Ep 31: Bees, Buddy Boxes, and Biplanes

[00:00:10] RC Plane Lab, a podcast for anyone interested in RC airplane. We’ll share tips and tricks on how to build models and talk about successful flights, epic crashes and everything in between. Visit us at rcplanelab.com to sign up for our email list and to ask us questions. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please help us out by rating and reviewing us in your favorite podcast app. Thanks for spending time with us today. Now here are your hosts: Ron and Tom hello.

[00:00:38] Everyone and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron and I’m Tom hey, so we actually made it to the field last weekend. We did, and holy smokes, the bees, oh the bees. Yeah, these things are they.

[00:00:54] Were ridiculous. So these are the little sweat bees that kind of come up and just they don’t bite. Well, I shouldn’t say that they didn’t bite me. I don’t know if they bite or not. Well, I think they like.

[00:01:03] As a defense mechanism. I think they do so, like I did some reading on the internet, on the interweb, about it. Oh yeah, you’re, you’re a doctor on it. Well, I wouldn’t say entomologist, maybe, okay, no, not really, but dr Tom. Yeah, so they’re actually called hover flies. I guess they belong to the fly family really and they actually, according to this couple of articles I read, they don’t actually bite.

[00:01:26] But I beg to differ. Do they sting? Well, no, wait, they’re not a bee then. No, they’re. They’re flies, they’re in the fly family, so they lick you when they’re trying to eat whatever it is that’s on your skin. They’re after the, the sweat and salt or whatever. Yeah, but like, like I was at the, I got there. It was before you got there, because you got there shortly after I did right, I’d been there a grand total of about a minute and like one of them landed right here in the crook of my arm and I didn’t notice it and I bent my arm to like open the door or something and then, gosh, darn thing.

[00:01:58] Did whatever it did and yeah, and then I had a welt there for the next half hour. That it’s like a

[00:02:03] Son of a gun. I did not know that. Yeah, like I knew they were annoying, because I tell you what I, so when you were flying, it was kind of funny. I would literally stand behind you. What that looked like.

[00:02:14] Like pig pen from snoopy well I was. I was thinking maybe the gyrations I was going through.

[00:02:20] Trying to keep the dang things off. Well, no, I was standing behind you and like, literally like swatting them away from your feet as you’re sitting there flying. Well, I was trying, I didn’t plan it, but I, luckily enough, wore long pants so they weren’t bothering my legs right, but my arms and face, oh.

[00:02:37] It was terrible. It’s one thing to have them like landing on my arm and your finger, like they get on your fingers and they’ll get in between them and then you can feel them crawling around, it’s like, but on the face it’s just oh so, so annoying. It was really annoying. So that cut our trip to the field short. It did. Yeah, we would have stayed probably quite a bit longer because overall it was the wind was kind of cross runway, but we can fly in that field kind of to the south.

[00:03:03] Right, which is fine. But yeah, the bees were just and the wind was not bad. But yeah, the worst part, you just could not keep the bees away from me. I was actually hoping for more wind to keep the bees- I’m sorry, are they? They’re not bees, then I’ve called them sweat bees, forever I’ve called them.

[00:03:18] Sweat bees my whole life, but they’re actually called hoverflies. Yeah no, I’m gonna say sweat bee. Yeah, me too I don’t like hoverfly. Yeah well, because the dang thing bit me, so that’s a bee.

[00:03:29] Well, bees sting, they don’t bite me then okay, there you go, but no, so that made the whole experience not fun. However, it really did. It did have some. There were some upsides to go on. That day we did have some success. Some success, we did have some success. We- I was actually very proud of my son so a couple weeks ago- yeah, a couple weeks before that- he had one of his friends over the one that really wants to try and get into flying and stuff and so I ended up getting him set up on our, on our simulator. He had never really used a transmitter to fly and he’s done it like on the playstation and stuff and

[00:04:04] It’s a little different. Yep, yeah, it’s not the same at all. He did a pretty good job for never having done it before, so I’ll give him that he really didn’t know what to do, so I ended up setting up the, the simulator to do just landings. Okay, it’s very handy to learn how to do landings with a with a simulator, because it will constantly like, after you land or crash, it will

[00:04:25] Put you right back in the air on your final approach, like on a reach, like a continuous loop or whatever you complete one, it sets you right back at the yeah. So as soon as you land and stop, or as

[00:04:35] Soon as you crash and stop right. It will just put you back up in the sky a certain distance away and you can tell how far, how high. To make it more difficult if you have to try and get in faster or something like that, to where the only thing you really have to worry about is just coming in, your approach, keeping your wings level and then getting that flare down. So we were working on that and then cody decided that he wanted to do that a couple times. Now he hasn’t flown for probably four or five years. It’s been a long time- and he was getting a little bit cocky, I mean.

[00:05:05] He’s like, oh, this is so simple. So he told me when we went out to the field that he was going to try and fly it by himself. I was like, all right, cool, we’ll, we’ll see what if you feel comfortable doing that. So the plane he flew, and you’ll have to tell a little bit about this because it came from you. It’s called a fun one. Yep, made that great planes. That’s all I know about it in the day, yeah.

[00:05:27] And was that a? That was a kit? It was. Yeah, it was a. It was a kit that was relatively easy to put together. Back in the day before 3d was kind of the aerobatic thing. Fun flies were the aerobatic thing. So you built airplanes that had really thick airfoils that can fly really slow and some of the come contests that these fun flies were like as many loops as you can do in a minute or as many takeoffs and landings as you can do in two.

[00:05:57] Minutes or whatever. So these airplanes were designed to be kind of kind of aerobatic, but really mostly able to do things at a at a slow speed. So they had thick airfoils, really basic construction, short moments like the kind of short tails or whatever. But yeah, it was built from a kit and I- yeah, they’re great flying airplanes. Actually, was that one you built? That is one I built.

[00:06:19] Oh well, many, many years ago. So, anyway, this is one that we did a bunch of training many moons ago, a few years, and that’s one that came with 2012 or 13, something like that, probably most likely. And so I flew that airplane pretty much right after I got it from you and that from the very beginning, that was going to be cody’s airplane like he knew it. We even put his name on it, stenciled it on all that kind of stuff. Oh yeah, well, at that time he had his, that firebird stratus, that little dual motor, that nice, nice, easy, fun fly like learning to fly airplane. Yeah, there’s a

[00:06:51] Picture of it right here in our studio. Oh yeah, there it is, but anyway, so he had that one and that’s kind of where he was skill wise. And so after we got that one from you, I went out and I flew it by myself at the at the field. Well, it scared me like not scared me, like it was too fast, but it scared me for him. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, it was way too fast, way too aerobatic for him, started to rethink about him flying it and I told him that. So we shelved it and it has sat since then. Yeah, well, I

[00:07:22] Took the motor off of it for something else, and all that because he was not interested in the hobby at all. Well, now that he’s kind of interested in the hobby again, I ended up. I think it was a. Is it a sato 50? Yes, so I have a. Have a sato 50. That was a really loud sato 50. Well, that came from you too.

[00:07:40] So you tell me okay. So the sato 50 has a muffler on it, which when you got it for me, the muffler was complete, I don’t know. But the end cap has actually been blown off of it or whatever drilled off of it or whatever, so that it’s just an open chamber exhaust and it’s almost acting like a resonator. Like it, it amplifies the noise that’s coming out of that thing. Actually, what is that? The

[00:08:03] Motor that was on the katana. It may be. Yeah, I think it is actually. Where did the golden knight sato come from that I had? Was that from you or was that somewhere else? What size is it? It was a 72 or an 82. It didn’t come from me. Okay, I might have bought that one at the hobby shop then. Okay, so then.

