tracking correctly when rolled. Double your tip weight for the first flight. I've gone as far on certain planes such as speed planes to bend the gear which in turn drops the outboard wing so it's canted outboard when rolling out. While it can wear the wheels excessively, it enables one to fly the plane without concerns of it turning in on take off. If that's not doable, use a wheel collar and provide drag to the outer wheel which will consistently cause the plane to yaw outboard.

rsv1cox Sun Sep 08, 2024 7:20 am

Thanks Ken, I keep saying that this thing is done, but it really isn't. I still need to replace the engine wood screws with machine screws and nuts and lock washers among other things. There is "out" built into the nose wheels on both Bonanzas, more by accident than intent. It might help a bit by assisting the nose keeping it pointed outside the circle. But, as far as ROG I will probably have Mark hand launch them or take them off from a slipperly cardboard runway. Time will tell.

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rsv1cox Mon Sep 09, 2024 3:01 pm

rdw777 wrote:Glad you picked that Firebaby up Bob….. Not crazy, An eye of the beholder thing, I like the worn patina on it as well…. IMO a coat of clear to seal it up as is…. The early Bee is a nice plus but probably not original….. If the firewall hasn’t been re-drilled might have had a tanked Cub that had the same pattern….. Seller mentioned it had been flown by the previous owner…. I think that’s cool too..

Got it today Robert,

Now this makes me happy! No NIB or trailer queen here. Only finding an old '34 Ford Coupe barn find with a mouse eaten interior would make me happier.

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Vintage Thimbledrome marked Cox Babe Bee loosely hung on by a couple of 2/56's with curious nuts on diagonal ends. Airplane complete except for the canopy and weathered in the extreme. Other than making a canopy, cleaning up the engine and mounting it properly, I'm leaving it alone. The original tires on the wheels are in good shape.

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The box it came in is interesting. Pretty good shape too, I'm saving it.

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rdw777 Mon Sep 09, 2024 4:20 pm

Nice Bob …. Very much like a barn find indeed!!…. Great price too for a nearly complete Firebaby… I saved the link and was watching it for awhile…. Interesting to try and backtrack a plane’s history by its condition….. Mine looks like it was flown once or twice, broken a little in the attempts, and then forgotten about …. Yours looks like it survived many flights and remained mostly intact…. Maybe even wore out its first engine….Flown enough that the fuel and exhaust residue washed a lot of the finish off of the wing….That adds a point or two or in vintage Firebaby grading IMO Very Happy

…. I hope you don’t mind, I took one of your photos and the seller’s photo and doctored them up a bit to try and pick up a little more detail…. Going in my Firebaby photo file….

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Incidentally fyi, Someone picked up a photo of my Firebaby and sent it to Outerzone….
Also a few memories and experiences posted there…. Also a link to your Jim Walker
Firebaby and Firebaby Clone thread here on CEF…..

https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=15471

I’m glad FB’s are getting a little attention…. Has been fun looking into it Very Happy

rsv1cox Tue Sep 10, 2024 7:02 am

I hope you don’t mind, I took one of your photos and the seller’s photo and doctored them up a bit to try and pick up a little more detail.

Mind....I encourage it. I love this stuff.

Someone picked up a photo of my Firebaby and sent it to Outerzone….

Yes, happens all the time. So often while exploring I find Kim's and my pictures plastered all over the internet.

I’m glad FB’s are getting a little attention…. Has been fun looking into it.

Amen.

More Firebaby stuff. The title of this thread is Bonanza etc. Heavy on the etc. Smile

Most radical Firebaby (sort of) is the split wing variation in the foreground. Wings slip into a plastic retainer. I'm leaving it in "as found" condition.

Engines? Who knows what you will find on these things.

My theory on the weathered Firebaby is that a PO washed the gooey stickey castor off with some solvent or cleaner like Simple Green. But more likely a solvent as water based cleaners tend to mishape balsa, while this Firebaby is straight, very dry, and clean. Kim's "castor slingers" vary in amount slung. This Firebaby could have been excessive. I have ran some OK Cubs where spent castor just dripped off the test stand. But, that is variable in amount too. Ran sloppy rich or lean? Castor content of the fuel? Was additional castor added?

