Ep 24: A Properly Stocked Flight Box

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[00:00:35] Are your hosts, Ron and Tom. Hello everyone and welcome to the rc. What, what the hell’s wrong with you? I don’t know. Hello everyone and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron, I’m Tom. On this episode, we’re going to be talking about field boxes, so what you should keep in them and what you should keep in them. So the last time when we went out I talked about how I brought my field box, but there was like nothing in it, so I thought it would be a good idea. It was woefully lacking in supply. I thought it would be a good idea for me and for everybody else.

[00:01:09] To get an idea of what Tom keeps in his flight box. So this is tools. This is not necessarily like spare parts or anything like that. Right, we’re not going to be talking about keeping glow plugs and all that kind of stuff in there, necessarily, but these are just the tools that you would encounter when you go to the field and you might need to do something. Right. And I also want to say so, I don’t know how the audio is on this. I hope it sounds okay because my kid was using this soundboard and playing with it with his little guitar thing. So if anything has changed, I’m

[00:01:40] Sorry, I think I got it set up about the same way it was, but we’ll find out. Maybe it’s better it could be. I mean, it sounds pretty good to me. Yeah, me too, but it’s. It’s hard to tell, right? So flight boxes.

[00:01:51] Let’s, let’s get started. Yeah, so I’ll talk about what’s what I keep in mind and just note that just because I have it in my flight box doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to keep it in yours. Perhaps you have a friend that has a flight box and always has exactly what you need in it, so then you wouldn’t- you wouldn’t have to keep everything that I have in mind. But

[00:02:17] But what if you’re out of the field and your friend’s not there or your friend fails to bring it.

[00:02:21] With him, which happens from time to time. So no, you’re better off just keeping a bunch of stuff in it. So I want to know what I need to talk mine with. Okay, so in my fight box that I’ve had for many, many years, it’s got many, many years worth of stuff in it. So on one side here I’m looking at it right now- there is a- so mine is a flight box that has like a little detachable portion of it that has a 12 volt battery, my electric starter and a power panel that’s all run off of that 12 volt.

[00:02:55] Battery and right now that portion of my flight box is pretty much unusable because I don’t keep.

[00:03:03] A charged 12 volt battery in it so that’s pretty much just dead weight that I like to carry around.

[00:03:09] Because it makes it easy to get it out of the car and things like that and well.

[00:03:14] So I’m gonna, I’m gonna stop you on that one, just really quick. So they- they most of these- have that the power panel thing that you put on them like you’re talking about. Have you ever really?

[00:03:24] Used yours back in the day. I did okay before. Before we had the high capacity, even the even the nickel, cadmium batteries for our glow plug igniters. Back in the day they were 12 000, 1200 milliamp, so you had to charge them. Usually if you’re going to stay at the field for any length of time and the power panel has a- at least mine has one- that you can actually recharge your glow plug igniter with it. Yeah, in addition to that, if your glow plug igniter, your battery powered

[00:04:00] One would go dead. You would keep a spare corded one in your flight box that would plug into that power panel and you could actually adjust the voltage, which anyone I ever knew just took that knob and cranked it all the way up and made that plug as hot as you could get it. But anyway, you could. You could ignite your glow plug off the power panel. So yeah, back in the day, I did, I did.

[00:04:24] Actually use it quite frequently but they’ve kind of become I don’t want to say useless but outdated.

[00:04:29] Perhaps, yeah, I, I would say outdated, not, not that they’re, not that they’re obsolete, because I mean right now, I mean, yes, I keep several, I try to keep them charged- glow plug igniters in my, in my flight box, which we’ll get to in a minute. But in the odd rare occurrence that I take all of them and they’re all dead or whatever and I’m by myself, I still have a backup that I can light.

[00:04:57] The glow plug with if my 12 volt battery was charged, yeah. So I guess I don’t use any of that stuff right, I haven’t. Like even when I did nitro before I really didn’t use that because when I first did it I thought, okay, this is cool, I’m gonna get the flight box, get everything that you’re supposed to have with it. But first off, those batteries are small, the ones that go in there and they’re- they’re fairly, I think, expensive for what they are and they don’t really give you a lot of power for all day use and like, especially like you, you don’t like to use a starter, you like

[00:05:31] To do it by hand so you don’t always have to use that to start your airplane, right. But what I have done then instead, if you go to like farm and home, big r, whatever is local to you guys, and you get yourself like a bigger, like lawnmower type battery, like riding more type battery- a lot of those will have built-in handles on top of them, yeah, and that is so much easier right to transport than it is to transport that whole thing with it. And it’s a bigger battery, just like right, more capacity, and it actually will spin over a, an engine, especially a higher compression engine, a.

[00:06:04] Little easier than this little 12 volt thing I got in my flight box here so yeah and so on the like.

[00:06:10] On the, the, always the banana plugs, where they call the yeah banana, three millimeter banana plugs that are on the end of that. All I did is I just made an adapter with female banana plugs, I put them onto the to the alligator clips and then with that you can just go straight from the alligator clips to the battery right and, like I said to me, I think that works a lot better because I’ve never used that for charging a glow plug igniter or for, like you said, with the lead, to use that to actually light.

