Product Review--Brodak Baby Clown Arf

Sunday, (tomorrow Sept. 19) is Jim Rekar's "Its only a hobby" 1/2a contest. Last Wednesday, one of the TreeTown Club members who has been involved with Brodak's Arf Development, brought in a box of 4 or 5 of the Baby Clown Arfs. The timing was just too irresistable, so I snarfed up one of the planes. They come in 3 colors --red, yellow, and blue. Mine was yellow. I almost wanted to grab the blue fuse off the Blue Clown and replace it with my yellow fuse (giving me my favorite color scheme--yellow wings and blue fuse, but I thought I better not screw up the Blue Clowns box--especially since no one had bought it yet!

Anyway this is my "unbiased" review of the Brodak Baby Clown Arf.

Hits: Nicely done, fits are pretty good, covering quality is good with all one color except for the red fin and the canopy being Silver.

Misses: Basically this is a problem for all Arfs--it is a pain to carefully remove the covering where you plan to glue the wing, elevator, and fin. Since this is a small plane, it is somewhat difficult to cut away the small strip to glue on the fin. Ok, ok, I know I am whining here!

The bigger miss as far as I am concerned is related to the engine and fuel tank mounting. This really depends on the target market for this plane. I have previously built a Brodak Baby Clown Kit, which, except for the one piece wing of the Arf, is identical to the Arf. The Arf comes with the Cox Integral tank-compatible plastic engine mount. This means the Arf is planned around the Cox engines with an Integral tank. Back in the "good" old days, when a Cox Black Widow was a reasonable cost, this was a good setup. However today the Black Widow goes for $42+ bucks, with plugs running ~$9. For beginners, the Babe Bee would be ok I guess at a lower price.
I think Brodak realizes that the day of the Cox has to some extent passed by. This is obvious since he is developing his own labeled engine. However this engine and most others are beam mount engines, and in order to use them, you need to add some new type of engine mount. Even if you have one of the Texas Timers radial backplate mounts for the Tee Dee, Norvel, or VA, you still need to add a fuel tank, and the space between the wing cutout and the front of the fuse is quite short, meaning my 2/3oz Perfect tank is too long. Brodak markets another tank which fits in the space--but I haven't checked how large it is. My point here, for those that would like to fly this plane in a 1/2a contest, might find it necessary to build their own tank to get sufficient capacity to get through the pattern. I much wish he would have redesigned this plane to encompass beam mounts, with the nose long enough to mount a tank of ~2/3-1oz capacity. I use my 2/3 oz tank on a Baby FliteStreak, which does have the beam mounts.
However, if you plan to use the Black Widow, (like I did because I need it tomorrow!), the standard mounting bracket is fine. I did add two hardwood dowels to the front end so that the bolts which hold the plastic engine mount to the fuse would have a stronger base. It also keeps the fuse from crushing when you tighten these bolts down.

The Arf went together reasonably well. There is a slight gap in the wing cutout, which I sealed after gluing with some clear RTV. You might prefer to do this differently with thin balsa or glue.

The controls require a solder connection(using a standard coupler typical in Brodak kits). I used Stay Brite to put it all together, cleaning afterwards with water and baking soda. The Arf comes with the CA type hinges. A lot of guys will cut these narrower so that they don't end up so stiff (the originals are full sized widths). I just used sewn on hinges. As far as I can tell, the kit did not come with a fairlead--in all fairness the lengths are pretty short, so I might add one (using a cotter pin) after my first few flights.

I plan to fly this in a few hours--I am stuck at an all day meeting at work right now, but plan to hit the field on the way home. I am hoping to get it trimmed out. I think I will be able to use 42 foot 0.008's, but have some 35 footers available too. I will update the review with a flying report tonight.

Hi Alan,
There is some relief available for your primary gripe. The NorVel tank mount fits the Baby/Golden Bee mounting holes, and NorVel plugs are available for $5, with some sources being around $4.25; still kinda high, but better than $9 for a Cox.