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Firebaby family gathering minus Firebaby Jr..

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roddie Tue Sep 10, 2024 10:13 am

That's a nice old Babe Bee Robert Smile

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Yes.. those precarious hex-nuts between the engine/firewall.. Huh...

Looking at the first (upper) photo; one might think they were used to provide some down-thrust.. but not with a second one placed behind the diagonal lug shown in the lower photo. On a positive note.. you've got two extra nuts for when you find a second pair of machine screws.. (2-56?) Could be 3-48 I suppose..

GallopingGhostler Tue Sep 10, 2024 12:04 pm

roddie wrote:

Yes.. those precarious hex-nuts between the engine/firewall.. Looking at the first (upper) photo; one might think they were used to provide some down-thrust.. but not with a second one placed behind the diagonal lug shown in the lower photo. On a positive note.. you've got two extra nuts for when you find a second pair of machine screws.. (2-56?) Could be 3-48 I suppose..

Looks like the modeller was attempting to provide right thrust to help keep lines taught. The use of a larger nut as a washer, 3-48 or 4-40 is thicker than a single washer, may have been the only hardware on hand at the time, as a quick fix. Just missing the upper mounting hardware and spacer nut.

That would be my guess.

TD ABUSER Tue Sep 10, 2024 1:15 pm

I just read an article about the Firebaby.
It explained how the bits and pieces of their other products could be repurposed to make these planes.
What the article failed to do was say how many of these planes were ever produced.
The plane itself cost about $2.50 in 1948 and with engine add $5.00 to that. A replacement wing was $1.00.

Another question I have is how good of a job did the sheet metal engine mount [it looks flimsy in the photos] do of snuffing out vibration...?
I notice these planes used balloon tanks and if filled correctly a balloon type tank wont allow foam foaming.
Maybe they did it this way to "work around" the flimsy engine mount...?

This begs another question....WHY AREN'T BALLOON TANKS MORE POPULAR...?
That's what a Tetra Tank [that all the Pylon Racers use] is....it's a balloon tank, but exhaust pressure is used to collapse it instead of just atmospheric pressure of a properly filled 1/2A balloon tank..
The balloon tank can be set up a lot lighter than any sort of sheet metal or hard plastic tank. The balloon can sit in a balsa sheet box that has been treated with fuel proof dope.
Build the "fuel cell" right into a cheek cowl [on the inboard side of the engine mount] and now you have centripetal force work with you too.

Ken Cook Tue Sep 10, 2024 3:04 pm

I've used the Tetra tanks many years ago. They're problematic to fill and get ready to start. In other words, you treat it is if it's a balloon by withdrawing all air. You now need a pinch off to prevent air from entering the balloon. You start the engine hopefully on a flip and release the pinch off. Very similar to bladder techniques. For me, I was doing this on a stunter. If you didn't immediately get it to run, you had to start all over by withdrawing the air back out. Not a good equation when your on the clock. The only time it would fail me is when I was trying to use it at a contest. Reasoning for using it is Tetra tanks don't recognize vibrations. However, other issue occurred. I would get a hiccup in the overheads and I could never figure out why, these were quite dramatic.

Balloons fail quickly as well. The idea does work. I will say it's not as sensitive to height, the run was impacted if the balloon was too high or too low. It's just that it took a fairly up and down amount to change it.

The reason for me that the Tetra tank was a problem was also because it didn't use all the fuel. I like to get a decent run through the cloverleaf and then I like it to lean out a bit for about 10 laps. I was in belief that the bag material in the Tetra tank was too hard to fully squash. In addition, it had molded seams in the rear and that portion would retain it's shape and not fully collapse. I reversed the Tetra tank by filling the tank and using muffler pressure to inflate the bag. It did work better.

Larry Renger from Cox designed a plane which I believe was called the Skyfire. It was featured in Flying Models and it utilized a 35mm canister to house the balloon. Larry used the AP .061 with terrifc results and his fellow friend flew it in a contest receiving a very high score doing the pattern.

