FLying my kit bashed RSM Miss Ashley

Haha, it went fine after Shawn finally just ripped it into some loops. When the engine quit I never expected to see a rolling landing. Good video.
Glad to see you still wearing your signature French Foreign Legion hat.  

Good stuff Ken,

I enjoyed the video!

Rusty, more than likely you will see me wearing that hat unless I'm in the circle flying . I've had some real issues with the top of my head and the sun. I get a lot of strange looks and laughs, but I certainly go home with a good piece of mind. The hat itself is a sunscreen . My grandfather had similar issues. After repeated trips to the dermatologist, I figured it would be a good time to start listening. Ken

Roddie, the tank is a Perfect tank. I removed the feed line where it exits the stock outlet. I relocated it to the bottom. One of the main problems with a wedge is the width. You don't want to have the feed line of the tank outside of the inlet nipple of your venturi when using a TD. It requires a longer in length and also thinner tank which almost no 1/2A has room on the nose for. What I did to combat this was to cut out the material between the bearers and sink the wedge within the fuse. The problem your seeing however that directly after launch it's going rich due to centrifugal force forcing fuel into the engine. My tank had to be shimmed side to side rather than up or down. No uniflow on this tank. I've always had issues with this style wedge when making it uniflow. I'm not done with this tank quite yet. I'm planning on grafting a even smaller wedge making it into a chicken hopper. This plane started out using a Medallion single ported .049. It has a very timid run with that engine and allows for a wide range of running style. I personally prefer the Medallion while my son enjoys the TD. Either way, I found the plane to be quite maneuverable and possibly one of my best flying 1/2A's. Ken

Man you Lefties trip me out looks like you should be going the other way  O stupid me you were when upside down   Nice Thanks ! Eric

Really nice flying Ken. The video is great.

That plane of yours flies much better than any 1/2A I have flown. But I have never flown with a TD or a medalion before. Always just been using the reed engines.

I hope my lil Satan will fly half as good.

Theo

Theo Kleynhans wrote:Really nice flying Ken. The video is great.

That plane of yours flies much better than any 1/2A I have flown. But I have never flown with a TD or a medalion before. Always just been using the reed engines.

I hope my lil Satan will fly half as good.

Theo

Hi Theo. I bet when we've built enough planes to sink a boat, as Ken has, our's will fly pretty good too. And not many people fly better than Shawn. I have no doubt your Satan will fly as good as it looks.
Rusty

Ken Cook wrote:                  Rusty, more than likely you will see me wearing that hat unless I'm in the circle flying . The hat itself is a sunscreen . Ken

I myself am partial to the French foreign legion hat when I know I will be fishing all day. I would rather look a little funny in the woods than come home with a severely burned neck.

Jim

Ken I wasn't meaning to tweak you in any way, I actually like the look and that's the way I meant it. Sometimes I'm bad about poking fun where it doesn't belong... Lol, that reminds me of an old joke, poking fun where it don't belong.
Rusty

Ken Cook wrote:          Roddie, the tank is a Perfect tank. I removed the feed line where it exits the stock outlet. I relocated it to the bottom. One of the main problems with a wedge is the width. You don't want to have the feed line of the tank outside of the inlet nipple of your venturi when using a TD. It requires a longer in length and also thinner tank which almost no 1/2A has room on the nose for.  What I did to combat this was to cut out the material between the bearers and sink the wedge within the fuse. The problem your seeing however that directly after launch it's going rich due to centrifugal force forcing fuel into the engine. My tank had to be shimmed side to side rather than up or down. No uniflow on this tank. I've always had issues with this style wedge when making it uniflow. I'm not done with this tank quite yet. I'm planning on grafting a even smaller wedge making it into a chicken hopper. This plane started out using a Medallion single ported .049. It has a very timid run with that engine and allows for a wide range of running style. I personally prefer the Medallion while my son enjoys the TD. Either way, I found the plane to be quite maneuverable and possibly one of my best flying 1/2A's. Ken

Thanks Ken. I have an assortment of Perfect wedge-style tanks in various configurations. I looked at them, because I remembered that some have their pick-up tubes' exiting out the "top" and almost halfway inboard, as well as almost halfway "back" from the front of the tank.. as opposed to most of the others; which place their pick-up tubes' exit "at" the front of the tank.. and fully outboard. The "former" are fairly small tanks; which I believe are 3/4 oz. (20-22cc) in capacity.

