Ep 102: Matt and Joe from the Aviation RC Noob Podcast

[00:00:03] 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. Welcome.

[00:00:31] Back to the aviation rc new podcast you found us my name is joe and I’m matt visit us at rcplane.

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[00:00:51] We’re here to be with you along your journey and to share our experiences in rc aviation. If you have any questions, thoughts or want to share a flight story, hit us up at aviation rc move at gmailcom.

[00:01:03] Now buckle in let’s take off thanks for spending time with us today now here are your hosts Ron and.

[00:01:13] Hello everyone, welcome to the aviation rc plane noob lab podcast. That’s a mouthful. It is a mouthful, I mean right. Well, hi guys, how are you doing? We have matt and joe on from the aviation rc new podcast and.

[00:01:27] You have Tom and Ron on from the RC Plane Lab podcast I was gonna let them say that oh I’m yeah.

[00:01:32] That would have. Yeah, so ideal, yeah, okay, yeah. Well, I’ll do it real quick. Welcome to the aviation rc new podcast: slash RC Plane Lab crossover episode. How’s that? That sounds great, all right. Episode 51.

[00:01:46] For the aviation rc noobs, and it is episode what. 101, No, we’ll be 102 at this point. 102, Nice congratulations, guys. I’m making it past 100. That’s a big, big milestone. Well, so is 50. You guys are doing great too. Yeah, thanks, yeah, I think it’s actually even appropriate, for I think we put it out typically every two weeks, and you guys, I don’t know how you manage- every week. Really, I don’t know how Ron does it either. If my, if I’d had, I’d be tipping it to you right now. We are taking july off. Well, here’s the.

[00:02:18] Thing so like. Because you guys publish every couple of weeks, your episodes are typically a little bit longer than ours, a lot longer. So I feel like your 50 episodes are probably equivalent time-wise to.

[00:02:32] Our 100 minutes. Yeah, so there you go. I think they’re about right because we’re. We’re around two hours, with one exception, maybe two, and yours are almost straight on, an hour plus or minus, depending on if you’re talking to somebody or just yeah, and I have no idea how that happens.

[00:02:49] Because that is not planned, that’s absolutely not. We come to sit down to record and that’s where we end up getting bored. I guess probably because we have about an hour’s worth of patience.

[00:02:58] With each other and that’s I don’t know if I’d say that I’m just teasing it’s a lot less than an hour.

[00:03:04] Well, we always think, oh, this thing we’re gonna start, this is gonna be done in a half hour. We’re gonna be like, oh, and then, sure enough, we start talking about this or that and by an hour and a half later, we’re like, oh no, we need to wrap this up, we’re gonna hit way over our mark.

[00:03:20] Yeah, and then the four hour mark. You’re like: all right, seriously, it’s time to end this. I’m not editing two hours out, okay. So before we get too much into talking to each other about stuff, I want to know: sure, how did you guys come up with starting a podcast and why? Okay, I’m gonna let

[00:03:40] Matthew, talk about that one. Yeah, this was I don’t know about my brainchild, but it was something I had rolling around in my head I’d listened to. Now, my, because I’m I’m thinking about it. I don’t have their names in front of me, but it’s mike, the flight test community cast. I was listening to those guys and what ended up turning into the ft after hours or the after our podcast, rc after hours, is with andre, but it was with a bunch of other guys in the beginning and it

[00:04:12] Was ft after hours. So I used to listen to those guys every week and I listened- try to devour as much like anybody knew in the hobby. And I remember, just without listening to those guys, while I was mowing my lawn or whatever it was, I don’t think I would have stuck in the hobby. I mean I was pushing planes into the ground as hard as I could, as fast as I could, and some of them were not recoverable. I mean I had a, a bloody bear, that went up about 100 feet and went straight down 100 feet and the battery started to catch on fire, started smoldering. I threw it out in the parking lot like oh gosh.

[00:04:44] But without listening to them talk about how they were cutting down the wrong tree in like a forest. I came back the next day and cut down the right tree after climbing the one next to it by accident. Oops, that kind of like. They had those kind of stories. I’m like, oh, I’m like trying to find a line they lost. I mean, yeah, they lost in the tree and they’re like, oh, and then they’re climbing it in the dark and then they realized they climbed the wrong one. So they went back like the next day with a saw and they sawed something down and they thought was the one with the tree with the plane in it, and it wasn’t. Anyway, it’s worth listening to their podcast because they always

[00:05:19] Have. In the beginning they had a bunch of amazing stories. It was good to listen to what it was. It kept me in the hobby and I kept thinking and then I started noticing like they were all saying I’m done, I don’t have any more content, I’m out, and of course, now 50 episodes- or in your case it’s 100 episodes plus in. I’m looking at going like, hey, I understand that now. So it’s pretty hard to pick up some content. But I said, but at the same point, like it was them talking about the nonsense that they got into and then just laughing about the ridiculous stuff that they tried and that they knew they should.

[00:05:52] Have done that they did anyway. So that was one aspect that I wanted to keep going right, because when you’re new in the hobby- and that’s what our podcast is aimed for it- it’s really easy to kind of lose faith and lose hope that you’re even thinking about doing it right, especially if you’re by yourself. So listening to other people kind of go through their trials and tribulations kind of helps you get back into it. There’s a lot of times I had put down the hobby knife and I was done, only to have like a couple episodes later I’d be like all right, I gotta go try it again. That sounds like one. I

[00:06:24] Forgot yeah I can see that like it’s it’s a good thing to kind of keep you going if you lose the.

[00:06:30] The drive. Yeah, no, yeah, I get that definitely. So, coupled with that, joe had just got into it and I was like I want. One of the things I wanted to do was get a couple, get some feedback on people getting into the hobby and listening to like, what kind of like. Nobody told me it was this, because there’s always that. It’s like: oh, it’s easy, you just you balance it and you throw it in there and it flies- great, look, and then the old timers do it without thinking. But what they’re not telling you is like the four or five steps they inherently do.

[00:07:03] And don’t even communicate that. So when you’re new you’re going like I don’t, I’m doing it wrong, like I don’t know what. How am I missing this? They make it look so easy that kind of stuff, and I wanted to hear have somebody who is newer to be there to kind of ask the questions and to kind of help suss out those little nuances that get lost.

[00:07:26] By the experienced flyer yeah somebody new to the hobby like laurie for example laurie would be a.

[00:07:33] Perfect candidate, yeah, taking a little different route into it. But yeah, yeah, and joe has been an excellent candidate for that too, and so, as he just got started, I’m like hey, you want to start a podcast. And he’s like I don’t know. So I said it’ll be great and I gave him the cub spout speech. It’s a, it’s like a half hour a week, I swear.

[00:07:58] We both cracked yeah that’s exactly what I said too what we can record once a month we’ll have.

[00:08:04] Them all knocked out in the day. That’s it. Remember that it’ll be great. It’ll be like an hour record a bunch. It’ll be sweet and honestly I really thought it would be a half hour or maybe 45 minutes- me too, because I was. I was thinking I’m listening to like the there’s a heli podcast where I it sounds, and again it sounds like they just turn on the mics, they shoot the stuff for an hour and then they turn it off. They throw like a couple like really bad bloopers near the end and then they, that’s it.

