The 'What did you do in your workshop tonight?' thread

[stangflyer]

I have always had a 16 -18 oz tank in all my 50/60 and even 70cc planes. 10 minute hard flying but throttle management. Full power on up lines and where needed to get a maneuver in. Hovering and low and slow takes only 1/2 throttle or less. Always had at least a quarter of a tank or more when landing. That was then this is now.....shorter 4-7 minute flights... attempts to do things and correct A LOT and use full power to get out of trouble and still land decent. About 1/2 to 2/3 full when I land. If I where to use a larger tank it would be for CG reasons but my tanks never get low enough (at 16-18oz) to start to make the plane a bit tail heavy.

See, that is also part of the decision behind the larger tanks I have been using. But sadly, I have discovered that with the size of my bigger airframes, the size of the tank relative to its location makes little to no difference whether full at 50 ounces or half full at 20-30 ounces upon landing. I am certain if I had the tanks further forward then yes, I would notice a difference. The 100cc'ers? Yes, I am noticing a bit of an offset from blast off to touch down. I remember one thing about my Purp Pilot 50cc Edge. Full 24 ounces on board at blast off, and she lifted off nice, level and smooth. Landing after 10-12 minutes of hard pushing it to the limits flying...and she would come in dragging her hinnie behind her. So with that in mind, I am thinking I will change the CG on the Red Bull Edge and use a smaller tank to lessen or dampen the effects of the fuel weight up front. Or should I say, the lack thereof.

 

[stangflyer]

Well I decided to try something a bit different when I paint the dash for the cub. The "Cub Kit" included a dash for a
Taylor-craft (Very similar). I used it to make an overlay to spray the silver paint and form dial rings. I am also going to use tiny screws (4 for each gage) instead of spot painting the impressions made when it was vac-formed.

View attachment 102594 View attachment 102595 View attachment 102596

How is the interior on the Cub coming?

 

[49dimes]

So have we reached a plateau? When I built my first model in 1994, which was not really all that long ago...things were...well what they were. Gas engines were bulky, and not very reliable. Airframes were also bulky. Heavy, tanks made of armor embedded ply wood. And though they flew, only a few hands could make them fly light as a feather. Or seemingly so that is. Fast forward to when I came back to the hobby in 2010, things were soooo different. Engines went on crash diets and became power houses. Airframes also went on the Jenny Craig diet plan. But strong and definitely light. Everything seemed to be a whole new world. Now you show us a video of about ten years ago...(2008) and the difference from then to today is not really all that different. That little Extra is one bad ass little 'Lectrified wonder. I wonder now, what will the next ten years hold for change...if any.

Personally......IMHO we have surpassed the "Plateau". "It has to thrill ya or try to kill ya" to keep peoples interest/attention and we have seen everything a GS plane can do and all the cool goodies that make it happen. I Guess there will always be them "Cool Dudes" and "Cute Chicks" though

 

[49dimes]

How is the interior on the Cub coming?

Slooooooooooooooooow. I need to get on it again and get some cans shaking. Got everything I need but motivation.

 

[BalsaDust]

What 49dimes said. I have a 17oz tank in both of my dle55 powered planes. The sukhoi I fly for 8 minutes and when I land I have roughly 1/4 tank left. It sees a lot of wide open throttle though. My edge profile on the other hand weighing right at 14lbs once fuel is on board I fly hard for 10 minutes and still have half a tank left when I land but that if relative to it being so light so I don’t have to use as much throttle to fly it hard.

 

[Bartman]

So have we reached a plateau? When I built my first model in 1994, which was not really all that long ago...things were...well what they were. Gas engines were bulky, and not very reliable. Airframes were also bulky. Heavy, tanks made of armor embedded ply wood. And though they flew, only a few hands could make them fly light as a feather. Or seemingly so that is. Fast forward to when I came back to the hobby in 2010, things were soooo different. Engines went on crash diets and became power houses. Airframes also went on the Jenny Craig diet plan. But strong and definitely light. Everything seemed to be a whole new world. Now you show us a video of about ten years ago...(2008) and the difference from then to today is not really all that different. That little Extra is one bad ass little 'Lectrified wonder. I wonder now, what will the next ten years hold for change...if any.

next step forward might be in batteries making much longer flights possible or even lighter all up weights for a ten minute flight. aerodynamics for a basic four channel plane are beyond mature at this point.

maybe in ten years everyone will be building kits again?

 

[Bartman]

@Bartman If it's 45" span don't think it's a proto but regular production. If it helps ......the year I saw him and the plane at Perry was either 2002 or 2003.

Found this vid from 11 years ago......Seems about right

thanks for finding that video 'dimes! pretty cool little plane but I still think it'll be up for sale soon.

edit: the other plane is a 3D Hobby Shop Aspera and was just looking it over only to find......both friggin' wing panels were chewed up inside by a mouse!
so, to fix or scratch build new wings....that is the question.

