Mono Line Controls

I have a speed model airplane that I have not worked on in 3 years. I could never figure out how to build the mono control unit. I am cleaning out my work shop and need to finish this airplane. Does anyone have a drawing or good picture of a mono control unit? How does this thing work?

Gary, trying to build one of these control units would drive you up a wall. They are available on ebay and I believe there is one advertised in Stunt News, but not sure just now. They use the principle of line twist and a screw like the old "Yankee Screw driver" where the shaft is a long twisted shaft. A small handle moves up or down the twisted shaft and imparts a twisting action on the monoline which is connected to a worm gear and bellcrank assembly in the wing of the plane. The twisting action is converted via the crank and worm gear to linear action, for up or down at the elevator. The sole purpose of the monoline was to eliminate excess drag caused by two lines. Very few folks have flown stunt with monoline, Dale Kirn and his son are the only two that come to mind, and that was in the 50's.

I flew CL Speed many years ago. Over time, we gradually moved away from the Stanzel onboard units (like Ty desribed) and went to a simpler and lighter torsion unit. The primary reason for some of us was the incredible pull test requirement we had to pass. We had to beef up the Stanzel anchors so much it became easier to just build the whole unit.

It's very simple. The monoline connects to a torsion tube, wich has a control horn soldered to it. The push rod to the elevator is attached here. As you twist the monoline, the torsion tube will also twist, imparting up or down control. You have to work a little with these things to dial in the sensitivity, because the airstream is working against you and trying to flatten out the control surface.

I used brass tubing and .025 music wire for my A and B units. Dirt simple and easy to build.

Good luck and enjoy,

Ron King

They are hawked on ebay (under Stanzel) from time to time. There are at least 4 varieties, one of which actually was marketed as "Stunt", or something like that (not Speed, as the other 3 or so were).

At the 2000 VSC, Joe Kirn flew a very respectable OTS pattern with a monoline Jamison Special. Dale told me Joe had only been flying for two weeks and had not prviously flown controline. The Stanzel Museum is in Schulenberg, TX, and well worth a visit.

Joe Kirn won in CL Junior Scale at the Nationals about 20 years ago, and has been flying monoline for at least a decade that I personally know of. He may have only started flying or practicing for 2 weeks on that particular plane, but he is probably the best Monoline stunt flyer in the country (world, universe, what the heck, he's better than the other two guys).

BTW, I flew a PAW 06 diesel powered, monoline Lil Raider at VSC about 4 years ago. (I'm that third best guy).

Seriously, is there anyone else but Joe, Dale and me flying Monoline stunters?

>Seriously, is there anyone else but Joe, Dale and me flying
>Monoline stunters?

Not at the moment (though I want to), but at the risk of even more people questioning my sanity, here is a photo of my late lamented monoline stunter. It had a dual purpose control system that could be flown on 1 or 2 wires (I started with 2). It bit the dust when the old Stanzel handle that I was using failed (the bobbin broke). One of the local guys here after seeing it for the first time said ` I used to think that you were just eccentric. Now I know your bloody mad!' Maybe he was right.

Charlie,
Well, I always knew that you west coast guys were a little, well, ah - eccentric - but that takes the cake! did you get it to work? That falls into the category of " why? - because I can" - outstanding.

& to add to a couple of other posts ( Steve,Kim) the torque units are the way to go - but it aint easy to learn!

>did you get it to work? That falls into the category of " why? - >because I can" - outstanding.
>
Yes. It did work, but due to using OS .15s to power the thing, it went like a combat ship. I chose the engines for lightness (one of my failings) not for their tractability. As soon as it was in the air, the engines unloaded and away she went.

That is a very pretty model! What a challenging project. OK, maybe I am 4th best Monoline stunt flyer!

Did the plane crash on the first flight, or did you have a chance to wring it out?

>That is a very pretty model! What a challenging project.
>OK, maybe I am 4th best Monoline stunt flyer!

I would say that you are still third.

It didn't crash on the first flight, it was the third

I did a few loops, eights inverted etc despite the fact that it insisted on flying at blinding speed. That was on 2 lines. All I succeeded in doing on monoline was a couple of loops before the handle broke leaving me a spectator while it did the worlds most final wingover. I have now made my own monoline handle and trust me, whatever breaks next time, it wont be the handle.

It was noticed by someone though, as when one of the other guys here made a monoline trainer to teach himself how to fly for speed I heard one of the bystanders say " Real men have 2 engines on their monoline trainers". I got a laugh out of that.
>
>Did the plane crash on the first flight, or did you have a
>chance to wring it out?

The way to handle engines like that would be to use really low pitch. Something like 8x2s or something of the sort..

Ron, do you have drawings and or dimensions of the units you used in speed?

Ty,

Not any more, but Steve's posting shows the units we used. The number of inner wires we used were determined by the speed class. For the faster ships, you used a thicker control wire, so the torque unit would work better and faster. So we would add more inner wires, say six or seven, to balance the control response. Thay way all of my planes flew the same. For a Half-A ship, you just used a couple of inner wires, because the control wire would wind up like a wet noodle.

I remember there was an awful lot of trial and error until we got the dimensions down, but these were the best units for the pull test. I agree, there was not much precision control at all.

My airplanes had hardwood spars with aluminum wings. The pan hold downs went through the spar and I could bury the anchor in the outboard spar. It made a very solid unit.