[00:08:35] They publish and it’s it doesn’t seem like they end spend any time doing any editing.

[00:08:40] Well that means they’re either really good at recording or really good at editing and you don’t.

[00:08:44] Know where the edits are right and I don’t- I’m not really sure if they. I think it’s genuinely straightforward, but there’s a lot of pre and post conversation that gets put towards bloopers. I think it’s how they do it. So for the most part they just sort of- I mean they leave the, the ugly stuff in. For the most part, I mean they really rarely kind of cut and go: okay, that was awful.

[00:09:06] Okay, we’re back. Yeah, yeah, so matt, why that like that? That’s the, that’s the question I’m curious to get the answer for. Like, why like so? Why bother going? Yeah, like, why go through all the trouble? And like, what is your like? If you had a mission statement, what would it be the mission?

[00:09:23] Statement and I think even it’s in our podcast, it’s in our website. It’s basically to keep the new aviationist in the hobby and give them a sense of community. Yeah, somewhere to start. I have to update the website now. No, I’m just not. I’m not looking. What is that, joe? What is our?

[00:09:43] Website saying it’s it’s more about to be with you along the journey yeah just like what.

[00:09:52] You guys say in your intro: yeah, it is. It’s just to help the newcomer into the hobby and entertain those who have more experience and tips, tricks, etc. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and matthew’s right.

[00:10:04] Because he did approach me about it being just a real short bit, not much time required. And same way you did, rod approaching Tom and I- I think it was more me that crashed matthew’s.

[00:10:18] View of that. The heck man he’s like: oh, I listened to it like six times already and I’m like: what you’re supposed to like, go through it once, chop out the really ugly stuff and just let it fly, man. And

[00:10:31] He’s like: no, no, no, no, no, no, nope, there’s way too many edits and adjustments to be made. There’s noise reduction to be done, there’s eqing to be done. They’re syncing up the tracks, and matthew’s like I didn’t sign up for this.

[00:10:47] And that’s the thing is. I had no idea joe was this involved with the audio in his other areas of life. I had no idea it was an audiophile. So it was like whoa, I stumbled onto a gold mine, slash trash fire. It was great. A bit of both. A bit of both. It was fantastic and honestly, I’m I’m so, I’m so happy, I feel like it. It helped even out the teamwork feeling that we had, which was

[00:11:13] Yeah, well, what about you guys? Because, rod, you reached out to me like just we were episode two or three and at that point and y’all were looking to start up, what? What got y’all into it? That’s.

[00:11:26] Actually I, I don’t know. I mean like, as much as I think back on it, like I don’t know why, I actually thought, hey, let’s do a podcast, because that is so outside of my, my comfort zone. For I mean, I’m such an introvert to begin with. It’s like if I saw somebody out in public, I don’t know, it’s like, oh, hold your head down, just kind of walk past them. I don’t want to talk to you, but anyway, I don’t know you, I don’t know you don’t talk exactly. So I was kind of like looking for different podcasts to listen to and there really weren’t a lot of. There weren’t enough out there to fill the time.

[00:12:01] That I needed filled on the hop right, and I listened to a lot. They were going away at that point too, weren’t they? Yeah, like there, there really were not a lot of ones that you could.

[00:12:12] Count on being there all the time it was. It was a period of transition, yeah, but there was something on the way out, and then some other newer ones like yours, that Ron started listening to.

[00:12:22] Yeah and so out of nowhere I’m like Tom what do you think of starting a podcast he’s like what’s.

[00:12:27] A podcast. That’s exactly true, like I. I mean, I know kind of what a podcast or it. Then I kind of knew what a podcast was. The gist. I, yeah, I didn’t listen to them, certainly didn’t download them and listen to them on my phone or on the devices in the house or whatever. So, yeah, so I thought, well, it sounds interesting. And the way you sold it to me, yeah, half hour here, half hour there, we’ll produce a, produce an episode once a month. See how it goes. I’m like, yeah, I can, I could commit to that. And here we are two years later, years later, and

[00:13:03] Yeah and countless hours on your end of editing yeah I took the brunt of that but anyway absolutely.

[00:13:10] So after we kind of thought, yeah, not a bad idea, let’s kind of look into it, I emailed joe and said, hey, you guys just started out. What do you think like is it worth doing? Which, once again, that’s completely out of like my character. I don’t even know why I did that. Yeah, and two episodes in he’s

[00:13:30] Going to have all kinds of advice, exactly. I know joe’s response wasn’t just run. Yeah, he should have been. No, he ghosted me for the longest time, actually never responded. I did, I did ghost you. Yes. He’s like, do you? Should we even respond to this? I’m like joe, no, no, no, I knew I wanted to respond to.

[00:13:52] Him. Yeah, he just wasn’t sure how. He wanted to make sure it’s appropriate. Yeah, it was, and I’ll blame, I’ll blame work, but it really wasn’t work. I just sat on it finally, no joke. I was down in augusta, georgia. It had been a long day and I finally just said what I got to reply to him. And that’s when I banged out that long detail. Well, send me a long, detailed email to you about my experiences with you or with the podcast and how all that went. I was like I’m so sorry for being so late getting back with you and this, that. And then I think the next reply I got from you was:

[00:14:23] Like yeah dude we’re like four episodes in and I’m not having that bad a time with it.

[00:14:27] I don’t think that’s how it was. I, I don’t think it was like that at all. No, but I do remember we went back and forth with: yes, emails are for everybody. Yeah, they are also. The way I remember it- and you’re probably going to tell me differently- is that we, we went back and forth a few times and you and one of the emails, you gave me your phone number and you’re like, if it’s easier, call me, we can talk about. I’m like: oh, oh gosh, this is, this is weird. I’m what do I talk to?

[00:14:59] The guy about, and then finally we ended up talking on about this for a while and we’ve kind of kept in touch a lot since and spent several multi-hour long-lost brothers yeah.

[00:15:12] Several multi-hour conversations from other mothers since then. So, man, our conversations have spanned all kinds of topics makes me feel like Tom and I should be having conversations which.

[00:15:25] We, we haven’t had or anything. But I’m just feels like, well, maybe we should have, I don’t know, maybe show you what it’s like, call him. Well, I know I will, no, it’s, it’s I’m I’m just kidding around, but I- and I remember I think I replied- I’m like: hey, awesome, I’m glad you’re listening. You should do.

[00:15:42] It yeah I know that was so in depth I was like okay so joe’s the one I want to talk to you.

[00:15:47] Yeah, well, I didn’t know, I didn’t. I wasn’t sure quite how much, how much I think I mentioned about roughly how much time we spend and kind of the effort, some of the surprises we’d run into and what we used, and it was just enough to kind of get your whistle wet, I guess, and I wasn’t sure how deep you wanted to go. And if you’re, I think you came back asking a lot more audio details and

[00:16:09] I’m like, oh yeah, oh crap. Yeah, I don’t know any of those things. It’s honestly, it’s been two years ago. I don’t remember how all that stuff started either. But just as a little tidbit, I’ll say:

[00:16:25] It turns out I replied to you within four days see yeah that was a long time you’re the one that.