[00:08:21] This one. Yeah, this motor came from you. So yeah, if this one was on the katana, there’s a good chance that the muffler got broken in the first or second crash. Okay, I never thought of that actually. No, if this came off the katana, it’s a 65 then, because that’s what was on the katana. Katana was a sato 65. At any rate, it’s the loudest sato engine I’ve ever heard. Well, I like the sound of it, but

[00:08:42] Anyway, but anyway. So yeah, that was just one that I had in the box because katana crash pad, all that kind of stuff, and it hasn’t been used since then, kind of like a doula’s bucket I told cody to go ahead, we can use that motor and we’ll put it on that airplane and stuff. Actually it actually flies it pretty good it does. But to his credit, I mean, he did almost all of that work by himself. I was down here with him and kind of explaining what to do and how to get it mounted and all that, but he did the hard stuff himself. So I think that’s awesome. We got that together and he

[00:09:15] Was able to go out and fly that at the field sans the bees, because they were. They were awful terrible. They were very worst- yeah, the worst I’ve ever seen. They’ve been really thick this year.

[00:09:28] Like not even just at the field, even at my house and other places. Yeah, I’ve noticed them out here.

[00:09:33] For some reason. Yeah, not, not the bees, the, the bugs, whatever you want to. What do you say they were? Again, they’re hoverflies, hoverflies. No, I’m sorry, I still can’t do it. Yeah, whatever they are, they’re really annoying. So, yeah, but when we were out there, like I said, he flew it on a buddy box with you. Mm-hmm, there was a couple times that scared me. I really thought that plane was going to be no more and I actually, so I told him before we went out there. I said, look, I don’t want to sound bad, but I don’t care about this airplane. That’s kind of what I told him. It’s not like an important airplane.

[00:10:03] To me. This is yours. You don’t have a big emotional investment with this airplane, right? If you crash it?

[00:10:09] If you learn from it, cool. If you crash it on purpose, not cool. And he wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t do that, yeah. But so he knew- growing or going into it- that if something happened to it, no big deal, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. Well, it’s funny because as we got there and you were going through putting your airplanes together and stuff, and after we got that one together, he was sitting back on the bench and I was talking to him and I was like: so are you about ready? Oh, I don’t think I’m going to do it today. What do you mean? Cold feet? Well, I’m nervous. I was like: well, first off, it’s good that you’re nervous. That shows that you.

[00:10:44] Actually are invested in this because you don’t want to see something happen to it. If you weren’t nervous and you’re just like, ah, I don’t care about this plane, I crashed, it doesn’t matter, I didn’t pay for it, all that kind of stuff, I’m more concerned about somebody like that. He was nervous and I talked him down. I was like, if you crash it, I really don’t care. I mean, so don’t, don’t worry about that. I said, I’m not going to walk and get it. You’re going to walk and get it if you crash.

[00:11:07] It. You’re doing all the work, you just know that. But if you crash it and learn from it, it’s okay.

[00:11:12] Yeah, it’s okay. But then he finally, after I talked to him for a few minutes, he finally decided that I’ll I’ll get up and do it. So you guys buddy box together. There was, like I said two times, I was very scared because I thought it was going in the corn once you were.

[00:11:27] Probably what. Two feet above the. It was close. It was much closer than the Telemaster. I got to the

[00:11:33] Corn, the last time we flew it. Yeah, I flew it and then I don’t know what happened. But somehow you were like, you were like diving down to the runway and then it was like 10 feet from the ground. It kind of came up and started going back up. That scared me also. So I’ll be honest, after you guys did that- and that was in the first like two minutes of you guys flying- I went and sat down and didn’t watch. So I guess I was a little nervous about that too. Yeah, even though I didn’t think I’d care.

[00:12:02] Yeah, listen, he did fine, he really did, he did, he did a good job, he, he. He likes to fly low, which a lot of inexperienced pilots tend to do. That because they, I think, they associate altitude with the amount or not. Maybe not amount, but the severity of a crash. Like they figure, if it’s closer to the ground, maybe if it crashes it won’t be as bad as if I’m 200 feet in the air. So that’s kind of a natural tendency I think of new pilots or newer pilots. But no, he did he.

[00:12:36] Did fine, aside from flying low, and he got, and I, honestly, we were having some issues with the body box, it was. It was, I want to say, cutting in and out, if that makes sense, you remember, because we were messing with the cord or whatever, yeah, and I, I heard the, the, I don’t know if it was. Yeah, I don’t.

[00:12:52] Know if it was my. Was that my transmitter beeping or his? I don’t remember which one it was. It was.

[00:12:57] The one that was the master, whichever one, okay, so that would have been mine, the one I was holding.

[00:13:02] Yeah, I, I didn’t know what that beeping was when I heard it. I just thought you guys were.

[00:13:05] No, it was doing something. It was, and on the ground, when it would make the beep, it would be transferring, if you will, the control back to the master. So I’m thinking maybe a couple of those situations that he got in that you got really, really nervous. It may not.

[00:13:22] Have been his fault, because once I wasn’t hold on, I wasn’t blaming him. I thought it was you letting.

[00:13:27] Him get too close. Oh well, I mean I did let him get close and I wanted him to learn. I mean like I trusted.

[00:13:32] You to do it, but I wasn’t like I. I had my, my faith in you, because you were the one that was the, the last, the last wall to the. I don’t know how to say it, other than that you were the final line.

[00:13:44] To the defense. There you go to the crash. But yeah, no, I mean I part of being a good teacher is trying to stay ahead of the airplane. So what inputs to make when you, when you finally release that switch, to give you control back? But no, what I’m saying is I think a lot of the situations that he got into may have been because of that issue with the, with the cord or the or the input jack or whatever it is on the transmitter. Yeah, we’re gonna have to figure that out. Yeah, but overall I, I think he did great. I mean he, I let him, I let him get kind of in trouble. A.

[00:14:17] Couple times and I was like, okay, well, let’s see, I, I still have time to get it out of this. And quite a few times he recovered on his own before I even got to the switch, so good he.

[00:14:28] Hasn’t brought up going back out there yet, so I don’t know if that scared him enough away for a little while or what, but maybe he was bored. It could have been. I mean, I mean, we were, and maybe the bees bothered him. Yeah, the bees, the bees were terrible, those bees. I mean I, yeah, I’ve never seen him so

[00:14:43] Bad, yeah, but anyway I look forward to, I look forward to him flying some more, because that was fun for me too, because it’s a little something different I don’t get to do very often.

[00:14:52] Yeah, and so, speaking of that, I want to, I want to kind of read an email that we got. This actually.

[00:14:57] Was sent to us today, so perfect time for what we’re talking about, perfect time for when we were.

[00:15:03] Recording because you got it in probably what? Six hours? Yeah, it was early this morning, I think, yeah, so let’s let me read an email from gary. So gary says: hey y’all, I have a dilemma. I’ve made a friend at the airfield that is getting into rc. The club vice president was training him. Our vp told him he is not ready to fly on his own. But my friend feels he is ready to. He has attempted to several times, resulting in two crashed airplanes, but has had some successes. I feel he needs more training on landings. My buddy and the vp who is training him do not have good chemistry and tend.

[00:15:37] To spend more time arguing than flying. That’s not good. No, they have crashed our club trainer and two of my friends planes. My friend has hinted that he would be better off with someone like me to finish up his training. The issue is, neither of us have a buddy box and the club will not let me use theirs to train my friend. I also have never trained someone to fly rc, but I’m willing. So what can I do to learn how to teach someone? I found a field I could teach him at where rc is allowed. Not going to Reggie this all up, lol. I love that. That made me giggle when I read it. Yeah, I do have friends that can.

[00:16:10] Fly very well and I was thinking of having them test me if I can get a trainer and buddy box set up. If you have any suggestions on how I can become a trainer, it would be appreciated. Thank you, gary.

