Ep 46: Duellist talk, and Fat Albert

[00:00:09] Hello and welcome to 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.

[00:00:35] Here are your hosts, Ron and Tom. Hello everyone and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron and I’m Tom. What I learned? No, what’d you learn? I actually learned something very handy this week, yeah, oh, it’s good to learn new things. It is the bonder works on cell phones, what no? So when I was building down here I was, I had my glue sitting out, okay, and I knocked it over.

[00:01:01] My super glue on my phone screen? No, yeah, but what the bonder works on cell phones, nice. So

[00:01:09] I just I put it on there, let it set for about 10 minutes and came right off. It wasn’t a lot, but there was like several letters, yeah, several, several dots droplet. I’ll be darned to where. I didn’t really notice it until I was using my phone. I was like what is on here? I can’t, I can’t get it off. I’m trying to scroll and it was annoying. That’s interesting. Yeah, so debonder works on cell phone.

[00:01:28] Screens. Is it a glass screen? I’m assuming it’s probably a glass, I would assume. So I mean it’s good to know I would. I would because I mean, yeah, when I’m building down in my work area I’ve always got my phone nearby. Yeah, because you never know when you might need to take a picture, or

[00:01:44] Something or listen to music or whatever. You have a podcast plan, but yeah. So I mean like it literally like puddled on top a little bit and stuff night like. So I didn’t notice it, picked it up when I.

[00:01:57] Was doing stuff and then came back to it later. I’ll be darned. I was like, oh shucks. Well, there you go, everyone, yeah, you get. You get CA on your cell phone, debonder as long as I would say it’s not in.

[00:02:09] A weird like corner place. I was looking after where it was just on the screen. But yeah, so anyway it.

[00:02:14] Worked out great good deal cleaned off now and that’s a relatively new phone, right? Oh heck, no, oh, I thought you were talking about getting a new phone with the. I was talking about getting a new phone.

[00:02:24] Because I have an old phone I need to upgrade. No, I think my phone, okay, I think the phone I have- came out in like 2016, so it’s a very old phone. Yeah, that’s that’s, I mean as far as cell phones go. Yeah, that’s that’s, but it still works, so I don’t want to replace it. Mine’s not quite that old. I think I got mine in.

[00:02:42] 18, I think, I don’t know, but it works so, and no glue on it. So I don’t have any glue. We’re good yet right anyway, but I always I keep a screen protector on mine too. I don’t I. That’s a bold move, it is, and I.

[00:02:57] Actually usually do not have a case on it either, because I don’t like how bulky it gets with the case and not fine, knock on wood or something. I have never broken a phone screen, never, ever. No, I haven’t. Wow, that’s I know. And my wife makes fun of me all the time because when I drop my phone- because I do drop it, when I drop it- I kick it. I don’t know why, it’s just a habit, like I try and

[00:03:19] Catch it with my foot so it doesn’t hit the ground, but then I usually to break the fall. Yeah, then I.

[00:03:22] Usually just send it across the room, but I’ve never broken a screen. That’s impressive. My wife has broken a screen. I know this is way off topic, but we were doing a hayrack ride several years ago for halloween, right, she dropped the phone off of the hayrack. Oh dear, didn’t tell me, as I was coming back on the same area that we were doing the hayrack ride in and I ran over the phone and it. I mean it was curved, I mean it was like a? U nice. So anyway, you can make fun of her for that sometime, because I sure do. I’ll remember that and I think she did it on purpose, because she wanted a new phone. Oh,

[00:03:56] So she’s playing the whole. Oh, I dropped my phone. I can’t believe you ran over. It ran. Oh it’s all.

[00:04:02] Your fault, I gotta buy a new one. You owe me a new phone. Yeah well, it comes out of the same pot so it doesn’t matter. But yeah, right anyway. So yeah, airplanes, there we go, airplanes. Let’s talk about some.

[00:04:14] Airplanes. Let’s do it. That’s what we’re here to do. It is what we’re here to do: RC Plane Lab podcast. So

[00:04:20] We should talk about planes. I wasn’t going to talk about like helicopters, so I feel like you talked about cell phones. I feel like I just got into trouble, so I’m sorry. Before we start, though, I do want to say something. I would like to thank all of our patrons. Oh yeah, have decided to sponsor us and help us out. We also had- I don’t want to call him out, but we had- a very nice donation, yes, very generous, and I very appreciate, or I very much appreciate, everybody that’s helped us out, and just be looking forward to some more things from us coming up in the

[00:04:53] Future. Yeah, we, we definitely have some, some stuff coming up that we’re going to do. We’re going to start doing some videos here very soon, so hopefully by the first of the year you can.

[00:05:02] Hit us up on youtube. I think, right, that is, that’s our plan, but I don’t want to be tied to that date. Well, right, right, it depends how long stuff takes to get here, because we’ve ordered a bunch of.

[00:05:12] Stuff? Well, there’s definitely not. Here, as you’ve discovered, there’s a little bit of a learning curve too. Oh sure, but that’s half the fun, right, you’re the tech guy. You’re the one that has to learn it all. Yeah, oh, that’s all right. Hey, you signed up for this, or did I? Well, I don’t know, we both did, I guess we’re. Yeah, we’re all in this together, all right? So let’s talk about what we did this week.

[00:05:37] I’ll go first because I’ll be quick. Okay, I did not, even though we had a four-day weekend. I know I plan on getting so much stuff done. I was very disappointed in the fact that my covering did not.

[00:05:48] Come in. Yeah, what’s the deal with that? I don’t know. So like it’s really not that far away, no, and.

[00:05:55] Even as of today, it has not moved. So I need to- yeah, there’s no updates. I need to call and find out. Yep, because that warrants a phone call for sure. I ordered it last monday hoping I would have it by wednesday, because it literally came from what? Two hours and 45 minutes north of us, something like.

[00:06:12] There’s no reason I don’t have it yet. Yeah, so this is day number seven. It’s coming from the west coast, or the east coast to the midwest. It’s literally less than three hours away. Yeah, so that.

[00:06:22] Kind of took the wind out of my sails and I didn’t get as much done on. I’m almost to the point where I’m ready for covering. I think it’s awesome and, yeah, another evening at work and I’ll be there. I got the, the wing block in the landing block for the landing gear on the bottom. Yeah, that’s all in. I need to find landing gear, though, so I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do yet. I, like my original thought was to use an extra pair of gear that I had for the cavalier, but I don’t.

[00:06:53] Think that’s going to be tall enough, so I’m going to have to find something. But that’s that’s not all.

[00:06:58] That difficult. I’ll, I’ll figure that out pretty quick. I’ve got a few assets we can look through at home. So, okay, yeah, well, I’ll, I wouldn’t mind. Maybe tomorrow I’ll dig through and see what I’ve got, because I know I have a, a really heavy duty anodized black aluminum. Oh, I’d like that one. That I think it’s. I think it would be perfect for that, tall enough, I think it would be tall enough. Yeah, so heavy, not, I mean it’s, it’s an aluminum I think they used- we used to call them.