 

[Decal Dennis]

Ok fellas...I have a question for "everyone" that has flown 50cc gas powered planes....a lot. First the brief previous logic. I have always "over" sized the tanks in my planes for the simple fact that "if" I needed that extra time to get a bird down safely, I wanted the fuel reserve to do it. And thus far, it has not been an issue. Examples: The 157cs, the 170 and my 212cs usually burn about half the fuel that is in the tank for a normal 10 or so minute flight. i.e, 260, Sukhoi have 50 ounce tanks. The Behemoth Yak also has a 50 ouncer. On my 100cc'ers I run a 32 ounce and again, about half a tank or better when I land. This has been a good rule of thumb for me. However once again having a 50cc plane, I want to do things a bit different. I am not going to run the elaborate onboard systems I have in the past. Meaning, one flight pack instead of two. Or two much smaller packs vs. the size I normally would use. Rx. only and no power expander. Probably Hitec 7954 servos simply because they are an all around good servo for most any application. Singled out or ganged two or three per surface, they do an impeccable job. And they have great centering as well. But as for tank size, I don't want to run the norm of what I have in the past. 24 ounces seems like a lot. But I really don't remember what a 50cc sized engines fuel consumption rate is. I have read some posts saying a DLE 55 will "sip" about an ounce a minute. Others have done elaborate calculations and have come up with 1.69 ounces per minute. I want to keep this 50cc Edge as light and as inexpensive to build as possible. So that being said, what have all of you 50cc flyer guys used for tank size? What is your normal fuel consumption rate? What type of flying? How hard are you on the throttle? Warbird or Aerobatic? Bottom line...is a 17 ounce tank enough for some "beat the snot" outta your plane flying? What do you guys use?

I always ran 16 ounce tanks in the 50cc planes. Hard 10 min flight and landed with 1/4-1/3 of a tank left

 

[Snoopy1]

Ok fellas...I have a question for "everyone" that has flown 50cc gas powered planes....a lot. First the brief previous logic. I have always "over" sized the tanks in my planes for the simple fact that "if" I needed that extra time to get a bird down safely, I wanted the fuel reserve to do it. And thus far, it has not been an issue. Examples: The 157cs, the 170 and my 212cs usually burn about half the fuel that is in the tank for a normal 10 or so minute flight. i.e, 260, Sukhoi have 50 ounce tanks. The Behemoth Yak also has a 50 ouncer. On my 100cc'ers I run a 32 ounce and again, about half a tank or better when I land. This has been a good rule of thumb for me. However once again having a 50cc plane, I want to do things a bit different. I am not going to run the elaborate onboard systems I have in the past. Meaning, one flight pack instead of two. Or two much smaller packs vs. the size I normally would use. Rx. only and no power expander. Probably Hitec 7954 servos simply because they are an all around good servo for most any application. Singled out or ganged two or three per surface, they do an impeccable job. And they have great centering as well. But as for tank size, I don't want to run the norm of what I have in the past. 24 ounces seems like a lot. But I really don't remember what a 50cc sized engines fuel consumption rate is. I have read some posts saying a DLE 55 will "sip" about an ounce a minute. Others have done elaborate calculations and have come up with 1.69 ounces per minute. I want to keep this 50cc Edge as light and as inexpensive to build as possible. So that being said, what have all of you 50cc flyer guys used for tank size? What is your normal fuel consumption rate? What type of flying? How hard are you on the throttle? Warbird or Aerobatic? Bottom line...is a 17 ounce tank enough for some "beat the snot" outta your plane flying? What do you guys use?

Have to agree with you I am notorious for putting in bigger tanks in planes it comes from the days when at the flying field it was packed on some days and you had to weight your turn so when it was your turn you could fly a solid 20 minuets. But in last 2 years have been changing out most of my gas tanks. One thing that I have noticed is that when flying 3D it uses very little gas. On my three 50cc planes I had 20 and 24 oz tanks and after a very full 10 minuets and then getting ready to land I still had around half a tank. Now I must say I do use the full throttle most of the time going vertical normal power the rest of the time, the power is controlled relatively to what I an doing do not fly around full throttle for minutes on end. On two of my 50cc I have gone down to 500ml tanks or 16oz tanks they doing fine land at 10 minuets and have about 15% of the tank left. Will be tying a 12 oz tanks on my new 50cc profile to keep weight down, will see how it works out.
Batteries I have all ways run the minimum size they are heavy. Found that on my 50cc planes 300 mAh is the most I have used in my 50cc planes no matter the seize I use. I fly 2 - 1300 mAH. If I do 5 flights at 350mAh =1750 mAH take 10% of full packs that is 2600mAh down to 2340 mAh minus 1750mAh = 650 mAh left that still leaves me over 20% reserve. That is what I am practicing right now hope this helps.

 

[Bartman]

50 cc for me is 16 ounces for an acro plane and 20 ounces for a Cub or Decathlon style plane.

and I agree with Snoopy, a small 4 cell NiMH is all I use for ignition, just put a 750 mah 4 cell AA pack in my new/used Christen Eagle with DA-50. it's the first time I'm using an AA pack but I usually keep ignition packs small and simple.