Pacifiers

I've finally come across some pacifiers that are widely available and work very well. Tried them out over the weekend on my honkin' ST-powered Winder. Was easily able to put three ounces of fuel in for each flight, and I'm sure they'd take at least four. Runs were very strong throughout yankin' max g's, until the final few laps when richness set in, of course.

They're Gerber "Soft Center" pacifiers, # 76099. Cost $2.27 for a pair at Walmart. They be brownish in color and look like the old Binkys.

Take a little care when disassembling 'em. When cutting thru the lip shield, if you slice too deeply you'll ruin the precious nipple inside. Actually, I only had to remove about a third of the shield before I was able to pop the finger ring out of the nipple socket. Then the nipple slides easily out of the remainder of the shield.

May I suggest getting some tubing from someone like George Cleveland. Unless you have a round compartment you will find that the tubing is tougher and better. Probably cost less too.

No doubt Jet Jock's Winder was built with a round, pacifier type compartment. In fact, either the original Winder or another triple boom high aspect 1970's combat design kit, the Spectrum, was furnished with two baseball sized plastic halves to form the pacifier compartment. I build one,forget which, threw away the plastic opting for a conventional compartment, and it was a decent airplane but nothing to write home about. Perhaps equal to a really good Sneeker, substandard to a good Nemesis in overall performance. Might have been better scratch built.
Pacifiers a good, neat way to go as the pacifier compartment typically fit between normal rib spacing. Small aluminum vienna sausage type cans were used or simply build in a balsa compartment and maybe airfoil it a little and fuel proof and leak proof the inside. Runs generally seemed pretty good once you got the hang of it with few pressure changes.Capacity was about 3 to 3.5 oz which would run maybe 3 minutes on a ST 35 with high nitro.
Apparently the demise and/or price skyrocketing of Binky's pretty much coincided with the move to foamies in modern combat where rib spacing is not an issue and surgical tubing bladders became more popular. Current foamies and dedicated large bladder compartments can hold more fuel than the older pacifier compartments-maybe 4 to 5 oz. Golf tube bladder compartments of reasonable length in balsa 75 mph combat models seem to do best with 2 to 2.5 oz of fuel which will get around 4 minutes with a .25 with low nitro.
If you are stuck with an airplane with a pacifier compartment and no pacifiers, pipette caps,etc. a short bladder tube, maybe 2 inches, works pretty well filled to 2 oz or so.
Just some rambling observations on bladders, pacifiers, compartments, and old airplanes as the board seems pretty slow.

Here is some more rambling cause I'm bored.
I'm trying to design a new SL foamie based on the Yankee Nipper.
It has a 40" span powered by LA 25 and will have a bladder fuel system. YUCK! I feel I can't continue to ridicule SL pilots that use bladders until I've actually tried to use them myself

Here is my bladder compartment.
Created from two different size tubes found at the local feed store.
I cut off one end and siliconed the next smaller size cap onto the end then drilled a hole for the yellow jacket bladder from corehouse.

Now I have to figure out the best way to cut out the wing for the tube. Can't decide whether to place in front or behind the main spar.

Any suggestions on placement?

Bob Reeves has already suggested using a soldering iron and 16ga copper wire to melt a cavity in the wing.

I think it will work-maybe 2.5 to 3 oz capacity. With the LA 25 you will only need about 3 oz I would guess. Don't have a clue how to cut the foam though not being a foamie fan.

I'll bring you a golf tube to try. Slightly smaller inside diameter but you can make it as long as you want. Taylor Made golf balls come in a perfect sized, shaped and thickness/rigidity container for use in a foamie. I have only come up with two empties so far and gave them to Tom Siegler to try. I'll save any more I come across.

The bladders will take some fooling with to get them right but they are worth it in the long run. Try ST needle valves through the venturi(drill out to 5/32) as the large clicks, general inconsistency, and propensity for leaks makes the OS needle valves more difficult to use and they are more fragile in crashes. Use as large a venturi to no venturi as you wish. Many, including myself at times, use a remote needle using a metal bracket available from Tower cheap and various needle assemblys from OS RC carbs. The 10/15 size carbs work the best but are not as available as the 25/40 size. The remote needles are somewhat more crash resistant but adjustments are easier with the ST needles and there are less places for lines to come off or leak.