[00:07:28] Dural, dural aluminum landing gear. Anyway, just a formed piece of aluminum sheet basically shaped into that’s what. That’s what the cavalier uses. Yeah, this one’s quite a bit bigger than the one you showed me, so cool, maybe I’ll grab that and bring it out or something. Yeah, I like, I like the.

[00:07:46] Bigger gear and I need to get a little bit of height on it. Yeah, because, being a tail dragger, it’s going to need a little bit of, because it’s going to be in front of where the motors are, so I have to make up for that too. The gear is going to be mounted in front of the motors, so

[00:07:59] Right, yeah, I’m gonna have to do something with a little. Yeah, you’ll have to make sure that prop.

[00:08:03] Actually, I don’t know. Is it going to be? It might not be in front of the props. Now that I think about,

[00:08:07] It because I forgot those might be behind them. Yeah, those stick out quite a bit, which is even more because if you’re going to rotate, then you’re rotating the props down, yeah, behind.

[00:08:16] So, but I’ll figure that out and then, once I get that done, I’m, I’m really in good shape. I still have to do the, the, the nose gear, not the nose gear, the nose, the nose. So I have to shape the nose, whatever you call that. But, man, I’m, I’m not looking forward to doing that either. This is another one of those things I think I’m afraid of doing, but once I do it, until you do it, yeah.

[00:08:37] That’s gonna be like: oh, that was easy, right. So yeah, and you can do that. I mean hundreds of different ways. You can take one big block and carve it out, or you can build it up out of sticks to make it lightweight, and then smooth that with balsa sheet, make a framework. I mean you could do it any number of different ways. Just use your imagination and be creative. I’ve thought.

[00:08:57] About 3d printing one, but I think I’d rather stick with actual balsa and then it can be covered like normal. That’s true, yeah, you wouldn’t have to like paint it or anything. Yeah, I did have one question for you though. Okay, so we talked before about doing the, the balsa, with the, to kind of shape it, to wet it with the windex, with ammonia. So when you do that, yes, do you have to let it dry first, or can you just like glue it on when it’s wet? Does that? Does the windex mess with the glue at all?

[00:09:29] So with CA? No, okay, but with the, the water-based, like elmer’s type aliphatic, aliphatic resin. Oh my god, drinking game. There you go. That’s the last time I’m ever saying no, it’s not. No, you’re right, but yeah, it will potentially mess with that, because that is a water-based adhesive, and that’s what I was thinking. Yeah, so, so yeah, once you’ve got it kind of to the shape that you want it, let it dry and then, unless you’re going to use CA and you can CA it right away, yeah, I’m not going to, because I want.

[00:10:02] To be able to sand it to shape a little bit. I’ve I’ve done that before. I’ve I’ve had sheets wet before and to sort of lock them in that position, caed them to the structure. I’ve done that before, yeah, while it was wet, and that works fine. But yeah, I mean with the, with the aliphatic resin. I’ll say it one more time: yeah, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t try to glue that down with it. Wet okay, still, yeah, so let it dry. I did okay because I wasn’t sure myself. But it’s not glued on there.

[00:10:31] Yet well, no, because that was late one night and I just haven’t got back to it yet, so I noticed also.

[00:10:36] Oh, the, I feel scared when you start off like that. Okay, you’re doing it, it’s coming, the grain running long ways it. It’s a little harder to form, that, as you’ve, I’m sure, discovered right. So you may have to do it a couple of times because that the, the long grain, resists that bending more than

[00:10:57] Doing the cross grain, I noticed that what I’m saying and the reason I’m doing it that way.

[00:11:02] Though, is just for the width. Oh no, I totally get it, yeah. No, I mean, I’m not saying I’m not suggesting you do it the other way. I’m just saying you may have to form it a couple of times, a couple of times getting a wet and forming it, getting away before it, really yeah. But now that you say that though,

[00:11:19] Like it might be worthwhile for me to actually make the sheets up and do it cross grain, because those measure, of course, I don’t have a four inch wide balsa, I have three inch and I have six in right and those measures three and an eighth inch wide. Oh so I’m wasting- well, not wasting, but not really I’m. But no, yeah, it’s expensive sheets that I’m using. Yeah, in order to make them into two and seven eighths, or two and seven eighths inch wide sheets. Yeah, and you’re using eighth inch too.

[00:11:50] Which will be a little even more difficult to form wet. Yeah, so maybe I’ll. Yeah, okay, that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do that then, because I never thought it’ll make your life easier. It’ll, it’ll shape.

[00:12:01] Better. I’m all for making my life easier. I am too, yeah, but so that’s about all I have done.

[00:12:09] Well, that’s not it. I mean I’ll talk about stuff that you’ve gotten done. I mean, you say I mean you, you really oversimplify it. Yeah, I installed a block for the nose for where I’m going to mount the gear, but what you didn’t mention was how you reinforced everything inside. Where that, where.

[00:12:24] That block is mounted. You’re right. I reinforced everything inside where that block is mounted.

[00:12:32] And that’s about it. Okay, all right. I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. No, I mean, I think our listeners might like to understand that it’s necessary when you, when you redesign or you alter or you get away from the plans, you’re putting gear in the nose of this thing where there wasn’t gear designed to be true. So you, I am deviating. Yeah, so you had to reinforce the structure to handle the load of the of the landing gear block and, yeah, and the resultant loads of landing.

[00:13:02] And taking off. Yeah, okay, so you’re right. So the whole, the whole nose of my airplane is going to look different than yours because to put the landing block there I did have to kind of put new formers in front of where the landing block was gone and then I built it up, not only in front but behind a little bit more to take all the extra stresses that landing is going to take, and then I did put some blocks and stuff behind it to actually get it to that stringer that runs front to back, right, just so it’s all tied in together. And I actually ran a couple blocks too from the bottom all the way to

[00:13:33] The very top of the airplane, yep, so it’s going to be like right underneath where the canopy is going to mount, yeah, and that way it kind of gives a little bit more strength. Yeah, helps distribute the load of the impact of landing, because, yeah, it’s not just an impact, it’s more of a sheer force that you’re

[00:13:47] Going with too. So, yeah, you are correct, I did do that, yeah, so I mean that’s time.

[00:13:52] Consuming. Well, yeah, that sort of thing it is, and I ended up doing it just out of plywood for the actual base for where the gear is going to mount aircraft- plywood he’s talking about. And then I did so when I did the nose, like I said, so that the shape is a little bit different than yours, because it didn’t look right going that three inches out and then coming at such a an angle up, so it’s about a quarter inch lower than the former wants it to be. I guess, when you’re talking about the actual shape of how the airplane was supposed to be, yep, but by making that so much,

[00:14:26] Thicker with balsa. It’s going to give me a place. I, I think I’ve decided I’m going to put a mount up there before I actually cover it, and a mount on the turtle deck, maybe back towards the wing a little bit more, because that’s a quarter inch balsa back there too to mount cameras. Yes, I think I think this is the best time to do it, as opposed to waiting to when it’s actually oh, absolutely, yeah, anyway. That way I can cover right over it even, and if I decide not to cut it out, I don’t have to cut it out. And if

[00:14:58] I do. You can just cut right around where that mount is going to be and then put a I don’t know even 3d print, or buy some sort of like a knurled nut or something like that, screw into it so it looks.