[00:16:21] Yeah, so, gary, thanks for emailing us. That’s, that’s awesome. First I just want to address the. I don’t want to Reggie this all up. While that is really, really, really entertaining and funny, Reggie is actually a pretty good pilot nowadays. So maybe in the early days, yeah, that would apply. But

[00:16:37] He’s actually a pretty good pilot. All right, he’s not saying anything about his piloting skills. He’s talking about not flying where you’re not supposed to fly. Okay, he still does this, so I’m fully on board.

[00:16:48] With making. So, Reggie, if you’re listening, he’s: yeah, he doesn’t want to Reggie it up, he wants to.

[00:16:54] Fly at a proper airfield. I’m fully on board with making Reggie a verb and I don’t want to Reggie it up. So, okay, gary, good job, good job, that made my day. So I’m gonna let Tom take most of that for how to train somebody, because I am not one that would be good at training. Now you, you have to know your.

[00:17:17] Limitations. Well, you barely fly your own airplanes. Like somebody wants to have you help them fly their airplane. You won’t even fly your own sometimes. So well, however, like the okay, so here’s where I get.

[00:17:31] Into, into, into problems. I get excited, but not like in the good way.

[00:17:39] Okay, so, like, okay. So here’s the thing. Like with, with piper, let’s, let’s use this for an example. All right, if she’s crawling on something or walking on something, or with her climbing getting ready to jump off of something, I try to stop that quickly, yes, and to do that in my mind. I’m just expressing concern, maybe a little louder than normal, but fast, yeah, I’m trying to get my point across to where, every time I like stop, anxious, almost more than excited, well, I don’t know, because I’m not necessarily like scared that she’s going to hurt herself. Okay, as much as I want.

[00:18:14] It to stop now, okay. When I do that, my wife always says: why are you yelling? I’m like, well, I’m not yelling, so I come off differently than what I’m meaning to come off. I think okay. So I would get too excited for somebody that needs to stay calm when they’re about to crash. Yep, and I also. When they’re about to crash. Yeah, and it’s on me if they do. I understand, but the other problems I have is finding the right word for explaining what I want somebody to do. So if I’m trying to tell them to use the elevator, I might say aileron or instead of up down and that kind of stuff, and I don’t want

[00:18:46] To confuse somebody, so I know my limitations. When it comes to training someone, yep, you are very good, on the other hand, at talking about what needs to be done, talking somebody through it in a very calm manner, and I could learn from you on that. So how, how do you like approach a subject like this where you need to train somebody? You don’t want to be with somebody that’s going to be excitable, like me, I think that might not be good, but you also don’t want to be with somebody like he’s talking about where they’re butting heads where they’re not. I mean, that makes it not fun for.

[00:19:19] Anybody, and the problem with that is you just. You don’t get any enjoyment out of it, and then you don’t learn because you’re shutting down. So that’s a bad situation to be in. What would you do if you’re?

[00:19:30] Going to be a trainer or if you’re going to teach, you need to be comfortable with the subject. I think that goes for any type of teaching. So if you’re going to teach somebody how to fly, you need to be comfortable yourself with flying. If- and gary’s not an example I’m using, but I will use an example that I’ve seen at our field before- somebody who only maybe has a year or so of flying experience trying to train somebody is usually ill equipped to train, and the reason

[00:20:04] I say that is because it takes experience to learn, like what’s kind of like a muscle memory. I want to say, oh okay, so you see an airplane, you react. You see an airplane do something, you sort of automatically react, and I think that’s sort of what you need to have kind of honed to be a teacher. You’re not thinking about your next move, it just happens. It just happens right. So first off, you have to be comfortable with the subject and in this case you have to be. You have to be comfortable with flying and you also have to be, I think, a good

[00:20:38] Teacher, or somebody who can be a successful teacher, has to be somebody who has maybe crashed a few themselves and has learned from their own mistakes. I’ve got lots of experience in that regard. I crashed quite a few airplanes, especially when I was starting out, because we didn’t have such a thing as buddy boxes. We were doing the old hand, the transmitter back and forth, hot potato kind of thing, but anyway. So number one you have to be. You have to be a- I mean you have to be a decent pilot. I mean you have to have some experience, you have to have maybe learned from.

[00:21:10] Some mistakes, maybe, that you’ve made that you can pass on. That’s, that’s what teaching is about, and we learn from our mistakes. So that’s number one and number two. It doesn’t hurt to be friends or to already know, maybe the idiosyncrasies, if you will, of maybe the person you’re teaching like, maybe you, maybe you already know them. The more them, the better it is or the easier it is to teach them, because then you’re more comfortable- and this is going to sound bad, but then you’re more comfortable.

[00:21:40] Telling them what to do. I know when I first meet someone- or especially at the field, if it’s a, if it’s somebody new- and I always try to forewarn them, saying, hey, listen, I’m going to tell you what to do and I by no means am I trying to act like your boss or anything like that. I’m just saying if you want to learn, you have to do what I tell you to do. And a lot of that is repetition and, like I said, you see an airplane in a particular attitude. You, over years, you sort of train yourself to react to those situations. If you don’t have that experience,

[00:22:13] You need someone to tell you or work you through that. So if you already know that person and you already kind of have a relationship with that person or a rapport or something like that, it’s easier, it’s more comfortable to tell them what they need to do, and it sounds crazy, but you can do a lot of it in your head. So I remember many, many years ago we were- I think I was actually still in college and I was trying to teach a college friend and

[00:22:45] I knew we were going to go to the field and it was like on a wednesday or whatever we’re gonna go that weekend and in my head I was kind of going through a flight, if like a routine, and usually what it is like the first few flights are going to be: you’re going to take off, probably as the t, as the instructor, and then you’re going to at some point hand over the controls and have them do basic circles or whatever. And I try to have a plan for each flight, starting with the basics: right turn, left turn, let’s do some circles.

[00:23:15] Left hand pattern and right hand pattern, and then, once they got the left and right thing figured out, then we’ll do some figure eights in front of us because that sort of develops that backwards thing when the airplane is coming at you. So I’ll go through that mentally in my head and I’ll- it sounds crazy, but I’ll. I’ll even maybe grab my transmitter and when it’s quiet or if I’m not working on anything, I’ll just go over that pattern in my head and sort of develop that, that muscle memory, if you will. Even though I know how to fly, teaching somebody to fly is not exactly the

[00:23:46] Same. So, and then making sure the equipment is working, that’s that’s another key factor. Make sure you’re not having issues with the connections or if you’re using a buddy box, when you switch over the control to the from the master to the, the buddy box, the slave- yeah, it’s called a slave in the spectrum transmitter, but anyway, make sure- and you do a lot of this during the pre-flight- make sure when you switch the controls that everything is equal like. Make sure

[00:24:18] That neutral on the master matches the neutral on the trainer. If that when you hit the switch, make sure nothing moves and then do the same thing at the at the extremes of each gimbal, like you move the right stick all the way up into the right and the left stick all the way up into the left, and then have the trainer do the same thing and then hit the switch and everything shouldn’t move.

[00:24:40] Yeah, I noticed you did that when we were getting set up with cody and I had never seen that done.

[00:24:44] Before. Yeah, that was just me making sure that the that the trainer and the master transmitters.

[00:24:50] Matched so, and that’s a good idea, because you don’t want to jump drastically when you go from.

[00:24:57] Master to. I mean, sometimes I’ve seen it before where people flip the trainer switch and the throttle’s reversed. So you’re flying along a wide open throttle and then the you flip the control and it kills the motor. Well, okay, that was a that’s bad, wasted tech, take off, or whatever. But so those are some of the things that I kind of think about when it’s time to train. But a lot of times if I’m at the field and it’s it’s a really busy day or whatever, and somebody just shows up and says, hey, there’s, sometimes there’s not time to

[00:25:26] Prepare. So yeah, well. So here’s my question. Like he says that they crashed two planes, yeah, I’m trying to do that. Is that normal? No, I was going to say no as a, as a, as a teacher. You should not be crashing any airplanes. I mean, that’s how I would take it. At least you should be in full control and if you see, unless it’s on a landing, but if it’s on a landing, you should be comfortable enough to take control back over. Yeah, to where it’s not going to crash. I mean you might land hard.

