Smoke Systems

Hi all,

I'm currently building a Brodak 38 Special (designed by Tom Dixon) What a great looking aeroplane I might add. Anyway, I am thinking it would look fantastic with a nice smoke trail coming out of it while flying, what a crowd pleaser it would be.

I have seen some old diagrams on how make a smoke system using a pressure fed tank to feed oil into the muffler. It this the way to do it? And what sort of oil should I use? Anyone had any experience with these?

Regards,
Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

The current issue of the UK magazine AMI has an article on smoke.

Basically it uses crankcase pressure to pressurise a tank with diesel oil in it. This is then fed into the muffler after being metered with a needle valve

A friend once ran a disco, and they have a special "smoke" fluid which does not smell - unlike dieseline.

Charles

Hi Charles

Thanks for the reply. I have been reading about the smoke and I dont think it would be too easy to do on a control line and maintain model performance due to the added weight of a tank, oil, pumps etc.

I saw an item that might be better on Tower Hobbies site called a Smoke-Riter. You light it with a match and it goes for 3 mins and they are reasonably cheap at $5.49.

I wonder if anyone here has tried these?

Cheers
Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

ATF makes a lot of white smoke, so would be one of the things I'd try. So does brake fluid, as I found out thanks to a leaky brake vacuum booster diaphragm that allowed brake fluid up the vacuum hose into the intake manifold. Volvo circa 1967, Girling, maybe. Different than Yank vacuum boosters.

I'd try some sort of low pressure bladder tank, but I'd be concerned about material degrading from exposure to the fluid. A hard tank could be made from a 35mm film can, or a 1 oz plastic clunk tank should do. Crankcase pressure should do it quite easily, or you might try a Robart fuel pump. A needle valve assembly should be a good way to regulate the smoke output. Keep in mind that you'll not need to make nearly as large a smoke trail as with an R/C model, because the volume of your flight path is so much smaller. If you make too much smoke, you may not be able to see your model or even the ground. It could also cause eye irritation and result in...
Pilot Error.

In addition, I think your smoke bombs from Tower might be a problem to ship, internationally. [photo not recovered: sipcof.gif] Steve

Steve Helmick
Renton, Washington
USA

Warren,

Tried a smoke system in my OS 46 powered Kadet Senior R/C model. Glow engine exhaust will produce some smoke, but nothing like the hotter exhaust of a gasoline engine.

Also, smoke oil is consumed at a much higher rate than fuel, so a large tank (I used a sixteen ounce smoke tank) didn't last but a fraction of the flight time on a twelve ounce main tank.

My system was triggered by a barometric altitude sensor that another R/C flyer designed and built. He had tried everything from strobes (hardly visible), to an oscillator circuit driving an auxiliary transmitter, but unfortunately the oscillator noise drove my Futaba radio system absolutely nuts!

I suggested a smoke system, and sent it back to him to implement. It worked fairly well, but the hysteresis in the barrow switch coupled with the smoke pump delay caused some interesting results. For instance, when doing big lazy loops about the altitude set point the smoke would go on at about 9:00 O'Clock on the upside, and turn off at about 5:00 O'Clock on the down leg. I estimated a fifty foot dead band, but that was no problem for it's intended purpose of demonstrating where a maximum altitude appeared, with respect to the normal flight path at a given field. Our field then (and many others) have maximum altitude restrictions, due to the close proximity of full scale airports.

The testing came to an unexpected end, when my smoke oil tank shifted during a near vertical dive, and locked up my elevator servo!

Bad news to lose elevator, when pointed straight down!

Bill Adair

Hey Bill,

That all sounds a bit too complicated. No offence. I was looking at R/C smoke systems, there's too much to them for my purposes. I want something nice and simple like a fuel additive perhaps.

Cheers

Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

>In addition, I think your smoke bombs from Tower might be a
>problem to ship, internationally. [photo not recovered: sipcof.gif] Steve

Hi Steve

Some good pointers there, thanks. I also think the smoke-riter might be hard to get lit with a 40 to 46 engine screaming at full bore ready for take off.

There's go to be an easyier way... perhaps something I can add to the glow fuel? I will keep searching and thinking about it while I'm building the 38 Special.

Cheers

Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

I dont think there would be a problem shipping these internationally.