[00:16:32] Ghosted me for a month well it’s at a point it’s not like we were friends or anything I’m like okay.

[00:16:39] Well what would have been nice to say hey I got your email thanks to the reply I’ll talk to you soon.

[00:16:46] So that’s funny, because Ron just accused joe of ghosting him and it was actually the other way around. That’s, that’s really interesting to me. I told you I don’t remember stuff from two years ago.

[00:16:57] Very well so who knows how it actually went well apparently we have the paper trail now but anyway.

[00:17:03] Emails are forever yeah I can forward it to you it shows really good I’m sure I still have it in my.

[00:17:10] In my file somewhere go ahead in our group I’m I’m the old fart so I’m always like oh what’s.

[00:17:16] This email thing. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you talking about me? Oh no, I’m talking about me. Oh, Tom, I’m saying I’m the old fart in our group. Oh and yeah, and anytime it’s like: oh you.

[00:17:25] Just did. I’m pretty sure on this episode I’m the old fart. I’m pretty sure in like anything that we’ve ever talked to anybody, you’re the old fart, any guess? Oh, my god, run easy, easy. Well, that’s no offense, brian, but brian is older than I am, so there. But we have to be nice to our dealer.

[00:17:43] So I don’t know oh is brian the hobby shop Dynamic Balsa guy yeah that’s right you guys.

[00:17:51] Seriously, you guys need to make a trip to that hobby shop. Yeah, if you’re ever in illinois, you owe it to yourselves to stop by that place. It’s if you’re not a fan of balsa before you walk into that place, you will be a fan of balsa when you leave that place. Just saying, okay, so for the listeners.

[00:18:06] Who are going where let me find out where this is I need to go what town in illinois is it.

[00:18:14] It’s actually northern illinois, in leonore, illinois- yeah, Dynamic Balsa. So it’s like you would not think based on what it’s in the middle of nowhere, I mean it really is. It’s this small podunk town.

[00:18:30] Right across the street is actually podunk I mean there’s like there’s like seven houses they have a big.

[00:18:36] Pavilion. There they have a big park. It’s the middle of illinois. Yeah, well, it’s a little higher than the middle of illinois, but yeah, you’re right what I’m saying, what look?

[00:18:44] There’s there’s like chicago and then there’s oh lincoln right well and then there’s the rest.

[00:18:51] Yeah it’s like illigan’s island I wouldn’t go that far I mean illinois isn’t that bad it is.

[00:18:57] The. The town is stashed away in the cornfields in the in the northern central illinois. It’s north of bloomington, yeah, and like Ron says, yeah, to see the to drive through the place and to drive by the building. It’s very unassuming. You wouldn’t even know, really, if it weren’t- for I think there’s a traxis sign out front, you wouldn’t even know that there was hobbies in this place. But as soon as you like, you get the door cracked open and you get just this like small view. It’s like instant, like whoa.

[00:19:26] This is something special this is this is worth going back every month for the last year right.

[00:19:33] Take my money. So that’s what we’re talking about: dynamic boss. That’s so for the listeners that aren’t aware that’s one of our favorite hideouts, that’s a weird thing too, like I keep.

[00:19:43] Forgetting that there’s people that are going to be listening on your side that don’t know kind of what we do, and then people on our side don’t really know what you do. Yeah, so right, and that’s.

[00:19:51] Part of the reason for the episode is: I we’re about to crack into your world. I am- at least I think joe’s- interested, and I’m eager and trepidatious, only because it’s a very different building style. The speed at which things get completed is maybe not totally different. It’s. It’s different, though it can be. It’s a different process. Yep, and it’s. I’ll call higher step process.

[00:20:16] Where it’s like: oh, I just cut here. I pull things together, glue, make sure they’re square, throw a wing on it and off we go, like that’s what foam building is in my mind. Yeah, and I’ve also been doing it for some odd years and we’ll get to my number in a little bit, but it’s pretty high. I shared it with joe and he’s like: whoa hey. So it’s amazing how they, how quickly they creep up on you, yeah, yeah, well, when each plane is five dollars, that’s true, and an afternoon, that’s true. And then I, I don’t know. I look, I have a job where I do a lot of technical stuff, and during lunch,

[00:20:52] I don’t know, there’s not too many places to go that are terribly exciting. So I’m like: well, I got cad. Oh, what’s this plane look like? I bet you I can make that come on. And then about two, two lunches or three lunches later- because I’m a adept at cad- I’ve got a full plan set and the next week I’m throwing it together just to see how it comes together, like how my planning worked out. And then sometimes it’s like, oh, let’s get a motor in this. Yeah, that’s pretty cool, and off we go. Yeah, yeah, it’s fun, and to see that kind of when I work on things, they’re the year and a half to two year.

[00:21:27] Fruit of the labor, what I mean. So I’ll I’ll come up with a design, and it will be three years later, two years later, before I see the physical thing. So it’s a, it’s a long term, that’s.

[00:21:39] Awfully slow turn on investment well I’m talking about for what everybody does yeah come on oh.

[00:21:45] I’m sorry. No, I, I was trying so. So the phone building is a great juxtaposition to that scale. Yeah, sure, so I can see what I, what I dream up in my mind in a night. Right, right, it’s fantastic, that is cool. Yeah, so I, it definitely scratches that itch, for sure, yeah, yeah, but also.

[00:22:03] Is a little a little bit different. Yeah, it takes, takes a little more time, but the end result is so much more rewarding. Like, even if you don’t design yourself say more, you don’t know if

[00:22:15] It’s more rewarding? I would think it’s more, in my opinion. Well, hold on, okay, in defense of what I’m about to say, we have you gotta say it first. We have never done what they do with foam.

[00:22:30] We’ve never well yeah you kind of have you designed the sandpiper that was that’s a I was.

[00:22:35] Told by the way by joe that’s a profile foamy and that doesn’t count as a foam airplane it doesn’t.

[00:22:41] Count, absolutely don’t worry, it is a foam airplane and it is a great way to get fun in the hobby and get started right away. It gives you the profile and the look and you get to fly and that’s really all that’s important, yeah, when it comes down to it. But as you get a little bit more advanced, like I’m doing things that the taylor aero car- yeah, I’m familiar. Yeah, yeah, like I’ve, I’ve got a model that looks just like the taylor aero car. Oh, okay, it’s like a bug. It’s got the thing, it’s got the wings. I literally pulled the livery from a historical document. I’ve got it going.

[00:23:15] Online and it flies pretty well. I have to, I bent the axles on hard landing, so because they were made of toothpicks, basically, or barbecue skewers, but so I’m putting replacing those with metal. But other than that it’s- it’s a fun airplane to fly and it’s not like a profile. It’s right. I was just gonna say

[00:23:33] It’s more than just a profile it actually has dimension yeah it’s like a vw bug made out of foam.