The objection to this may be that Front Overhang increases about 1¼", (and the cylinder is moved forward about 3/4", which may require lead in the tail to balance. On the 15th hand, The NorVels make a bunch more power than ANY Cox ½A. The .061s fit the Tank Mount, too.

Re: trimming the Monokote at the wing centersection. On my ARF FS, I marked the cut lines with a Sharpie pen. Then I laid a flexible metal ruler (thin piece of sheet metal would work, too) along the line and cut the covering with a 40 watt pencil soldering iron and the corner of a chisel tip. Just lay the iron down and let it melt its way around. It left a slightly browned line on the balsa, but no crease. The Monokote had a slight burr on the edge, but I just epoxied over it. Terrifies me to think of making that cut with a knife and creating a weak spot in the sheeting.

>Hi Alan,
>There is some relief available for your primary gripe. The
>NorVel tank mount fits the Baby/Golden Bee mounting holes,
>and NorVel plugs are available for $5, with some sources
>being around $4.25; still kinda high, but better than $9 for
>a Cox.
>
>The objection to this may be that Front Overhang increases
>about 1¼", (and the cylinder is moved forward about 3/4",
>which may require lead in the tail to balance. On the 15th
>hand, The NorVels make a bunch more power than ANY Cox ½A.
>The .061s fit the Tank Mount, too.

Hi Ralph, and Alan, If you use a Norvel engine, please use the .049
and not the .061. The .061 has Waaay tooo much power for the little
Brodak Baby Clown. It only has 130+ sq"s wing area; The Paw .5cc
engine(thats a .031cu") yanks Larry R's Baby Clown all over the
sky on 40' lines.
Tony

A couple of comments on the flying. Here is a link to the SSW Forum where you can see a picture.
http://www.clstunt.com/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID1/10367.html#12

One thing to look out for is to make sure that the controls are centered before you solder the control linkage. I assumed that the bellcrank would be centered when the leadouts were held together (I put a line clip on both the leadouts, and held it tight while adjusting the pushrod. I should have noticed that I only had ~20 degrees of up and 40 degrees of down (both cases when the bellcrank bottoms out on something in the wing. This gave pretty tight outside loops, and way big inside loops.

As you can see in the link above, Jim Renkar's flew pretty nice, no problem with the controls, so I suspect there is some variability in the lengths of the leadouts. Just check to make sure you have the same amount of up as down. He also chopped the front of the fuse since he too used a Kavan Tank extension, and wanted to keep the plane from becoming too nose heavy. I think this would be pretty imperitive if you wanted to use the Norvel Big Mig with the Startup tank mount as mentioned above in one of the replies,--it really can make the plane nose heavy. I also agree the Big Mig 049 is the way to go---plenty of power. The 061 requires you to hang on tight--and isn't "legal" for our 1/2 A contest anyway,

Another thing relates to a gripe I have about Arf's in general. Out of the box, my wing was straight as an arrow. However one of the first instructions tell you to shrink the covering--so unless you are really careful there goes that straight wing!. I provoked a tiny warp which I detected on Saturday while flying, and managed to fix that night, before the contest. Flew pretty level on Sunday.

No real problem with the plane, just that anything when rushed can give you problems. I just need to find a way to get a few more laps on my Killer Bee!

If I may add a few comments on the Baby Clown ARF - the prototype is still flying beautifully and I would like to suggest an alternate engine mount in case those supplied are not to your liking. Last night, I bought a Norvel mount for less than $2.00. I bolted it to the nylon mount and then attached the NEW Brodak .049 - see the pictures. I will test fly it tonight and report tomorrow.
Regarding the hinges - I tried a different approach, the same one I use on almost all my OTS planes and it's perfect. I weave dental floss through in a figure "8" pattern, about 4 times, in 3 places. The controls are amazingly free and there is no springback. Try it, you'll like it.
Bob Z.

>If I may add a few comments on the Baby Clown ARF - the
>prototype is still flying beautifully and I would like to
>suggest an alternate engine mount in case those supplied are
>not to your liking. Last night, I bought a Norvel mount for
>less than $2.00. I bolted it to the nylon mount and then
>attached the NEW Brodak .049 - see the pictures. I will test
>fly it tonight and report tomorrow.