Myself and others have reported an inability to get consistent runs in tight turning models on hard tanks, chicken hoppers, etc. and a bladder solves these problems though you appear to be doing OK with the chicken hoppers on your present Yankee Nippers. Another advantage is a shorter nose moment becomes a possibility and lighter weight to boot.

To imbed a tube, any of several possible diameters, match the golf tube, or fluorescent shield tube, rocket tube, whatever, to a piece at Home Depot in the plumbing area. There are several sizes of chromed- looking drain fittings made from thin-wall metal that you can get inexpensively & put an edge on to dig into the foam.

Just "shave" the inside edge on one end with a sharp knife to make a bevel. The other end has a "rolled lip" you can hold onto as you twist and press into the foam. When you get it 6" deep, stick a large screwdriver in the middle and twist the handle along with the drain pipe so the foam plug will separate from the rest of the wing.

"Voila"!

.
Kiwi

hey catdaddy i have read alot about the yanke nipper where can i get the plans for it thanks brad smith.

>hey catdaddy i have read alot about the yanke nipper where
>can i get the plans for it thanks brad smith.

Contact JHC (Jim Carpenter) he is a registered user on this forum.
Send me an email.
Jim just had the plans done full size just a few weeks ago.

The pacifier pod on the Winder is based on the mod suggested by Terry Prather himself, in the January '70 issue of MAN. The pod is constructed of balsa ribs spaced 2 3/8" apart and airfoiled to blend in with the engine nacelle. The pod is 2 1/2" deep, 3" long, and fuelproofed with either epoxy or polyurethane. For grins I covered the top of the pod with .030 clear canopy material, ruffing the edges with sandpaper before epoxying it on.

The plastic ball cup pods were indeed used on the Spectrum, although I also preferred the built up type on mine (it met a glorious end in a Detroit midair with one of the Rudners during the mid 70s). Those vienna sausage cans worked fine, too, and sped up the building time although they weren't as aerodynamically clean. I built a "Fox Feathers" during that era which used the can, and I think Bare has the plans for it.

Anyways, the Gerbers showed very steady runs every flight and I had no trouble with them at all. They are an alternative to bladders and metal tanks, especially on birds with thinner wings.

>The pacifier pod on the Winder is based on the mod suggested
>by Terry Prather himself, in the January '70 issue of MAN.
>The pod is constructed of balsa ribs spaced 2 3/8" apart and
>airfoiled to blend in with the engine nacelle. The pod is 2
>1/2" deep, 3" long, and fuelproofed with either epoxy or
>polyurethane. For grins I covered the top of the pod with
>.030 clear canopy material, ruffing the edges with sandpaper
>before epoxying it on.
>
>The plastic ball cup pods were indeed used on the Spectrum,
>although I also preferred the built up type on mine (it met
>a glorious end in a Detroit midair with one of the Rudners
>during the mid 70s). Those vienna sausage cans worked fine,
>too, and sped up the building time although they weren't as
>aerodynamically clean. I built a "Fox Feathers" during that
>era which used the can, and I think Bare has the plans for
>it.
>
>Anyways, the Gerbers showed very steady runs every flight
>and I had no trouble with them at all. They are an
>alternative to bladders and metal tanks, especially on birds
>with thinner wings.

Jon Jo's "Super VooDoo" shows the sausage can on the plan. I think Scarinzi's "Blitz" was the first published Combat design to show the pacifier pod. The plans also show the metal hard tank (Veco T-21C). I'm getting ready to build a Blitz to put one of my Fox .35Xs on. I'll probably use the hard tank, as the motor already is set up with the crankcase pressure tap.