Would anyone be interested in getting a couple of these and sending them for me? I will pay you. I'm just not willing to pay the rediculous shipping price that Tower charge to ship internationally.

I'll send you photos of the plane flying with the smoke coming out of it and me trying to see the plane through all the smoke lol

Cheers
Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

May as well give a free plug for my mate in the UK! This is for R/C but the basics will work. How do you switch it on and off in a c/l is the problem.

http://www.petetindal.co.uk/smoke.html

HH

The R/C guys inject diesel fuel into the exhaust. The one Pete sells is an electric fuel pump with a servo board to drive it when needed. Its just a spraybar inserted into the muffler. Maybe muffler pressure to a secondary tank with the diesel in it on a C/L but it would be injecting the whole flight untill that tank run dry. Worth a try to see how much pollution it will give!

HH

Hi Warren...

If you'd made the trip out to the 'Twin Cities' field at the Nats to watch C/L Scale you would have seen my little CAP231 bellowing out copious quantities of white smoke (well the first flight anyway).

I have a separate smoke tank up front in the cowl beside the engine (an enya 45 I used to use in F2B with a throttle), the tank is pressurised by Crank case pressure, I have silicon fuel tube between the crank case and the smoke tank, this is crimped off by a piece of piano wire under tension (released by full up at the handle). When released the pressure forces the smoke oil around the muffler - I have aluminium tubing glued to the side of the manifold with JB weld, it circles the manifold about 4 times before it enters the muffler chamber. The theory here is that the oil is pre-heated before it goes inside the muffler. I get quite a bit of smoke out of it although I'm always on the lookout for a recipe to make more. My concoction is a mixture of old transmission fluid, diesel fuel and baby oil! Don't ask for the percentages of each as there is no way I'll be able to duplicate it again - but somehow I don't think its that critical. With my system it just runs through until its empty - you can't turn it off in flight once its started. Normally gives about 3 - 5 minutes of smoke.

Regards Bruce Hoffo

Thanks Steve, Herb and Bruce

I will give it some thought and maybe play around a little trying to create pollution.

Right now I have a bigger issue. I started covering the 38 Special in transparent "Violet" Solarfilm... (It looked like Transparent Red to me! - and yes I am colour blind) and I ran out of Solarfilm with 2 wing panels and one side of an elevator left to cover. A grose miscalculation... anyway I'm now on the hunt for apparently hard to find Violet Solarfilm.

The local hobby shop here said theyve had it on back order for 6 months.

By the way, are there any results posted anywhere for the 2007 Sydney City Championships? I'm sorry I was unable to make it.

Cheers
Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

Warren - Let me have your e-mail address. I have an article that may interest you on smoke systems. You can send to my mail-box.

Warren,

yes 2007 City of Sydney Championships results were: Vintage A Team race Division 1 first Hoggin/Simons, Division 2 Vintage A first Ardill/Fairall. I think there was a stunt comp as well.

regards Ray

>I think there was a stunt comp as well.<



Alzheimer's kicking in Ray??

HH

>>I think there was a stunt comp as well.<
>
>
>
>Alzheimer's kicking in Ray??
>
>HH

Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.

> I think there was a stunt comp as well.


I do believe there was a stunt contest..... results on www.vicstunt.com

Well done Dave, Nice report. Thanks for that. I hope to be back in the air soon.

Cheers
Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

Hi Ray,

What about the Slow combat? Did that end up happening too?

Cheers
Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

>Hi Ray,
>
>What about the Slow combat? Did that end up happening too?
>
>Cheers
>Warren Leadbeatter
>Port Stephens - Australia
>AUS-14782

Warren,

no! from what I saw there was only one contestant. So it didn't run. There were barely enough contestants to run Vintage A, the most popular of the racing events. The other racing event didn't run either. A whole lot of c/l events are becoming non-viable through lack of interest!

regards Ray

Hi Ray (and all)

I have just received my latest Control Line World Mag and have been reading about how Clown Racing got started in the USA. Perhaps what Australia needs is something new like this! I would love to give it a go. Have you heard of it?

P.S. I heard there were about 20 people flying F2B, how could you miss them?

