Crash Photo of the Day

Well, I finally got all the bugs out of Mikey's Super Clown. Hard mounted the tank, unwarped the wing, etc. He was just learning to do the lazy eights by himself with nobody in the center helping (Thanks, Bill). Combination of getting too high, flying into the sun, and a momentary hesitation and you see the result.

I didn't notice till we got home that the whole bottom half of the LA25 was missing: crank, prop, spinner, custom venturi, etc. Quick like a bunny I called my buddy on his cell phone. Bill was still at the field and searched for and found the missing pieces. This is the worse engine desctuction I've seen.

Now it's back to the Flite Streak and old motors till I can get something else built. Any suggestions for another plane? We are flying off asphalt and need something with wheels. Ukie? Skyray?

John and Mikey in Ahrnoldville

P.S. I also crashed my trainer plane when the rubber bands came off the wing. That's another story, but funnier.

That's a good un. Box it up and send it in to OS repair services telling them you are having a problem with the idle!!!

If you can find a Ukie that would probably be the toughest. Consider the ARF Streak, @ $50-$60 assembles in a couple hours and flies very well, change single wheel to double.

If you can find a grass place to fly you might consider ordering the RTF combat wings available for $40 or so. At the speed combat is flown they will survive a couple crashes, at our speeds probably a lot more. Not the same as a stunt plane but will allow you to get a lot of handle time which is the main thing needed when learning, also the engine will last a lot longer.

I would think that any profile kit in the 400 sq in size would make a good plane for a .25 size engine, cover the wing with plastic film, paint the fuselage with clear and go fly.

Have fun, that's what a hobby(obsession) is all about.

Now that is impressive crash damage. The most I've ever managed was a cracked case. I second the motion for the Ukey. They (three of them) were the only things that got me past vertical 8's. Simple, rugged, easy to repair and you don't have a great emotional investment in them so a crash is not such a traumatic experience.

The crash gods seem to have been in a bad mood of late. Tim totalled his Smoothie last night and I had a relatively minor mishap with a Ukey, completely my own fault. Tim happened to have his digi-cam on video at the time and caught the event for all posterity. You can catch it at http://home.cogeco.ca/~tmctigue/ohno.avi I think Tim's comment at the end (and the file name) says it all, no matter how major or minor the mishap.

Best, Hoovie

Ouch...you gotta get off that asphalt. Too expensive.

Put it on E-BAY see what you get!!!

JB WELD

Sorry about the abrupt termination to a very artistic "overhead maneuver," Mikey and John! You had that SuperClown humming and Mikey was gettin' it down. Hope to see you with the FlightStreak this weekend for more practice....

Ok, so John ain't sharin' the story of the near demise of the Frankenplane, so I'm telling it the way it happened. Now, you have to understand that John is a newbie CL pilot, and that he's been building planes for Mikey to fly, hence the fine polkadotted example of the SuperClown. Then someone gives him a couple of museum-piece type planes so he spifs 'em up a little for "backup planes." John's pretty good about bringing Mikey to the field most weekends, and it didn't take us long before we started with the little suggestions here and there like "that last landing Mikey made wasn't so bad; I bet you couldn't do any better..." and, "go ahead and let Mikey loop it, you would if it was you out there." So John puts some truely MASSIVE foam wheels on the Frankenplane, snaps a few rubber bands between the wing and the two-stick fuselage and wedges some packing foam between the wing and the fuel tank to help keep the parts from shiftin' around. Then he tests out the ancient motor of questionable vintage (AMQV). Who knows WHAT it is? Engine roars for about a minute and quits every time. Couple of weeks in a row. Of course, it doesn't have the deafening roar it did a few weeks ago. John has modified an OS muffler to fit. And then modified the muffler so the engine doesn't choke on its own effluent. With a somewhat muted roar, John finally goes around a dozen or so times, then plops the sucker down when the engine quits. (Glide? What glide? The Frankenplane ain't no free flight!)