[00:06:39] The plug and another function was, if you used an electric fuel pump back in the day, you would. You would run your fuel pump from the panel. Yeah, I did buy one of those too, and there’s one mounted to the other side of my box here over here by my gallon of fuel that I haven’t used in.

[00:06:56] Eons 10 years decades or more yeah I can’t remember the last time I mean the leads aren’t even I cut the.

[00:07:01] Leads off of it because I was tired of them flopping around so yeah that’s another thing that to me I think.

[00:07:05] Was a non-necessary purchase was the electric one. Yeah, because the hand crank ones are so easy and there’s nothing to go wrong on them. You don’t have to worry about having power to run it and you can control it a lot easier. When you think you’re getting close to being full, you can slow down, you can control the rate of the flow and I prefer using that to like, which, which is weird for me, because I like things that are more electronic, that are more easy to use. But for me, I just think, yeah, yeah, I just think the, the rotary ones are great. Yeah, well, so again back in the day.

[00:07:40] A lot of our listeners will remember the dave brown six shooter- that’s before my time right- which was a hand crank fuel pump. Back then, the, the technology and the design of it was such that you really only got about maybe a quarter of an ounce with each rotation of it. Well, the pumps today, even the hand crank ones, have come so far in their design that they’re so efficient. A few quick turns and you got three ounces of fuel. Yeah, so it takes a lot less time with.

[00:08:11] The newer style hand crank pumps. So back in the day- so you weren’t spending 10 minutes cranking fuel into your 14 ounce tank- you would have your electric fuel pump and you’d have it in there in just a matter of seconds. But yeah, yeah, so yeah, on the other side of the box next to my gallon of fuel.

[00:08:27] Is a dead or dying electric fuel pump that I haven’t used in many years yeah but I continue.

[00:08:34] To carry around though, because I like carrying around heavy things. For no reason, yeah, for no apparent reason. So, yeah, that’s, that’s that side of the box that I that I don’t use very much, but I continue to carry around, and I’m not exactly sure why. I think it’s because it balances the box. So I have the weight of that 12 volt battery that I don’t use on the opposite side of the box that the gallon of fuel is on, so it kind of maybe it balances out the box, and that’s a mental thing for me. I don’t.

[00:09:06] Know but anyway I have no intention of taking out anytime soon just because I’m stubborn I think.

[00:09:11] Probably is the battery any good still I can’t remember the last time I charged it so I’m gonna say no.

[00:09:17] I’m gonna say no, yeah so. So, moving around to the back of my flight box, I have a set of dubro ball drivers which are an allen wrench with a rounded end on them. So I took the dubro kit out of the package and just screwed it directly to the back of the box, and I use those a lot actually.

[00:09:36] Because it came with its own storage container yeah it comes with a rack yeah which is kind of nice.

[00:09:41] Yeah, so I just kind of slapped that on the back of the box and I use those a lot actually. And which? What sizes are those? I have the standard ones, okay. So those go from, I think, 0.050 All the way up to, I think it’s, a 316. It’s a big one, okay. Eventually, when I get around to it, I’m gonna buy the metric version, oh, and mount it right next to it, because there’s room on the back of it and I’ll get that done one of these days and then, like, on the opposite side of the electric stuff is like I said.

[00:10:12] My gallon container of fuel. So that pretty much rounds out the two sides and the back and then and then all the stuff in the middle. So that’s the stuff I don’t have. So let’s, let’s figure out what you have in there. Yeah, so we’ll start with right on the top. Here I’ve got my hand crank fuel pump that is attached to my gallon of fuel via a feed line and a return line. Right, I have a tachometer, a digital mini tachometer, which I like to use to help me with.

[00:10:47] Tuning. I also have an expanded scale volt meter which is basically a way you can put a load on your receiver battery. I think it puts a one amp load and then it gives you, in an analog terms, a needle that if it’s in the green you’re good to go for flying. So the old style one- yeah, the one I have- is well I.

[00:11:07] Have both oh okay but the analog one is up here in the top of the box okay I will shut my mouth.

[00:11:13] No, that’s okay. And then I also have usually three glow plug igniters and I usually try to keep them charged. I try to keep them charged all the time, but I’ll usually charge all three of them.

[00:11:26] The night before I’m going to go fly, and so with those, those are all rechargeable. Or do you have any that are just powered by like a c battery? Nope, mine are all rechargeable. Okay, they do make.

[00:11:36] The ones like you’re talking about and then I think they even make one that’s powered by a big d cell.

[00:11:39] Like a regular alkaline and those work really well but when it’s done you’re.

[00:11:46] Replacing a battery and yeah I would rather just have the convenience of charging one up I don’t I.