>Jon Jo's "Super VooDoo" shows the sausage can on the plan. I
>think Scarinzi's "Blitz" was the first published Combat
>design to show the pacifier pod. The plans also show the
>metal hard tank (Veco T-21C). I'm getting ready to build a
>Blitz to put one of my Fox .35Xs on. I'll probably use the
>hard tank, as the motor already is set up with the crankcase
>pressure tap.
>
>J

I always wanted to build a Blitz and a Super Satan. Scarinzi's pacifier pods were partially carved and pretty involved construction-wise, but as I recall the chamber inside was roundish, so as to help support a full pacifier while cornering. There were rumors that the SS was going to be kitted by Goldberg, but for some reason it never happened. I would have built one if it had been, but it was a complicated design and I wasn't up to dealing with scratch-building one. Wasn't Larry Scarinzi known also for his extensive engine reworking?

Good luck with that Blitz. Let's keep the old birds a-flying!

Here's my Spectrum circa 1972.

Here's the new Winder with pod.

(P.S.- How do you guys keep the image from blurring when compressing it, so as to be within the 50K limit? The original picture is crystal clear.)

I used to use those plastic lemons filled with lemon juice for pacifier pods. Got them at the grocery store. They were more streamlined than a round ball. The big ones hold almost 4 oz., the small ones are even more streamlined but only hold 2.5 oz. Terry Prather built balsa pods that were streamlined but had to use a vacuum cleaner to clean out the inside of the pod before the epoxy coating, otherwise you get little pin points inside the pod from the balsa dust.

>Terry Prather built balsa pods that were
>streamlined but had to use a vacuum cleaner to clean out the
>inside of the pod before the epoxy coating, otherwise you
>get little pin points inside the pod from the balsa dust.

Good point. Phil Granderson advocated using acetate covering on top of the pacifier pod for his Tyrantula 2. This lets you smoothly seal the other (balsa) sides of the pod with epoxy coating before closing the final acetate hatch down, which of course requires no fuel proofing. None of those prickly pin-points should be in there. Besides that, you can gleefully watch the pacifier during fueling. I copied the idea for the Winder.

If you want to order the above mentioned Gerber pacifiers through the mail at very reasonable prices, check out the following site..........

http://store.yahoo.com/netkidswear/ordevsofcenp.html

I loved the Winder as a kid..the first "hot Ship" i recognized otyher than a VooDoo. First impression was" Viscious!"

>Here is my bladder compartment.
>Created from two different size tubes found at the local
>feed store.
>I cut off one end and siliconed the next smaller size cap
>onto the end then drilled a hole for the yellow jacket
>bladder from corehouse.

Interesting. I've never seen anyone use the syringe cases as bladder tubes before (I mount them in my pit box to hold syringes), but I imagine they'd work pretty well. The last bladder compartments I made used polycarbonate fluorescent lightbulb protector tubes. Cut them to length (wrap paper around the tube as a guide, score with a knife, then bend the plastic repeatedly and it'll break off at the scored lines), and then glue in plugs made from styrofoam food trays, using Gorilla Glue. Slight sanding on the inside at the ends makes the plugs stay in tight. Cut the plugs using a sharpened piece of 1 1/4" drainpipe. Cut the round hole for the bladder using a conical stone on a Dremel tool.

>I loved the Winder as a kid..the first "hot Ship" i
>recognized otyher than a VooDoo. First impression was"
>Viscious!"

I built several Winders way back then. The first one (metal tank on crankcase pressure) had its wing fold after a few turns; I put a plywood LE doubler in the center section on subsequent birds to fix that, and used pacifiers. The doubler added much strength with little weight cost- had one go nearly straight in, only busting the booms. G21 seemed too heavy up front and it turned much better with the C35, though it was a bit slower. Been flying a new bladder modified Tyrantula 2 (July 1971 MAN plans, which Bare has) along with the Winder for kicks these days, showing the kids what Dad used to do, I guess. The T2 turns noticably better, though it is probably not as crash resistant. I built some T2's back then and thought it was a fabulous bird, in the Nemesis class.

Here's the fast combat workbench, circa 1972:

What exactly is in the soft center?

