Too short a nose, too small a tank? Streak compromises . .

A comment of Tim McTigue's started this mental journey off. I'm wondering what other folks used to do about short-nosed Mongooses, Shoestrings, and Streaks when it was time to consider fuel tanks.

If a Flite Streak is the sport design that makes the adrenaline surge in so many older C/L modellers, and it does seem to be one remembered with great favor, what did most builders do about fitting a fuel tank to that too-short nose? My worst soldering job ever was an attempt to create my own short tank for a Streak that would hold enough fuel for more than a few laps without excessive conflict between fuel lines, vents, etc.

Perfect tanks were responsible for frying far more than their own share of RH Testors McCoys, and the little 2 1/3 ounce one that fit the Streak would hardly give a three minute flight with a "performance engine." The strange-shaped T28 tanks from Veco worked well with hotter engines, not so well with 4-2-4 types of engines. I just measured a Streak's nose I have here that I ought to get rid of (warped/twisted beyond salvage). Only 2 7/8" clear space for a tank.

In another room here, a CG Shoestring is slightly less cramped at 3 inches.

Depending on what I was using them for, I modified a lot of those T28's. Before Veco stopped putting the fuel outlet on the end cap, I'd been removing them from there so they wouldn't get smashed flat in the first minor prang. I either cut off the overflow flush with the bottom, or moved the overflow to the top of the tank with the filler.

Kenn Smith made a series of "stub-nose" metal tanks with the fuel pickup out the bottom of the wedge like the late model Veco T-28's, including a Smith tank I have here that is only 2 1/4" long. Since it's 1 3/8" tall, I suspect it holds close to three ounces of fuel. These tanks (no longer available since Kenn's disease fight took too much out of him to keep up his business) were 2 inches wide, so didn't seem to have as much of an "end run lean-out" with normal venting as a wider tank sometimes does with that type of vents.

(The GRW tank is 2 1/4" wide, and I believe that the Taffinder profile tanks are also about that wide. The extra width means the last few laps of even the richest of 4-2-4 runs can easily become "Perfect Wedgetank Leaned-Out" to more of an extreme when the vents are not set up for uniflow.)

What was anyone else's work-around for the Streak? Just accept short flights and then gripe a lot? What?

The K.

Kiwi --

Odd that you would post that as I was struggling with calcing tank sizes for future projects.

I bought a Brodak 3.5 oz uniflow for my Streak. It is BH-591 and is advertised at 2 5/8" but is fuzz longer. Near as I can tell, that is about the best we can do unless we go full custom.

Isn't "Mongeese" the plural of "Mongoose"? I only had a Jr. Flt. Streak, but I would probably put some kind of doubler behind the LE and notch the LE for the tank. Or if I wanted a go-fast, I would put a pacifier pod on it and use that. Steve

I just use the #10 Perfect with a mild engine. Yes, I wish the runs were longer.

I refuse to notch the LE to squeeze some other type of bigger tank.

Steve

Go forth--there has been enough sniping about political correctness, spelling and grammar over at Isky's this month to last most of us a lifetime. Maybe you and the K are mates just extracting the p*** but others might not see it.

Cheers

I don't go to ISKY's...it's broken most the time. RCO is in about the same bucket. I make a spelling mistake once in awhile, like anybody, but I am inclined not to bother reading a post that is full of misspelled words, no capitals and no punctuation. It's just too difficult to decipher the intended meaning...if any. What I wrote and what I meant was based on what I read here, and was for humor. I just looked up "Mongoose" in my handy dictionary and plural is indeed "Mongooses", so my apologies to Kiwi, in case HE was offended. Steve

Steve

Kiwi wasn't--he took a piece of me privately for my attempt at humour as well--but that's OK 'cause we are in contact from opposite sides of the Pacific from time to time. Just so long as we all understand it's a bit of humour. It got a bit nasty at Isky's.

I always wondered how the baffle in a Froom/Veco square wedge made so comparatively much difference in how much leaning out an engine might do. Then, when later tank makers copied the same square wedge shape (GRW, Smith, Taffinder), but without baffles, it's seemed to me that the Perfect tank's shape was partly at fault for engines going lean faster and staying that way longer.
>
>Kiwi wasn't (angry) --he took a piece of me privately for my
>attempt at humour as well--but that's OK

The English are supposed to be good at understatement, so I suppose that Ozzies have to exaggerate just to be different! (Steve, if he calls what I wrote to him a complaint, I wonder what he describes compliments as?)

>It got a bit nasty at Isky's.
>
As most everyone knows, I never read that obvious trash anyway, so I'm never tempted to answer.

K.

I've tried lengething the nose on a jr Flite Streak and had to add tail weight. If I ever build another, I'll either notch the wing or make a chickenhoppper with the stock tank on the inboard side of the nose and the feed tank on the outboard side.

The legnth of the nose isn't going to significantly change the flying characteristics at the numbers being discussed. I would legnthen the tail an inch or so and it should balance once again.

The longer tail moment will make this great plane an evenbetter flying one.