TD ABUSER Tue Sep 10, 2024 4:09 pm

Ken Cook wrote: I've used the Tetra tanks many years ago. They're problematic to fill and get ready to start. In other words, you treat it is if it's a balloon by withdrawing all air. You now need a pinch off to prevent air from entering the balloon. You start the engine hopefully on a flip and release the pinch off. Very similar to bladder techniques. For me, I was doing this on a stunter. If you didn't immediately get it to run, you had to start all over by withdrawing the air back out. Not a good equation when your on the clock. The only time it would fail me is when I was trying to use it at a contest. Reasoning for using it is Tetra tanks don't recognize vibrations. However, other issue occurred. I would get a hiccup in the overheads and I could never figure out why, these were quite dramatic.

Balloons fail quickly as well. The idea does work. I will say it's not as sensitive to height, the run was impacted if the balloon was too high or too low. It's just that it took a fairly up and down amount to change it.

The reason for me that the Tetra tank was a problem was also because it didn't use all the fuel. I like to get a decent run through the cloverleaf and then I like it to lean out a bit for about 10 laps. I was in belief that the bag material in the Tetra tank was too hard to fully squash. In addition, it had molded seams in the rear and that portion would retain it's shape and not fully collapse. I reversed the Tetra tank by filling the tank and using muffler pressure to inflate the bag. It did work better.

Larry Renger from Cox designed a plane which I believe was called the Skyfire. It was featured in Flying Models and it utilized a 35mm canister to house the balloon. Larry used the AP .061 with terrifc results and his fellow friend flew it in a contest receiving a very high score doing the pattern.

It seems to me that if you do a slight overfill and allow the overfill to empty itself back out, all the air has been purged and you are now 100% full all the way to the needle valve.
I don't see why this would be any more prone to flooding than a standard hard tank...[unless jiggling the model during fire up pumps the walls of the balloon enough to pump fuel out].
I am thinking about experimenting with a Cox .020 and running it with a "nitrile glove finger tank" that is adapted to a hard balsa wood stopper that the line passes througb to the rear of the tank.

rdw777 Tue Sep 10, 2024 6:53 pm

Ballon tanks work good for me…. I made up a test rig for a single line ballon tank an ran it on the Wasp that came with my Firebaby just to see….. Filled and purged it similar as you describe TD…..The Jim Walker ballon tanks just had a piece of neoprene fuel line to the back, I used a brass tube instead with a modified pickup…. Worked fine…

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I also use them on .020 size RC…. Seven inch party balloons but with two lines…. One of our CEF members taught me how to make these…..The fill line terminates right behind the stopper so it’s an easy matter to hold the nose of the plane up and evacuate the air after filling…. Although the ballon is never under pressure I put a small clothes pin on the feed line until ready to start to be sure and not flood…These balloons are very easy for the .020’s to collapse all the way around the pickup line…

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One at work…

TD ABUSER Tue Sep 10, 2024 8:25 pm

rdw777 wrote:Ballon tanks work good for me…. I made up a test rig for a single line ballon tank an ran it on the Wasp that came with my Firebaby just to see….. Filled and purged it similar as you describe TD…..The Jim Walker ballon tanks just had a piece of neoprene fuel line to the back, I used a brass tube instead with a modified pickup…. Worked fine…

What a great plane, engine run and prop you made for .020 powered plane..!!
Since the balloon tank is part of what makes a Firebaby tick I wont feel like it's a "high jacking" of this thread to talk some more about it.

Having a second line to allow air to escape is what I need to do with this tank I just made from a nitrile glove finger and a disk of plastic.
What I just made isn't exactly weightless..it weighs 1/4 of an ounce. [a high pressure bladder weighs nothing but they are a PIA at times]
This balloon tank worked great but it was a messy operation to fill it without having the secondary air purge line.
I'm in the process of building an RC plane for my .020. It won't be as sporty as yours...I just want to get my feet weight with a slower plane.

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rsv1cox Wed Sep 11, 2024 12:16 pm

Since the balloon tank is part of what makes a Firebaby tick I wont feel like it's a "high jacking" of this thread

Thanks TD-a, but highjackings for me isn't a problem as they ususally expand the topic.

But, my Bonanza projects are done except for flying so I'm putting a nail in this thread and moving my discussion of the "Weathered" Firebaby over to Robert's much more appropriate Jim Walker Firebaby thread. Interesting little project that the PO bungled and hung a crashed early model Babe Bee on the nose.

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