[00:25:54] But it shouldn’t crash an airplane and I failed to mention that. Something else you want to do as an instructor is you want to be- and this applies to a lot of different aspects of the hobbies you want to, you want to be flying ahead of the airplane like as an instructor. You want to try to anticipate everything you can, which is impossible. You can’t anticipate everything, but you can. You can fly 10, 15, 20 feet ahead of the airplane and be ready for those inputs when you flip that switch back, if the, if the student gets in trouble, and that’s like I said, that’s.

[00:26:26] Beneficial to many parts of the, of the flying, of the, of the hobby. But that’s especially important to be ahead of the airplane, especially for training because, like you said, on a landing approach- and that’s where it gets really dicey is- is the is teaching the landing. That’s.

[00:26:40] Actually the hardest part. Isn’t it a good idea, though, to teach landing 40 feet in the air? I mean, make your final approach, and just imagine that you’re landing that high up. That way, you’re not.

[00:26:49] In danger of actually crashing. Yeah, that’s, I’ve, I’ve. I’ve seen that approach before and it works. I guess I don’t like because of a landing usually means idle and I don’t like for my students to get to idle in the air. It’s just a weird thing I have, because then if you need to advance the throttle for whatever reason, and maybe the engine’s not tuned exactly right and might hiccup and hiccup and die and but I definitely, I absolutely have them practice their approaches: 15, 20, 30, whatever, whatever is comfortable for them in the air.

[00:27:24] Absolutely. And then, just short of final approach or cutting the throttle for the flare, then we’ll that. At that point I say, okay, cool, that looked pretty good, let’s go around and try it lower, and then I’ll just have them progressively get lower. But teaching the landings is certainly the most difficult part. Like you said, a good teacher shouldn’t- shouldn’t- crash two airplanes with the same student, yeah. So I think there may be an issue, yeah, with and with either the equipment there, or maybe the, or maybe the instructor, and you shouldn’t be arguing with anybody while you’re.

[00:27:57] Trying to teach. No, that was the other thing that stood out to me. That was just like man, that just doesn’t seem right. Yeah, it should be a calm experience. It should be enjoyable, because, exactly, it’s a hobby. That’s what this is all about. This is all about having fun. There shouldn’t be any stress involved- yeah, unless you’re crashing your own airplanes and all that stuff, and that’s a whole different thing. But when you’re, you’re talking to somebody else teaching.

[00:28:17] Somebody else. It ought to be fun and. As a, as an instructor, you gotta- and this sounds terrible too- but you have to give yourself, you have to excuse yourself. If you lose an airplane, it’s. It’s not that you’re deliberately crashing someone else’s airplane, or the club trainer in this case- but you can’t always hold yourself responsible. I always like: if I crash someone else’s airplane, I feel terrible. No matter what the situation, I feel terrible, but when you’re instructing,

[00:28:50] Sometimes stuff happens like sometimes maybe a student won’t give you time, although it’s a lot easier now because it’s just the release of a switch and you’ve got control. But if you, but it’s a release of a switch that you have control over, yes, but later in the training the best way to learn is from our mistakes. So as an instructor, you want to let them- let the student in this case- get into some trouble and then have them get themselves out, which that’s another technique I kind of use sometimes. I’ll have, I’ll take control of the airplane and

[00:29:24] I’ll have them look away and then I’ll put the airplane, albeit with plenty of altitude, I’ll put the airplane in a, in a weird angle or a weird situation whatever, and then I’ll say, okay, look at it and recover, and we’ll practice that sort of thing, but that usually comes late in the training.

[00:29:41] So the later you get in the training, the more comfortable you get with them as a student and you’ve seen them maybe recover from these weird situations, whatever. So you tend to maybe let them go a little bit longer, thinking that they’re going to recover. Well, yeah, when you get closer to the ground that the nerves get amped up, the adrenaline. Sometimes you don’t make those and you haven’t developed that muscle memory yet because you don’t have all those years of experience so it can happen. I mean you can crash an airplane easily, especially late in the in the training, when the, when you’re comfortable with the student being able to recover at high

[00:30:12] Altitudes, when they get close to the ground, that they get nervous and then they don’t execute that recovery and you can lose airplanes. But as a as an instructor, you have to give yourself an out. I mean, you’re instructing them and they are the student and ultimately it’s their airplane. And, yes, you’re, you’re teaching them and yes, you’re trying to save them money by not letting them crash their airplane, but ultimately it’s theirs and they have to own it. So, and that’s hard to get over, I get it. But yeah, now, most of the time, like if you’re going to train,

[00:30:46] Somebody and they give you or not give you, but use their airplane to do it. Will you fly it by yourself first? Yeah, so yeah, I mean you want to get used to that airplane, you want to get.

[00:30:56] You want to see what bad habits it has. You kind of want to learn it. Yep, absolutely yeah, and that and that. Usually, if- and this is especially true if I’m at the field and somebody just like ambushes me say, hey, help me train, it’s like, oh okay, hold on. Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take this up and fly it first to make sure it’s trimmed. Like you said, learn any of its bad habits, or whatever. Yeah, I, I, I will not try to train somebody that’s either already airborne or that I’m not familiar with the airplane. Yeah, and that’s a good way to be. Yeah.

[00:31:30] Well, I don’t want any surprises. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s enough and it’s not really stressed, but it’s enough. Going on to try to teach somebody who’s never done this before, let alone with an airplane that you’re not familiar with, yeah, so at least, yeah, get that familiarization flight out of the way. So, but gary, anyway. I’m getting back to the email. I. I think I mean, if you’re comfortable with flying, taking off, landing and- and you feel like you can convey in words to somebody who’s also trying to fly, I think you’ll be fine, I think you. I think you.

[00:32:03] Train somebody just fine, but it is not a bad idea though- like he was talking about, having some of his friends that know how to fly and kind of test. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean that’s that’s a good idea to kind of on somebody else that already knows what’s going on. Yeah, especially if you’re

[00:32:16] Using if the airplane you’re going to be using is the airplane you’re going to be using with this, with the student. Yeah, I think that’s a good idea, really good idea, so let us know how it goes. Yeah.

[00:32:25] Good luck. Keep us posted, gary. I think you can do it also. Last time we were out in the field, you have actually a couple new biplanes that you only flew one of them. Why don’t you tell what?

[00:32:39] What it is, because I don’t know. Okay, yeah, so I got a great plains reactor biplane, the- the orange and white and blue one, really sharp airplane. Love the way it flies. I’ve had it for a little bit. Reggie actually picked it up for me while he was in a hobby shop not too far away, brought it home for me and I went through it finally and got the battery swapped out and got it all set up with my transmitter and flew it for the first time that day. I was pretty happy with how it did. I can’t wait to fly it again. So you said that one looked like it was one that was.

[00:33:12] Put together by great planes or something like as a demonstration model or something, yeah, and.