[00:11:51] Understand that, but it’d almost be nice as, just in case, if you do have one that dies, they actually have a battery sitting there that you don’t have to worry about charging the night before. That’s not going to die. So I can see both sides on that. Actually I could probably

[00:12:06] Also save myself the hassle by charging the big 12 volt battery over here and then lighting the plug.

[00:12:11] Via my field panel. But see, to me that seems a little more dangerous though, because then you have the cord, yeah, and especially if you use the, the 12 volt starter, you have two cords that you have to worry about, yeah, around the engine when it’s running and spinning fast. Yeah, that’s true. So

[00:12:27] Back before rechargeable battery powered glow plug igniters that’s all we had was the corded.

[00:12:33] Version really, and they were. We used to power them off of a of a little square lantern batteries, the one I like that. Oh no, I thought those were like six volts. Well, they may get them in six, but you.

[00:12:46] Could get a one and a half volt lantern battery. That was about the size of the, the six volt like you’re talking about, yeah, and we would screw the leads onto those and then that would sit sort of behind the airplane at the tail and you’d run the cord up to the engine. So you

[00:12:59] Wouldn’t have to worry about the cord wow yeah back in the day olden days back when it was black and.

[00:13:05] White. Yeah, that was before color, yeah, before they invented color. So also in the top of my box here I keep a cool little- I call it a nine-in-one little- handy little screwdriver thing that ratchets. It’s got different bits and it’s got a, has a phillips bit, it has a couple of allen wrench size bits and it has your favorite flat screwdriver bit in there. So I like to keep that in the top of the box because it’s handy for wing bolts and common, just a full size.

[00:13:38] One, though. Yeah, this is a full size one and it ratchets, so it’s pretty handy, wow, nice. So yeah, I keep that. And then I keep a pair of side cutters. You never know when you have to cut a battery free.

[00:13:53] Or a wire tie or whatever yeah hopefully you never have to cut a battery out of an airplane.

[00:13:58] But I’ve been there I have too so it’s handy to it’s handy to have usually you’re in a hurry when.

[00:14:03] You do that so also in the top here I’ve got a flashlight because sometimes if you’re.

[00:14:08] Trying to stare up into a cowl to see where the needle is, to maybe make a needle adjustment. You need a little bit of light, so I keep a little flashlight, a little led flashlight in there, and then I have a couple of containers of just some loose odds and ends like extra landing, ear straps, clevises. So there’s a little container of nuts and bolts. I mean really small grab and go type stuff.

[00:14:31] No large assortment or anything like that. Yeah, just things you’ve come across that you might need, that you’ve taken out of another airplane or something and thrown them in the top of that.

[00:14:38] Exactly yeah. And then something else you might want to keep in the top of your box is a, a spare engine like I have here. I have the. I have the asp 91 off the trashcan Telemaster still.

[00:14:49] On the top of my box. Yeah, that, that, yeah, that’s a story for another day, once we get it going. But engine number four isn’t looking too good right now either. No, no, we’ve got some runtime on it and we’re not very happy with that, but we’ll, we’ll give. We’ll get an update into that here eventually once we get it ran and figured out, hopefully, yeah, and then so the last thing here in the top of

[00:15:11] The box that I can talk about is I keep a pair of fairly heavy duty gloves because, like you said, I like to hand start- yeah, pretty much everything if I can. So a glove is a nice heavy glove to protect my fingers, like a leather type glove, yep, yeah. And then, do you use a chicken stick at all? Or I used to, in fact I there, here’s one right here. It’s broken, but I do have one. Well, the stick, part of it broke off the handle. So I mean, I still use the handle from time to time, like, for instance, if somebody asked me to help with their airplane and

[00:15:44] I walk up to the airplane and I notice that they have not- and we’ll talk about this someday too, because this is another one of my pet peeves- that they have not like dulled the edges of their prop, so they’re as molded. I will put the glove on and grab the chicken stick most of the time.

[00:16:01] What you do is just take the edge of your like exacto knife and just run it right over the edge of that propeller, takes that sharp edge off. Yeah, not like the wooden ones or anything, but like the molded plastic, right, not the carbon fiber, nothing like that, but just the master. Air screws are the

[00:16:16] Worst are they? Yeah, they’re like I don’t know something about the molding process. They cut up my hands like nobody’s business. So I really- yeah, I’ll take my exacto and run it over that. Usually the

[00:16:27] Trailing edge is the worst yeah I always thought the apcs were those are sharp too but usually those.

[00:16:32] Are molded in such a way that they’re not as they don’t leave the sharp edge on the trailing edge, like the master air screws do. But anyway, I’ll keep. That’s why I keep the chicken stick in here, for.

[00:16:44] Times like that, somebody else and they haven’t done that issues. Yeah, and I’m not going to go carving on somebody’s prop with my exacto knife, so I’ll take one for the team and get out the.

[00:16:53] Chicken stick so I don’t cut my hands, the broken chicken stick. It’s broken, but it still works, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it’s just half a chicken stick, it’s. It’s a yeah, it’s, it’s more like a chicken.

[00:17:03] Twig I guess how did you wow how did you break it because those are to be honest yeah stout yeah I’m.