[00:15:09] Finished, yeah, yeah. So I’m going to do the same thing. After we talked a little bit before the before we sat down to do this, and I’m going to do the same thing. I’m going to incorporate one mount behind the canopy on the top of the turtle deck there, because it’s fairly substantial balsa that I have up there for my block, four inch thick balsa. It’s pretty thick. No, because I’m

[00:15:33] I used. Well, I don’t want to give anything away yet because I know it’s not set in stone, but I’m quite excited about the camera you are getting, because you’re going to be getting a 3d or not 3d- 360, 360 degree camera. Yeah, I’m really excited. That should be fun. Yeah, so because of that, also with the stuff I did, yeah, I don’t want to count my chickens before they’re hatched. Well, if

[00:15:57] You don’t buy one, I’m buying one, but santa claus, I think, is, I think is hopefully gonna bring me one.

[00:16:01] And if he doesn’t, I’ll just buy one. There you go, but I, yeah, so, anyway, yeah, so, yeah, we have a lot of new toys coming, and I’m very excited about yep, yep, me too. I actually, and I- I don’t want to jinx myself, but I bought my first apple product. Yeah, that really surprised me. All the research I did said apple was the best for video editing. Yeah, so I had to buy a new computer for it, and that’s the one I chose. Apple, though I know that’s yeah, I, I’m still in windows my whole life. I’ve never

[00:16:35] Even used an apple computer before I bought this one, and so, having used it for a few days now, what?

[00:16:41] Do you think I like it? Actually it’s, I mean it’s, it’s fast compared to what I’m used to working with.

[00:16:46] Right and well I mean. Anything you buy new right now is probably going to be faster than.

[00:16:52] Well, yeah, my laptop is three years old, I think maybe. Yeah, and in computer age that’s that’s old it is. So, yeah, but apple came out with this new m1 processor and I don’t know. There’s just a whole bunch of stuff I don’t understand. But that’s what I bought, so you’ll get there. I’ll get there. You pick it up quick back to airplanes. We got way sidetracked again. I’m sorry. Well, well, it is kind of about.

[00:17:17] Airplanes. Well, because we were talking about mounting cameras to the airplanes and what we’re doing to the airframes of our current projects to accommodate that. So yeah, I’m excited. I think those are gonna be some cool looking videos. I can’t wait. I can’t either. I mean I’ve got like a long time ago- not to not to get way off topic here, but quite a few years ago I bought one of those little key fob cameras that records to a little sd card. I’ve seen the videos you shot on that- very disappointing. But back then that was really I mean, yeah, I mean I’d never seen anything like that, I mean.

[00:17:49] Granted the, the whole process was kind of a pain because you had to then take the camera off and download it, take it home, download it and then you could count the lines that went across from this. But I mean, the new stuff that we’re talking about doing is going to be so much cooler and, yep, neater.

[00:18:05] Than that I’m so excited- like, I don’t often get excited about stuff, but I’m I’m excited about this. Yeah, I’m usually pretty like even keel with stuff and I don’t show too much emotion, but this is, this is gonna be a good one, really, really. I know right that, yeah, I do, yeah. So yeah, you’re.

[00:18:21] Going to incorporate some, some threaded inserts for your mounts. Yeah, camera mount. Think what else did.

[00:18:26] You get done. That’s about it. I mean, I think that’s all the new stuff from last week, right, well?

[00:18:32] You got your dorsal mounted. I don’t even know what that means, but oh, the sub fin, the, the vertical sub fin that’s on the bottom of your side. I think that was done last week was okay, maybe all right. Well, it looks good, thank you. Thank you, it really does. We’ll have some more pictures online, yeah, so.

[00:18:47] Don’t forget. If you want to see what we’re talking about and where we are at this point, it will be on our website, rcplanelab.com. Yep, click on dualist build logs. Ron and I both have our dualist build.

[00:19:00] Logs on there with almost up-to-date pictures because I got a lot done well by the time this goes.

[00:19:06] Out. It’ll be up, oh, that’s true. So because I’ll have to put all the pictures online. But sometimes

[00:19:12] Yes, and listen everyone, I’m joking. I offered to learn how to do that and what did you tell me? You’re too old and it would probably be too difficult. Well, you didn’t put it that way, but that’s pretty much what you meant, I think, when you, when you tried to let me down. Easy, yeah, but anyway. So, yeah, I got a lot done and hopefully, when this airs, I’ll have my updated pictures on the build log. But in case I don’t, you can get on our facebook page and you can catch sneak peeks of current.

[00:19:46] State of the assembly process. If you, if you care to go look at us on facebook. There are pictures, little sneak peeks out there of mine. Anyway, yeah, I don’t do the facebook thing, yeah, and that’s okay, I don’t do it. Well, so there we go. What’d you get down on yours? So I got so much done. I am all right, I’m gonna go get some popcorn. I’ll be back funny. So I am also nearly ready for covering.

[00:20:18] Since the last time I finished- pretty much finished- the fuselage. It is sheeted. All of the mounts and everything are glued in place. For all the running gear now, the servos, the, the retractable nose gear, the, all the airlines and all the all that stuff, the retract valve is mounted. So I will say:

[00:20:38] I did stop by your house last- last night, was it last night, doesn’t matter what yesterday? Yeah, because I had not seen your duelist yet. I mean, you always come out here and I haven’t been in your house for a long time. Yeah, I’m impressed. I mean like it looks really good and there is a whole heck of a lot more.

[00:20:53] Going on in yours than in mine. Yeah, well, so retractable gear, nitro engines, tuned pipes, yeah, all that.

[00:21:00] Yeah, I, I understand. I mean mine’s very simple, but the part that I like is: we weighed your wing. Yeah, and your wing weighs over a full pound more than mine, yes, it does. So you’re gonna have a beefy airplane.

[00:21:15] Now we’re talking just the, just the, the airframe. There’s no, right, yeah, no gear. No, no, nothing. So you’re no servos. No, compared to my wood wing, as much lighter, yes, yeah, and I’m okay with that. I’m okay, it’s supposed to be lighter, it’s electric. Well, that’s fine, but it’s gonna fly better. And I told you when we started that mine was gonna. I’m hoping for under 12. If mine’s under 12 pounds, I’ll be happy. I don’t think it’s going to be, but we’ll see I get that. But that I just I’m. Yeah, I was very.

[00:21:49] Surprised by how heavy it was. Yeah, my wing is quite heavy. I mean, like I expected a few ounces more. I wasn’t expecting over a pound. Yeah, yeah, just on the wing, right, but I mean.

[00:22:00] Yours looks better. Well, there’s a little bit more stuff on mine too. Like you don’t have your cows on, you didn’t measure yours, weigh yours with the cows. My cows are built into the nacelles so they’re already on the airframe. Okay, that’s, I know. I mean, I know, I know, but also I have hold on my wing tips are on, yours aren’t. Well, that’s true, but my aileron stock is on and yours isn’t.

[00:22:26] Just a very little bit. I mean, you’re like your. My aileron stock probably weighs what your wing.