Cheers

Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

>Hi Ray (and all)
>
>I have just received my latest Control Line World Mag and have
>been reading about how Clown Racing got started in the USA.
>Perhaps what Australia needs is something new like this! I
>would love to give it a go. Have you heard of it?
>
>P.S. I heard there were about 20 people flying F2B, how could
>you miss them?
>
>Cheers
>
>Warren Leadbeatter
>Port Stephens - Australia
>AUS-14782

Warren,

Clown racing is designed to suit the modeling culture in the USA which is quite different to our own.

We have already gone through that cycle with Vintage A, vintage 1/2A, Phantom racing, Mini-Goodyear, simple rat, Bendix and F2cn (in no particular order). In their turn all have been introduced to breathe some life into a stagnant Racing scene. Hopefully the Hunter Valley Champs will be more popular this year round. Generally I'm more in favour of collapsing all the racing events into vintage A and 1/2A which have wonderful model designs and some excellent suitable diesels available.

I was trying to be "funny" or "ironic" by claiming that there "may" have been a stunt event on as well as the racing. Generally when F2B types ask about the results of a competition they mean the F2B results, without feeling the need to specify the event. I think the joke fell flat.


If your interested in trying racing, pilots are in short supply and I suspect that Dave Simons may be looking for one. The last one he trained ended up being a world champion.

regards Ray

Hi Ray,

I like the sound of the format of Clown Racing and it seems cheap and easy to get into. It seems like a fun event that beginners and experts alike can do. Perhaps I don't know enough about the local racing scene.

I would love to get into racing control line. I have been away from competition flying for too long and I have a lot of years to catch up on. Only thing is I don't see how I can fly f2b and fly in racing when the events are usually run concurrently.

I recently built a nice Goodyear racer only to be told that the event is dead here. So what class would you recommend I should try? The other thing is lack of information. e.g. very little info is available about fuel cutoffs and how to make one.

I will definitely be at the Hunter Valley Championships in March.

Regards
Warren

>Warren,
>
>Clown racing is designed to suit the modeling culture in the
>USA which is quite different to our own.
>
>We have already gone through that cycle with Vintage A,
>vintage 1/2A, Phantom racing, Mini-Goodyear, simple rat,
>Bendix and F2cn (in no particular order). In their turn all
>have been introduced to breathe some life into a stagnant
>Racing scene. Hopefully the Hunter Valley Champs will be more
>popular this year round. Generally I'm more in favour of
>collapsing all the racing events into vintage A and 1/2A which
>have wonderful model designs and some excellent suitable
>diesels available.
>
>I was trying to be "funny" or "ironic" by
>claiming that there "may" have been a stunt event on
>as well as the racing. Generally when F2B types ask about the
>results of a competition they mean the F2B results, without
>feeling the need to specify the event. I think the joke fell
>flat.
>
>
>If your interested in trying racing, pilots are in short
>supply and I suspect that Dave Simons may be looking for one.
>The last one he trained ended up being a world champion.
>
>regards Ray
>
>


Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

>Hi Ray,
>
>I like the sound of the format of Clown Racing and it seems
>cheap and easy to get into. It seems like a fun event that
>beginners and experts alike can do. Perhaps I don't know
>enough about the local racing scene.
>
>I would love to get into racing control line. I have been away
>from competition flying for too long and I have a lot of years
>to catch up on. Only thing is I don't see how I can fly f2b
>and fly in racing when the events are usually run
>concurrently.
>
>I recently built a nice Goodyear racer only to be told that
>the event is dead here. So what class would you recommend I
>should try? The other thing is lack of information. e.g. very
>little info is available about fuel cutoffs and how to make
>one.
>
>I will definitely be at the Hunter Valley Championships in
>March.

Warren,

a good place to start would be Junior Rat on the sunday morning at the HVC. I have a junior RR model with shutoff that you can have. It has a new os 15fp that you can use on the day, all you need is a set of 52' 3" 012" lines. I would like the os back.

regards Ray

Do I qualify for Junior Rat? I am 44 years old next week! I know I act like I'm only 15 sometimes but my size gives it away. lol

Or were you suggesting I get Kayla to fly and me pit?

Please explain...

Cheers Warren

>
>Warren,
>
>a good place to start would be Junior Rat on the sunday
>morning at the HVC. I have a junior RR model with shutoff that
>you can have. It has a new os 15fp that you can use on the
>day, all you need is a set of 52' 3" 012" lines. I
>would like the os back.
>
>regards Ray
>


Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

Hi Warren - That's the spirit man! I just turned 45. Building and flying model planes makes me feel like a teenager all over again.

