Just Some Pics of New Flite Streak

Making a little progress on the new Flite Streak. Tips are from Combat Streak with adjustable leadouts. Top spar is spruce. Got-a-have that good old McCoy on there. Can't match the ARF weight. Hope to come in under 29 ounces with two wheeled gear.

You might consider moving the rear mounting screws on your aluminum plate in toward the center line a little so they will go into the hardwood bearers. Looks good.

Your building technique looks great to me. Wish I matched your wood joints with those in my last bird. What gives with the weight? Must be your wood choice. The last Brodak Flite Streak I built came in under 16 ounces without engine. That included main spar and trailing edge webbing, covering, dope etc. Seemed to match the ARF streak weight more or less.

The Brodak wood is often real light for kit wood. Too much so in parts. The empanage in each Streak I've built was kinda light duty, too soft. Often when the Streaks flipped on landing, they broke their tail, also hanger rash and back seat car knocks put quite a map of scar patches on the poor sticking up swan tail shape. (Which is a beautiful part of the plane aesthetics, don't you think.)

I love the Streak looks and it flies in balance. Controllable and smooth, if you wish or Quick and Lively and watch that wrist. Depends on engine prop cg etc. The latest Streak I'm building (right now as a matter of fact, but will only show a picture of the covered over version - not gonna see my goofs, gouges, spackle) will have its fues and tail silk spanned. Makes the punk wood of the empanage rigid. Guess there's something about the classic materials of dope and paper. (Why isn't that structural method called a composite? Just because it predates the black charcoal and gooey resin that forms very ugly gunk balls when dripped on my bench or floor.)

D.

The McCoy looks sharp. Is that an original Testor's plug, by the way? It kind of looks gold, anyway. Currell

>The McCoy looks sharp. Is that an original Testor's plug, by
>the way? It kind of looks gold, anyway. Currell

Hi Currell,

The plug is a modern McCoy plug. I forget th number...something 55, maybe.

"The McCoy looks sharp."

BTW, Currell, the McCoy 35 lightning bolt you gave me a few years ago is now roaring around in MY Flite Streak. Flies pretty good, still! Sounds great, too. Doesn't look too sharp, tho...

Dennis,

The last Streak I made weighed 30 ounces with a two wheeled gear. The stripped weight with no engine, tank, gear weighed just 16 ounces. On that one, I just used scrap wood. This one I've been a little more picky with the wood choice. The wing with the tip weight included weighs 5.5 ounces. So we'll see how it comes out.

I have been influenced by Jim Lee's building techniques for the last 8-9 years. He builds such clean and pretty models, besides being able to fly pretty darn good, too.

Jim,

Your right about the mounting plate screws. I did use aircraft ply and it seems to hold the screws okay. I doubt if you remember, but I met you at VSC in 1996.

Looks pretty good to me John. Hope to see you at the field tomorrow.

John,

Looks great, you are a superb builder.. It's a whole lot more satisfying than an arf isn't it? And it is built right too... imagine that!

>John,
>
>Looks great, you are a superb builder.. It's a whole lot
>more satisfying than an arf isn't it? And it is built right
>too... imagine that!

Tom,

Thanks. You sure got that right. It would not interest me much, if I didn't build my own stuff. Back whenever, the building aspect just came along with the territory. If you wanted a model airplane, you bought a kit or a set of plans and you made your best effort. Back then, it did not usually come out looking all that much like the picture on the box....but that didn't really matter. It was the cutting and sanding and seeing the thing take shape...and or course the speculation of how it was going to fly. That's where most of the the fun was and still is.

Hey Hey WR,

See you tomorrow. Supposed to be really nice.....if the wind isn't blowing too much.

Razor sharp work! Really pretty. I also, would screw the mounting plates into the maple motor mounts.

Stunt1
Great workmanship, can't wait to see your first built-up full blown stunter. Keep up the great work and great wood fits.

Mr. 1969 NATS

Bob

>Stunt1
>Great workmanship, can't wait to see your first built-up
>full blown stunter. Keep up the great work and great wood
>fits.
>
>Mr. 1969 NATS
>
>Bob

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the kudos. You must be reading my mind....I have only built one full fuse plane. It is a Barnstormer that I essentially built from scratch because I built most of it twice. Once from one those early Golden State Kits. And, then I built it all over again, using the kit parts as templates and the plans because I just wasn't happy with how it was coming out. There's lot more details to keep track of with the full fuselage. I also want to figure out how to do a neat job of making the tank removable on my next one.

There is another full fuselage plane I want to build that I've been thinking about for a pretty long time. It's the Tucker Special. I really lke the classic Thompson Trophy Cup racer lines, the open cockpit and wing mounted gear. I got a set of Bob Hunt plans a while back and recently got an RSM Tucker Special kit. I ain't quite up to starting it, yet, but sometime down the road a bit....

Thanks for the encouragement.

Beautiful John, I love to see your stuff. Just a comment on the plate screws though, it doesn't matter where they are, they could be gone as long as the engine is bolted on. Actually I would prefer them as you have them rather then add a stress riser behind the engine that the screw holes in the bearers would cause.

>Beautiful John, I love to see your stuff. Just a comment on
>the plate screws though, it doesn't matter where they are,
>they could be gone as long as the engine is bolted on.
>Actually I would prefer them as you have them rather then
>add a stress riser behind the engine that the screw holes in
>the bearers would cause.
>
>Randy Ryan
>AMA 8500
>SAM 36
>I fly 'em all and love it!

Hey Randy,

I am the one in awe of your machine work. I know, too, that you do a pretty darn nice job on your planes from that photo you sent me a while back. As noted above, I want to build a full fuselage job before too long. The Tucker is one of my favorites and as I think I mentioned to you a while back, I really like the Chief, too, like the one in the picture you sent.