[00:22:30] Tip weighs. So let’s call that a wash, okay? So, yeah, I have fully sheeted nacelles, whereas you have lightened ones, so that when you cover them over, you’ll have like open structure under the cover covering, because I don’t need it, because you don’t need it wrong, you don’t need yours to be. I have full quarter inch seven layer aircraft ply firewalls because I have to have them. Yeah, you don’t.

[00:22:56] Yeah, I think you have eighth inch. I think I have a couple layers actually. No, it’s the that falcata.

[00:23:03] Oh, and it’s three layers that I did on that, that may not actually be that much lighter, that’s.

[00:23:08] Kind of heavier than it is. Heavier than balsa- about 20 from what I understand. Yeah, but I ran them cross grain and glued them all together with wooden glue. Yeah, a lot of my weight is those.

[00:23:18] Is those blocks, those balsa blocks. Even though I did my best to lighten them as much as I could before I glued them in place, they’re. They’re heavy, heavier, I should say, compared to.

[00:23:28] How much you have going on. I still can’t wait until we’re finished, just to see the difference.

[00:23:32] In weight like I’m so Ron you’re, you’re estimating that you’re going to be three-ish, I’m thinking so lighter. Do you think I would not be surprised? Yeah, it may even be more than that and it’s see well, and

[00:23:45] Depends too, because I haven’t decided yet. We talked last week about- I think it was last week- where to put the battery. Battery, yeah, batteries. If I end up putting it inside of the fuselage, which, after you, kind of explained what you’re talking about, I think that’s not a half bad idea.

[00:24:02] It would be easy to do. I’m probably just gonna. Everybody heard that just now. I’ve, I’ll take. I had a.

[00:24:07] Good idea. I’ll take it out, but I think if I do that I’m just gonna be able to fit one battery, so it’s gonna be a little bit less flight time in there. I bet no, I mean no, I really can’t. Oh you, I checked already. Okay, but if I just flight with one battery, that saves over a pound.

[00:24:27] Just with only having one battery right, and since I can only fit six ounce tanks in my nacelles, you’ll

[00:24:33] Still probably have me on flight time maybe, and could you fit the six I thought you had to go to.

[00:24:38] Four, no six will fit. Okay, yeah, the six will fit and I may- I may make some modifications to get an.

[00:24:44] Eight ounce in there, we’ll see. Oh, that’s right. No, but I thought wasn’t it six ounces you’re trying to.

[00:24:50] Put in there last night and you couldn’t fit eight. I was trying to put in there, I didn’t have a six, I had an eight and a four and a four just fell right. Oh, that’s right, the four fit perfectly. Yeah, and that would be like three minutes. That, yeah, wouldn’t be right off. And land, take off, do two loops and land.

[00:25:06] Hopefully you get more flight time out of it than that. Well, we’ll see, but anyway, yeah, so my fuselage is done and is considerably heavier than yours by over a pound. We’ve established. No, we haven’t a fuselage, we haven’t weighed yet. Sorry, but my fuselage, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be heavier too.

[00:25:23] Although I don’t know, I’ll weigh it tonight, but anyway, yeah, the fuselage is done. The, the vertical, is curing as we speak. I glued that on before I had it out tonight, so the empennage is on the fuselage is. Empennage is your tail group. Oh, that’s the whole. Yeah, empennage is the whole tail assembly as a unit. So that would be horizontal stab and vertical stab. Okay, they are glued on, and now one with my fuselage, and so the empennage is part of the fuselage. What? What other terms?

[00:25:57] Are there, I don’t know then. Oh, I don’t know. I mean I can’t think of any. Okay, right off the top of my head, you put me on the spot. I’m sure there’s a ton, but I well, they’re probably. I’ve heard that.

[00:26:09] Before, but I never knew what it was okay. So the empennage- for anyone listening who doesn’t know an empennage, it refers to the tail group, the horizontal stab, the, the vertical stabilizer, the rudder, the elevators, v-tail. If you have that sort of thing, that whole kind of area of the airplane is.

[00:26:26] Referred to as the empennage. There you go and the turtle deck is just behind, like that goes from the front of the rudder up to the back of the yeah, from the canopy to the vertical canopy. There you go. That’s the turtle deck. That’s a weird. It is a weird terminology. Yeah, yeah, I agree, but that’s.

[00:26:45] What it means. Empennage, I’m assuming that’s probably a french word, I don’t know. Sounds like it probably invented by blairio. Anyway, louis blairio, the next french, french aviation guy. No, sorry, yeah, he was competing with the wright brothers back in the day. Hold on, I know who you’re talking about. I’ve been.

[00:27:05] Thinking of that wrong the whole time. I thought it was always like a beloit or something. No, it’s a

[00:27:10] Blerio, b-l-e-r-I-o-t with the. With the, I feel so stupid why you never studied it. Really well, I never.

[00:27:20] I’ve only seen it written and I blerio: okay, wow, I’m glad I’ve never said that out loud then well, I.

[00:27:28] It’s entirely possible that I am mispronouncing it, but that’s how I’ve always. Well, if it’s french, that makes sense. I never knew like it was french. Beloit like a nuremberg, thank you. So, anyway, the yeah. So I had to a little funny story. I did have to cut my wing open because I forgot. I got in such a hurry when I was sheeting the wings back way back. When, would you believe, we’ve been?

[00:28:02] Working on these things since september, like in earnest really since august anyway.

[00:28:10] I’m kind of impressed that we’re as far along as we are, though, because the first airplane I built

[00:28:15] Took me like seven years. So although I’m not done yet- so that’s true- it is still in the bones actually.

[00:28:22] The first, first airplane I built is: I have not finished and I don’t plan on finishing. Oh so well.

[00:28:27] That’s okay. I have a airplane downstairs in my basement that I’ve been working on for about ten years now. So which one is that? The camel? Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. That’s never going to be finished. It will no, it won’t. Yes, it will no, I don’t think I’ll ever see it. That maybe not. I don’t know you. I’m trying to reverse psychology. I know you are and I’m resisting. So anyway, I had to cut open the wing. I forgot, in the haste to get them sheeted, to install the blocks that they’ll hold down. Block bolts go through, yeah. So what I did, which I thought was pretty clever, I didn’t want to.

[00:29:04] Mess up the sheeting that was visible when the airplane is assembled, which would be the bottom in this case. So what I did is I cut open the top sheeting right ahead of the rear spar, which is where the block- yes, where it’s supposed to be, and I cut that open such that it would fit three layers of quarter inch aircraft ply blocks laminated together that I could fit down into the pocket. I know it’s hard to imagine without having a picture of it or whatever, but go to the website and we’ll.

[00:29:37] Have a picture uploaded right, I mean you’ll see the tops of it. Yeah, yeah, anyway. So I basically just filled that cavity on either side of the of the center ribs where the bolts go through with, filled it with plywood, essentially just laminated blocks toward three quarters of an inch thick- that matched the profile of the plan- and I ran them all the way down to the top sheeting or the bottom sheeting so that they tie all that together, and then I laid a little fillet of epoxy on the top.