[00:17:13] Looking at it here, I can’t remember. Obviously I was trying to start something fairly substantial and oh, that’s a plastic one. Yeah, what would you expect wood? Oh well, no, this one is an old. So it looks like- actually, it looks like a motorcycle grip, it does. And then the end of it was a was a piece. I believe it was a fiberglass rod that had then been plasti dipped or whatever had been.

[00:17:33] Had a plastic coating on that is not what I was thinking the ones I’ve seen before have been like.

[00:17:38] Wood like turned wood. Oh well, I mean you could certainly. I mean anything you could use that’s maybe softer than the prop itself would be, would be okay to use. But yeah, this one- yeah, I see how you broke it now. Yes, this one’s fairly flexible and you can see on the end here.

[00:17:53] That I’ve. Are you sure that’s what that is? Because it really looks like. It’s like it really took like the hand grip off of off of like a kid’s three wheeler when stingray- what that usually has the streamers and stuff hanging down. That’s what it looks like. No, this is a. Yeah, this was a.

[00:18:08] Well, I mean, maybe that’s what it how it began, because a lot of the products we use in the rc industry are repurposed products from something else, right, I guess? Yeah, so this may have been exactly what you’re talking about, but in the end of it was a like I said, it was like a fiberglass rod and that had been coated with a plastic that’s like a quarter inch hole. Then that you’re talking.

[00:18:30] About roughly that you’re going to be sticking stuff out of. So I like okay. So what I’m used to seeing is probably like a three quarter inch diameter stick with a handle on one side, okay, and it’s usually, like I said, that I’ve seen, yeah, has been like pine, so that’s why there’s been, yeah, there’s been lots of different types, but, yeah, that’s why I was really like, that’s why I was really questioning how you broke it, because I thought it was a little bit more substantial than that. That.

[00:18:54] Yeah that’s very soft and no I think these were made for like 40 to 60 size or smaller and I.

[00:19:02] Probably tried to start somebody’s 124 stroke with it or something yeah and broke it but.

[00:19:08] Anyway yeah it’s still now the handle still get rid of it no it probably started out as white and.

[00:19:13] It’s ivory now it looks like it’s been like 30 or 40 years old it’s been around a while.

[00:19:20] All right. So that pretty much covers the outside of what’s in and on my flight box. So my flight box has two drawers. Lots of different flight boxes are arranged differently. Like I said, mine’s old, I’ve had a long time and it has two drawers. I think that’s like the most.

[00:19:38] Common type you can get from like top flight or horizon and that kind of stuff yeah yours did.

[00:19:46] Yours start out as white or did you paint it so mine was a kit that I built many years ago.

[00:19:52] And I epoxy painted it and I this is kmb super poxy a kit built flight box yeah that’s awesome.

[00:20:00] Actually I didn’t know that was a thing I think this was actually a goldberg ultra tote.

[00:20:04] If I remember correctly, see, yours is in a lot better shape than mine and I. I bought mine eight years ago or whenever it was that I started and it was. I think horizon is who, the who made the flight box hanger, hanger nine, I think. Yeah, hanger nine it is. Is that different? No, but that’s. If it’s a horizon brand, it is okay. Probably it is the biggest. How do I want to put this? An honest review, an honest review? No, I’ll try and be nice about it. It’s not put together very well and I mean.

[00:20:36] They use the cheapest wood you could possibly buy. Yeah, like you can’t slide in the bottom drawer without lifting on the top drawer. I mean, stuff is just cut so bad, so weirdly, yeah, yeah. So if you’re gonna buy one, try and spend some money on a decent one, because this was not cheap and there’s.

[00:20:56] Custom made ones out there too that you can find. Like, if you, if you do a google search- custom flight box or custom field box, there’s guys out there that make really, really nice ones. But here’s the thing about those, those custom made ones: they’re very heavy and if you’re like me, you have to carry your stuff from the basement to turn a corner and get out the side door and then carry it out to the garage or the or the car or whatever. Heavy flight boxes are kind of a pain. So the custom, the custom flight boxes are awesome if you can just wheel it from the car to.

[00:21:31] The garage and then from the garage to the car. What have you? The heavier they are, the more of a pain they become, especially if you have to drag it out of a basement, like I do with mine, and I made the comment bringing mine in here. Man, this thing gets heavier every time I pick it up. Yeah, you sure did.

[00:21:44] But you have a lot of stuff in there. Well, I do like a motor that doesn’t need to be in there, right, and a 12 volt battery that I haven’t used in there doesn’t do anything, doesn’t do me any good.

[00:21:54] Yeah so in the in the top drawer here I’m just kind of looking in here I’m not gonna rifle through.

[00:21:59] It don’t want to make a lot of noise I’ll get in trouble but I don’t want to be noisy you’re right.

[00:22:06] It’s all good. So pulling a few little things out here, I’ve got a servo tester. Right. You what this is? You’ve got a similar one. It’s not as nice there really. This was like four dollars, I think.