Here is a photo of this tank in the foreground.. (in the background L. to R. are two more identical tanks.. followed by four with their pick-ups exiting straight out the front and fully outboard.)



Do you suppose that this was an attempt by Perfect; to improve feed on a C/L profile fuse.. while using a suction-only fuel delivery? If so; might these tanks be well-suited for .09 to .15 size stunt models?

You didn't specify the capacity of the tank on your model.. and I don't know how much fuel would be required for a Tee Dee .049 to complete a standard stunt pattern. I imagine it's considerably "more" than a reed-valve engine.

I was also curious of the line-length you were using in the vid.

Thanks!

Roddie, the fuel tank that your holding is in my opinion is a very poor example that was offered.  That fuel tank has your fuel line traveling a tremendous distance to get to your spraybar. In addition, the fuel is going uphill, and then down and then back up into your engine when mounted profile.I replumb the feed line exiting the bottom of the tank this shortens your fuel line considerably and places the fuel line as a direct shot to your spraybar.  The other wedgies you show with the feed outboard usually places the fuel tubing directly into the back of your cylinder head. Another poor method.  When you start hammering maneuvers hard I've had the engine hiccup and this is usually at some bad point in the maneuver. If you look at your other tanks you will notice the feed line is a very small fuel tubing. It can not only get blocked up extremely easy, but it can automatically starve the engine for fuel due to it's size.  I truly dislike brass tubes to begin with and especially the tubing that's used in these tanks. This isn't seamless tubing and it does split. Perfect never soldered the feel line into the far corner of the tank. Sometimes their short, the pickup isn't always placed at the correct elevation within the tank. Many kits would show or recommend the re plumbing of certain tubes due to fitment within the plane.  Copper is a better choice and it doesn't work harden itself into submission like brass does. It also has less of a resistance to the green death. While I've used tanks in the stock configuration, I rarely do that anymore. I never ever take a tank out of the box and use it.

The tanks were built on a hot plate and many times were not prepared correctly therefore requiring further dismantling and cleaning. If you can see the whitish corrosion around the pipe on the outside, you can rest assured it's on the inside. Once the plating on these tanks fails, rust takes place quickly rendering the tank useless. The flux was never properly cleaned out or dealt with and if the tanks are sitting for long periods, they're generally no good. Give a tank the shake test. If you even hear any kind of tinny resonance from debris or solder, don't waste your time trying it.

As for the ling length, my lines are 39' eyelet to eyelet .012's stainless. They were a set of 42' combat lines that got scrambled on the end and I cut them back to good wire. Handle to center of plane is probably 40' -3". I'm not sure how much fuel is required to do the pattern using a TD. This has been something I've wanted to do for a long time. In the video their was substantial time the engine was running rich which is using a lot of fuel. Now that I have it running consistent, I want to see how far I get with the pattern. Ken

Thanks Ken, This is all good stuff to know. I have a lot of 1/8" Copper tubing left over from the coil I bought, when I built my Speed model tanks. I was just curious about the feed-tube's exit-plumbing layout. The "chicken-hopper" tank is a design that I have read-up a little bit on. I'll have to read a little more... but my take on it is; it provides a concentrated "fuel-head" (reserve) for the feed-line.. that's more effective than the simple "wedge-only" design provides, for control-line flight. Is this correct?

Ken, great vid. That plane's way too fast for me. I like it nice and laid back. But, then again, I'm not young anymore....   

The Fall Chicken Mark