[00:33:17] That’s. That’s really why I wanted this airplane so bad. So when we were at the hobby shop that we ultimately bought it from, they had it hanging up there and I’ve always liked this particular. I have a thing for biplanes anyway, so anytime there’s one hanging somewhere I’m always like, oh, look a biplane. So this one was hanging up there and I kind of looked at it as like, oh, that’s a good looking bike. And then I looked closer and I’m like boy, they sure did a really good job trimming the cowl on this thing and like all the edges were

[00:33:48] Sanded, it’s like a uniform gap around the cylinder head and the exhaust. It’s got a. It’s just per like what I would call perfect. I’m like man boy, somebody really did a good job with this. And then I noticed, oh, it’s got all these Futaba, high-end Futaba servos in it, these high voltage brushless servos. Like wow, this thing is really set up. And then I’m, I’m looking closer and it’s it’s all. Either great planes hardware or, like I said, it’s Futaba radio equipment had an os, has an os 91, the new 91, four stroke on it. So I’m looking at

[00:34:23] It. I’m like boy, this thing is really, really nice. Somebody did a really good job of putting this thing together. And then it occurred to me: it’s like man, this thing looks like it could be like in a magazine or something. I mean, because I, I mean, I, I feel like I do an okay job putting an half together. But this thing was like I mean way, yeah, above anything that I would normally put out. So I, I’m pretty sure, just by the fact that the way the cutouts were done on the cowl, the edges of them have been sanded right so that all and there’s no sharp edges on any of the

[00:34:57] Cutouts. And this is important, because usually most of us- myself included, sometimes we can be lazy or we’re in a hurry- want to get the thing in the air. Maybe we’ll take some shortcuts, maybe we won’t sand the edges, but all the edges were sanded and smooth. And here’s the other thing: usually when you cut a hole in a fiberglass cowl, even if you sand it, that edge is going to be unpainted. Right, all the edges of the cutouts in this cowl were painted in the factory paint that was used on the cowl. So that kind of tells me: oh, this thing looks like it was trimmed and then painted. Yeah, what I

[00:35:32] Mean. So I’m, I’m nearly certain that this is an airplane, if not the airplane- that hobbyco or great planes used in the advertising for this particular airplane, like either through their magazine ads or online, or in the at some of the shows or whatever. And that also has to do with our

[00:35:52] Location. Yeah, so great plane. Great plane is that’s local to us too. Yeah, great planes, hobbyco.

[00:35:59] Horizon hanger nine. Most of those proprietary brands. They’re all here located in the midwest.

[00:36:06] Not too far from where we’re living. Okay, yeah, so that, yeah, so that’s why- and we were very close to champagne while you’re at that hobby shop. Yes, actually, no wait, we’re, that was in champagne at that hobby shop. So, okay, yeah, that does make a little bit of sense. So whoever built that, if you’re.

[00:36:21] Listening. Fantastic job. It looks beautiful. It flies great. I don’t know if it’s ever been flown. It didn’t look like it to me, didn’t have any hanger rash or anything. It does now. I’m sorry. Oh, come on. Really, yeah, getting it in the house. Trying to get it down in the basement, I put a little dent in the leading edge of the lower right hand wing. That’s terrible. Yeah, I was sick about it, but see.

[00:36:42] That was is okay. So that was also the same trip then, where we stopped on the way home by monticello eli field and they had we were, we were kind of ran off the field. I mean like yeah, not in so many.

[00:36:57] Words. But yeah, they, they made it. The gentleman made it clear that they were doing some testing or something there and they- it really kind of weren’t open for the public at that time, which I didn’t I.

[00:37:06] Mean, I didn’t know you could do. I mean, we’re not members, so that’s fine, so I didn’t care. But yeah, they.

[00:37:10] Were in their little, in their little hangar working on stuff and we pulled up and I mean he was out.

[00:37:15] Lickety split, yeah, trying to see what’s going on, and he was nice but not nice. Well, no, I shouldn’t say that nice but stern he was. Oh good, what brings you here today? Yeah, well, we’re busy, we’re just doing some stuff it’s not really ready for people to see, kind of thing.

[00:37:32] And it’s like: eh, okay, yeah, he was polite, I mean I, whether they work for horizon or whoever or not, I didn’t, I didn’t recognize the individual, yeah, and I know some of those guys, but yeah, it looked like a big, what was like a big red, like a big cub, or taylor craft.

[00:37:55] Yeah, I was thinking more like a taylor craft or something, but yeah, so we’ll see if they come out.

[00:37:59] With one of those. Then we saw them. Yeah, well, we didn’t actually see him testing. We saw him working on it. Well, it was sitting in their hangar and they were looking at it. It looked like to me, but at any rate, yeah, that’s so. That’s the reactor biplane, which, of course, great.

[00:38:14] Planes doesn’t make anymore, so when would that have been made? That one’s actually not very old, I.

[00:38:20] Think 2014, I think 14, 16, somewhere in that range. So not too long ago, yeah, yeah, great flying.

[00:38:26] Airplane man, I can’t wait to. Yeah, you, you had some, some flights with that and that looked pretty good, even with all the bees flying around you. I was impressed. Bees, oh my gosh terrible. I know, just swarming, oh, but I heard they’re not bees. Well, they’re actually called hoverflies. Hoverflies, huh.

[00:38:43] And, and I don’t like that, I’m calling them okay. Well, the article I read says they don’t sting either, but I beg to differ. They bite. That one put a welt in the corner crook of my arm, that’s for sure. So what’s the other biplane? You just so. The other biplane is a little bit older, we’re talking 2005 or six time frame, but not put together yet. No, no, this one funny story. So our favorite, or my new favorite hobby shop, no, you can say, are, I’m in with that. Okay, good, dynamic, dynamic balsa up there in leonore, illinois. I mean, where do I start the guy? I mean, there’s so much stuff to look at there.

[00:39:20] But he has. He sells used airplanes and upstairs in the attic where he keeps all the most of the used airplanes, he had in a box a big box and on the it was a big white box and on the outside it said ch and then double vision. Well, that’s a chip hide double vision biplane. I remember when those came out I was like man, that is a really great looking and big airplane. It’s a 50 cc. I forget what the wingspan is. I think it’s like 80, two inches, it might be just over 81.

[00:39:52] To be ima illegal or whatever, but anyway. So I recognized the box and the writing on the box. I’m like, hey, that’s cool, I’m gonna open this box up. Well, I open the box up and there’s a complete airframe in there- unassembled rf, which are hard to find anyway, because they only made so many of them.

[00:40:09] And I think you had to pre-order. I think they sold them all through pre-order, like when they finally made it to the in the big container from china or taiwan or wherever they were made. I think they were all sold when they got here, at any rate. So I’m like, oh cool, and I was taking some stuff there to trade because brian there at the hobby shop will do that sometimes. So I got him. I was like, hey, brian, how much we talking for this, this double vision up here. And he’s like, oh well, there’s that box and then there’s another box of stuff behind.

[00:40:39] It and I’m looking at him like another box. So yeah, in another box, like just around, kind of around the corner where this thing was sitting, there was another ginormous box and I opened it up and there was, I mean, aside from no more fuselages, there was enough wing panels in there to build three complete airplanes. There’s enough tail feathers in there to build three more airplanes, and then there’s an extra cowl, extra set of wheel pants. I mean, I’m set for life for this airplane, the only.

[00:41:09] Thing I need. Well, right, the only thing I need really to complete, at least make one more airframe, is just a fuselage, yeah, which anyway I wouldn’t mind finding another one if anyone knows where to find one. But anyway, so chip, high, double vision. It’s a 50 cc sized biplane, takes you a servo in each wing panel, two servos for the elevator. You can run the, I think you can run the rudder with one high torque servo. But yeah, I’m really excited about that. That’ll be a project.

[00:41:41] For later down the road, maybe after we do some other ones, yeah, and maybe next year, year after. Whatever it is, I still got to find an engine for it. The 50 cc that I have is not.

[00:41:52] Going to work for this one. So it’s it’s a different looking airplane. If you don’t know what it looks like, look it up. It’s don’t hate me, but it’s kind of ugly. Yeah, I mean it’s not. It’s not a.

[00:42:04] Classic pits or Christen Eagle, or well, I think the thing I don’t. Yeah, I think the thing I don’t like.