[00:22:19] From hobby king. It’s not a, it’s not a high quality, but it does what I want it to do: it tests servos. Mine was like a dollar sixty on ebay, so mine is a dollar compared to yours then, yeah, eight years ago. But yeah, so yours has the, the leds and stuff on which I don’t know what that’s actually going to tell you. What is that? Don’t know. Oh, okay, I just use it to basically test the limits and test the servo. Yeah, that’s really all I do. That’s all I use mine for too. It’s. Mine has a knob and then you can set it between manual, auto or it does one other thing, and I don’t know what it is, according to.

[00:22:51] The back of this it has two modes for checking one to four servos oh what are the two modes well.

[00:22:57] I can’t read this. Oh, throw it over to me, let’s see, there you go. It says: oh boy, I can’t read it either. What wait, man, would you say? It says manual mode and automatic mode. Oh well, oh, that’s right.

[00:23:11] Yeah so like on the automatic mode it moves the servo from one limit all the way to the other and.

[00:23:16] Back and just keeps doing that like a windshield wiper blade exactly yeah and then manual.

[00:23:21] Manual you can turn the knob there that’s on the front and move the servo manually I guess but.

[00:23:26] What did I oh yeah but I don’t know what the led thing does on it maybe it measures voltage.

[00:23:32] Pulse width maybe does it can it measure that I doubt it I don’t know hold on I’m gonna run and grab.

[00:23:38] Mine, okay, okay, sorry about that. So I went and grabbed mine because it had three modes and I didn’t know what the third one was, and it’s actually very handy. It has a centering mode, oh, so you can do the same thing as on yours, but it will also set it to neutral. So that’s good, oh, okay, yeah, so that’s good. When you’re trying to set up an airplane, you don’t actually have to have it hooked up to your, your transmitter, you can just use this and then you can say: all your control throws to neutral. But

[00:24:03] Yeah that’s that is handy yeah so see even though yours was cheaper yours is more functional than mine.

[00:24:11] Yeah but yours looks nicer.

[00:24:15] Sure, all right. So my drawer, this top drawer, is divided into two sections. There’s a left and a right, so there’s my servo tester. I’ve got a digital non-contact temp gauge, which is handy for reading cylinder head temperatures. Unfortunately, this one, I believe the limit is 200.

[00:24:33] So occasionally yeah we’ll run our motors a little bit hotter than that yeah so it becomes.

[00:24:40] Useless over 200, but anything below that. Digital non-contact thermometer there pretty handy. Also, in this drawer I’ve got some stuff to write with, so you never know. You get to the field and somebody says: hey, I got this cool airplane I would like to get rid of. Do what it might be worth. Would you be interested in it? Oh, it’s an old kit. Yeah, I’m interested. So you might want to write somebody’s phone number down. Maybe you’ll want to make a note as you’re flying. Maybe the CG feels a little bit too far forward or too far back, so you

[00:25:14] Make a little adjustment and you write that down on a piece of paper so you can add it to your.

[00:25:19] Binder of notes at home on that airplane when you get home yes so binder of notes on an airplane.

[00:25:25] We all have those right, right, okay, also in this side of the drawer I’ve got a couple of extra sub c size nickel metal hydride cells for my nice starters or my globe plug igniters. I keep.

[00:25:39] A couple extra. There. They’re not charged, so I’m not sure why I carry them in my flight box, but there they are. They would not be charged anyway by now. No, no, here’s a. Here’s a cool little floppy.

[00:25:51] Exhaust diverter. You never know when you might want to divert some exhaust. Looks like I’ve got some lead weight in here again, handy for CG adjustments. Oh, I thought you just wanted to make it heavier. No well, I mean, this certainly does make the box heavier, no question about that. But I have been at the field before. I wanted to make a CG change and really the only way

[00:26:10] To do it quickly at the field and still get some flying in is to stick on some lead.

[00:26:15] Just a note about that if you do that at the field that’s fine get you through the day but when.

[00:26:19] You get home knock that lead off and then find someplace handy to glue it inside the airplane.

[00:26:24] You don’t want it falling off and you get five or six ounces of nose weight falling off now.

[00:26:29] Your airplane is suddenly tail heavy and hard to land, or, better yet, try and do it by moving something inside the airplane. So you’re not. That’s the ideal right? Yeah, that’s the ideal way, exactly. So also in.

[00:26:42] Here I’ve got a little extra bit of fuel tubing and that looks like: oh, I have my prop reamers. So I keep a metric one and I keep a standard one. So there are some engines out there with quarter 28 standard size crankshafts and there are lots of other engines with metric ones. So unfortunately you got to sort of keep one of each in your box or at home. I keep them in my box because sometimes I’ll take spare props if I want to play with different props or whatever, and if I have forgotten to ream one out at home, then I can do it at the field and

[00:27:15] Still proceed with my tinkering if you will. It’s a good idea, actually. And then the aforementioned 12 volt glow plug lead that I can plug into my dead power panel and not light a glow plug with it- very useful, yeah, and that’s pretty much. Pretty much the. The nuts and bolts of what’s in this left hand compartment on the top drawer and pretty much all that’s on the right hand side are spare glow plugs and wing bolts like nylon wing bolts. Now, are those just extra wing bolts then, or?