I'm glad there are other people out there to help me with my memory

Ron King

LAST EDITED ON Dec-01-03 AT 05:52 PM (CST)
 
>Does anyone have a drawing or good
>picture of a mono control unit?

Sure do,

Eggy

LAST EDITED ON Dec-01-03 AT 08:23 PM (CST)
 
The kind of control unit you want is NOT any of the Stanzel units, but what was originally, and came to be generically called the "H&R Torque Unit". They work very well, but you cannot use a real large elevator surface on them. The response is quite a lot quicker than a Stanzel, which makes flying less a matter of anticipation. I have an old one that I'll mail you for a sample, but under no circumstances would I authorize you to use it in an airplane. I would think it would be possible to get these from somebody at the NASS website. See Phil Brown's Masterlist of CL Links! What is the engine size & class?
Steve

http://home.att.net/~philbrown36641s5/clhomepage3.html
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~fly/
http://www.clspeed.com/parts.htm

Edit: I shot three pics, of my last "B" and an early H&R Torque Unit. H&R was Bill Husted and Luke Roy. Husted lives in So. Oregon now, Roy still live in the SF Bay area. The cross bar is steel, and it's the anchor point for the unit in a solid basswood wing. In a balsa wing, you would want to put in some spruce anchors on both front and back. The rest of the unit is pretty simple. It mounts with the lever pointing downward, and then the elevator horn has to be on top of the elevator. Get it backwards, and you have to wind a reverse rotation monoline handle. No, I didn't, but I think somebody I knew had to do that.

B & L HOBBIES
7606 Weymouth Rd., Hammonton, NJ 08037-3404
Harters Speed Pans, T/R Pans, Rev-Up & Top Flite Speed Props, Torque Units and much more (Paul Haley) Phone: (609) 567-9365

the part that is not shown is the wire that connects the tee bar (outside) to the tube inside with the horn brazed on it. the it a good drawing a few years ago in th North American Speed Socity newletter that shows how one is built. I will try to scan it in and post it but it is best to find someone to show you. I think there is an old speed flyer in your state/area.

BTW. For stunt you might need something like the stanzel unit to get more control and allow a bigger elevator. Hopefully someone has a pic of dales monoline disply that shows the evolution of the torque units.

Gary,
Here's the NASS speed forum website: http://forums.delphiforums.com/flyfast

All experienced speed fliers recommend getting in-person assistance if at all possible, and starting with a monoline trainer. Speed is not easy to take up on a casual basis. Where do you live?

LAST EDITED ON Dec-02-03 AT 09:16 AM (CST)
 
What type control line is used?

How is the line attached at the airplane lead out and the handle?

What about friction on the stanze unit. Does it have a bearing for easy rotation?

It seems to me the wire will have to be very ridged. Maybe a solid wire. A cable will flex or wind up. When you twist the control handle the same action has to happen inside the airplane other wise the wire twists and the bell crank does not move.

It also seem logical the lead out connections would have to be ridge too, no swivel joints.

>What type control line is used?

Solid wire only, although you can use a very short piece of heavy cable for a leadout if wanted.

>How is the line attached at the airplane lead out and the
>handle?

With connector buttons. (Stanzel had a special shaped U bend in the control line wire on the handle end not a button.)

>What about friction on the stanzel unit. Does it have a
>bearing for easy rotation?

No it just had a bundle of .008" wire that took the tension (no thrust washers or anything like that.

>It seems to be the wire will have to be very ridged. Maybe
>a solid wire. A stranded wire will flex or wind up. When
>you twist the handle the same action has to happen inside
>the airplane other wise the wire twists and the bell crank
>does not move.
>
>It also seem logical the lead out connections would have to
>be ridge too, no swivel joints.

>I have a speed model airplane that I have not worked on in 3
>years. I could never figure out how to build the mono
>control unit. I am cleaning out my work shop and need to
>finish this airplane. Does anyone have a drawing or good
>picture of a mono control unit? How does this thing work?

Just to mention one other aspect of the technology that doesn't seem to be addressed here: Back in the '60s people built special monoline handles which would clamp to the wrist and allow control through a "handle" which was really a control lever. The idea was to make a mechanical interface for the pilot that felt and responded in a fashion as similar to a normal CL handle as possible, and allowed one-hand flight in the normal way. Angular motion of the "handle" was converted into line twist with high ratio gears. Fussy to make, but widely used in international speed competition of the era. I don't know if modern speed flyers still do this, but it sure seems like a good approach. An example can be found in the 1964 Aeromodeler Annual. The design is by Glenn Lee (big surprise )!

FWIW,

Andy

LAST EDITED ON Dec-12-03 AT 06:25 PM (CST)
 
I am going through back issues of various mags and came across this article in the July 1966 Flying Models magazine. The title is "Dale Kirn solves the "Monoline" mystery. It is a great article on the history of the monline system and its inventors, the Stanzel brothers. Reprints of the article are available from Stunt News. You will want pages:22, 23, 30, 32, 34, 35,44, and 46. Lots of other articles and adverts in between.

George Aldrich marketed a geared monoline handle that was made in Germany. I don't know if George designed the handle or not. I own one of them, and I don't think anyone would want to fly stunt with it.

>George Aldrich marketed a geared monoline handle that was
>made in Germany. I don't know if George designed the handle
>or not. I own one of them, and I don't think anyone would
>want to fly stunt with it.

Any chance you could post a picture of your GMA Monoline handle, De? Steve

There is a photo of a geared handle in the article along with about five others. Strange contraptions some of them.