[00:23:38] Board. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 3d, with a cone on the back, yeah, and a hershey bar wing, because that’s what that plane was, and there’s a little tiny motor on the back and it works. So, yeah, correct, Ron, we don’t do the same thing. Yeah, I haven’t. I was also going to show you I’ve, I’ve got a plane in the background that I designed and built that’s fully molded 3d foam and I’ve got to put the 50 millimeter edfs and the really complex landing gear, and I’m blanking on because I’m talking about it, so I don’t

[00:24:09] Remember, I do that all the time, don’t worry, but it’s, it’s one of the things that’s on the carrier. It’s like an interceptor that’s on the carrier. It does like five different jobs. And I turned out one of the guys I work with in the utility industry. He’s a supplier and I asked him what he did and he says: oh, I fly everything, I’m like. What do you mean? You fly everything he’s like. Well, I, I was basically the flight deck manager for the aircraft carrier blah, blah, and I flew every aircraft and I, matter of fact, got one of the speed records for landing. I did like 90 landings.

[00:24:43] And takeoffs in three minutes or whatever. Whatever it was he did, I was like what holy crap on, that doesn’t add up. That’s one every two seconds. I think he was just: yeah, it’s, I don’t. I think it’s basically he got planes up ready to go and off. Oh okay, I ended up out and went in. I don’t know. He described it’s a measurement tool that they use to see how prepared they are okay, and he actually flies them too, so he comes in and does the landings. And he because he wants to know how

[00:25:13] The process is right and anyway. So I asked him. I said: what do you? What’s your favorite crafting? Told me, and then he showed a bunch of pictures and all stuff and so I went to work. I was inspired and I’ve got this thing. It’s been sitting ready for a year because the only thing I need is a 3d printed it’s. It’s a really complex folding landing gear- rear landing gear- and I don’t want to just stick a wire in it and call it done. I kind of wanted to have the gear kind of come out. That.

[00:25:44] Would that’d be the coup de grace okay but other than that it’s ready like everything in it is ready.

[00:25:49] Well we don’t have video so I’m going to take your word for it and try and I’ll share I’ll share some.

[00:25:53] Pictures or I’ll find a link for you because I know I wrote it up okay it’s one of my many.

[00:25:58] Projects. Yeah, so send me pictures then, for sure, because what I’ll do is I’ll just I’ll add the pictures to the bottom of our episode on our website, that way people can see that on the on.

[00:26:08] The website then. Okay, then when we talk about our numbers, I’m going to share with you my- I’ll call it my- hangar. That’s on the flight test forum. I know that’s kind of cheesy, but that’s sort of like my repository of where I put my stuff and then we, anyway you could share that and then basically anybody who wants to see like, and they’ll be all the build logs and plans as part of that. So, anyway, go ahead. I kind of went off a tangent there, but my point is that they’re 3d, fully molded.

[00:26:42] Scale models out of foam, okay, or not, or not. They’re just simply folded. Yeah, like folded and angled. I mean the spitfire is a three bend process to get the, the wing, folded over. But

[00:26:59] Back to you guys no you’re fine I mean that’s we don’t do foam like well you guys matt was talking.

[00:27:06] About he’s wanting to get into balsa so that was sort of leading the conversation I think.

[00:27:11] In that direction, like he started with foam and now it’s time to come to real airplanes. Wait, no, is that? Is that not what I should say, well, here? So here’s one of the things that I’m.

[00:27:24] What I’m getting as I go through this is. What I’ve learned is that a balsa airplane will hold up for 30 years in storage. You can put in a good storage spot- I know it’ll be there- and all you got to do is just prime up the motor and get it done, get it ready and that’s all you need. Yeah, I would agree with most of them. Yeah, for the most part. I mean there’s there’s variations on that. Foam will very be very unlikely to hold up that long. You may have one for about five to ten years. I mean they hold up longer than you think if you take care of them. But regardless it, it’s not nearly the same shelf life.

[00:27:59] But it’s not nearly the same investment either, right, both in money and this is true, yeah. So I think it’s directly proportional, right? Like, maybe you don’t have a lot of time and investment in the foam airplanes, so therefore you get maybe three or five years out of them, whereas the time and money you spend, maybe on a quality, a quality balsa airplane that you built yourself, it’s probably going to last a little bit longer and which is directly proportional how much time you spent building it and, yeah, money you spent on it, right? However, they

[00:28:31] All crash the same they do they are all perfectly capable of re-kitting themselves at any given moment.

[00:28:38] Very quickly. Yeah, that is one of the one of the big advantages I find, especially when you’re new- which is who we kind of cater to on our podcast to highlight- like to go into foam like it’s your. When five dollars crashes, there’s not much crying. I cannot argue with your week-long endeavor and 300 expense goes in and it’s just toothpicks, yep it. There’s a little bit more tears coming out. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and, more importantly, you’re less likely to stick with the hobby and that.

[00:29:11] Sucks because it’s a fun hobby it is. There’s a lot of challenges and a lot of joy, even in the I. What I’ve tried to teach my kids is that it’s these. Things are hard sometimes and it stinks because it’s hard. It’s sometimes you just want to quit. But, boy, when you get to that spot where you overcome that difficulty, it’s even sweeter. Yeah, the payoff and reward for that is almost always a

[00:29:36] Tenfold advance yeah I would agree it’s worth it but I still there’s just something about a balsa.

[00:29:43] Airplane. Yeah, and it’s hard to, it’s really hard to quantify what that is like, what like, like I’m sitting here, we’re, I’m listening to the conversation and I’m trying to imagine the words I can use to describe the difference and I and I can’t. It’s hard to put into words, I know.

[00:30:02] It’s the feel, it’s the it. I don’t understand it. It’s more rigid and consequently, the plane’s behavior is more predictable. Consequently- I mean, that’s not always the case, but it seems like that.

[00:30:19] Tends to be the way of it. I mean, I’ve had- I’ve had- profile foam airplanes before, like I have my f-22s that I flew combat with when I was at tech school way a few years ago and that was a fairly predictable airplane, flew the same way every time but it didn’t, I don’t know, it just didn’t scratch that itch. Yeah, it’s hard to, it’s just really hard to put into words, but Ron and I, I think both agree that we prefer balsa. Well, and there’s something that you’re not going to get with a

[00:30:47] Profile foamy that you’re, you don’t get the actual shape, you don’t get the, the shimmer and the shine off of the MonoKote, off of the covering, off of the. I mean just the whole airplane to me, when it’s made this way, is better than a profile foamy just for the looks, and I just certainly don’t.

[00:31:05] Mean to take anything away, especially from, like the store-bought, the molded foam airplanes that are. They look like copies of the one, only smaller, but there’s just something about them, like the sound they make when you handle them. It’s just not balsa. Yeah, it’s so hard to

[00:31:23] Describe it. I’ve got some of the eps foam airplanes. I know what you’re talking about and they’re. They’re like I don’t want to mess any airplane up, right, but it’s very easy to dent a wing or to mess up. Just take a little bit of that pain off if you hit something wrong with a fingernail or something like that. Yeah, on the foam airplanes that you don’t get, with an actual built-up balsa covered airplane, yeah, I mean, I don’t know it’s everybody has their own preferences and there’s no right, but I’m

[00:31:52] Wrong answer as long as you’re flying I’m excited that matt’s going to try it though I really am yeah.

[00:31:57] Me too. Well, yeah, and I’ve got- and we’ll get into that when I get my numbers- but I’ve got like five or six that are in different sets, different types of kits and different levels of difficulty, and so I’m eager to start. So you, you have the kits already. Yes, so I’ve built a, I’ve bought a couple gillows kits, oh okay, they’re kind of small and starter and you can tissue cover them and they look great. And I mean I’m thinking about putting like an 1104 with a five inch prop or six by three kind.