Then comes my turn to launch for him last week. Not sure exactly what we're gonna call the tank setup on the Frank. Ain't uniflow. Ain't suction. How about Blowinflow? The minute the engine of questionable ancestry starts up (with a vengence now that I'm holding it) the fuel starts blowin' all over me. I'm look around and my closest buddies are digging in their pockets for a Zippo! Thankfully they gave up that vice and started flying control line instead. Now if yer gonna fly some CL, ya put up with a little oil. They had me runnin' back from the launch, so's I could wring out my shirt into the fuel can! "Don't waste it" sez they. "Good for another flight," sez another. So I sez, "what hey, why don't we get rid of the backwards 45 degree fuel tubes, plug up all them vents in this strange square tank and run some pressure off that fitting on the alleged muffler?" Well, we did that, and the engine still quits after a dozen laps. Now John ain't too worried about all this, 'cause after each flight, he keels over and rolls around on the ground. At first I'm thinking he's just THAT glad to get ol' Frankie back on the ground. Now that puzzles me, but they say beauty is in the (blind) eye of the beholder. But then I find out that REALLY he's dizzy as heck and trying not to puke up his breakfast. So it turns out he can only get in three flights (36 laps) a day, because his clothes are gettin' too dirty from rollin' around on our (dusty) asphalt circles. I'm thinkin' that any more and the missus is gonna make him stay outside on the porch until she has time to hose him off. He's gotta wait 'cause the dogs all had prior appointments. So, being the cheerful, helpful type, I sez "Hey John, what say you clean out the buggers in the needle valve and mebbe try a fuel tank built in this century." (Or even in the last two or three decades....) Now I meant this in a helpful way, you understand? So last week John pops open the ancient Veco Vessel (or was it a Perfect Pot?) and scrubs it out. He ain't no slouch, so now it really IS clean. Detoxes the needle valve too. No more fuel buggers anywhere. May have even installed a fuel filter, with all the pestering we gave him. Plane seems to look a little shinier, too. Mebbe not. Could be my imagination.

So last Sunday, he plops the Frank down on its MONSTER tires, fires off the somewhat quieter motor of questionable lineage and trots out to the handle. The engine does NOT quit during his 60 foot journey. He waves for a launch. Engine is STILL turnin'. The MONSTER wheels finally let go of the asphalt, and he's flying. He does mebbe 6 low laps, then mebbe 6 high ones. Now, we all know that the engine is gonna quit at lap 12 or so, so I'm gettin' the camera ready this time for the pilot rollovers. (Gotta get THAT on film....) But the engine doesn't quit. So now John's bored. And getting dizzy. Someone told him he wouldn't get dizzy if instead of staring at just the plane, he focused on some of the scenery that goes flashing by. Now his head is jerking around and he starts lookin' a little green. Some other helpful soul (not me- I wouldn't do that) told him that he should defocus the plane. Now I told you that John's a bright guy, right? Rather than mess with that cross-eyed business, he takes off his glasses instead. And the engine is STILL runnin' and he's still going around. But now he is really green. So he starts doing lots of climbs and dives. Mebbe he's having fun or mebbe he's too sick to fly level. The little climbs and dives are starting to look less like little "Hey I'm sick out here" and more like stunt maneuvers. Well, OK, John! Attaboy! Then I notice that the fuselage and the wing are flying in close proximity to each other-kinda like formation flight-rather than being forsure part of the same airplane. Frankie's coming apart! On the next pullout, the rubber bands parted company with the assemblage and it looks like a helicopter with bad gyros. Them pieces were absolutely musical when they hit the ground. The MONSTER wheels made a "cush" sound, the prop went "braaaappppp." The twin-boom fuse twanged like a tuning fork and the aluminum plate rudder went "tinnnng." As the dust blew onto the downwind circle, Mikey came over to survey the debris field. He grabs a hunk of wreckage, and everything is still attached by seemingly a million control wires and tiedowns. Except the wing. I don't think a single vintage part of questionable ancestry was irrevocable damaged. The offical accident report is incomplete: were more than two rubber bands needed? Should they have been new ones? Was one of the two rubber bands slimy from all the oil? Which one let go? Or did John close his eyes and Zen-fly the thing into the ground? The observers disagree, but I think the ancient motor of questionable vintage had a dislike of the wing with its modern MoneyKote. You can't really blame the rubber bands. And mebbe the Ancient Motor of Questionable Vintage can now sit and congeal some more fuel buggers for the next owner? NOT! The Frankenplane is in much better shape than the igNoblarf I smashed last weekend. Just screw the wing down this time, John.

Now THAT's the true story of cross-eyed John, Frankie, and the discovery of the blowinflow fuel vent system.

I've driven the crankshaft through the backplate of a Fox 35. Almost tore the cylinder off the case. Sent it back to Fox for "repairs" and they called me back to say (of course) it was beyond repair but I got a new 50th Anniv. model for ½ price of a retail version.

Say what you want about Fox but their service is hard to beat.

But will a Fox run with Blowinflow venting?

While it may or may not have helped, I don't use the hardened screws anymore for engine mounting. I think the bolts ought to at least bend before the case gets all tore up.