By the way, I am finally starting to make a little progress on learning the manuevers. Not a lot, but been turning outside loops and figure eights...doing them by starting with an outside loop instead of an inside. Still having trouble seeing where to make the intersection when I start from an inside loop. Must be a senior thing or something.

John,

Will you let us know how the plane works out? I wanted to install adjustable lead outs in a Flite Streak type of wing tip, but was worried the lead outs might rub against the balsa on the tip of the wing where they exit the wing possibly causing undue wear at the least, or worst case snag and cause a control problem. I was thinking of lining the wing tip outlet with plastic similar to the devices that line the push rod exit holes on a profile wing. Looks like a fine example of modeling skills to me though.

Hi Tom,

You have a valid point with the standard 1/8 inch Flite Steak tip. This one, I am building from scratch and I sandwiched the 1/8th inch tip in between two picies of 1/16 very hard Sig balsa. That leaves an 1/8th inch slot for the leadouts and enough room to get a allen wrench in there to set the adjustment. I suppose if you are really skeptical, I would line the inside of the 1/16th picies with 1/32 inch ply. That's the way I saw Windy do it on the Brodak Nobler tapes. I haven't had any problems with the hard 1/16 balsa, so far, though but would surely add the plywood, if it presents a problem.

>Got-a-have that good old McCoy on there.

Amen! Really sweet looking job, with terrific craftsmanship. The McCoy looks great too. Tell me about the mods to your NVA. Get tired of straightening out the bent spring extension? It looks like a McCoy stock NVA which has had the spring type extension replace with a solid wire. I'd like to know the details, since I use these engines a lot and will no doubt break off one of the spring type extensions at some point (like the *point* of impact! )

Thanks,

Hi Andy,

Yuppp...Like them McCoys, too. I wish I could tell you that I made that needle valve, using a super secret metal found only in a special ore mined in the depths of Never-never land, but it is an off the shelf small Super Tigre NVA, like the ones Leonard sells.

Back when I first got back into this hobby about 8 or 9 years ago, it seemed like everything I read professed the virtues of these ST NVAs and all other should be replaced. I have to agree that they work well and provide a very fine adjustment. However, I am not so sure they work any better than any good stock counter part. And, you have to be careful to get the lock nut tight enough, but not too tight and you will almost always need to have a set of small open ended wrenches handy if you need to tighten the nut because the spray bar nut will tend to come loose first and you need the wrenches to hold it in place while you tighten things up.

I've got a number of them and use them and they work fine, but don't know if I would go much beyond that for recommending them over anything else. Just my humble opinion.

On one McCoy, I used the stock needle that had the spring broken off and simply soidered a short piece of brass tubbing that I slipped over the end where it was broken off, Works fine.

"Top spar is spruce"

This caught my attention. No one else has asked about it so I will. Why a spruce spar and why only on the top?
DennisV

Hi Dennis,

There are a couple of two reasons I used a spruce spar on the top and not on the bottom. The first reason is that spruce is quite a bit stronger than balsa. And, although spruce is something like ten times heavier than balsa, for this application, it does not add that much additional weight. If you recall, for example, the Sig Sky Ray uses spruce sparts top and bottom along with lite ply ribs for a pretty sturdy and reasonably light wing. In this case, the finished uncovered wing with the spruce spar and adjustable leadouts weighs just 5.5 ounces.

I also decided to copy the construction technique typical of the Magician and others that place a more rigid spar member on top. I can claim the title of "Engineer" but Chemical engineers really don't know a whole lot about structural desgin, especially on aircraft. Others more knowledgable may want to chime here as to the ins and out and whyfors of these other designs.

The second reason is that I used a 3/8th stick for the leading edge, instead of the usual 1/2 inch stock. I wanted to make sure the wing was good and rigid since I wasnt't sheeting the leading edge. That's about the size of it.

A couple of comments. I don't think spruce is 10 times a dense as the balsa I would use for a spar. This discussion has come up several times on various forums. Secondly, I vaguely remember an article about structure in Model Aviation, I think, which said that assymetrical strength is not good. (Don't trust my memory too much these days, however.) The original Flite Streak had basically an I-beam wing, so you might want to consider putting in some between-spar webbing at least between the first few ribs. The original Flite Streak had a two-piece V-shaped leading edge, much stronger and better airfoil than a 45 degree piece of 3/8, but much harder to put together and make everything fit and get it shaped right. If I ever scratch build one, I'll probably do the leading edge like you did.

Good looking job!

Hi Jim,

I stand corrected. Actually, as most of us modelers know, wood density is a pretty variable thing, depending on moisture content and the age of the wood, etc. That's why there is contest balsa at say 4-6 lbs/cubic foot and then there is very hard balsa that is many times heavier than that.

The numbers stuck in my mind were two and ten that I remembered these numbers from Dick Sarpolus' book "Building and Flying Control Line Model Aircraft. I got the numbers backwards. On page 30 Dick notes that spruce is twice as heavy as balsa, but ten times as strong.

I have the original GMA plans for the Flite Streak and I know exactly what you are talking about with the I-beam spar and the two piece leading edge. I agree with you completely and that's why I built it the way I did. Would be a lot more work to cut those ribs and to make the spar and leading edge by the plans.

The Top Flite kit Flite Streaks I can remember building had the same kind of double spar as I used on this one and a one piece leading edge that was slotted for the ribs and hollowed out at the factory. As I recall (don't trust 40 year old memories too much) the kit trailing edge was slotted and also hollowed out.