[00:32:31] Of low end lightweight just enough to kind of get it moving and have fun with it.

[00:32:38] That way. Yeah, I’ve seen, I’ve seen a few of the of the conversions out there and they’re. So, having attempted several gillows, kits and dumas, and then comet and the others, I can tell you that they are challenging at best to build and finish and make them look nice when they’re done, and I

[00:32:59] Think Ron would probably agree with me. Yeah, I’ve done one and I don’t like I would. I do not want to do one again. Yeah, I want to build more airplanes, but I don’t want to build one of those again and

[00:33:10] I’ve found that as I get older, I want to do those types of airplanes even less, because, yeah, right, it’s lots of small parts and they’re, they’re fantastic little kits. I’m not trying to take anything away from them, but they’re not, they’re not like, but they’re small. Right, exactly, it’s not.

[00:33:28] Going to behave and I’ve built a lot of small foamies, yes, and they’re a handful in the air, absolutely, period. And I know that basically that magic sweet spot seems to be three feet to four feet is that which is like the park flyer, which is where you start to all those tendencies start to calm down and, yeah, as long as you set it up, okay, you’ll have a fun time flying it and then, when you get to like the six foot mark, it’s interesting and it’s relaxing. Yeah, well, sort of yeah, Ron and I.

[00:33:56] Have talked about that before. On our podcast. It’s the reynolds number, right, it’s so. It’s it’s scaling. You can scale an airplane- I know that guy- but you can’t scale a molecule of air. So a molecule of air always is the same size, but an airplane can be different sizes. So the way an airplane behaves when it’s moving through those molecules of air is dependent upon scale. So- and the bigger they are- we- we say it all the time- the bigger they fly, better they fly absolutely. So, yeah, the

[00:34:27] Easier they are to handle the I mean it’s yeah I like big airplanes but they’re hard to fly mentally.

[00:34:34] Because you’re afraid to lose. Well, it gets back to that conversation of investment. You have a huge and like the bigger they are, you have a huge investment financially, but then you also have that investment of time and, yeah, I, I get that. For me, the perfect size is a 40 size sport plane. I mean, to me they fly great, they’re, they’re relatively investment wise, they’re relatively inexpensive, yeah, and you can have a 40 size little sport plane together.

[00:35:08] In a weekend, especially with some of today’s quality arvs, and you can probably frame one up in a week or less. Yeah, depending on how much you work on it, depending on the kit and, yeah, who made it or whatever, but yeah, for me, for me, balsa is it just flies better, and so it’s like

[00:35:26] We speak different languages too. Like when we talk to you guys that do like all the flight test stuff and all that you talk about a pack, b pack and whatever all that is. I don’t speak that language. I don’t know really what exactly that means, but you guys talking cc, right. Well, when we say 40 size airplane, yeah, what that means is it’s it’s made for a 40 size nitro motor, which is usually around.

[00:35:52] 48 Inches, yeah, four feet or so in that general range on the wing, yeah, and so that’s a two cycle, that’s a 40 nitro motor that’s supposed to go on the front of that. One of those assumptions I make, yeah, just that I that I don’t even think about that. That’s what we see, a lot for sizing and all.

[00:36:08] That, like when you buy an ARF: it’s a 40 size, it’s a 60 to 90 size, it’s a 120 size, yeah, and that all has to do with the size of the motor. That is designed to run off of right. Obviously, bigger airplanes are going to take a bigger motor and that’s kind of how we size things, yeah. So, like I said, I know it’s different with your c packs and flight test stuff, but yeah, and it’s more like I like

[00:36:32] To say, just like it swings a 10 inch prop, and most people like, oh, okay, I mean, unless it’s an aggressive prop, it’s like no, it’s a slow flight 10 inch prop, oh, okay, cool. So that kind of gives you a rough power yeah ratio that you’re kind of looking at. So when people like, oh, I don’t know what that means, it’s like okay, it’s, it’s a, it’s a quad motor, like it swings a five inch three bladed prop or an eight inch or a ten inch, and that’s kind of where flight test has decided that it’s. The economics of it become cumbersome for the beginner, so they kind of ease back right, okay, and that seems to.

[00:37:10] Be where their range is, and that’s, that’s the a, b or that’s the a. Yeah, a, b and c pack, which is basically five inch, eight inch and ten inch props, oh okay, and again, you can. Your mileage may vary and of course there’s a lot of gradations right out there beyond what they. They kind of they made a quantum set in there so that it’s easy. But if you do what you want really,

[00:37:33] So with the airplanes you fly is like what, what? Or with the airplanes you fly, what is like the biggest size propeller you fly with? Is it gonna be the 10 I’ve got?

[00:37:43] 10 And 12 inch- mostly 10 inch, but I’ve got a handful of 12 inch- and I’ve got a couple motors I’m trying to find a home for. I’m making home fours. I should say that swing 15 inch props. Wow, good, nice, 15 inch. Mm-hmm it’s, it’s a those little pancake motors from the, the larger scale super efficient quadcopter. So I mean, I’m not like putting a ton of stock into it that it’s going to be this beast, but swinging a 15 inch prop is a different animal. Now I’ve got a that, that dawn patrol plane, which

[00:38:15] Is like a single bay biplane. That’s this little. It looks like a goldfish biplane like the, the food goldfish. Yeah, okay, it looks like anyway. So I’m putting this on it because when you scale down everything like the, the 15 inch prop is the scale for it. It’s like a 15 inch height plane. Okay, I can.

[00:38:37] Tell you, most of my props are nine or ten, just depending on which props I ordered in, and generally they’re slow fly, but I do for the spitfires. I want to order in maybe some different.

[00:38:49] Props that are a bit more aggressive, and does that help understand? Because I recognize that it is. It’s a different language, yeah, yeah, it’s like metric versus english, once you kind of make the conversions like, okay, wait, wait, wait, you’re talking kilogram, it’s like two and a quarter pounds.

[00:39:03] Okay, got it, got it. Yeah, and that’s the other thing. I mean, like I understand, when they do sizing on airplanes and stuff, millimeters make sense for everyone except us man that always, like when they’re, when they’re listening, like an rf, that’s 1.8 Meters. I’m like I don’t know what that means, like, how, like, just show me, like, move your hands, how far apart is the wingspan on this, so I can, so I can tell how big it’s gonna be right? Yeah, I mean, like I, that does help a little bit. I never really thought about those different sizes being correlating to the different size propellers, so that

[00:39:38] Kind of tells me more about the size of planes and stuff you’re flying to, although there’s kv differences and all that kind of stuff too that we don’t need to get into because that could be a.

[00:39:45] Very, it’s more the nomenclature they use for their product. But I mean, if you had a nitro motor or get a little gas or a little tiny gasser like if you said it swings attendance property, oh okay, I can just use this thing. Yeah, whatever size that would be, yeah, yeah, so, so a 40 size nitro airplane?

[00:40:02] Generally speaking will turn a 10 inch prop at what rpm so you’re looking at we’re turning that prop at about.