I'll be really interested in how that runs. The "killer power" end of the 1/2A business is reasonably covered, but with Cox rapidly headed down the bowl, the "lugger" end of the available engines is really kind of empty. I think a 1/2A that will easily swing a 6-3 on suction, and maybe a 7-3 in a pinch would be a good thing to have. You could do that with a Medallion 049 but a Norvel doesn't seem to like it very much.

I'm also really curious how it works with what appears to be a conventional separate standard glow plug instead of a glow head or button. Nobody else managed to get that to work very well.

LAST EDITED ON Sep-23-04 AT 01:32 AM (CDT)
 
I'll be really interested in how that runs. The "killer
>power" end of the 1/2A business is reasonably covered, but
>with Cox rapidly headed down the bowl, the "lugger" end of
>the available engines is really kind of empty. I think a
>1/2A that will easily swing a 6-3 on suction, and maybe a
>7-3 in a pinch would be a good thing to have. You could do
>that with a Medallion 049 but a Norvel doesn't seem to like
>it very much.
>
> I'm also really curious how it works with what appears
>to be a conventional separate standard glow plug instead of
>a glow head or button. Nobody else managed to get that to
>work very well.
>
> Brett

Hi Brett....The PAW.049 Sbr diesel will deliver those specs that you
asked for....I'm really serious about this. My PAW .049 Sbr pulls a
Ringmaster Jr all over the sky with a Cox grey 6x4 on 44' .008"
lines(stranded). Also, this engine uses less fuel than glow .049;
(approx 60% the volume of Glow fuel) My Ringmaster is modified to
accomodate the lighter than usual power(compared to .09-.15 engines).
I really gotta post a picture of that model someday....
Tony

I think Fred Krueger is planning to put a PAW 030 (I am not sure of the actual size, just know it is smaller than the 049) on his Baby Clown Arf. He is using a PAW 049 on a hybrid 1/2A made out of a COX Foam shell wing set and his own design Fuse. It flew pretty well at the contest.

> I'll be really interested in how that runs. The "killer
>>power" end of the 1/2A business is reasonably covered, but
>>with Cox rapidly headed down the bowl, the "lugger" end of
>>the available engines is really kind of empty. I think a
>>1/2A that will easily swing a 6-3 on suction, and maybe a
>>7-3 in a pinch would be a good thing to have. You could do
>>that with a Medallion 049 but a Norvel doesn't seem to like
>>it very much.
>>
>> I'm also really curious how it works with what appears
>>to be a conventional separate standard glow plug instead of
>>a glow head or button. Nobody else managed to get that to
>>work very well.
>>
>> Brett
>
>Hi Brett....The PAW.049 Sbr diesel will deliver those specs
>that you
>asked for....I'm really serious about this. My PAW .049 Sbr
>pulls a
>Ringmaster Jr all over the sky with a Cox grey 6x4 on 44'
>.008"
>lines(stranded). Also, this engine uses less fuel than
>glow .049;
>(approx 60% the volume of Glow fuel) My Ringmaster is
>modified to
>accomodate the lighter than usual power(compared to
>.09-.15 engines).
>I really gotta post a picture of that model someday....

The problem is that the fuel can be difficult to obtain, if not impossible or illegal (ether being used somehow for drug production). I could probably find it, but the average guy couldn't possibly get any.

LAST EDITED ON Sep-24-04 AT 02:00 AM (CDT)
 
Ether isn't the only problem, Brett. Every one of the "ignition improvers" - Amyl Nitrate, Amyl Nitrite, etc. has been used/abused to such an extent that they are now unavailable to the individual (I remember some "interesting" conversations back in the 70s when I was trying to fly FAI T/R with Henry Nelson . . .).

However, Eric Clutton, aka Dr. Diesel, sells his "Olde English Brew" for $20 a gallon + shipping. That'll power a small engine for a l-o-n-n-g time! I split a gallon into quart cans and open these as needed.

