Just got a PT 19

1/2A Nut wrote:Well done TLAnderson!  

My first flight was over 35yrs ago with the PT would be cool to put stunt flaps on one with a TD.

The foam wheels you have must help on softer landings if over pavement / or hard packed dirt.
Best wishes and may you have many flights ahead!

jmendoza wrote:Almost all Cox planes can be flown solo as they have a built in self launching mechanism which is part of the rear of the bell crank. All you need is a 16 penny nail and 2 feet of Dacron line. Tie the line to the nail and make a  one inch loop in the other end of the line. Drive the nail into the ground, give the PT-19 full up, slip the loop of line into the notch on the rear end of the bell crank. Start engine, be sure loop of line is on the bell crank, go grab the handle and give it momentary full down to release, just that simple.
Cox thought of it all guys!

Jay Mendoza

TLAnderson wrote:Got a couple of flights in tonight. Beautiful evening. I made up a set of 35' Spider wire lines a while back. They work great.

roddie wrote:



I like the take-off photo-sequence!

Thanks. My wife was running the video camera and got a nice takeoff shot. The photos are captures from the video.

Looks like a fairly remote flying area you have there.

It's actually right in town. It's the parking lot for the county fair grounds. It's unused most of the year except when the fair is on.


I'd like an area such as that to fly at. There's one spot that's not too far from me; a dead-end street terminating into a 80-90 foot diameter paved-circle. Where it's been YEARS since I've flown;

I'm a little nervous with flying over asphalt.

Me too. Very unforgiving of hard landings. I broke the tail skid off the PT landing on asphalt.

So.. you liked the SpiderWire line.. Cool! I now have both; 15# and 30# SpiderWire line. What did you use?

I used 15# test line, and 20# test fishing line connectors.





I have a two-line/42' set (4 line-connectors) that I made from the 30# line. It was regulation-length for our CEF Speed-Contest in 2014. My airplane-entry never got off the ground though.

Your PT looks like it's flying tail-heavy. That's a fairly heavy wire you have there for the stooge-link..

I would personally remove that wire.. and replace it with a piece of Mason's-line (string) with a loop tied in the end for your stooge-pin to engage.   I see that your wire is "held up" via the tail-feathers rubber-band mount-system with the loop for the stooge arranged to contact the bottom of the rudder. That was good thinking to avoid interference with the stabilator. A piece of string tied to the existing hole for your wire shouldn't cause any control-issues.. and would be a lot less weight in the tail.

The wire performs two functions. It's a tailskid and a stooge connection point. It may be heavier than it should be, but that's what I had to work with. To counteract the weight of the wire, I did another mod which may or may not have been a good idea. The plane flies ok, but it's not going to do any stunts.








My PT is a later version which has a tab-type tailskid through-which I drilled a hole for my stooge-pin.



On my model; this tailskid serves as an integral-mount for the rubber-bands that secure the model's tail-feathers. Your model's fuse is differently-molded at the tail.. but looks to be notched for looping the rubber-bands around. If the notch is worn-flat for some reason.. you could use a rasp/file to cut the notch deeper to retain the rubber-bands.  

Mine had a tailskid, but it got broken off in a hard landing. I tried gluing it back on, but it didn't hold. Hence the wire skid. I did file the notch deeper to try to retain the bands.



If you opt to replace your solid-wire stooge-link with string.. you may want to adjust engine-thrust back to the "beginner" (down-thrust) setting for the first flights until you get used to the balance-change which may be significant.

The stock propeller for the PT19 was a "left-hand" 6 x 2 and thus; the model was fitted with a L/H starter-spring. I see that you've had both L/H and R/H props on the engine.

My PT came to me with a 6x2 left handed prop, which got broken when it hit a rock on takeoff. Those props seem to be made of unobtainium, so I've been using 6x3.5 RH props. If I could find a source of the LH props, I'd go back to using them.



Sorry if I've mentioned this before.. but the L/H prop's reverse-rotation "torque-rolls" the model "away" from center-circle.. rather than "in" towards it.. assisting with line-tension.

My PT19 has no outboard wingtip-weight because of this.. and yours probably doesn't either. If you continue to fly the model with a "R/H" propeller; that's ok.. but you will find that providing some outboard wingtip-weight will "level-out" the opposing wingtips for a better-flying airplane. Try taping a "penny or nickel coin" under the wingtip on your next flight that uses a R/H propeller.. and see if you can observe any difference.

I have a nickel tip weight on it. It really helps.





The stock 6 x 2 L/H prop's 2" pitch.. I feel helps keep the reed-valve engine up high in its power-band for running a 6" diameter prop. Running a 6 x 3 propeller on a heavy model such as this, will tend to "lug-down" the engine. A 5 x 3 propeller on the PT19 should be fine.. regardless of it's rotation.. just remember to add some tip-weight when running a R/H prop.

I hope that this info helps you to get many more fun flights out of your model! Don't forget about the CEF PT19 fly-a-thon!

Lots of helpful info here, Roddie. Thank you. When is the fly-a-thon?