smoothie

I just started building a smoothie what engine would be a good choice either a fox .35 or os .40???? This is a project that I am challangeing myself to. I wont this to be the very best model I have ever built and finished. I figure if I start now I can be finishing it this winter.

>I just started building a smoothie what engine would be a
>good choice either a fox .35 or os .40????

Short answer---- yes either.

Fox 35 is the type engine the plane was designed around. Requires high castor fuel which may present a problem

OS 40 (assume FP or LA) more power, smoother running, heavier engine may require tail weight.

My choice would be my old Fox with one of Randy's new cranks, would be period correct and run a lot smoother than a stock fox.

Before a good recommendation can be made, some questions are in order:

What kind of OS 40??? LA 40? FP-40? Max H 40? They all weigh differently and have different run characteristics.

Do you build heavy, light, or in between? If the answer is on the heavy side, a .40 may be the best choice. If you build lighter, a Fox could be nice. Remember some OS's, like the FP 40, run best with modifications like our forum host or others provide. Run an unmodified 40 FP and after breakin you may have a speed plane on your hands. The Fox will run fine for stunt from now till the end of time, but, especially with a muffler, may be marginal on power unless you build light. Make sure the Fox is properly broken in, too. Putting a lot of load on a Fox without a good breakin will ensure difficulty, and short engine (and maybe plane also) life...

You have the right attitude. Stunt seems to be a journey, and saving a certain kit untill you think your skills are "just right" may ensure the plane never sees the light of day. Wade into it, struggle through, learn things on the way, and look toward the next plane. They will start to fly, and look, better and better.

There is a good thread on the flightlines forum from a gentleman who built a Brodak Smoothie and chronicled his efforts there, it might be useful top check it out and see what he found out as he built it.

Here's another one. Steve is right:

"Stunt seems to be a journey, and saving a certain kit untill you think your skills are "just right" may ensure the plane never sees the light of day. Wade into it, struggle through, learn things on the way, and look toward the next plane. They will start to fly, and look, better and better."

My Smoothie sports a Fox 35, which is now an L&J Fox 35 (re-worked by Larry Foster), but the way I built the plane (too much Epoxolite aft) made it come out VERY tail-heavy, which I had to rectify by adding too many ounces of lead in the front. Final overall weight - 47oz. Pig. Swine. PLUS, a warped wing. But I'm learning. With the flaps tweaked, it flies not too bad. I'm still trimming it. It has taught me a LOT. The next one will be better...

Tim

Here's somthing to keep you motivated.

My opinion is that a BRODAK .40 would be the plan.....light like a Fox, spins up to provide power, while still looking and "feeling" right.

See Ya

Hello Stephen,
I think that the Fox would be a good choice, as it is light, but as the others have said you do need to build light, and maybe fly it with shorter lines such as 57- 58 eye to eye..
Also need your e-mail address [email protected]

>My opinion is that a BRODAK .40 would be the plan.....light like a Fox, spins up to provide power, while still looking and "feeling" right.
See Ya

Agree:
Build it for the OS. When/if you acquire a Brodak 40 it will drop in the mounts with a possible adjustment for shaft length(B 40 needs 1/2" extension to get approximate same spinner clearance as FP40/LA 40). IF the OS is a 35S the B 40 is a drop in period but if it's a good 35S it's about as good as it gets.
Build it for the Fox and almost nothing(FP25) will go in without a lot of work.

The original Smoothie kitted by Veco suggests a Veco .29 to .31. So a Fox 35 is just fine and I really think a .40 is overkill. The last two Smoothie's I built I used Max .30S and then switched to the Max .35S. Both were fine for the model. The newer kits are much lighter than when Veco was kitting them.

The Brodak 40 is your best bet. OS 40 will need tail weight because of the wheel location near the CG . this one took one ounce in the tail. That made it 41 oz. Still turns on a dime . OS fp 40.

Smoothie and the Fox .35 are meant to be.

I am looking at the airfoil shapes and leading edges of these Smoothies and wondering if there isn't a big increase in thickness and blunting of the leading edge of these pictured compared to the Veco kit. Anyone care to comment?
Chris...