(Edit= spelling error)

>Ether isn't the only problem, Brett. Every one of the
>"ignition improvers" - Amyl Nitrate, Amyl Nitrite, etc. has
>been used/abused to such an extent that they are now
>unavailable to the individual

Yes, I seem to recall someone talking about looking for amyl nitrate, finding someone who had it, and found that the place of business was a "record shop" that was oddly light on LPs, but did have many varities of glass jars with curious spouts.

>Ether isn't the only problem, Brett. Every one of the
>"ignition improvers" - Amyl Nitrate, Amyl Nitrite, etc. has
>been used/abused to such an extent that they are now
>unavailable to the individual (I remember some "interesting"
>conversations back in the 70s when I was trying to fly FAI
>T/R with Henry Nelson . . .).
>
>However, Eric Clutton, aka Dr. Diesel, sells his "Olde
>English Brew" for $20 a gallon + shipping. That'll power a
>small engine for a l-o-n-n-g time! I split a gallon into
>quart cans and open these as needed.
>

Hi Ralph and Brett, I get my fuel from Red Max, I guess it's about
the same price($19-20/Gallon). It's mixed to my formula...and
No Hazmat Fee! I haven't bought any in the last year because I
ordered it in a four Gal. case. I gave Larry R a gallon and he likes
it. I have been getting my Diesel fuel from Red Max for more years
than I care to remember(15-18??). The Fuel has been used in diesels
from .3cc to .60cu" displacement. If a person wants diesel fuel,
he has several options: Red Max,Eric Clutton,Al Heinrich, and
Ed Carlson; maybe others too.
Tony

Hi Tony,
How's the Dyna-Jet doing?

It's nice to know there's more than one Diesel fuel source available. I didn't know Ed Carlson offered fuel; and thought AeroDyne was moribund. I've sent several emails to them with no response.

On the other hand, Eric Clutton is much more "local" to our new location in SE Texas. I sure miss the SoCal weather . . .

LAST EDITED ON Sep-25-04 AT 03:27 PM (CDT)
 
>Hi Tony,
>How's the Dyna-Jet doing?
>
>It's nice to know there's more than one Diesel fuel source
>available. I didn't know Ed Carlson offered fuel; and
>thought AeroDyne was moribund. I've sent several emails to
>them with no response.
>
>On the other hand, Eric Clutton is much more "local" to our
>new location in SE Texas. I sure miss the SoCal weather . .
>.

Hi Ralph, The Jet is fine ..try to fly it once a year...and test run
in the back yard more often. It's a great retort to extremely loud
parties. Ed Carlson carries Clutton and Aerodyne fuel, maybe Davis
stuff too. I'll have to check out the Aerodyne situation. Last I
heard, Al's son took over the business, I thought it was still
viable. We had great weather up until mid July; then the heat kicked
in. I wish I could see some of that Kentucky Green.....all I see
where I live is parched,dry,sage,Scrub Oak,Cactus and Rattlesnakes...
I was going to fly Sport jet, but I didn't like the direction it was
going(sidewinders,pressure feed,etc..). It's great to see your posts
on this forum...also...when are you going to build/fly that 1/2A
Ballerina?
Tony

As a number of people are curious about the new Brodak .049, here is a preliminary report.
I flew the Baby clown a number of times on Saturday and I'm pleased to report that the engine is far superior to the protoytpe that I tested earlier. The needle valve is a very fine thread and the best of any 1/2A I've ever tried.
Props - we flew it with a 5-2.5 and a 6-3. first 10% nitro, then 35%.
The engine was happiest on the 35% and the 6-3 prop. What I wanted to try was something in-between like a 5-3 or 5-4 but neglected to bring them.
The engine is very tight and not fully broken in so it exhibited the usual starting stubborness but it gets better after every run.
I would rate it close to the Black Widow in performance.
A really nice feature is the muffler but to use it, the engine must be vertical, as it otherwise interferes with the landing gear.
Hope this helps.
Bob Z.