[00:27:51] Okay, yeah, they’re extras, they don’t belong to any specific airplane. So when I’m storing an airplane, I try to take the wing bolts and actually thread them into the blocks that they go into or into the wings, so I don’t lose them right. Some airplanes can’t do that with, for whatever reason, in which case I take a, an old servo, like a like. If you buy a spectrum servo, they’ll come in a cool.

[00:28:14] Little plastic case or whatever I keep. I’ll write on the outside of the case what airplane it is and I’ll throw all the hardware in there and that way it’s all in one spot and labeled. Yeah, that’s.

[00:28:23] A good idea. So, yeah, and a little bit of velcro and that pretty much completes. Oh, this is important. So I met. I said that I was going to buy the metric set of dubro wrenches to put on the back next to the standard ones. Yeah well, I do have a set of metric wrenches here. These are just the standard l type allen wrenches. These are made by bondus which have the ball ended kind of like rubros, and these will live in my box until I get that other set mounted.

[00:28:54] On the back. So that pretty much completes the top drawer. And what about the next drawer? The next drawer, the next drawer, is where I keep all the fun stuff, my tools, and so the bottom drawer on mine is divided into three segments, and I’m kind of like I like to try to stay organized. So in the first segment are wrenches, pliers, crescent wrenches, needle nose pliers, stuff like that, and the center section is all of my socket head screw wrenches and my really good phillips screwdriver that I like so much, made by

[00:29:30] We ha never heard of them. Yeah, good stuff. It’s a- it’s an electric tool company, I think they’re. That’s what they’re known for. All their stuff’s made in germany and it’s high quality stuff and it has the cool little spinning knob on the end of it so you can oh yeah, but the tip is what? What really sells me on these things? I mean the tip on these things are precision ground and tough as nails. I mean you can’t get a lot of torque on this particular one, but they’re good ones. You can really get a lot of torque on them and the tips really stand up to abuse.

[00:30:04] Yeah, that is a nice looking end to it. Yeah, and they make. They make wrenches. They make socket head, cap screw type wrenches. They make phillips and flathead they make wrenches. They actually make nut drivers too. So good, good, good quality stuff. Unfortunately, all I could afford was that one phillips screwdriver. So there it is. So that’s the center section. We’ll talk about sizes in each one of these here in a second, and then on the on the right, the farthest right compartment here is just kind of a hodgepodge of: there’s an exacto knife, there’s a spare. Oh, this is important too.

[00:30:37] So I’ve got a carburetor tuning screwdriver and what’s huh and what’s special about this is that it clutches right. So the, the actual tip will spin in the handle when you reach a certain torque. And the reason that’s important is you don’t want to over torque your needle settings on your carburetors, because usually you’re pushing a needle into a brass seat, a steel needle into

[00:31:05] A brass seat. Yeah, what’s so funny? What’s so funny is that, now that I’m seeing this and knowing what it is, I threw one of these away, thinking it was junk, three or four weeks ago, because I was going through my shop, going through stuff and organizing, and yeah, there was one and I was like, oh, this thing.

[00:31:21] Spins. What a piece of crap doing anything. So, yeah, I threw it away. No, that you should have hang, you should have hung on to that. Yeah, good to know now. But yeah, they are. They are designed that way to protect your needle seats. Okay, like I said, we’re threading usually steel needles into a brass seat, yeah, like that. And then so if you over torque it you could spread out the seed and ruin the needle assembly. So, yeah, that’s a very handy tool. I’ll keep that over here. Now I get to go buy another one. Yep, now you can go buy another one. So, like I said, this one this side, this little.

[00:31:54] Compartment here is just kind of a hodgepodge. I got an extra prop reamer in there. It looks like: oh and I got this really handy. I call this my chapman toolkit. It’s actually the chapman manufacturing company. They make this. It’s a cool little ratcheting hex key type. Oh sure, this one’s standard. They make standard and metric very handy and I impressed bob last time we were out. He thought this was the coolest thing ever. So that is pretty cool, but I could see

[00:32:24] Other ways of doing it so what’s special about that you can’t do like or why would you use.

[00:32:28] That over your ratcheting screwdriver, so this will get in really small areas, right, okay, so it’s a ratcheting handle kind of thin and the bit snaps in like that and now I can get torque on this.

[00:32:43] Fastener in a very small space okay that’s what’s really handy about that and the tips on these.

[00:32:49] Little inserts are precision ground so they fit the fasteners really, really snugly, okay, so you’re not stripping out fasteners and things like that. So that’s what I like about that, and bob thought that was the coolest thing and I think he’s probably trying to find one now. So let me guess, not made anymore. No, you can still get these. Oh no, no, these are. That’s the thing about tools like a hand tool type stuff. They still make them because you can use them in other, in other areas of the

[00:33:16] Of life right, working on cars, working on electronics, whatever. Yeah, a lot of that stuff translates to other stuff, like rc cars, even these, these nice dynamite ground hex.

