The Rescue Nobler

Someone left this plane like a baby on a doorstep at the Joe Nall C/L fields a couple of years ago. Wayne and Dave Wenzel looked it over and found the hinges epoxied together and looking pretty sad. Neither of them and nobody else wanted it, so it was left abandoned. When Wayne was packed and about to leave for home, he noticed it in the bed of his truck. So it came home and sat in his shop.

He finally took a look, cut the hinges loose and re-hinged it. The original mystery builder hadn't removed the Monokote to glue the wing in place, so with one whap, it was liberated from the fuse. It got new leadouts and a proper re-assembly, complete with a Brodak 40. This was the Summer I was learning to fly PA with the Shoestring, and learning to trim a plane, so I spotted while Wayne flew, and we got it balanced and wings level, and then it re-entered semi retirement. After I started flying the Oriental, knowing I couldn't go back to a profile for competition, I commented on needing a backup plane. Soon after, the Nobler appeared in my shop. Cool.

I couldn't fit my 4oz former Oriental tank in the front end, but a Dubro 4 oz. clunk looked perfect. I never had any luck making a uniflow out of these, even with explanations and pictures from our experts. I had tried without success on the Osprey, R.I.P. But standard vent with muffler pressure worked very well on that one, so here's what I rigged up for the Rescue Nobler.


I bent and soldered the overflow and pressure lines so they end tight in the middle of the "O" where "Dubro" is stamped on the top narrow side. I alkso bought a set of external vents from Tom Morris for $5 bucks. Something that I'll make myself in a few minutes in the future. You'll see them in the video. I fill through the one that gets muffler pressure.

The engine is the OS .35fp that powered the old Copeland Skyray until it exploded on impact after the Criterium at Watts field. The post contest fun fly. All cleaned out and bolted in, she was ready for a test run this morning. I've had such good luck with the .40fp setup on my Oreo, I treated this one the same, with an APC 10.5x4.5 prop and an Enya #3 plug. Also an OS-762 muffler opened up and lightened.

I had my electric starter, tach and stopwatch at hand, and only needed one flip with the chicken stick and she was off and running. My 3.5 turns on the NV were about right. Happiness is about the same RPM range as the 40, maybe a few RPM slower, about 10.5K. It that speed I can point it nose up and get a quick clean break to 2-stroke, and also quick back to a 4-stroke when I set it back down. It did speed up as it finished its fuel... or heated up, that remains to be figured out. 7:22 on the stopwatch. I'm excited to fly her now. Plans were to fly this afternoon, but my flying buddy decided he'd rather wait for the cooler low 90s this weekend. Oh well, that works, because when I was cleaning up the Rescue, I found the stab had come unglued and was flopping, so I can get some epoxy in there. I don't know where to balance it, but it looks a bit nose heavy right now. It seems very light but I forgot to weigh it before I closed up shop.

https://youtu.be/TtVlrbYaoxo