Had the opportunity to assemble the Baby Clown ARF yesterday after receiving it last weekend. The airplane was in good condition and well covered. The only thing that I did note was that the leadouts were a little bent due to bouncing off of the end of the box. Perhaps a small piece of foam could be wedged between the leadouts, wingtip and box to prevent this. In any case, the amount of kink was small and easily brought back to straight. All of the required parts were in the box and smaller parts were nicely bagged.

As for construction, I added a piece of plywood where the engine mount bolts pass through the fuse to reduce the potential for crushing (from a previous product review), but other than that, there were no changes to the structure. Another item that I modified was to cut the hinges in half to reduce the amount of force required to deflect from the neutral position(another product review tip). The small gap between the wing and fuse was filled with medium CA and kicked off to make a very rigid joint between the two. I did not match the lead outs to set my neutral position, rather I trimmed the pushrod and butted it against the pushrod from the wing until the throws were about even and then soldered it in place. The pushrod was set in the hole farthest from the hingeline for reduced sensitivity. I added a pushrod guide to reduce the potential for deflection. Would have been nice to see one in the kit (small safety pin) or at least a reference to installing one in the instructions.

The screws that came with the kit appeared to be of decent quality, but I ended up not using any of them. The one that was supplied for the horn was too small to thread into the horn, so was replaced. The engine mounting screws were very long and I did not want to spend my evening screwing the Black Widow engine in place, so used some shorter screws that I had around. The engine mount mounting bolts were the proper length and the nuts were the nylon locking type which I thought was a very good choice. The landing gear does rattle around a bit in the mount due to the offset for the engine, but does not appear to be enough to dislodge. The wheels look nice and are light. The wheel collars used a different size set screw than most of the local products, but effectively hold the wheels in place.

The whole thing was assembled in a few hours and weighed in at 5.8 ounces with the landing gear in place and decals applied. My engine of choice was a Cox Black Widow with a Cox 5-4 prop. The controls were free enough to allow full deflection (about 35°) both ways under just the weight of the airplane. The balance point was about mid-way from the back of the leading edge and the front of the spar. Not a bad deal at all in my opinion.

The wind turned out to be fairly light this morning, so Michael and I hit the back yard to try it out. These things are made to fly after all, not just sit around and look pretty. I have been using a Sig 1/2a handle and dacron lines with Michael on his airplane and it turned out that the setting was fine for BCARF as well. Length is about 28-30 feet. The outer holes in the handle were used. With the engine started and running just a little below full bore, Michael had the opportunity to do his first hand launch and the BCARF was airborne. First thing noted was that I could have used a little longer lines, maybe 35 feet of 0.008", and that the controls were sensitive. The plane was stable with good line tension and very easy to fly level. A couple of insides, figure eights and outsides were performed on the first flight without issue. The airplane turns very well and it is best to fly it through the manuevers not just jamming the controls. When the engine quit the airplane glided well, touched down and flipped over in the grass without damage.

There are only a couple of things that I would recommend if this airplane is to be used by a novice flyer. At the handle end, bring the lines as close together as possible to prevent over control. On the engine, if using the Cox Black Widow or Baby Bee, choose a prop and line length combination that keeps you from spinning into the ground. My choice for the next flight will probably be a 5x3 and 35 foot steel lines.

Overall, I think that this airplane goes together well and the resulting flight shows that it has good flying characteristics. A good value for the money and time.

John,
Thank you for an extremely well written review. Your comments and that of others are a big help.
DennisV

We flew the prototype quite a bit this past weekend and the Brodak .049 just keeps getting better. Changing to a 5-4 prop really yielded the most improvement and the hard starting was eliminated simply by a plug change. 10% nitro is OK but 35% really made it come alive.
Bob Z.

>We flew the prototype quite a bit this past weekend and the
>Brodak .049 just keeps getting better. Changing to a 5-4
>prop really yielded the most improvement and the hard
>starting was eliminated simply by a plug change. 10% nitro
>is OK but 35% really made it come alive.