[00:42:10] About it, though, is it’s too skinny. It is skinny, it’s a very skinny, it’s very tall, yeah, yeah, which makes it look skinnier. It almost looks like it’s like a profile airplane that they just kind of widened up like five or six times. Yeah, I could see that. So I think that’s the thing I don’t care, but

[00:42:27] I mean it’s, it’s a chip hide design and if anybody is not familiar with the name, chip hide is synonymous with pattern, imaa, imac type, okay, airplane. So this thing was designed to compete in competition, aerobatic competitions, so it’s. It’s a very slender, like you said, fuselage, but it’s very tall, so it has a very tall aspect ratio, so it’s good for knife edge. Has pretty thin airfoil wings that are swept back, so it’s designed to be flown.

[00:42:55] Fast and with precision. Yeah, other than other than the shape of the fuselage, I like it. Yeah, I think that’s the one thing it draws, but I mean knowing why. I guess it kind of makes sense. Do you like the?

[00:43:06] Colors. Normally you don’t go for those kinds of colors. They’re okay. It’s kind of what? Red, yellow.

[00:43:11] White and purple. I think there’s some. Yeah, it’s, it’s not bad. I mean, I would not be opposed to owning a plane like that. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah, I wouldn’t get it be like if we can find another.

[00:43:20] Fuselage. Maybe we can work out a deal and you can have one. I have no interest, okay, sorry, but anyway. Yeah, that’s the room, that’s you. Well, and that’s the other thing. That’s why this thing is still in a box in my house, because I’m gonna have to get rid of some stuff, I think, to store this thing once.

[00:43:35] It’s assembled well. So that kind of brings me to my next point. Then what is it with you and biplanes?

[00:43:39] You love? Yeah, I do. I don’t know why, but I mean I guess I kind of know why. So when I was a kid- like when I was a kid living in this, growing up in the small town- I grew up and we had a regional airport and every summer they would have a an air show. And we’re talking when I say air show, like maybe, maybe five crop dusters, yeah, maybe five airplanes showed up and most of them were cessnas. Okay, but it was still an air show, and every year the same guy would show up in his, in a pits. It was a pits s1, red and white, a beautiful little airplane. And as a kid seeing this,

[00:44:16] Thing fly at the air show. It was so much different than any of the airplanes that were there. Now, granted, you can see biplanes almost anywhere these days, but as a kid there were all these high wing cessna type airplanes, and then there was this biplane, and every time he would take off and do his little routine, see like, especially when a biplane is rolling, doing an aileron roll, seeing two wings kind of roll in unison together to me is just really cool, like mesmerizing it really is to me. So I think I’ve always had

[00:44:53] A soft spot for biplanes, kind of going back to when I was a kid, because they were so different than the other airplanes. And then as I, as I got older and did got a little more involved with airplanes and there were so many different types of biplanes, like there were aerobatic biplanes, there were trainer biplanes, there were biplanes made for bombing in the wars, there was biplanes made for crop dusting. I mean there was just such a wide variety of them and they all had those two wings. To me it was just mesmerizing. Like you said, yeah, and then

[00:45:26] Usually way back in the day, biplanes were synonymous with round engines, radials, and I have an affinity for engines, as we all know. So combine the two and it’s a beautiful.

[00:45:40] Thing, yeah, and I can get that. So I have the super skybolt and that’s my only biplane. It’s, it’s fun. I like flying it. I don’t like all the extra work that goes into it. Like to me, it’s another wing to store, it’s another wing to take to the field. Yeah, it’s more hardware to put on, it is it’s. I mean, it’s like I guess I’m whining a little bit about it. I get it, but that no, you’re, you’re absolutely right.

[00:46:03] They are. They are certainly more and they’re, they’re obviously more work to build. If you’re building one, you got an extra wing to build and then if you’re building one from plans, then you have to, or a kit, you have to be mindful of the, all the incidences, the, the angles, if you will, and how the wings are mounted compared to the tail and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, they’re, they’re certainly more work. So have you built a biplane before? I have.

[00:46:27] So what? What special goes into it that you don’t have to worry about like with an actual like?

[00:46:35] Single wing or wing plane? Well, I mean the obvious. The obvious answer to that is that the two wings need to and, depending on the design, like some, not all biplanes, do the wings actually line up as far as the incidence, the angle of the from the leading edge to the trailing edge? Not all biplanes do they. Are they exactly the same from top to bottom? And why would that be? That’s a good question. Most of it has to do with so aerodynamic centers and the CG and

[00:47:06] How, the how? The aerodynamic centers. They usually don’t line up on the top wing and the bottom wing, so they, they might make an incidence or an angle change on the top wing to sort of lean that aerodynamic center forward to maybe match the front one or vice versa. It has obviously it has to do with aerodynamics and things like that. And I have to admit I’ve only ever built biplanes from kits. I’ve never actually built one from just plans. But usually on the plans it’ll tell you: top wing minus one degree, bottom wing zero horizontal stabs.

[00:47:39] Whatever they say, you just have to be mindful of that and they and that does add a significant amount of work, but those, those are the like. The key thing that really differentiates between building a biplane and a monoplane is making sure those angles are correct between the two wings.

[00:47:54] And they tell you on the plans. So if you get them off a little bit, you said one supposed to be like one degree, one zero degrees. What if you had them both at zero degrees? I mean, like what, what characteristics are you going to be inducing into the flight for that airplane? Well, I mean it, it kind of goes it. It would.

[00:48:10] Be the same sort of thing as if an airplane, you built an airplane with the stab at the wrong angle, you’ll have pitch changes with speed or, I’m sorry, you’ll have trim changes with speed. I can’t think of an example. But if you have like, say, an upper wing that has a positive angle whereas the lower wing has a negative angle, not only are you going to be introducing more drag, because one wing they don’t match, they’re not flowing through the air at the at the same amount of induced drag, but you’re changing that angle of lift.

[00:48:45] The lift comes off of your usually from the leading edge of the trailing edge. Your lift comes off perpendicular to that line, right? So if you’re, if you’re leaning that back- well now you’re, you’re introducing a rearward component of lift so that does weird things with trim and maybe, maybe the thing will track weird through it through a loop, maybe it’ll stall at the top of the loop because now the upper wing is at this really crazy angle of attack. I mean lots of, lots of weird trim and little tendencies that you can, that you can induce by building it incorrectly or getting

[00:49:18] Those angles wrong, hmm. So what did you build? What plane was it? So I’ve built a few biplanes over the years. So I’ve- I mean just off the top of my head- a goldberg ultimate, which was probably the best flying biplane I’ve ever owned. I’ve built a couple of SIG smith mini planes, which are also great flying. They’re little airplanes. I call them one piecers. You could put them together and they were so small you could just leave them one piece. So then there was no assembly at the field, that’s.

[00:49:47] Handy, by the way. We’re not have to do anything in the field, just take it out of the car. Yeah, so I’ve.

[00:49:53] Built those. I’ve built great planes, made a super sky bolt- they made it in an r version- and also a kit. I’ve built the kit. Yeah, mine was the ARF. Yeah, we came to that conclusion. Yeah, and yours flies good because we flew it out here. But the one I built from a kid I wasn’t happy with it. Either I got something wrong, or maybe they got something wrong in the on the plans or the kit or whatever. I’d never really liked the way it flew. Never seemed to be on a rail. Yeah, if that makes sense. No, I get it. This one seems to be. I mean: yeah, well, yours flies, flies really good. Yeah, well, it flies so.