[00:40:07] 12 000 Rpm. Yeah, that’s a. That’s about what, that’s about what these go at. So there, there you go. Well, let’s see, we just made a connection. Look at you guys: 1 200 kv times 11, because usually a three cell that’s 1200 rpm. Yeah, 12 000, yeah, so there you go. So it’s about the same, so that you’re talking, those are the equivalents. So anything that’s a c-pack if you’ve got a 40 size motor. I guess that’s where the equivalency is. I guess I didn’t realize.

[00:40:39] The seat packs were that powerful I thought everything they are. It was a little bit smaller. Awesome, they’re awesome. So what size like? What’s the actual size of the motor on that? Do like hand size? 28, 28, 18 Ish. That seems awesome. 28 Millimeters by 18 is the stator. That seems awfully small for a 40 size, like what I usually run on, 40 size or again, that’s, that’s a stator.

[00:41:04] So it’s not the bell. So I mean, the actual motor looks a little bit bigger, yeah, and if you go much bigger than that, then they measure the motor. It’s actually of the outside of the bell. So the next step up is like a 38, 20, something or other, I don’t know what, what it is, but it’s like significantly bigger because they’re now no longer measuring the stator, they’re measuring the outside of the bell and you’re like: okay, well, thanks for changing that. Yeah, I’m not telling anybody, and that’s the one that’s.

[00:41:29] Like. One of the things that I dislike about going electric is there doesn’t seem to be- maybe there is, but there doesn’t seem to be- a consistency from what a 28, 12 is compared to a 42, 10 or whatever. What I mean it’s like the it’s like, and different manufacturers measure things differently and that’s really maddening, especially when you’re trying to find a cheap motor off of amazon. That is comparable to, say, a power 46 from great.

[00:42:02] Planes or whatever. What I mean that’s when you have to look at wattage and all that kind of stuff. But I’m not smart enough for that. Well, you don’t like? Yeah, I can’t do the wattage to horsepower conversion at all, yeah, yeah. Well, I don’t ever work in horsepower for anything electric or nitro, because

[00:42:18] It just that’s not the number that really comes what’s the what’s the unit that you guys use for the.

[00:42:23] Gassers and then like really it’s just size yeah it’s like a 30 cc or a 50 cc or 150 cc or you.

[00:42:31] Know that doesn’t tell you anything about the power output. Not necessarily, but generally speaking let’s. Let’s say, 50 cc gasoline engines there, no matter who manufactures them. 50 Cc’s of displacement, generally speaking, will produce this amount. Okay, yeah, that makes sense what I mean. Yeah, because

[00:42:48] There’s a certain amount of fuel which has a certain explosion rate exactly physically that.

[00:42:52] Much energy. I mean there’s going to be a small percentage of variance between manufacturers, but a 50 cc engine from one manufacturer should produce about the same horsepower as a 50 cc engine from another manufacturer. Yeah, within a few percentage points. So that’s, that’s kind of how you can.

[00:43:08] Size your plane yeah that’s about the small out output losses and the small minute changes and.

[00:43:15] Bearings and yeah and porting and all that kind of stuff it’s more in depth than I’m going to get.

[00:43:21] Into. Yeah, me too. So what I was going to say, although I could talk about it for hours, oh because hours? Because I- yeah, I don’t know, maybe not hours but minutes. So imagine I’m a listener, because I am.

[00:43:33] To your podcast and I don’t know nothing about gassers and you guys have this 50 year plus collective wealth of knowledge, so help me learn more. You did a great job, by the way, with the motor episode, really impressed with it. Oh, the electric one- both the gasser is what I was excited about. You. Did you go with both honestly? But well, thank you. Yeah, the gasser was the one I was paying attention to because I was like I don’t know anything about the nitro one. Yeah, I got you now.

[00:44:03] We haven’t done a gas one yet that’s actually coming up here before too long kind of okay I’m.

[00:44:08] Going to cover gas. But yeah, under understanding those things, to somebody who’s in the electric world it’s, it’s very daunting. So to break it down in a way that it feels less involved, what?

[00:44:21] I mean yeah, and but bottom line is: I mean, they’re really simple. I mean really, you’re right, there’s not a lot to there’s not a lot to them. They’re very simple to operate and they’re economical to operate. Wait, what are you talking about gassers? Oh, I thought we were talking about nitro and I was.

[00:44:36] Going to say no nitro. He said: gasser, my foot. Well, do you mean gas or night? Because that’s the other confusion. People will say gas when they mean nitro, because it’s still a gas motor. It’s just not a.

[00:44:48] Gasoline liquid fueled motor yes but gassers generally we talk about gasoline powered okay.

[00:44:55] I got you. I was just a little off topic on what we’re talking about. Well, you were busy. I was looking at my phone because I wanted to look up. So we were talking about the, the 40 size replacement that I use for electric and I couldn’t remember offhand what size it was I used. I found some on amazon that are 35, 48, 1100 kvs and that’s kind of what I use as a replacement for a 40 size and I fly them on a force.

[00:45:16] So 30, 35, 48 are like the next step up where they change how they measure. So, at a, that’s like the threshold where they any lower than that size wise and they start measuring by the stator size. That’s not confusing at all. No, no, trust me, I know. Look, I learned this the hard way and it’s weird because you’re like there’s nothing in between. I just want a little bit more. Well, a little bit more. Is the 35, whatever it is- you just said yeah- and 35, 28 or whatever it is 48, because that now they’re including the bell, which is

[00:45:50] Four millimeters in thickness between the, the magnet and the bell and the, the goo and the balancing, whatever, and yeah, that double that. Now you’re. Now you’re 35 millimeters.

[00:46:01] Yeah, and then that second part of the, the number, is how long the motor is. So that’s when you can get a little bit more torque out of them too. So right, exactly, yeah, and that’s and that’s.

[00:46:11] The thing when I’m talking about oh I’ve got this little pancake motor I know I’m not getting a.

[00:46:15] Lot of torque out of that. Yeah, so I was showing you length, like how far it would wind. Sorry, I was doing an air gesture to Tom and he just looked like it looked like you were drawing a paper clip, well, kind of. Yeah, I mean that’s anyway. That’s kind of how those turns are right. That’s good, thank.

[00:46:30] You I mean you didn’t see it but you understood what I meant I’m familiar with electric cars right.

[00:46:34] I mean I got you yeah I had to go through the explanations of turns and staters and all that.

[00:46:40] When we did our motor episode, yep, and I forgot most of that anyway. So, and so this is what. What was it? I forgot most of it. Yeah, I’ve forgotten most of it for ours, like the one we did, like I, I don’t keep a lot of that stuff like close in my mind because there’s so much else that gets pushed in that pushes everything else out, but anyway it does. Yeah, I have a terrible memory. So do you guys just

[00:47:04] Like to breathe in balsa dust yes is that why it’s the best you dig balsa planes yeah I’ll probably.

[00:47:09] Die of copd because of all the balsa dust that I’ve inhaled over the years but I tell you what I.

[00:47:14] Wouldn’t change it’s not the balsa dust I like it’s really the glue fumes that get me like.