Bob, I alluded to it above - but can you confirm that it uses a standard-thread plug (presumably "short")? That would explain the desire for nitro, as the cavity in the standard plugs is large enough that it's hard to get the compression high enough to work on low-nitro fuel. Notheless, it sounds like a near-breakthrough - because no one really ever made conventional plugs work on .049s very well at all.

Hi, Brett - it's a long reach.
Bob

>Hi, Brett - it's a long reach.

Wow. That's something Cox (or most anyone else) never managed. No more $14 glow heads.

LAST EDITED ON Oct-05-04 AT 10:18 PM (CDT)
 
Thought that an update to the previous post was in order after a flight session today. Started out with some 0.012"x35' lines, as I did not have any 0.008" cut, and the Sullivan insert adjustable handle (C-style No. 166). Removed the landing gear for flying over the grass field, but left the original Cox 5x4 prop on board to reduce the number of changes to monitor. Set the engine to higher RPM (near max) for this flight.

Turned out to be quite a handful. The extra weight of the lines was a bit of an issue on the launch, but it stayed on the end of the lines okay for the remainder of the flight. The 0.008" will probably be better for this. The flying side of things was pretty fast with lap times in the 3 second range. What was most noticeable was that the airplane did not track well. I was unable to hold decent level flight for the entire flight. Good thing that there is a lot of air to fly in. I did a confirmation flight and found that the same conditions existed in flight #2 as well as a tendancy to become light on the lines during the outside manuevers (small warp?) but still flyable as long as you paid very close attention.

I guess one lesson learned here is that the airplane needs to balance at the point that I indicated earlier, mid-way between the back of the leading edge and the front of the spar, or a bit more forward. The balance more forward would be much better for the beginner. Leaving the wheels in place would be a good idea depending on the base balance point of the model. That should help with flight stability. The handle should have a width adjustable feature to tune out sensitivity. Another Sullivan handle (D-style No. 167) has this feature plus includes finer neutral adjustments if you use cable lines. This will aid in control sensitivity. For what it is worth, I also flew my Lil Satan on the Sig Handle with the wide spacing at about warp 9 and she was dead stable the whole flight. Could use a pushrod guide for the inside maneuvers though, but the conclusion is that the balance is a big player in the level flight.

The Cox Black Widow that I used seemed to turn some respectible RPMs with either the Cox 5x4 black prop or the Tornado 5x3 that I used on the second flight. This resulted in very high speeds both times around, which I did not expect with the 5x3. As I found out with my son's airplane, the old trick of turning the propeller the other way is a good method of slowing things down as is increasing the diameter. My next adventure will use an MA 5.5x4.5 installed backwards. The nitro content of my fuel, initially 25% Sig then tamed to 17.5% Sig/GMA, did not seem to make much of an impact on the speed or starting characteristics of the engine. I guess if you use your favorite brew, you should be golden.

The only reason that I brought this all back up is that I would like to develop a good combination for a beginner that can be recommended by anyone to help get through that first flight successfully. The first flight used the dacron lines which are relatively cheap, available, require low maintenance and can be used by just about anyone. The additional drag seemed to slow the airplane down, but did not make it come in during launch or flight. A larger diameter propeller installed backwards seems like a good place to start to keep the speeds down and still provide enough speed to stay in the air. I am not familiar with what APC offers, but the Master Airscrew 5.5x4.5 seemed good on my son's trainer yielding 3.4 second lap times on a Sig handle with the supplied dacron line running a quick 2-stroke. Maybe others will work as well.

The airplane itself is still a fine piece to get started with as long as the sensitivity potential is known and dealt with. I plan on using this one to bring my son into the world of built-up wing flying in the Spring. For the winter months, at least until Christmas, I will hang it in the LHS with a flyer for Brodak to let the customers know of the availability. Until that time, I will continue to work and report on the combinations that I try (that are readily available) with a focus on the beginner.

John et al,
Thanks for the very helpful info. You and all the others are helping more people than you know.
Nick Vanmatre