Notice the engine lugs are still bolted to the airplane. I wish I could buy soft allen head screws fro small engines.

too bad about your loss.

Exactly why I refuse to fly over asphalt. Grass circles are where its at. I have seen engine damage from smacking the grass but not very often.

Bill

Bill,

You got any suburbian grass you want to trade for some big city asphalt?

Now Dave may have told the story as he saw it but I really was in control until the last rubber band let go. Just what I deserve for using those low bid cheap bands from work. They had only been on the plane for a couple of months!

I was going to save the yellow prop to sell on Ebay, a decision I came to while watching it flex back and forth an inch or more either side of the plane of rotation while I was adjusting the needle.

The conventional wisdom is that the motor is an Enya. I believe it is about a 35. The OS 25 sized muffler fit nicely. Hey, didn't Enya used to have a 1 year crash damage guarantee? Or is there another manufacturer that has a "maximum repair cost" policy? Fox?

All our friends are at the Sepulveda Basin. I don't know of any grass fields close by. Is it a tradition elsewhere to mark your crash divot with date and initials? Mikey is looking for the paint. Hope the city doesn't charge us for asphalt repair.

John

Not sure why you are enquiring about the crash damage policy for engines. You know that OS won't accept the "blue puree" from Mikey's SuperClown back for credit. And I thought the Ancient Engine of Questionable Vintage survived the rubber band incident ok. No? That'd be a true shame since now we KNOW it will run....

I didn't notice the prop blade oscillations on the AEQV. Probably the fuel spattered all over my glasses....

You should consider the rubber bands as an investment. You should invest more heavily....

See you guys soon!

Dave
LA_Flyer

PS-So are we drivin' out to Ontario to borrow some of John's grass? How come everyone has grass circles except city people?

PPS-What's it gonna take to get Mikey to try building a plane?

>I was going to save the yellow prop to sell on Ebay, a
>decision I came to while watching it flex back and forth an
>inch or more either side of the plane of rotation while I
>was adjusting the needle.

I remember in the '60s the RC guys were flying 15/19 powered Esquires, Mambos and the like with the Tornado yellow props. When they revved up, I'd notice the tips of the props move foward nearly an inch.

Them were the days it was also recommended to boil the props to "relieve" the built in molding stresses. I also remember warnings to grind off the teeth directly under the 8-8 Tornado blades when on the Fox 36X cuz they otherwise suffered a high failure rate.

There is plenty at the H.S. across the street from me.

Bill

I live in St. Paul and yet have a great grass field to fly on...even a patch of really smooth dirt for taking off. Just once in awhile, they come to play baseball on it.
--Ray

Here’s the actual information from the City website regarding model airplanes. Fat chance doing any CL flying in the local parks, or even worse at a local school. Some of us have even been rousted while flying P30 rubber planes at the local park!

Sixth Edition of the Los Angeles Municipal Code

SEC. 63.44. REGULATIONS AFFECTING PARK AND RECREATION AREAS.

8. No person shall land, release, take off or fly any balloon, except children toy balloons not inflated with any flammable material, helicopter, parakite, hang glider, aircraft or powered models thereof, except in areas specifically set aside therefor.

At least we have the hard surfaced circles. In case you don’t know, the Los Angeles model plane facilities are located in a flood control basin. Every couple of years somebody proposes to throw the modelers out and build an “arts complex” for the rich people, or a homeless shelter or whatever is the flavor of the month. Then the rains come and it all floods out, like it is supposed to, and they go away for awhile. In addition, the model flying area is located in the departure path of the Van Nuys airport. What little noise we make is nothing compared to some of those biz jets.

Big John,

Doesn't look like it is gonna flood out this weekend, so I'm trying to patch up the igNoblarf to fly down at the Basin on Sunday. Got the engine cleaned up last weekend. I managed to reassemble the horizontal stab and elevator last night. The wing is ok, and I have stripped part of the fuselage. The aft end isn't busted too bad, but somehow I have to cut the motor mounts out and replace 'em. They snapped off right at the bolt holes. Still checking out some "mystery damage" where the covering ruptured, but there is no apparent damage to the underlying structure.

Only good news is that the control system was stronger than the structure. Only damage appears to be a bent pushrod where it exits the carbon fiber tube near the rear clevis.

Gotta go buy some ugly blue Monokote. If I can't get the igNoblarf fixed, I'll be Clowning Around again. Hope you've got the Frank repaired so we can see some more action. See you and Mikey soon!