Bob Reeves · Oct 06, 2003 07:23 AM
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Thought this might be of some interest to the 4 stroke lovers. I recently switched out the Saito 30 on my TwistMaster with one of the new Saito 40a's And I have to tell this engine is awesome. It had no trouble at all flying the TwistMaster with an additional 5.5 ounces of video camera and battery hung all over the poor thing.
As some of you know we have been playing with an airborne video system to record the Stunt Pattern from the airplanes prospective and also record a few items that can't normally be seen from the ground. The second phase was to record the fuel tank and see exactly how the fuel in the tank reacts to the airplanes attitude and centrifugal force during a flight.
Needing a profile for this phase I decided to stick the video system on the TwistMaster and hope for the best. I was afraid the additional weight and drag would result in the same performance issues we encountered with the Dancing Girl bipe. Ended up I didn't have anything to worry about and I think it had allot to do with the awesome power and performance of the Saito 40. The TwistMaster didn't even know the camera was there, it just chugged right along at 5.2 second laps and went where I pointed it.
Before the camera flights I started with a cut down 12-5 Rev-Up and YS 20-20 fuel. The airplane flew great but the lap times were down around 4.5 seconds. The next time out I switched the prop to a Rev-up 11-4 and used 10% nitro 22% oil 50/50 castor. Now we were getting somewhere, the TwistMaster flew better than it ever had at 5+ second laps with tension everywhere. Adding the extra weight and drag of the video system didn't even phase the little 40, all it did was create a little more wobble on hard corners.
The picture shows the Camera, Transmitter and battery taped to the fuselage. We already have some really wild video recordings but need to do the tank video again. Fuel splattered on the lens and the one we did yesterday is pretty blurry 