I suspect one can use very thin wall, large diameter surgical tubing to make "pacifiers". I once saw some planes with a "pacifier compartment", that had an extra hole at the bottom of the compartment. The "tail" of a large-diameter bladder stuck out the bottom.

One buck a pacifier is still way too expensive unless you just sport fly occasionally. I quit using them mainly because they had this distressing habit of popping, especially if you tried to run a .36 on them, and used 4+ oz. of fuel.

>What exactly is in the soft center?

Nothing, only air.

>I suspect one can use very thin wall, large diameter
>surgical tubing to make "pacifiers". I once saw some planes
>with a "pacifier compartment", that had an extra hole at the
>bottom of the compartment. The "tail" of a large-diameter
>bladder stuck out the bottom.

Poor dude must have run out of pacifiers and stole some surgical tubing from somebody. Imagine the profile his bird displayed with that bladder hangin' out the bottom.

>One buck a pacifier is still way too expensive unless you
>just sport fly occasionally. I quit using them mainly
>because they had this distressing habit of popping,
>especially if you tried to run a .36 on them, and used 4+
>oz. of fuel.

I never had any more trouble with them than I did with surgical tubing or the old pen bladders. There's only one end to plug (and leak from). The see-thru pod offers practical advantages. As far as $1 being excessive, I'll bet if bought in quantities they'd be much cheaper. And they are easily available, at Walmart for Pete's sake! Finally, you don't have to have a wing thick enuff for golf tubes if you don't wanna. Hey, it's just another alternative...

>>What exactly is in the soft center?
>
>Nothing, only air.

Ah OK. Some pacifiers have these gel insides, I think.

>>I suspect one can use very thin wall, large diameter
>>surgical tubing to make "pacifiers". I once saw some planes
>>with a "pacifier compartment", that had an extra hole at the
>>bottom of the compartment. The "tail" of a large-diameter
>>bladder stuck out the bottom.
>
>Poor dude must have run out of pacifiers and stole some
>surgical tubing from somebody. Imagine the profile his bird
>displayed with that bladder hangin' out the bottom.

Perhaps. They seemed to work OK. There was only the knot protruding out the bottom. One of the Cincinnati fliers, if I recall correctly.

>>One buck a pacifier is still way too expensive unless you
>>just sport fly occasionally. I quit using them mainly
>>because they had this distressing habit of popping,
>>especially if you tried to run a .36 on them, and used 4+
>>oz. of fuel.
>
>I never had any more trouble with them than I did with
>surgical tubing or the old pen bladders. There's only one
>end to plug (and leak from). The see-thru pod offers
>practical advantages. As far as $1 being excessive, I'll bet
>if bought in quantities they'd be much cheaper. And they are
>easily available, at Walmart for Pete's sake! Finally, you
>don't have to have a wing thick enuff for golf tubes if you
>don't wanna. Hey, it's just another alternative...

The "pacifiers" we were using back in the early 80s were actually amber rubber pipette bulbs, bikies being almost unobtainable unless you wanted to buy the ones at K-mart, and those were $2-3 apiece. I actually tried harvesting binkies from baby pacifiers once, but it was a lot of trouble. They make these things hard to dissassemble for a good reason, after all.. ^_^;; disassembling one or two is OK, doing a dozen would be a lot of work. These days a lot of people use transparent rocket tubes or bladder compartments. You can typically get 3 or 4 bladders for 60 cents worth of tubing, and these will easily hold 4-5 oz. of fuel. They almost never pop in the thick walled (1/4" x 1/16") sort. The thin walled stuff you have to keep an eye on.

Thanks for the interesting comments. I was out of combat during the pipette bulb pacifier days, only remember the Binkies. These Gerber ones are thick-walled like them. You're right, pacifiers are more expensive than surgical tubing. I recently bought 5 feet off the roll at the local hospital pharmacy for $1.40/ft.

Back in the early 80's I got some from England. They had not gone to the shaped ones yet. I still have a few left and 50% are still good. I only use them for 1/2A as the lower pressure makes the motors needle better. I wonder if any of our english readers may still have a source. They had two buldges one on the end like a binke and a smaller bulge near the base. I got some of the Gerbers from Wal-mart and the opening is bigger. No just pushing them on a piece of tubing and putting a small rubber band around the opening to hold them shut. Thanks for the tip about the Gerbers!

