Powering A Flite Streak Junior

I am considering building a Flite Streak Junior for my grandson's next plane. The specs. call for a .15 --- .25 engine, but I am wondering if a Norvel .061 might not work fine. Since my 1/2A Pathfinder Flies perfectly with the .061, and is a large airplane, for A 1/2A, with it's 35 inch wingspan, it seems that the 31 inch Flite Streak/Norvel .061 combo would work just as well.

What do ya'll think?

LAST EDITED ON Jun-14-02 AT 02:18 PM (CST)

"Re: Power for a Flite Streak Junior"

I find your reference to "specs" totally amazing. Has to be a typo or transposition, something! The smallest and lightest 25 ever made would've turned a Jr. Streak into a pure lump of lead! That's almost as ridiculous as the idiocy of Estes in renaming the Ringmaster Jr. to "Ringmaster 19"!

I said "of course" a Big Mig will be adequate! I should actually have said, my opinion is it should be sufficiently powerful! See this discussion of engines and the Sig Akromaster:

http://www.flightlines.com/forum/Forum6/HTML/001306.html

K.

^

No criticism of John Brodak intended here, but the Brodak catalogue does say .15--.25 cu in.

The model is listed as 230 sq in.

When I was enquiring about model sizes for modern engines last year, the consus was 230 sq in for .061 cu in and 280 sq in for .10 cu in.

The Norvel should be just fine.

I'm not a fan of 1/2a's, but my Jr. Flt. Streaks had Fox .15 steel fins on them. If you are building a kit, even a Brodak, I think a good .09, .10 or 1.5cc would be best bet...adequate for less than ideal conditions. Slow it down with a 3" or even 2" pitch prop. If you want to scratch-build, then you'll use thinner fuselage, thinner plywood, smaller spars, etc, as you just don't need all that wood for a .061. IMHO. Steve

Geoff,

Probably one of the hardest things for a CL manufacturer to do is guess what engine someone might pull out of his/her attic. Power per cu. in. has increased over the years so much that a modern .061 has more raw HP than some .29 sparkers.

The worst for this, that I know of, was the Berkeley Senor Puddle Jumper. It listed a range of something like .074-.30 cu. in...and that was in about 1950, 1951. I built one back in the 50's with a Max-I .15. It flew nice on 52' lines.

If you have a problem with engine size, just ask here. SOMEONE will have built it.

I think George Aldrich, its designer, mentioned he had powered it with a steel fin Fox .15.

My son Jake and I just finished a F S Jr. and we powered it with an old OS Max III .15. We also put 2 landing gear on it since, at 7 years old he wasn't too confident about the single gear. Even with the gear and motor it only weighs 14 oz., so a Norvel .061 or .074 should be fine. The .074 can't be bought with a venturi, but an .061 venturi should fit.