[00:50:26] Good, I mean we were comfortable flying it off the road right out here in front of your house- not we, you, well, but I mean it flew right out here. So that’s how. Yeah, I mean it was with the power lines and all the other stuff that scared me. But okay, don’t Reggie it up. Okay, nice, nicely done. So there you go, Reggie, there’s a story for you. I did fly one time. That was just once. It was on my birthday. Actually, it was one time in an area where I probably

[00:50:55] Shouldn’t have, I would. I would say probably shouldn’t have is a bit of an understatement. It was, it was off of a county highway, it was under power lines, I mean. But what?

[00:51:08] Yeah, I got nothing. Yeah, it didn’t work, it was a no-no. Yeah, but what? I reggied it up. So you reggied it up. But yeah, those are some of the some of the biplanes I’ve built up, and there’s probably others I think I’m. Oh, another biplane that I was quite fond of was an ace 440 biplane, which was a kind of a, had ailerons just on the lower wing, so the top wing was just a wing, just there, for lift not, but that was a good flying biplane too. I flew that one in college and I think I eventually sold that one. But that one was cool because I used transparent.

[00:51:43] Monaco for the first time. You and trans, so it was transparent, red and cream. It was a good look in your

[00:51:48] Play. Oh man, that sounds. It was beautiful. Actually, that’s not the word I was going for.

[00:51:53] But it definitely sounds like it. Yeah, it was. It was really like if you look at the box on an, if you find an ace 440 biplane picture, mine looked exactly like the picture, but the pictures are all black and white so I didn’t know what colors they were. So I went with transparent red and cream and I gotta tell you it looked really good. There you go. So let me build another one someday, maybe just all be grays so it matches maybe. So it matches the picture. Yeah, like. So they’ve been like transparent charcoal and white. I guess, I don’t know, that might not look very good. Well, neither does cream and

[00:52:26] Transparent red. But cream and red goes great together. Oh, that’s a very classic vintage color combination. Oh, what, you’re right. No, taylor crafts were that way. Okay, satabria’s were red and you could get. I mean, that’s a great color if you’re going for classic. No, you’re right. Yeah, I can think of

[00:52:43] I can think of a few of them, like the old wacos and stuff. Weren’t they the same? Yeah, I think I think.

[00:52:48] The upf7s you could- yeah, I think they were. I mean they could be whatever color they painted them, but I think that was a popular, yeah, back in the 40s and 50s. Yeah, really sharp, and that happened to that airplane. Also happened to be the first airplane I had that had a four stroke. Oh, had a sato.

[00:53:03] 45 Or something like that on it. Huh, well, that’s that’s where it started. Huh, that’s where the four road journey started. Yeah, so that would have been, yeah, 90, 90 or 91. I think I was 10 or 9. I mean sad you can’t get that airplane anymore either, but that’s a great flying biplane. There’s a lot.

[00:53:23] Of stuff you can’t get anymore. That’s too bad. It is, but anyway too bad, but yeah, that’s like I.

[00:53:27] Can’t really put my finger on exactly what it is about biplanes, but I just like them. I think they look cool, especially when they’re flying with the two wings doing the thing together. One more thing about biplanes is 99 of them are tail draggers. There’s been very, very it’s, which is kind of strange. There’s been very, very few tricycle biplanes, at least models. I had one time, way back when I can’t even remember the name of it, I think it was a, I think it was a balsa, usa something, but yeah, it was, it was. It was odd. It just didn’t look right to me. Yeah, now that you say:

[00:54:02] I’ve never thought about it before, but yeah, I’ve never seen one and I’m trying to picture it and it, yeah, it doesn’t look right. They look odd, it does, I don’t know why. Flew great from what I.

[00:54:10] Remember, it’s easy to control on the ground and all that. But I tell you not to go off on a tangent, but I prefer tail draggers or conventional gear, if you will, just because, number one, they are easier to set up. Yeah, I mean, look at the trouble you’ve had with the nose gear on.

[00:54:27] That trainer out there. Yeah, every time you’re you’re trying to fly your, if it’s off a little bit, as soon as you’re taxing, it changes based on when you’re trying to take off, and all that right. Yeah, it’s a pain to do and the collars never seem to stay locked. Just right and perfect.

[00:54:41] With no matter what you. I mean, you can file a flat on the wire, you can lock, take the lock tight to the set screw. They always seem to at the worst possible time, usually on landing. Mm-hmm, they’ll turn as soon as they touch the ground and then you’ve got a mess. So, yeah, I prefer the tail draggers. So, tail dragger, biplane and radial engines: man, that’s a great.

[00:55:03] Combination and those all go together pretty well. Well, sure, they do. Now it is a little bit easier, I think, to taxi and take off with a tricycle. Oh yeah, if it’s set up correctly. Yeah, there’s, there’s certainly no question about that, which is probably why all of the trainers are tricycle gear, but most, I should say. But like I always have problems with cubs just because you have to be, I mean, you can’t just go full throttle, you have to be so careful, slowly working into it, and you have to work, and really you should do that with all airplanes. Yeah, but well, when I say problems,

[00:55:35] I guess I don’t mean problems. They’re more fun to fly because you have to fly them on the ground.

[00:55:39] Before you. Exactly, yeah, so many of today’s airplanes are so overpowered that you just bury the, bury the gas and whatever direction it’s pointing in 15 feet it’s airborne anyway. So, whatever, why do I need to control it on the ground? Right old school biplanes where you, or a cub even that you have to really kind of like, just like you said, fly it on the ground before you get it in the air. I, I like.

[00:56:04] That, which is why it’s it’s hard if you learn on a three channel, because that changes drastically what you do, changes everything. Yep, at least on the ground. So, so cool. Next thing I want to talk about: we had somebody reach out and ask us about a. We talked a while ago about the 3d printed ribs that we were trying to do and I completely forgot about it and I guess we didn’t didn’t wrap that one up, so I will wrap that one up now. Okay, so for now I think I’m just

[00:56:36] Going to stick with the balsa ribs. Yeah, the 3d print ribs would be usable, I think, for a build. They’re cheaper than it is to use balsa. If cost is a concern, right, but that’s assuming you already have a 3d printer, which is not cheaper than balsa, right? So the biggest downside that I found was the lack of capacity. So, like my printer bed or the, the actual print area is only like seven inches by seven inches, so printing the largest, like even the duelist wing ribs-

[00:57:08] Cannot be done in a single piece. Okay, I was able to print one in two pieces and glue it together and that worked. Okay, yeah, but I really would prefer not to do that. So, yeah, for what we’re working on now. 3D printing is out. Yeah, now I will say having, now that I have.

[00:57:25] A couple of the ones you did at home and I got to play with them, or whatever I think they would work. Like you said, they are, generally speaking, for the a similar size balsa rib. They’re obviously going to be heavier, but they are very, very strong. I mean, I will give you that. So you would probably need fewer of them, fewer of them, or we could even lighten them up some more.

[00:57:47] Right taking some material off. Instead of quarter inch maybe only needs to be an eighth inch perimeter around the outside right. A couple yeah, supports in the middle of it. They do, they do.

[00:57:56] They would need a fair amount of work even after printing, at least in the ones that, that you printed for me, straightening the edges up, and yeah, that would be different now because I

[00:58:09] Changed my printer around a little bit and did some tweaking, yeah, and kind of got it set up a little bit better, so we shouldn’t have that problem next time, okay. But yeah, I’ll tell you what a great.

[00:58:19] Application I think would be for those ribs would be foam airplanes, oh yeah, like if we’re gonna do some stuff later with foam I think those, those would probably be great as formers or ribs or whatever, to kind of form the shape of the internal structure of whatever foam you’re you use. Yeah, that’s a good idea. So I think that might be a good application because I think hot glue will stick to those like glue.

[00:58:46] Sorry, that’s good. No, hot glue does stick to them very well, as does super glue. So the problem you were talking about, though it did kind of have a little bit of what’s called an elephant’s foot on it, yeah, where that bottom part kind of comes out. Like I said, when I print stuff. Now the way I’ve changed things around, I don’t know that issue okay good, so I mean it should be useful right offhand.