[00:47:23] Yeah, they can be pretty rough. So, guilty pleasure. I, I will admit that even now, so many years later, I love the smell of MonoKote. I don’t even notice the smell, to be honest. It has. It has a, an odor that every time I start ironing it on to an airframe it’s like, ah, just memories, like, oh, I’m home. Yeah, I mean it’s I don’t know. But yeah, the, the exhaust, the, the, the caster with the, the methanol, it’s all, the nitro, it’s all, it’s all, it’s all awesome. Yeah, I, I mean, I just

[00:48:00] Don’t want to own a nitro I like what other people do I’ve said it before but yeah the balsa dust I.

[00:48:05] Mean there’s. You can mitigate that right. You can wear a mask if you want to. Or if you, if you’re really fancy, you can work on a downdraft type table, which are actually not too difficult to make. No, I would imagine you lose all your little balsa pieces on those. No, you, you can.

[00:48:23] Use a screen and you’re not going to lose anything small to a screen yeah okay but I mean yes if.

[00:48:29] Balsa dust bothers you. Yeah, there’s. There’s ways to mitigate it, and the same the same goes with CA. Fumes like those can get pretty nasty, yeah, but there’s ways to mitigate that exposure as well.

[00:48:42] And it’s worthwhile. I mean it really is. I mean it might shave 15 minutes off your life for every, every airplane you build. But that’s okay, it’s worth it, right, worth it.

[00:48:54] Matthew builds a lot of planes I’m gonna die.

[00:48:59] I like I don’t like sanding. That is the one thing I do not like about balsa. It sands quick, which is nice, yeah, but just the mess and all that kind of stuff is the one thing like. Where I’m stuck on one of the planes I’m building now is because I don’t want to go out and sand it, so that always that always pushes me back a little bit. That’s why you have a couple projects going at once. Oh, always like yeah, more than a couple. I can’t. I think I’ve got at least four right now that I could go start on. That’s sitting out around the basement in different areas. True statement looking at them, right?

[00:49:34] Now yeah but anyway it’s weird there that one’s stuck at sanding that one’s stuck at sanding yeah.

[00:49:42] We each have our things. Look mine all stick at electronics. So it’s time to put in servos and hook up all the things and double check everything and make sure that the arms are the right length. That like that’s. That’s that process, right, it shouldn’t take long, but boy, oh boy, it takes weeks for me. Yeah, I’ll build a plane and have it ready to go in it, having ready for electronics, in like three hours, yeah, but it’ll take me a week to get. Yeah, yeah, I, it’s, it’s when there’s when there’s something.

[00:50:10] You don’t really like doing. It is so easy to put that off, oh yeah, and go to something else you do like doing. Yeah, so I, I fully understand you’re right, yeah, so let’s, let’s. If you’re ready, let’s move on and talk about numbers. Okay, changing gears. You brought that up, so I think it’s only fair here.

[00:50:30] We go let’s talk numbers. Well, I, I didn’t even think about it, and then you guys started bringing up on your show and I was like, oh wow, I never even I don’t know that I want I, and that’s like.

[00:50:42] What we get from most people we talk about. They’re like I had no clue until I knew you guys did it and then I wanted to see what my number was and all that kind of stuff. I love the idea, just to see.

[00:50:53] Where people are at yeah well do we want to start with joe which yeah I don’t care who we start.

[00:50:59] With: yeah, yeah, I mean, if y’all can hear me. Yeah, you’re there, you’re good. Yeah, okay, so not that it matters too much, but for whatever reason, my connections have an issue. So I’m in and out, I’m here, the audio is still going. But okay, that’s largely why I’m being so quiet is: you won’t always hear me. So my number currently, what are we? What are we saying? Planes ready to fly and then

[00:51:29] Planes in the works, yeah. So, yeah, the way we break it down- and it’s going to be different for you guys, because you don’t do like arfs and kits, but we have planes ready to fly. So literally you throw a battery in. You might need to tweak a thing here, there, but not more than like five or ten minutes worth of work just to get it all set up and you take it out and you fly it, and then we have like planes in progress, ones that we’re working on, and then we list separately, like for us, kits and arfs, right, okay?

[00:51:58] Well, I can say, depending on how I want to break that down, I have either zero ready to fly or one, and that one being the master series corsair.

[00:52:16] And the reason that it’s sort of on that zero list is I don’t really have plans to fly it right now and it would take because we recycle receivers. So I’m not going to have a receiver for every. Oh, I would have to. I would have to pull a receiver, put it in it, get the battery in it, power it up, get everything, make sure all my channels are right, make sure everything’s. So it would be an hour of pre-work. Even if I wanted to attempt it, I would hate that. Well, I don’t have. I haven’t had a need to have more receivers than I have. Planes, true, yes, I guess I can see that.

[00:52:53] But I always like to keep a few spare receivers around. If I can, for 12, well now yes, but because you never know what’s coming up, you never know when you’re gonna buy another airplane. That’s true.

[00:53:05] Well, my number has never been higher than three at any time. And that’s how many receivers? Okay, okay, so that, yeah, yeah, now I. Now I did order in some more receivers, largely because I wanted the same receiver and I wanted each of the spitfires I’m building for flight fest to have their own receiver. So, and makes sense, yeah, otherwise planes not ready to go but close could be argued: the vulture, the hrc vulture, because I’d have to mount a motor. But it’s, it has flown. The hrc 7 has not flown yet.

[00:53:42] That’s number two. It needs me to go in and fix some control surfaces and figure out what went on with the electronics, because, matthew tell you, we got out there to the field and it went nuts.

[00:53:56] Yeah twitchy stuff and you’re like what is going on both of us are looking at going that doesn’t.

[00:54:00] Make sense when you put the four cell in there was no reason yeah but not the three.

[00:54:03] Yeah, and the esc was rated for four. What about the motor? So you said the motor was not the motor, the motor was. Oh, I thought you said the motor was not. No, yeah, it doesn’t make any sense everything.

[00:54:18] Was rated for the power he was putting into the system it just was doing weird twitchy stuff well.

[00:54:24] Even if the motor, even if the motor wasn’t the motor, had no power to it. Yet, true, like I never throttled it up when we got out there. Yeah, that’s weird, it was just the battery plugged in and

[00:54:38] Servos were doing crazy things I wonder if there’s something weird going on with the bc.

[00:54:42] Yeah, it could be, could be, so what? What I need to do is bring it back here and bench it again and actually put the four cell in it and see what’s going on, if it’s repeatable- and if it is, then I may have to get one of those electrical noise reducer donuts- a choke, sure, yeah, the little magnets.

[00:55:02] Yeah and yeah the little donut magnets that go around it to make it quieter and see if that does.

[00:55:08] Anything. So three is the yeah, so there’s three. There’s a spitfire in the back of my car that is almost, that’s almost ready to go. So I’ve still got the old fogey that needs a little bit of patchwork and maybe a new wing and power pod, and then my glider that needs some internal work. So vulture spitfire, seven, vulture spitfire, seven, fogey glider, so maybe five, yeah, in various, that’s not bad, so not a ton, and then two, two or three more spitfire sitting there.

[00:55:54] Somewhat cut out waiting to be nice I’m sensing a theme spitfire right here spitfire a lot.

[00:56:01] I really like the spitfire it was the best flying plane I’ve had yet okay it honestly the ft.