>Do I qualify for Junior Rat? I am 44 years old next week! I
>know I act like I'm only 15 sometimes but my size gives it
>away. lol
>
>Or were you suggesting I get Kayla to fly and me pit?
>
>Please explain...
>
>Cheers Warren
>
>>
>>Warren,
>>
>>a good place to start would be Junior Rat on the sunday
>>morning at the HVC. I have a junior RR model with shutoff
>that
>>you can have. It has a new os 15fp that you can use on
>the
>>day, all you need is a set of 52' 3" 012" lines.
>I
>>would like the os back.
>>
>>regards Ray
>>
>
>
>Warren Leadbeatter
>Port Stephens - Australia
>AUS-14782

Warren,

there is a strong movement within the MAAA to redefine a junior as someone who is of an "employable" age, and a senior as someone who is "retired".

However I was suggesting that yourself as a dad might be the pitman and number-one daughter might be the pilot!

regards Ray

>
>The last one he trained ended up being a world champion.


But not flying for me!!!!

A light Goodyear makes an excellent PB rat racer - they usually fly(and land) much better than the average small wing/high wing loading rat racer - much better as a training tool..

Vintage A, B division is also a good place to start, plenty of competition and some competent pilots to learn from.

Warren,

I've got to say I agree with Ray about racing classes. (Actually as I'm Ray's pilot, I've got to agree with a lot of what he says or he gets crank )

There are way too many classes for way too few fliers.

Dave's suggestion to go Vintage A Div B is a good one. Beaut looking models that are relatively easy to build and that fly well. many motors available. Vint A racing will welcome you and Kayla with open arms. If you want variety there are also a good selection of Vint 1/2 A models and motors available.

Regards

>I get quite a bit of smoke out of it
>although I'm always on the lookout for a recipe to make more.
>My concoction is a mixture of old transmission fluid, diesel
>fuel and baby oil!

The RC folk and the full scale folk (the Christen Eagles, etc.) use a concrete mold release oil called "Canopus". When the Eagles visited Bloomington, parked up next to the flight line was a forklift bearing two 55 gallon drums of said oil. If you can get to an airshow maybe they'd sell/give you a couple quarts?

There's also something they use for stage fog.. Supposedly non-toxic, and fairly low temperatures needed.

I have found and ordered a Dubro Super Smoker #255. It's light weight and has all the tubes, clunk tank and valves neccessary for just $11 US.

I'm thinking about a way to rig up an actautor for the valve off the up control, (as mentioned by Bruce the Hoff) so it will start smoking the on the Reverse Wingover and should smoke all the way till near the end of the pattern.

I'm not sure what I'll use for smoke oil yet.

Cheers

Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

>
>I'm not sure what I'll use for smoke oil yet.
>
>Cheers
>
>Warren Leadbeatter

Warren,

Dick Smith Electronics sells the fog liquid stuff whatever it's called. Jaycar Electronics (in Newcastle) probably have the same stuff.

regards Ray

Thanks Ray... I'll check it out when the smoke kit arrives.

By the way if you know anyone who is looking for any Brodak Kits, I have some going at very competetive prices to Australians only.

BTW Do you still fly at Gateshead High? If so when?

Cheers
Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
Mobile 0439 754 474
MAAA: AUS-14782

>Thanks Ray... I'll check it out when the smoke kit arrives.
>
>By the way if you know anyone who is looking for any Brodak
>Kits, I have some going at very competetive prices to
>Australians only.
>
>BTW Do you still fly at Gateshead High? If so when?
>
>Cheers
>Warren Leadbeatter
>Port Stephens - Australia
>Mobile 0439 754 474
>MAAA: AUS-14782

Yep, sure do, I've emailed you an invitation! Ian Smith has a Brodak 38 bipe with a 4 stroke in it. I'll pass on the news about the kits.

regards Ray

Lordy, I scrolled all the way down looking for a picture ...

How about it?

A picture of what? The smoke system, the 38 or something else?

Warren Leadbeatter
Port Stephens - Australia
AUS-14782

I gave up on trying such a system a long time back because:
a) It needs a lot of fluid to get a reasonable amount of smoke.
b) There is a big drop in power when the smoke is on.
Lots of smoke = lots of fluid and lots of power loss.