[00:33:28] Drivers you can use these on rc cars so they’re still made you can still buy these and these are.

[00:33:32] Fantastic wrenches too, by the way they are. Yeah, I’ve got a set. Actually I’ve got a couple sets. They’re not dynamite, but they’re. I don’t know what the other ones were, maybe they are. No, I know what.

[00:33:41] You’re talking about that. They might be done and I don’t know, but they’re. They’re good too, because they have the same deal: the precision ground tips that are very, very tough and they fit the fasteners. So. So that’s the three compartments, so I’ll over here on the. On the first one, like I said, it was pliers and things like that. So I keep a pair of linesman’s pliers- that’s what I call them. They’re basically like the slip joint. They have two positions, kind of open and enclosed, what you would consider the standard pair of pliers, right, right. So I keep a pair of those in there. I keep a pair of small needle nose because I mean, like precision, yeah, you never know when.

[00:34:16] You’re gonna need to grab something with a pair of needle nose so it’s good to have a pair.

[00:34:21] In there, that is true, and I also have this. I think it’s a four, maybe a six inch adjustable wrench. That’s the one that has the knob on it. You can adjust the jaws open and close, like a crescent wrench kind of thing. Yep, exactly, yeah. And then, and then I also have a pair of needle nose vice grips. Those are very handy, very handy. Yeah, I mean, you need to hold a, the back side of a, of a, a self throw or, I’m sorry, a self-locking nut or something like that. These things come in really handy when you can’t get anything else on them. Yep, and then I do also keep a 12 millimeter.

[00:34:55] And a 10 millimeter combination wrench in here for prop nuts. Oh, is that what most of those are then? Yeah, okay, well, the. The reason I keep a 10 and a 12 in here is, like most of the four strokes that I use, they have jammed nuts, right, they have a big nut and then a smaller nut. That sort of jams into that.

[00:35:14] Big nut for to hold the prop on and those are usually a 10 and a 12 so that’s why I keep those in.

[00:35:19] Here and then and then another pair of the really, really, really precision needle nose mm-hmm and a small pair of side cutters. Oh, okay, so that pretty much completes compartment number one. And then in the middle compartment I said that’s where I keep my allen wrenches, or, if you want to, I’m going to call them- start calling them hex drivers, because that’s really what they are, and I keep those in metric and standard and, yes, there’s duplication in my flight box. I was going to ask about that. So the reason I keep these, like these dynamite wrenches for example, they have

[00:35:54] That nice precision ground square tip on the end. They’re not rounded so you have to get pretty much straight on a fastener with these. But because of the handle being nice and you can get a good grip on it and the tip being precision ground, it fits that fastener really tight so you can get really a lot of torque on it and that’s handy on things like easy connectors that I that I don’t like very much- we’ve talked about those- but also very handy, like in my metric size here in my two and a half millimeter muffler screws like os. Muffler screws are notorious if you don’t use.

[00:36:29] Loctite, which I don’t like to use, loctite notorious for vibrating loose if you got a good wrench and you can get a good torque on them. That you’re not. They’re not going to come loose, okay, especially if

[00:36:40] You tighten them when they’re warm oh that’s a good tip that’s another trick tip free so yeah.

[00:36:47] A set of standard and metric good quality hex drivers. I’ve got a quarter inch nut driver in here that I have ground down, you can see. That’s for getting to the back side of engine mounts, things like that tight spaces, especially if there’s not room around the nut, I ground.

[00:37:07] That down so it would fit down in there obviously not going to get a lot of torque on it because.

[00:37:11] It’s pretty thin. Yeah, you’re going to break it if you put too much on it, but enough to where I can tighten things that I need to tighten. And then yeah, and then I have the same basic thing in metric. These are- these are leftover from my car days to my yeah. Yeah, but these are really great quality aluminum nut drivers. Again, you’re not going to get a lot of torque on these because they’re made of aluminum, but if you got a metric nut and you don’t have a standard, or if you don’t have a nut,

[00:37:37] Driver that fits it. These are perfect for that, for rc airplanes, for a lot of things. Though, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna tighten it so much to where you’re going to break an aluminum tool, you’ve got more problems than that, because you’re going to be breaking whatever else. You’re working on. That’s.

[00:37:51] True, so you don’t need a lot of a lot of torque with that. Yeah, I would say like 90 of the stuff that we’re going to be putting applying torque to we’re talking less than 10 inch pounds. Yeah, really, the only thing that you’re really going to torque down in this hobby is prop nuts engine.

[00:38:08] Mounts and all that kind of stuff too. A little bit muffler screws things like that, yeah, but for everything else you’re not going to be putting right hardly any pressure exactly. So. So these little tools are fine for that, and this one that I ground down is fine. So that’s the

[00:38:24] Center section and then I pretty much already covered what’s over here in this last compartment- just kind of a hodgepodge of leftover stuff like I’ve. I’ve got a handy little flat screwdriver here for getting into sato low speed needles and that’s like a micro size. Yeah, it’s very.