[00:30:10] There and sanded that smooth and drilled my holes, but it’s going to be plenty stout, I think. Yeah, I

[00:30:16] Think it will be too. But it’s funny. When you first sent me the picture of that, like I don’t, I didn’t pay much attention to it. I saw it come through and I was like what that looks so weird. So I saw that it was like the plywood. I didn’t know it was plywood and it just looked to me like it was like sticks going across like toothpicks or something like it was great. Yeah, I was like what is that? Is that like a cool thing? He’s got a vent in there. I don’t understand what, but yeah, so that makes more sense.

[00:30:42] Now actually knowing what it is. Yeah, so it’s plywood. It’s basically just stacks of plywood that I epoxied together and filled that void with, which is going to be very, very solid where the bolts go through. Yeah, my only real fear- and it’s a small one, but it’s a fear- is that, since I didn’t build those into the wing before I sheeted them, I can’t see there’s no way for me to inspect the glue joint up there or down at the bottom sheeting. Yeah, I’m fairly confident I got a good layer of.

[00:31:14] Epoxy in there and I held them up there against that and used some sticks and stuff to hold the blocks tight against that. I’m fairly certain I got a good joint, but time will tell. When I do the first inverted snap roll and the wing comes off the airplane and there’s two perfect block size holes in the bottom of the sheeting where they pull through, then I’ll know: hey, we will have good video of that at least. Yes, we will. So yeah, I had to tell on myself there a little bit. I got in a hurry, so haste makes waste, Tom. But here’s the deal. Like we’re not, we don’t have instructions, no, we’re.

[00:31:49] We’re building from plans, yeah, so we don’t have instructions, so we don’t have the benefit of somebody. I mean, yes, we could have. I could have reached out to some friends on rc groups and probably somebody could have sent me a scanned copy of their original pika kit instructions, which would have been close, but anyway close enough for what we’re doing. I figure if that’s the biggest mistake.

[00:32:11] I’ve made in this build, then I’m, I’m doing okay. Well, at least you have a background in knowing what you’re doing. I mean this, this is, this has been a kit. I mean they’re not a kid, this has been a, it’s been a project. I mean this is for sure. This is difficult. Yeah, there’s a lot. Yeah, it’s not like.

[00:32:28] I don’t think I was ready. We didn’t choose the easiest subject to cover for a: a plans build no on.

[00:32:35] The podcast. I don’t think I was ready for the amount of sanding and everything that went into this one. Oh my gosh the sanding. Because what I’ve done before has been fairly simple: square edges to where you just kind of lightly kiss the edges to round them over a little bit, yeah, as opposed to actually sanding like half of a quarter inch block away. It’s funny that you say:

[00:32:54] That because you were over last night and you looked at all the blocks that had been shaped on my airframe and you looked at me. You said: how did you do this before you had the belt sander? And so I had to be honest. I was like, well, gave you the old sawing motion with the arm, back and forth with the sanding block. That’s how I did it. But let me tell you, having done it with a belt sander, I will never not do it with a belt sander again. I’m here to tell you it’s time for rc plane.

[00:33:24] Labs tool of the week, which is why that’s our tool of the week. Yeah, very handy, extremely handy man.

[00:33:34] They’re unfortunately a little bit pricey, like the cheapest ones that I’ve found, like quality ones are about 150 ish. You can get a little bit cheaper than that. Now. That’s for a four inch wide by 36 belt.

[00:33:45] With an incorporated six inch disc correct sander on it, which is nice because it doesn’t just have to be for your hobby. I mean, these things have lots and lots of uses. I mean, I’ve used this thing now. Granted, the one I got was part of that deal we talked about a while back that I bought that way back when. Yeah, I bought all those tools and this came with it. But I have used that thing on all sorts of other projects around the house. So, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s a little tough to swallow 150 ish bucks for a new one, a quality one anyway, but, man, if you’re handy you can do so much stuff with this thing, yeah, and.

[00:34:23] I cannot tell you how many hours- I mean really hours of time- it has saved me on just this dualist.

[00:34:31] Project. Oh, I can imagine I- I so like the few times that I’ve had to do a big like sanding job on this to do the fuselage around some of the corners and stuff on it. I’m out in the shop for five, six, seven minutes and then I’m walking inside. Yeah, I cannot like, I really cannot imagine doing it.

[00:34:52] With a razor plane and a hand sander. That’s how I have done it in the past and let me tell you that’s just that’s nuts. I will not be doing it that way again, even if- even if I had to go buy a brand new one, I would well right knowing what I know now. How many times have I said the right tool?

[00:35:10] For the job makes everything easier, absolutely, and if I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it again:

[00:35:14] The right tool for the job makes everything easier. I mean, that’s true, I love tools. This thing has saved me so much time. It really has. Yeah, sorry about that, that’s okay. So, yeah, lots and lots of sanding. It was funny because, like I said, you asked me: how did you do this before a belt sander- well, that’s how manually- and razor plane, which I still use. I mean, I’m not going to like get rid of those.

[00:35:37] Tools completely. Oh no, I used them like on the leading edge and that kind of stuff too, and there’s been several things where it’s just I’m not doing a big amount of sanding right, I don’t want to have to go out to the shop to do that, so I’ll just use a little bit of- or maybe the length is.

[00:35:52] Too long to fit on the belt or whatever which you can. There’s a little bit, but yeah, that is one.

[00:35:59] Thing, though: you have to be careful, because I’ll I’ll call you out on it. You sanded through your nose.

[00:36:04] I did. You can see it in the pictures too, so I’m not trying to hide it. No, I’m not saying you’re.

[00:36:09] Trying to hide it, I’m just saying I’m bringing it up in case you didn’t thanks.

[00:36:14] Yeah, they will. And that’s my fault actually, because I well, yeah, in an effort to keep when I did mine, well, in an effort to keep the airframe light, I’m hollowing out as much of the blocks as I can, yeah, and I got it a little too thin. And then, yeah, I found, I found exactly how thin I got it when I

[00:36:30] Hit it with the belt sander. It’s so thin, it’s hollow. But I mean, no, I, I understand I’ll probably do the same thing and have to start over on mine. Well, I hope not, but knowing me, I probably will. There’s that.

[00:36:43] Yeah, so one other thing I wanted to talk about on mine.

[00:36:49] Okay, that’d be more than one thing more I want to talk about. But so, because of the what I chose to do with my gear- we talked about it in the last episode- I’m making, making provisions, deviating from the plans slightly, so that I can get longer gear legs, oh yeah, that I can run 10 inch props on our grass field with no, no problem- and I think I may have mentioned this on the last episode also- that I actually had to move my, my nose, f1 fire or my former. Thank you forward.

[00:37:22] Which now my fuselage is probably pretty close to the same length as yours. I’m not finished yet. Still have my nose, that’s true. That’s true, 15 foot long nose on that airplane. What’s the shark?

[00:37:38] That has the, the spear that sticks out the very front, oh, or what’s the airplane that has that?

[00:37:42] Is that like an intruder? Or there’s a kingfisher that has that? That’s yeah, so yeah, so that’s.

[00:37:47] That’s what I’ll end up doing. I’ll just have like a spear that sticks out eight inches, just to be sure.