>I am looking at the airfoil shapes and leading edges of
>these Smoothies and wondering if there isn't a big increase
>in thickness and blunting of the leading edge of these
>pictured compared to the Veco kit. Anyone care to comment?
>Chris...

I will. Both of my Smoothies were built to plans. Neither of them has anything approaching the blunt airfoils seen on this thread. Not so sure about the thickness of pictured wings...

For one thing, the Veco Smoothie is a full built up fuselage and the one picured last is a PROFILE fuselage. The earlier picture is one of the builtup fuselage designs. The Veco kit rib height is 1 1/2". I don't know the rib height of the profile versions. Hope this will help.

The rib height on the Brodak Smoothie (the one I built, pictured above) seems to be about 1-5/8". I just measured it on the plan. The plan also shows a blunt leading edge, not a "sharp" one. I now have seen several ACTUAL models from the late 40's and early 50's, and I see the difference in the leading edge. At any rate, even if I were able to think of a trip to VSC, I sure wouldn't bring the porker pictured above, even if I could fly...

Tim

My sentimental vote is for the Fox 35. But the light weight of the Brodak 40 and the fact that it's stunt-ready straight out of the box makes it hard to vote against the B-40. Lots of "goodies" available for the Fox 35 these days.
The FP would be the third choice.....mostly because of the weight.

Thanks guys for all the advise I usually build light so I think I will go with the FOX. Thanks again

Brodak 40 all the way. Runs great out of the box and will provide more power for those windy days. Plus in my opinion, it's a way better engine than the stock Fox.

As mentioned in another thread, Don McClave gifted me a Brodak "Original" Smoothie kit merely as inspiration to get going on another Classic model to replace my now seriously bent Oriental.

While I will be passing the kit along--I have already built two Smoothies from plans--the hardware from Morris which Don included has already been stolen, probably to be used in another Oriental.

In pawing around in the kit the plans magically opened up.

*And I was stunned to see the airfoil.*

Not only is it 1/4" thicker than shown on my Smoothie plans, the high point has been shoved way forward, the leading edge is quite blunt.

It appears to me a quite ordinary airfoil. For current PA models, albeit scaled down to suit size of the model.

Yes, yes, I know this is the "original" Smoothie, not the one published nor kitted, so I have absolutely no documentation which says this airfoil is incorrect.

However, said airfoil is hardly representative of the period, varying so substantially from what was the norm back then that if I were to first consider building this kit for competition I would want to have in hand impeccable documentation verifying this feature as absolutely correct and therefore allowed in OTS or Classic competition.

LAST EDITED ON Jul-03-04 AT 07:14 PM (CDT)
 
Hi Dan

I can probably shed a little light on the Brodak "Original" Smoothie's different airfoil.

If you look on the plans, you'll see that I drew them. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Bob Palmer, letters, and with a set of hand drawn plans, on butcher paper, dated, from Bob himself.

Check with Don McClave, I sent him a copy of those hand drawn plans, as he had some of the same sentiments you have.

As explained to me by Bob P., When he built the first Smoothie, he used the thin pointy airfoil. He was trying to get a plane that would fly well in the wind. He asked the designers at Lockheed for a good airfoil for the wind. He soon found that on calmer days, normal stunt winds, that the plane didn't perform as he wanted it to.

His solution, was to build a second Smoothie with the airfoil you see on the Brodak plans. He painted it up to match the first one.

He told me that when he went to a contest, he carried both planes, in the car, with him. If the wind was blowing good, he used the first one, if not, he used the second one.

He wanted the second one to be the published design, but Veco messed up and sent the plans for the first one to M.A.N. They also chose to kit the first one, according to Bob, over his desire for the second one.

This information comes direct from Bob to me during our consultations over the plans for the Brodak version. It is the plane as he wanted it to be way back then, and a duplicate of his second Smoothie.

I hope this sheds some light on the differences, and why they are there, as well as the Question of OT legality. According to Bob, both versions predated the OT cutoff.

Best wishes,

I'm wondering why everything is spinning around?

Somewhat off-topic, I was out flying my Brodak Smoothie this afternoon, and I finally got up the gumption to move beyond level flight. I finally felt the plane wasn't so badly out-of-trim that I couldn't trust it (said trim questions being totally due to my own building ineptness and inexperience).