[00:59:05] That would certainly reduce the amount of work, that’s for sure. I just need a, a 3d printer, that’s.

[00:59:09] About five times as big as that one. I mean really, because that’s that’s the biggest problem- is just the sun area. So yeah, for now, 3d printing I’m not going to worry about, might come back if I do a.

[00:59:19] Smaller airplane, though you never know well you’re, are you? What do you? So for the- when I can’t get it out of my mouth- yeah, so for the Telemaster. When we finally get the Telemaster to a point where we can fly the thing, are you still planning on printing a cowl? Oh yeah, okay, yeah, I’m just, I’m just.

[00:59:37] Waiting until we get that all figured out, because I don’t want to do one and then have to do another one. You said it was done. Oh, that’s not fair. Well, I’m not lying. Yeah, you’re right. I did say it was done. If only I knew somebody that was good with motors, right, I know who could we call? I don’t know.

[00:59:56] That’s the problem. So a quick update. We tried again to run it tonight right before we started recording here, and the thing runs now on 4.8 Volts on the ignition for a few minutes and I what I think is going on, I, I still, I’m almost, I mean, I’m convinced that it’s the ignition. I really, I really believe that. So order another one tonight and we’ll see what happens next. I’m going to order. I’m going to order, probably well to be determined. So yeah, so we’ll try again next week and if we don’t talk about it,

[01:00:32] Then that means that we’re embarrassed and we don’t want to. It means Tom is a failure again, again, again and over and again on getting this thing to actually. If it fails one more time, no, I have no, no. So I posted pictures here just a little bit ago. Rebuilt the two engines. That or I rebuilt two engines. I wouldn’t really say I rebuilt them. I replaced the crankshaft in both and then some bearings in the other one. Sure so the number two engine that we tried on that airplane is ready to go.

[01:01:04] Not gonna happen. Find yourself another airplane for it. I am, I’ll put one. I’ll put one of my engines on if

[01:01:11] We have to because I’m sticking with gas. Okay, so fair enough, but I am gonna. I am gonna ordering and order an ignition because I’m gonna need it anyway, even if I don’t end up using it on this airplane. So, yeah, I’m gonna order a quality one, and if it’s not that, then

[01:01:28] Engine number six. Engine number six. No, we’re not gonna do that. I mean we’re not gonna have that issue. Well, I mean there’s nothing left to replace. Yeah, right, I mean it’s got compression, it has.

[01:01:40] Good compression. The carburetor is doing what it’s supposed to it. It responded to changes that I made. Wow, it’s a brand new carburetor. Yeah, thanks, valley view. And yeah, the ignition is the final. I mean, really, and I think I’m even now, I’m even more convinced because running it at lower voltage probably just takes longer to heat up the whatever’s going wrong inside that ignition. So, yeah, it allowed us to run it briefly, but then, once it got hot, the ignition, I mean.

[01:02:10] Yeah, then it started to shut off and I was so excited again last week because

[01:02:15] I know you sent me that video of it running on 4.8 Volts and it was running fine. How long did you?

[01:02:20] Actually get to run it a half tank. I mean, that was almost completely full and you saw what was in it tonight, so I ran a half tank through it. I just let it sit out there and run.

[01:02:30] So anyway, until next time. Did you just let it run at idle? No, there’s a little. No, because there was up and down and all that stuff. Yeah, because I didn’t want it to load up too much and die or anything like that. So yeah, I’d clear it out every now and then, but anyway, we’ll figure it out. Figure it out, I promise nope what that means. It’s time for rc plane labs. Tool of the week. Tool of the week Tom. Okay, I don’t know why you’re laughing. Tool of the week Tom.

[01:03:05] It took me by surprise. Oh, it’s a good running engine that I just heard. Oh, so, so the tool of the week, this is your call this week. I picked it this week and it’s a tool that I’m sure every modeler has. I’m sure even if you’re not a modeler, you might own one of these things. It’s.

[01:03:23] A dremel. Oh, that’s a good, that’s a good pick. I mean, that’s a great tool. Right, I use mine for not only modeling, but for a lot of different things. Oh yeah, cut off wheels, sanding the drum, sander the, using it as like a roto zip. Even with those bits and stuff, great tool.

[01:03:42] For all-around use, and dremel even makes attachments for it, like they make a drill press attachment. They have the flex shaft that you can get for it so you can get in tight areas or whatever. See, I don’t have any of that. Oh yeah, really rock your world. There you go, yeah, so what do you use yours for? Everything? I mean, I use it like you said. I use it for the hobby: cutting off bolts that are too long or sanding down a piece of balsa, cutting a piece of balsa, even shaping things with. Like if I need to take some threads off or if I want to clean up some threads on a bolt, I can use the.

[01:04:21] Carbide, not the carbide, but the stone wheels for that. Yeah, I mean I use the thing. I used a wire brush the other day to clean some rust off of a part. I mean, the thing has just got endless number of uses and I don’t just use it for the hobby, like you said. I’ve- I’ve used it all over.

[01:04:38] Our house. Yeah, I actually have one in the shop and one down here with the hobby stuff. So yeah, I have.

[01:04:44] I own several also. I have one in my little shop- actually they’re both down there- but I have one that I kind of use just exclusively for balsa, and then one I use for everything else. I actually

[01:04:55] Have one. It’s not a dremel, but it’s dremel like yeah, and it goes back like it’s old. I mean it looks like it. I mean the whole thing is metal. It’s heavy, oh okay. But instead of like the eighth inch bits that the dremels take, it’s a quarter inch bit, oh my, it is the coolest looking thing. I mean it’s got it’s. It’s probably 13, 14 inches long. Really it’s huge. Yeah, it doesn’t run anymore, but I can’t just like make myself get rid of it. Yeah, it ran. I mean, like I’ve used it before, I don’t know. It’s a quarter inch chuck. That’s, it’s huge. And it’s got the old like metal switch with the ball on the.

[01:05:27] End of it like it’s from the like, the 70s or 80s. Yeah, so it’s a big click, yeah, yeah, yeah, actually it’s probably just the brushes need to be replaced on it, but it’s probably not worth it to do it. But

[01:05:39] Yeah, it’s a cool little tool. But yeah, dremels you can use. I mean, you put a cutoff disc on it, you can cut, like I said, bolts, I mean cut anything with these things. Yeah, so I- I tool of the week is a dremel. Everybody’s probably got one. If you don’t have one, you should get one because they still make them. Oh yeah, that’s because other people use them other. That’s right. Right, remember the cordless ones. Yeah, I don’t know if they still make those or not, but I would think so. Well, the one I had, finally, the battery finally could put even. That was even more convenient because you

[01:06:10] Didn’t have to plug it in, you could take it wherever. Yeah, minor plug-in. Yeah, mine are too.

[01:06:14] Variable speed. I have one that’s not variable speed, but the other ones I don’t use that very often. Oh, I.

[01:06:19] Do the wide open one. All of mine are variable speed. Oh okay, I was gonna say I use the variable speed setting quite a bit. Oh yeah, but I used to own one that was just on off and I didn’t like it.

[01:06:29] Yeah, I don’t either. That’s why it’s sitting in a drawer. Yeah, so there you go. That’s the tool of the

[01:06:34] Week: the dremel multi-tool, beautiful, beautiful multi-tool. I don’t know tool. I mean, this was your tool of the week. So you tell me I think it’s moto, I think it’s m-o-t-o hyphen tool. I think is what.

[01:06:47] They’re: could you spell that again? No, okay, all right, anything else? No, that’s all I got for this one, all right? Well, everybody, thanks for listening to us ramble. Yep, until next week. I’m Ron, I’m Tom.

[01:06:59] Good night. Good night, we hope you enjoyed this episode 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.