[00:38:40] Very small. It’s almost like the eyeglass kit size, right, I was just gonna say like the little micro screwdriver kits you get, where there’s like six of them in there or something like that. Yeah, something. I actually used to keep one of those kits in here and then it just became too much to manage and then I threw this in there, and between this one and that phillips screwdriver I can get pretty much.

[00:38:59] Everything I need so. So we’re not going to build an airplane out of the tools that I have in here, but you can certainly go flying and do quick repairs with the assortment of stuff that I have here, and then I keep a sharp exacto knife in there because, you never know, you might need to cut a piece fuel tubing or cut a piece covering away. Yeah, that’s something else you should.

[00:39:19] Probably have in your box is packing tape. Oh, that’s a good idea and I normally do. Just in case something happens, you can always do a quick fix and fly again right, and that way you can fix it when you get home. But it’s enough to get you up in the air right, and I was going to mention that, so I

[00:39:34] Actually kind of have two flight boxes, so I have this one that I take with me 80 of the time I go fly, but sometimes I’m I’m not flying a nitro or a gas or whatever, and I don’t need all.

[00:39:48] This right? Yeah, because electric is a lot more easy to fly, a lot simpler to take. You got to worry about batteries and there, and that’s about it. I mean, you don’t have to deal with all the extra tools.

[00:39:59] Right, so I keep a box just for when I’m, when I’m only going to take electrics. And that’s the cool little tote. It’s fabric, it’s got a little handle on. It. Has pouches on the sides, around the sides. Yeah, for perfect for putting your battery. You’re like your flight batteries, and then I.

[00:40:15] I’ll you throw the charger and your balance boards or whatever in the center roll the paper.

[00:40:20] Towels and cleaner and then a pair of side gutters and that’s really all you need to take with.

[00:40:27] You yeah so for electric you really don’t even need the glass cleaner or the paper towels that’s true.

[00:40:32] Because it’s so much cleaner. It is cleaner, it is cleaner. But I find that sometimes, when I’m flying electric, I’m flying at a, at a park or at a school or whatever, and the if the grass is wet.

[00:40:43] Or whatever it throws dewey if you will yeah there you go dewey I like that if it’s.

[00:40:50] Dewey, it’ll throw grass up on the airplane and then I like to clean that off. I like to try to keep my airplanes clean. Yeah, and dry and dry, that’s the best part of them. Yeah, they don’t like to be wet. No, they don’t. You’ve discovered that. So, yeah, that pretty much. That pretty much covers what’s in my nitro, if you will: flight box, nitro and gasser, and then, like I said, I keep another one just for electric stuff, and I keep it ultra simple. It’s got a. I think I have a phillips screwdriver in it in case you need to remove a battery hatch, also like a two-in-one I have.

[00:41:25] A little cool little two-in-one screwdriver that I keep for that, a pair of side cutters, because, like I said, if you need to get a battery out in a hurry, side cutters yeah. And then I think I keep a small pair of needle nose and that’s pretty much it for tools that I’ll keep in my little.

[00:41:41] Electric only box. Yeah, there’s not a lot that you need for electric. No, not really just saying: yeah, well, I don’t disagree. Yeah, nitro so dirty well, nitro so much more fun. Though, anyway, I don’t.

[00:41:55] Know about that. Yeah, so do. Do you have any questions? No, I think that makes sense. As to everything, I guess I need to. Yeah, and like I said, and like I said just because Tom says he keeps it in his box, obviously everybody does things differently and I could certainly clean this box. I mean, it’s a mess, to be honest. I could certainly clean it out and probably condense a lot of stuff and probably shave 10 pounds off the dang thing, but you never know when you’re going to need the stuff. So I

[00:42:23] Just leave it in there well but most of the time you do have glass cleaner and paper towels in there.

[00:42:28] Too, though so I do. Yeah, I, I will make a make a little spot in the top, usually for my roll of paper towels, and the glass cleaner will either ride in the in the radio box sometimes, or it’ll ride in my electric only flight box. Most of the time I end up taking both boxes. Yeah, because the, the electric one, has handy, like I said, little pouches in there. I can put my batteries in there, and then, as I fly one, I put it on the other side, knowing that it’s discharged that way. Good idea what I mean. So, yeah, so there you go. That’s, that covers what Tom keeps in his flight box. Well, I don’t think.

[00:43:05] I have anything else then do you? I just wanted to say the fourth of july, weekend’s coming up, wish I hope everybody has a good fourth of july. Stay safe and hope you guys get a lot of flying.

[00:43:14] Sounds good so anything else nope okay until next time I’m Ron and I’m Tom good night good night we hope you enjoyed this episode.

[00:43:24] Of the RC Plane Lab podcast for topic suggestions, to ask questions or to give any feedback. Connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast app until next time. May your landings be gentle you.