The main problem with all latex goods is that they deteriorate with time. I still have a few of the pipette bulbs left, but they're not usable. Some years ago I found out that Campbell's Custom Kits (free flight people) or it might have been FAI Model Supply sold binky pacifier bulbs, and bought a pack of 3. Don't know if they have them any more.

When I first started flying Combat, I built a British design (Richard Wilkens' Superstar II) which used pacifiers. At the time, people used pacifiers for FAI Combat and 1/2-A, but no one used them in Fast, mainly because they didn't reliably hold 4 - 5 oz. of fuel. I tried them briefly in a few Fox Mark IV powered models, but had a few pop on me, so I quit using them. I kept using them for some .28 powered models, but then switched over to bladders after a while.

I never did use fountain pen bladders. I've got one in my collection, and I remember some people sitting by the circles stuffing one bladder inside another (you had to use them doubled up, apparently).

Something I've never tried but should have - how about cutting the fingers off surgical gloves and using those? I think they'd work great in 1/2-A, or for 1/2-A sport flying. You might have to double them up. You can get those blue nitrile gloves, too - they're a little tougher and might even be more fuel proof.

>I never did use fountain pen bladders. I've got one in my
>collection, and I remember some people sitting by the
>circles stuffing one bladder inside another (you had to use
>them doubled up, apparently).

We slipped the pen bladders inside balloons, which protected them as they expanded during fueling, and as they got slammed around during g reversals. This could be a cure for pacifier popping probs, too.

Some of us use balloons to prevent fuel from a burst bladder from escaping into the rest of the plane. This is more important if your bladder container isn't leak-proof (as is the case with a lot of the Russian ARFs. A burst bladder still means a stopped engine, of course.

>>I never did use fountain pen bladders. I've got one in my
>>collection, and I remember some people sitting by the
>>circles stuffing one bladder inside another (you had to use
>>them doubled up, apparently).
>
>We slipped the pen bladders inside balloons, which protected
>them as they expanded during fueling, and as they got
>slammed around during g reversals. This could be a cure for
>pacifier popping probs, too.

Is that Super Twister from a Chipaway kit or plans??

>Is that Super Twister from a Chipaway kit or plans??

Chip-A-Way. The kit had a smaller wing than the original MAN plans (8 1/8" vs. 9 3/8" center chord). Mine arrived in the mail completely busted up, except for the rib sheets, motor mounts and booms. The kit got stuffed somewhere for a while, then, about twenty-plus-odd years ago I finally built it. My then future wife holds it in the picture. Minutes after these pictures were taken, she accidentally stepped on the right wing, crushing much of it back into its originally shipped condition (oh, I can still hear the crunching and feel the pain). I rebuilt it but couldn't get a bad warp out, so it never flew. Now it hangs from a rack in the shop.

Total weight with the ST C35 was 15 ounces. The high-compression head came from Bernie Vernau, who took 2nd in senior combat at the '72 Nats with his mono-boomed Motivator.

> quote: Originally posted by jet jock: ... Yep, them's the ones. And a buck ninety-eight (2-pack) is hard to beat.

I was looking for a thread here or at Flight Lines in which several of us were discussing usable "pacifier pods" like the one that came in a Spectrum kit, and I'm not really sure if this is the one I recalled or not. Meanwhile, I was in Home Depot looking for some long- life bug- light (yellow) bulbs for my breezeway and carport. Many of the Phillips brand of bulbs are packaged in "bubble packs" of various sizes that can be mated up into a single container.

The longer-lived types are made of a thicker plastic (clear) than most, with reinforcing ribs to stiffen it some. That size is overlarge for most uses, but I want to try a low pressure setup on a 40 size engine, so I'm thinking I should plan on more than the "usual" 4 Ounces (two syringes full at two Ounces each). The big Phillips bubble packs should hold a six-seven ounce balloon-full easily.

.
Kiwi