My first time!

RIGHT!

I have my UKEY 35 about ready to fly.

I have never started a motor before!

I know (roughly) how to start a motor.

What things should I try to learn about the motor once it's going?

What happens if I set it too rich or lean - and how will I know?

The motor is already run in so thats one less thing to worry about!

How should I set the motor for my first flight (it's a Fox 35 - about 30 years old)

>
>What happens if I set it too rich or lean -
>and how will I know?
>
It gets too hot to touch when too lean, quite quickly. Too rich, it just goes slower and slower, with a wet, slurpy choking noise, and dies. Now, do you mean BEFORE it's running? Due to the variations in Fox NVA's, no locked-in number of turns out from fully closed can be named. But assuming an engine that has a fair amount of running on it, a Fox will start up with a rather wide variation of settings from rich to lean.

A beginner needs to be able to identify where the engine starts running in a two-stroke, after starting in a four-stroke, and vice versa. Some experimenting is in order after the engine is running. The difference between a 2 and a 4 stroke setting will become fairly clear the first time you hear a Fox "break" up or down from one to the other.
>
>The motor is already run in so thats one less thing to worry
>about! How should I set the motor for my first flight (it's
>a Fox 35 - about 30 years old)
>
I'd start with a "fairly lean" 4-stroke setting (it might even change to a rich two-stroke after launch, but should be fine that way), and work downward some from there depending on your own level of comfort, gradually richening the setting to slow things down somewhat, unless or until you are either no longer comfortable or line tension feels soft enough you don't have full confidence in the plane.

Kiwi

Find someone in your local area who is experienced in CL flying. Do not do it by yourself if you can find a helper. I did it myself in 1966 at the age of 14 with a Goldberg Shoestring, Jimmy Walker U-Reely, and an Enya 29. My mother and father had bought them at an auction. I started out with the Shoestring only partly deployed with the U-Reely on 30 feet of cable. Man was I spinning around but I remembered what the U-Reely could do and let out the line to over 50 feet. That was a big improvement and I made until the 29 ran out of fuel. My younger brother thought it was funny. He was my pitman for the day. But, get a helper and you will enjoy yourself much more.

God Bless,

Tone --

Practice starting the engine before you go fly. Get a good strong battery, and make sure it matches the plug voltage. Foxes like a small sniff of exhaust prime, but with a muffler you can't do that. Check some of the old threads about "priming to a bump" and then flipping the prop.

The above tips in the previous posts are right good. Follow them all.

Even a gentle, benign 30 year old Fox can whack your fingers. (Trailing edges of props are sharper than they used to be.) I always thought you had had to be a real sissy to wear a glove. Uhh, I got a decorator garden glove now -- and a few scars over the years with the macho approach.

Thanks Kiwi.

I know the difference in sound between lean and rich and two stroke and four - and I've seen many flights which used 'switching' (as the flyers I used to hang around with in the 60's used to call it) - but I've still never actually started the thing. I lie a bit - when launching combat models I've restarted diesels after they'd 'ditched' a few times but all I had to do then was whack the prop.

Tom yes I will be around (many) experienced modellers (John Benzing and Paul Winter belong to the Milton Keynes Modellers the control line only club I hope to join - you'd have met them if you've ever been to Brodaks) - I just wanted to know (appear to know) a bit more about what I was doing and get some of the terminology straight. By the way I love your Atom - what a beautiful design!

Larry - a gardening glove sounds good!

Good luck with your first flight. I hope that is less eventful that my first flights after a long break. The Keil Kraft Phantom that I built hated me and always turned un on me in less than half a lap At least it never gave me the opportunity to get dizzy

I hope to be out flying this weekend and will have a squadron of around eight planes to choose from, half of them belonging to a pal who prefers to watch me trash his planes rather than take responsibility for trashing them himself.

I still get nervous about the maiden flights of any plane but apart from a wildly lurching combat wing built from a Hallam kit most maiden flights hav been uneventful.

Let us all know how you get on with your first flight.

Tony, glad your ready to try out your U-Key 35. Two thoughts, leave the elevator setting as it was from the factory. As you get used to flying at that setting you can easily change the ammount of elevator throw. Secondly, use a small tank or limit the ammount you put in a larger tank until you feel comfortable flying longer periods of time.
Joe

I have retained the 'factory' control settings Joe and although I have the balance point on the spar (as per Nils N's instructions) I will add some weight to the nose to bring the CG about 3/4" forward.

I have an 'A' sized tank on it so I expect a 3-4 minute flight!

Will post some pics soon!

Balance a Ukey 35 on the spar only after you're ready to start learning something beyond basic flight. For learning to fly LEAVE IT NOSE HEAVY! When you're ready to start learning the pattern balance it on the spar.
Nils

Larry

I can stil find the scars on my fingers from 35+ years ago and yes, today's props are sharper on the TE than I remember.

We don't use gloves, rather, we use pieces of clear vinyl tube in a size that is a neat fit on the appropriate finger. I think I've made friends with our OS 10--at least I think I know what to expect it to do now after a couple of litres of fuel through it and the cuts on the vinyl tube are positively scary.

Benefits of vinyl tube are:
* cheap
* compact
* fits in pocket easily
* ready range of different sizes to suit different fingers
* not obvious from a short distance of you want 'the macho look'

Macho is not my thing--as a piano player, I prefer to have all fingers working and club mate, 2000 Aussie F2B champ, Mark Batty is a guitar teacher so he thinks the same--in fact the club thinks that way.

Vinyl tube is the way to go for cheap protection.

Norvel's site has some sound files with 4 cycle and 2 cycle settings. Also going from rich to lean and lean to dying.

http://www.norvel.com/sounds.adp

Steve --

Great site! Not all the 4 cycle sounds are right on, but certainly close enough.

Tony,

There's never anything quite like your "First Time"! The feeling is like nothing you could ever imagine or really prepare for. I do hope your first flight lasts longer than mine did (less than a lap!). Once you experience it, I guarantee you'll never look back! Be sure to post the results here!

Well it's my second ever flight (first was 30 years ago) but the first time I'll have ever started a motor from scratch....

Where do I set the prop for the backflip?

10 past 2?

>Where do I set the prop for the backflip?
>
We set it exactly the same as for flipping normally. Pointed at three and nine when starting compression.

K.