[00:37:51] Just to be sure. But what I didn’t talk about last week was what I’m gonna have to do to the nose gear itself to get at the length I need so that I’m not sitting at a weird angle when the airplane is sitting on the gear. So I looked around as I spent an exhaustive afternoon on the internet looking for the right nose gear that I could get long enough to do what I need to do- and I know I’m running in the risk of a gear leg that’s too long is going to be springy and wobbly.

[00:38:24] And wibbly wobbly. I get it, I’m I’m prepared for that. But what I’m gonna have to do basically is I’m gonna have to cut the nose the gear wire that I have now and install a robart robo strut to get extra length. So it’s gonna look kind of weird, so like a strut, oh so robart makes retractable landing gear and they also make scale like oleo type retract or spring shock absorbing struts. Say oleo, yes, like the like oleo struts. I don’t know what that is. So an oleo strut.

[00:39:00] Is basically a shaft that slides inside another shaft, with a spring on the inside and then two scissor links to hold it in alignment. So as it moves up and down, the scissor links do this sort of a thing, this scissoring motion. I’m doing with my hands and it’s shock absorbing.

[00:39:16] That’s an oleo strut. Okay, I’m still not 100 there, but I’m, I’ll so imagine. So imagine a hollow tube with a shaft that fits inside it. Okay, okay, sure. And then imagine a spring on top of the shaft that’s terminated at the top of the of the tube, right, okay. And the tube as it moves inside the- I’m sorry, the shaft as it moves inside the tube bears on that spring, right, compresses the spring, so on. Well, how do you have to figure out a way to keep all that from spinning, because your axle is going to be?

[00:39:47] Attached to that rod or that, okay, and to keep that from spinning or anti-rotating- anti, it’s an anti-rotation device, it’s a scissor link. So you’ve got one link that comes down off of the tube, one link that comes up off the shaft and they’re tied together with a pin right and then, as the as the shaft moves up inside the tube, the scissor link is what allows that motion, but it also keeps it from rotating. So

[00:40:17] That’s kind of what you see like on full-size, like jets, and that kind of exactly. It’s called an oleo strut. I say I never knew that. Yeah, but see, I’m learning more, there you go. So anyway, robot f-18s and stuff, have those. I mean that’s what, right? I mean, so that’s the yes, okay, oleo, yeah, okay.

[00:40:33] That’s the. That’s the term for that style of anti-rotation. I always wondered what that was.

[00:40:39] For, like I never knew the whole. Well, yeah, because the axle comes off at an angle. And if there was,

[00:40:43] Nothing to keep that from spinning. As soon as it touches down it would want to snap back, and then you got no steering right. I got you okay. So the scissor links are what keeps it from doing that. Anti-rotation: cool. But anyway, robart manufacturing: they make retractable landing gear and they make scale. They call them robo struts. That’s what the robart calls them, because they are robart struts. Robo struts got it. So I have one in the 532 diameter, which is the wire, so I’m going to cut.

[00:41:15] The wire on my current nose gear and then attach to that wire a robo strut to get the extra length I need. So it’s, it’s going to look a little funny, I think. Well, it might look. Kind of cool though it might, maybe, maybe it. I’m hoping, what I’m really hoping for. If anyone out there is familiar with an f7f tiger cat, which is a world war ii navy twin engine fighter, actually, they were very kind of similar in the outline to our duelists, actually very slender, sleek nose, and I always remember

[00:41:51] The nose gear on those things was like if you ever saw a front view with them sitting on the gear, that was the first thing you noticed, because it was so long, because they had to be so long, because it was tucked up into that streamlined nose. So I’m hoping that’s the look I get, but we’ll see.

[00:42:06] So that little scissor part, is that going to go closer to the wheel or closer to the fuselage?

[00:42:11] I’m hoping it’ll be closer to the fuselage. Oh see, I think it looked cooler closer to the wheel. Well, the actual scissor link is actually down by the axle. Okay, more or less that’s, but I’m yeah. Yeah, I want to hide the whole thing, oh, but I’m not gonna know. If it looks cool, make it stand out paint.

[00:42:32] It pink paint. Paint it pink- I don’t know, make it stand out. No, I’m not gonna do that. Fine, I’m not painting it pink. Well, I’m gonna do it when you’re not looking. Good luck finding pink paint. Really, I don’t know, we’ve got like craft paint over here, that’s. I mean, there’s so much it will be easy to wipe off. I’ll just wipe it off. I don’t want to destroy it. Oh okay, spray paint from

[00:42:55] A foot away. Yeah, so we were talking about sanding and the. Our older listeners may be able to commiserate with me as I’ve gotten older when so I’ve been building airplanes a long time- many- and I’ve never. I’ve never really been. I’ve been lucky, I’ve been fortunate that I’ve never really been affected by balsa dust or the fumes from the glues that we use, or epoxy or any of that.

[00:43:28] Oh, you’ve been affected.

[00:43:32] Okay, fair enough, I’ll give you that one. Yeah, that I’m definitely not right. But for years the balsa dust never bothered me. I never had any kind of respiratory trouble, never caused coughing or I’ve never had issues with balsa dust until now. You never. You never wore a mask, never, never warm, and that I know. Don’t look at me that way. These Ron has given me the look. These are judgy.

[00:44:02] Eyes, yeah, very, very, but no, I never have until now. So for those out there listening who don’t wear masks: when you’re sanding or if you’re using really nasty chemicals, wear a mask because, man, I am really paying for it now. Well, I just, I don’t like. I don’t like.

[00:44:26] Doing a lot of sawdust stuff without a mask. I mean like I actually wear a respirator. It’s not just a mask, it’s the, the dual little cartridge respirator, that right when you talk, and stuff. If you feel like what was his face dark helmet from? Oh my gosh, I never saw that. I never saw that one. But I’m thinking, yeah, space balls. So that is what I like whenever I do a lot of the dust stuff. That’s what I what I end up wearing, only because I don’t

[00:44:59] Like coughing that stuff up later. Well see, I’ve never. I’ve never like until recently I’ve never even had that kind of reaction, like the next day I’d be fine, I wouldn’t be coughing or hacking or any.

[00:45:14] Of that. What’s different now, though? What? No, seriously, no, seriously. What is what is different this time than when you’ve- when you’ve done it before, you’re using a power tool that’s throwing that- the sawdust up a lot more than doing it by hand. If what you did before was taking most of that off with a razor plane and then just doing the final sanding, you don’t think so well, yeah, probably.

[00:45:40] But I’ve had like on the last little project. I worked on that little Cloud Dancer thing. I was having issues then and I didn’t use the belt sander for that project. Well at all theory’s blown out of the water, but it definitely was much worse this time and I keep the belt sander out in the garage. Yeah, I don’t know if you noticed that. I think, yeah, there’ll be a, there’ll be a picture coming. You can’t do that inside. No, absolutely not, unless you have one of those nice vacuum ones that has the vacuum thing, that those. Even with that, really, yeah, I mean that gets rid of 90 of it.

[00:46:11] But still 10 or so. It’s just every. I mean that’s fair enough. That’s why you have to have a shop. Yeah, I forgot properly stocked shop. Here we go again: right tools, a shop and everything you’re.