Anyway... I discovered something:

This plane is A BLAST TO FLY!!!

I did loops (four consecutive), wingovers, lazy-8's and inverted flight. The plane is EASY to fly - it goes where I point it, and when I stop pointing it, it stops turning. Fantastic!! This is the BEST plane I have flown so far. I can't wait to fly it again!

The one "sad" note was that my session ended too soon... On the third flight, as I was landing, I hit some tall grass too fast and hard, and ripped the landing gear off. This also put a small hole in the underside of the wing. No problem - easy repair. The Smoothie will be back flying again in no time...

Tim

Just how is the gear mounted anyway?

"SAVE ALL THE PIECES"-Phil Brown

The gear is mounted with a plywood pad epoxied in place. Obviously not "bullet-proof", but it has survived perhaps 20-30 landings so far, not all of them of the smooth variety, so I think it's probably adequate. I'd also rather have it rip out cleanly like this than have it take out half the bottom of the plane - much harder to fix.

Here is a picture of the damage, and then of the fix in progress:

Tim

LAST EDITED ON Jul-06-04 AT 04:47 PM (CDT)
 
John,

Of course I noticed your name on the Brodak plans, this, your reputation, the reputation of Mr. Palmer being why I am questioning rather than accusing.

Tell ya what, seeing as how one version of the Smoothie is so well known, both from a magazine article and a popular kit, plus some of us have championed this design as a nice model for a three-fer effort (OTS, Classic, up to Advanced PA), it is my view that suitable documentation ought be an integral part of this kit.

Yes, I have heard stories you relate. First from folk like Don McClave, eventually from Palmer himself. In this vein, I must relate that during my conversation with Bob I told him there were plans to build another Smoothie (which I did that winter) and there were also discussions as to suitability--or lack thereof--in use of airfoil which I believed at the time to be the only correct version. Bob said that despite the airfoil, probably due to light weight, my model did turn quite nicely. And it does.

He did not once suggest there was an alternative airfoil, although I can understand how this might be the case as there are other parts of stories about Bob and his models which he has chosen to keep quiet about over the years. Or he didn't want to muddy the waters. Or he couldn't locate copies of the airfoil in question. Or he had simply forgotten. I don't know...

As to "original" Smoothie, Bob wrote to me about this and other topics a couple times and at least two years after above noted conversations at a NW Stunt contest. So I believe we are both reading from the same page.

So. What do we do? Accept at face value plans which show a radically different airfoil from that which has been easily recognizable for a great many years? Despite sterling reputation of you and Bob Palmer, efforts to vet early drawings, I think the situation dictates a much higher level of documentation is required prior to blindly accepting what is in the kit.

And yes, I have read and believe Classic rules are clearly understood in this quarter.

Maybe it will help to provide some context, same hardly intended to make me appear to be some paragon of virtue. Don McClave was searching about for an OTS to build, one which was not common. He came up with Zilch X, decided to not build it for whatever reason, passed along a set of plans to me, Jerry Silver and others possibly.

While I am hardly an expert on OTS or Classic models and their histories I had heard of a lot of Zilches, but never an "X." So thanks to Heavy Stunt (Bruce Hunt) we dug through his old magazines, came up with the appropriate construction article, made copies. This was nice as while per the article Zilch X makes the OTS cut-off, article itself was published well after cut-off date.

Back home I put article--including reduced-size plans--in clear plastic folders and for next 6 or so OTS contests left this documentation with model whenever it was placed in the pits.

So while at the time it was an unusual, or at least not widely known, OTS model, I could demonstrate to any who were interested that I was not pulling a fast one on them.

I don't think this same standard is too high a bar to use in determining how "original" is Brodak "Original" Smoothie. Especially when producer just lays it out there as if model can be assumed to be a legitimate Smoothie.

Why didn't we see you at NW Regionals? Honestly, we would not have directed "bad air" to your circle, ya know, as we did in 2003.

Best regards,

Posting at the bottom, as usual..

I watched Palmer fly the Smoothie in 1951 in So. Cal. (actually in the parking lot of the Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia). He ran a Veco 29 set so slobbering rich that it sounded like it would flame out any instant. But he somehow managed to win with a plane that flew very slowly (for those times).