[00:46:22] Right. So yeah, bottom line, do yourselves a favor, if you’re going to get into balsa building at least one of those particulate dust masks, and it does make a difference. Like I wore it when I was doing some stuff out in the garage on the dualist and yeah, no, no issues whatsoever. But man, as soon as I went inside and just touched my vertical stabilizer with the sanding bar, it was like instant coughing. Yeah. So as I’ve gotten older, take, learn from me, wear masks now, so you

[00:46:55] Don’t have issues later. Yep, yeah, so. And apparently wood dust, wood fibrous is, is cancer causing. I didn’t know that. I didn’t either. Yeah, I read something online because I was- I was a little concerned about all the coughing the other night. And yeah, I read somewhere on there that balsa that’s sold, I think, in california. I think actually has to have one of those warnings on it. I think everything that’s

[00:47:21] Sold in california has to have one of those warnings on it. That’s so right or wrong, I don’t know. But I mean, it seems like you could buy anything in california: 65 stuff. Yeah, you’re probably not that it’s wrong, but just I’m saying everything. Anything you buy here, it’s like 49 states, you’re fine, buy it, I don’t care. But if you’re in california you have to read this label. Right, right, and I love it. It’s only in california. This is known to cause cancer. Well, don’t buy it there, right, anyway, yeah, so, so, anyway, yeah, that’s.

[00:47:54] That’s kind of the. I went a little long there but that’s where, where I’m at, and I did touch on you. We talked, we giggled a little bit about the, the fuel tank that I’m going to be able to fit in my nacelles more to follow on that. So I’m going to, I’m going to do a little creative rearranging and maybe some creative cutting and you ought to just put one big tank in the center fuselage, two hoppers. Hey, that’s.

[00:48:19] A good idea, actually- and then just make it that it’s a perfect shape in order to make like a hatch on the top, and then you could put your fuel tanks in the fuselage. I could -huh or.

[00:48:31] I could just find a way to mount, say, like a 12 ounce tank in the fuselage and then run two lines to two hopper tanks like little four ounce jobs in the nacelles. That’s actually not a bad idea, no, I thought.

[00:48:45] It was a great idea. I might look into that. What you do, get the actual like fuel tank bladders, like real airplanes have, and put them in your wings, I mean so anyway, let’s wait. That’s already like three pounds with the dualists. You’re a pound heavier than me. Why not be like five? Why not be five pounds heavier? Sure, make it have to go 150 miles an hour in order to get enough lift.

[00:49:04] Yes, so yeah, that’s where. That’s where we’re at with the dualists. It was a big update but lots got done and hopefully next week we’ll be covering one of us, hopefully. Well, if I get it in time, I did order.

[00:49:17] More, even from the same place for some odd reason. Well, for sure I’ll be able to cover because I have my covering. Well, yeah, you bought like 85 rolls for a dollar. Okay, it wasn’t so you always got to be.

[00:49:30] Looking out for deals. Right, I never knew there was deals, or else I would have done the same thing. Facebook marketplace: there’s deals. Don’t do facebook. Really you need to. I mean like I get on there every now and then there’s really cool. There’s really cool RC airplane groups on facebook also, and

[00:49:47] Buy and sell part of a lot of those like I go that my whole facebook feed is nothing but RC airplane stuff like, and that’s not a bad thing. No, I’m not complaining at all. I like it, so that’s. That’s how I do.

[00:49:59] It okay. Okay, that’s enough of me rambling about where I agree that was. Yeah, it was long-winded and I apologize, but I am super, super excited because you’re gonna be covering my airplane. Looks, I mean.

[00:50:13] It’s a dualist, right? I mean, it’s a dualist, it’s gonna be nice and I’m so excited, I’m ready, let’s.

[00:50:19] Go fly them. Well, I asked the question last night. So we set a goal: january 1st to have these things ready to go, yeah, and then I asked you last night and you said no. I said no, go ahead, bring it up. I think that’s a dinghy idea, but go on, I think it’s a dinghy, so it doesn’t count what if airplane’s ready to go, because I’m gonna have some tinkering to do. No, ask the question first. Okay, if my airplane is ready to fly, like engines mounted, fueled up, running even, and I and I only run them on the bench.

[00:50:57] To or run them on the table out at the field to get them tuned, whatever, and I don’t actually fly.

[00:51:03] Does it count? No, flying on january 1st is the goal, okay. So here’s the thing you can. You can spin it however you want, but if your plane is not in the air under its own power on january 1st, you have missed.

[00:51:17] The deadline. Here’s the thing, and this is my fault, not anyone else’s fault. I chose this path to go nitro because that’s what the old dualist was. That’s fine. Prompted this whole project right.

[00:51:33] Because you crashed yours right. Had you not just think, by the way, had you done a pre-flight check on that one all those many, many moons ago, we would not be here today, and what the heck would we have talked about for the last 40 minutes. I’m just saying thank you. Thank you for crashing, you’re welcome.

[00:51:50] So, because I’m gonna run two nitro engines, they need to be reliable, they need to produce at least close to the same amount of power, and that’s measured by rpm on the ground, right, everything else being equal: same props, same fuel, same everything. I feel like I’ve got a lot of tuning in front of me, and it’s, by the way, it was 32 degrees today. Do how hard it is for me.

[00:52:22] To get motivated to get out of my garage and run engines in my garage prior to january 1st, which will probably be 20 degrees that day or colder. Come out here. I’ll turn the heat on in the garage. We can crack.

[00:52:36] A door when you’re ready to run them and we’ll be fine. I mean, it’s actually a good idea, let’s not?

[00:52:41] Let’s not use that as a crutch we can make. I’m not trying to, I’m not trying to set it up ahead, I’m just saying I do have like, even though I’m really close to the finish, which I really am, compared to where I started, yeah, there’s going to be at least probably a couple days worth of just me fiddling with the engines. We’ve got a full weekend. Sometimes we can do. My other one came today. Yes, Tom bought another irvine, so this one’s an abc. So, unfortunately, what we talked about last

[00:53:12] Night, it’s not going to work. Oh really, yeah, that’s the only abc irvine that I own, so you’re.

[00:53:18] Gonna, you’re a concern because you had the ones that you have different carburetors on them. They’re actually the different construction- we’ve talked about that before- to where one is the press bearing or whatever it was, and you’re concerned about getting the same rpm out of them. Yes, so the one you ordered, yes, has the same carburetor. It does as one of the ones that you already have, right?

[00:53:37] So you’re going to use that. That’s still the plan. That’s still the plan. I was hoping that when I got the engine in my hot little hands, I would look through the, because he didn’t have any pictures and he couldn’t answer the question whether it was abc or not. He didn’t know the difference. So I looked through the exhaust port and, sure enough, there’s no ring on the piston. So, which is fine. It has great compression, which it’ll. It’ll be a good engine on its own. So are you just switching out the carburetor? So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna take the carburetor off of that one that matches the other one, one of the other ones, and then I’ll continue with.

[00:54:07] I’ll press with the two engines that I was planning on using and just use this carburetor on the one that didn’t have the other carburetor. Yeah, I think it makes sense to me. Yeah, I think so. The only difference between the two engines now will be that will be a physical difference. It’s not, hopefully, a performance difference. Yeah, so well, that’s fine, but that’s going to take some running on the stand before I before I commit to putting them in the air. Well, like I said, we can put a

[00:54:32] An exhaust pipe on it and go out the window if we need to, or even just straight out the door. I’ll run.

[00:54:37] Door a little bit. I’ll run them with the pipes. I mean they’ll have well. No, I mean, oh yeah, I gotcha.

[00:54:42] Or, if you like, I said we can throw the heat on, just open the door. Well, it’s supposed to be not too bad.

[00:54:49] This weekend, even though I have to work. I’ve- oh, do you? Yeah, man, that happens a lot, yeah, but I think sunday, I think sunday is going to be an early day, I think, for us, and I think the weather is supposed to be kind of decent. Ish for december: like 50s, I thought I saw 45 and I didn’t see anything over like low 40s. Oh, really dang it. Last I looked it was 45 to anyway. Okay, so january 1st, fly or bust. Well, that’s, yeah, okay, fair enough, all right, I’m, I’ll try. I’m. That’s full speed ahead.

[00:55:28] All right, enough about my dualist. Yeah, so we’ll, like I said, we’ll see what happens then. Yep, all right. What else would you like to talk about? Well, I got an email from gary about our last week’s episode and he said: Ron, he said you’re sad that Blue Angels are switching from the f18 hornet to the fa18 super hornet, but you say nothing about fat albert switching from a c132 j model. Yeah, from a c130t to a c130j. Yeah, can a prop guy get some love? Honestly, you should give thomas some crap as a c130 guy. And

[00:56:01] Not pointing this out. That’s absolutely true. So what’s it what? I don’t even know what the difference.

[00:56:07] Is: yeah, I did not, I did not mention that. Well, not, it’s not old news, right? It’s? It’s new that you, they, the Blue Angels, are switching from a c130- I believe it was a t- to now the, the j model. And there’s huge differences between the old legacy c130s and the new j model, and, and some of the differences are electron. Well, most of the differences are electronic. The c130j is a little bit bigger, longer, has newer engines, newer props, it’s just it’s a better airplane. As with evolution,

[00:56:41] They always seem to get better. But yeah, the so the t model c130s have been. They’ve been on the kind of the chopping block for some time and haven’t been able to get much support for them. I don’t know when they’re. When the last fat albert was constructed. Fat albert is what they call their, their c130, by the way. I don’t know if that or not. Yeah, hey, hey, sorry, that’s my best fat albert impersonation I could come up with. Oh my god, sorry about that. That’s embarrassing.

[00:57:12] Yeah, it is, do you remember anyway? No, I’ve never seen the show, but I know what you’re talking about, okay. Well, anyway, that’s what they call their c130, and so the t model- I think it was a t model- has been on the chopping block for a while, and so they’ve been gonna have to replace it eventually, and they announced it last year that they actually got a j model 130 from. I believe it was the royal navy, maybe or maybe the royal air force- I think it was a royal air force of all places- who were announced in 2000, way back in 2010, that they were going to retire early some of their j models.

[00:57:50] So it’s been speculated for quite a while that the navy, the Blue Angels, were going to update and also eventually the thunderbirds also going to update. Eventually. What’s the new version of the of the f16? Well, I mean, they’re probably not going to go to another f16. Oh, it changed completely. You can’t do that either, come on. So anyway it’s been. It’s been well known for a while that the navy is going to update fat albert to a new transport and it only made sense to go j model. So when they announced that,

[00:58:24] Last year it was like, oh well, okay, that’s a shocker. So not that it was old news, but it was news that I had already processed in my brain what I’m saying. So when we were talking about the Blue Angels updating the fighters, that was news to me, because I don’t really keep up with fighters much. I mean, I read, I don’t either, but I saw the article and I cried a little, but I was actually when they, when they announced that they were getting this j model from europe, I was actually like, yeah man.

[00:58:55] That’s. That’s awesome. The j model is a great airplane. Not good in the sense that it actually eliminates a couple of jobs, so they don’t keep a flight engineer on them anymore because of all the electronic redundancies and all the glass that’s in the cockpit. It does that all for the pilots now, and I believe navigators are on the on the chopping block also. We have gps now, right so, but it is a great airplane. I’ve ridden on one twice now, the j cool airplane, so the props are really.

[00:59:30] Really groovy: six blades on each one. I don’t know if you’ve seen them or not, but they’re, they’re very.

[00:59:34] Very slick looking. What’s the difference between that and like? Like so the t or the older version?

[00:59:40] Right, do they look the same, do they? Yeah, they look very similar like. So the j model’s longer, it’s like a. Well, there’s, there’s. I think there’s a couple of different versions and gary’s gonna probably murder me on this, but I believe there’s like a stretch version and then there’s like the standard version and they’re kind of measured- without getting too much into detail because I’m not sure how much I can actually talk about, but they’re kind of measured in terms of how many pallet positions they have they can hold and a and a legacy, an h model, a t model, whatever can hold, let’s say it.

[01:00:12] Can hold eight pallet positions. The j model can hold like 12.. So it’s a better, it’s a more versatile, it’s a more usable, it’s a it’s more capable. So is that the same size pallets? Are they just getting smaller pallets? It’s a standardized pallet that the air force uses, oh okay, so yeah, like I said, without. Yeah, that’s fine, go on and on about that sort of thing, but yeah, we don’t want. So yeah, I mean, everybody’s heard me ramble on long enough for this episode, but yeah, they, they are updating to the j.

[01:00:45] Model and yeah, it’s awesome that’ll still have that albert the, the rocket boosters, on the side, and

[01:00:52] That I don’t know, I would assume. So I mean, you can’t not right? I would assume that it probably will still do that as part of its demonstration, but I’m not sure if I’ve seen a j model with jato yet.

[01:01:06] Like either an experimentation or anything like that. So well, if they don’t have that, there’s no reason to. Maybe they’ll just have smoke canisters on the back and just light off the smoke for when they take off to make them look like jados. But then it doesn’t take off at 45 degrees or whatever it does. Well, it can get close to that anyway. If it’s light, well, it’s empty when they take off the air show.

[01:01:31] So yeah. So there you go, cool, yeah. So thanks for calling me out on that. I appreciate that. It’s not that. It’s not that I don’t have love for prop guys. It was just to me it was. It was not old news, but it was news that I had already processed and sort of gotten over the excitement of already, so when we were talking about it I it just completely slipped my mind. So I apologize to the prop guys out there.

[01:01:55] There you go, all right, anything else you want to talk about tonight? Oh gosh, man, I sure went on and on about my dualist. I know like I have a bunch of other stuff I want to talk about, but we are way.

[01:02:06] Like getting to the, so I apologize. Next week’s update will be very short because hopefully it will just be me saying, yeah, I covered it well, but after you cover it, you should be able to put the.

[01:02:17] Motors on and tune them. Well, I’m actually we have to get, because it’s it’s december now. I know.

[01:02:23] So we, we gotta, we gotta, get serious about this. Yes, I agree, anyway, so anyway, no, that’s all I’ve got.

[01:02:28] Okay. Well then, until next time. I’m Ron and I’m Tom. Good night, good night. We hope you enjoyed this.

[01:02:35] 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.