[00:56:09] Spitfire is a very solid flying model. It’s, it’s. It can be a beginner’s plane easily. It handles really well. It has. Of all the different ones I’ve flown, that one seems to be. Every time I put it together it flies the way it’s supposed to: right out of the hand. Yeah, that’s how they should be. Yeah, for sure, they should all be that. But they’re not always. Some of them, especially with the phone, it’s like: oh well, I put it a little off square, so it flies a little funny, and if you’re a beginner you don’t know. Yeah, any better. And so this one seems to just make up for any ill tendencies. That.

[00:56:44] You may put into it for the most part also. Yeah, so we were just like: hey, look, everybody, everybody should build one of these and bring it to flight fest, because we’re going to that festival event, the flying fest. Hopefully we’ll get the flight all together. Yeah, that should that.

[00:57:00] Actually should be pretty cool, or pretty cool. That’s coming up. When is that? At the end of next month, end of june? Yeah, june 23rd through the 26th, I think, all right, so how far of a drive is that? For you guys? It’s nine hours. Yeah, it’s only nine or ten hours. That’s not terrible. Is that the one in?

[00:57:17] Champagne no that’s the one in ohio it’s malvern ohio yeah okay that’s about right on.

[00:57:25] The border of pennsylvania. Yeah, it’s pretty far from here, but that’s where flight fest does their thing every year. So how long do you guys stay at that? Like, is that where you go the whole week, or is that a weekend thing, or I? I honestly am not familiar with flight test or flight fest or any of that kind of stuff, because we just have never- I mean we’ve, we’ve never- done anything with foam. So yeah, yeah,

[00:57:48] Yeah, so last year we drove up on thursday. I had to get up and go to matt’s place and then we drove up on thursday and then it was thursday evening, shifting into night as we were there and getting our tents up and all so thursday was wasted pretty much. And then sunday about mid-morning, midday we had to be packed up and on the road because of the drive. Yeah, we both had work the next day. Oh, that’s.

[00:58:15] So basically so you were flying what friday and saturday then friday and saturday and even.

[00:58:25] Then I didn’t do a ton of flying because I cracked my corsair and it was raining it made.

[00:58:33] Hard to kind of rebuild things. Yeah, there’s a lot of- hopefully this year’s- better. Yeah, is this a? It’s the way of it, you, you just know that. Oh well, I guess we’re going to be spending time and hanging.

[00:58:44] Out and meeting people yeah true yeah joe is this a is this a foam electric only kind of an event.

[00:58:51] It is an electric only event, right? Yeah, so you, you can bring foam, you can. Well, you can bring your sped, but yeah, you could bring some sort of like- I think they were selling some plastic guys there last year or some more fiberglass based guys- as long as it’s electric. So arguably Ron could. I told Ron he could bring one of his out there. Yeah, just know that any given time.

[00:59:18] There could be as many as a hundred other planes. Sweet, which, by the way, if you haven’t seen the videos of it, watch it. It is just a marvel to see and it’s amazing how bats are nuts. It’s as much as you want to hit people, because that’s the point of it. For half the time you can’t hit it hard. Yes, it’s really hard. There’s hundreds of planes in there and you still can’t. It’s easier to do it on accident. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, whenever you think, hey, there’s no way I’m gonna hit that guy.

[00:59:51] That’s, that’s when you go crap. You’re like, oh yeah, well, in. In fairness, why don’t we alternate back and forth between the two shows? Yeah, Ron, what’s, what’s your number? Oh yeah, that’s.

[01:00:06] Well, I have 30 ready to go, okay in process, which is me working on stuff I’ve. I’m at 15 and I’m at seven arfs and kits, so that’s my number okay, and those range all the way from umx, like the small ultra micro Horizon Hobby airplanes, all the way up to 170 cc size yak with 126 inch wink band. Nice, yeah, let that sink in that last one. I imagine that yak flies like a.

[01:00:39] Dream and if I recall right it’s one inch bigger than yours Tom oh I don’t have anything.

[01:00:44] Near that big. No, yeah, Tom, actually what’s. What’s your biggest airplane, Tom? The biggest one I have is that 50 cc sbock. And what is that? Maybe 82 inches, oh 80, it might think 80 and 89ers. I.

[01:00:58] Don’t think they’re quite 90 for 50 and that’s yeah, that’s well, I guess that glider. I have that glider, it’s pretty big. Is that on your list, by the way, because you always forget about that glider? I don’t think it is. Yeah, I’m actually trying to find my list. I thought, I thought yeah, so that’s my number then, while Tom is looking for his list because we came so ill prepared, matt, what’s your, what’s your?

[01:01:23] Number okay so I did a quick count today and I would say I’ve got about 40 that.

[01:01:35] If I move the power pod over with the receiver and hook it up, I should be able to fly them nice. Yeah, that’s ish now. Now some, I’ll admit they’ve been there for like two years and they may be in more of a questionable. They may have been left in a state of- I’ll do that next time. Oh, we all have things like that, so I can’t fault you on that one. Yeah, no, and so that’s where I think more of

[01:02:06] Them are left than I expect and I know for a fact I’ve got a solid 10 that I can go. Oh, I want to fly that and just make sure that the power button- I try to make all of mine swappable so that way I can basically have maybe four or five power pods, which is basically the motor setup with the sc and the battery and then in the sc just, and then I move that and I’ve got, if I’m smart, I labeled all of my servo ends so I know which slot they go into and I just plug it in and go okay.

[01:02:37] It’s the tiger cat. Okay, let me find the tiger cat in my model selection and then I should be. Theoretically, the question is matt, were you smart? No, most of the time I’m not okay smart. I just wanted the. I want you to go on record. I’m smart about certain things, those. That’s not one of them. So let our listeners- maybe we can all learn from that- and go, go to your models and if you don’t have a label on your servo leads, put them on there. On there, if you ever have to pull out your.

[01:03:08] Receiver for any reason you can at least get it back to working with another receiver later well and for us.

[01:03:13] Like when, when we take models and stuff to the field, we take wings apart. We there’s a lot of disassembly that comes with ours. Yeah, so you really need to label everything that you have to unplug from the receiver, or else? Yeah, it’s. It’s a lot harder to get it put back together if you don’t.

[01:03:32] Know what goes where and I don’t know if you guys have noticed if this was something recent that spectrum has done. But like I don’t think they fly spectrum. What’s the spectrum? Yeah, I can’t afford. I’m just kidding, I know it’s okay anyway. So for anybody who’s listening that might be flying with spectrum equipment, like, does they change their channel port assignments recently?

[01:03:57] On their receivers. I don’t know. They’ve been messing around with it a lot lately. Yeah, because they’re proprietary and they want to keep their intellectual property and they’re saying: this is mine and people keep copying it, so they make it harder and harder for everybody, it seems. So I know a lot of pilots have been griping about spectrum and the way they’ve been reconfiguring to keep their product safe. Ah,

[01:04:22] Okay, yeah, I just want something that works and that’s that’s like I think, honestly, the only reason I’m with spectrum. I know you guys fly like is it radio master? Is that one of the ones you have?

[01:04:38] Yeah, yeah, master turnagy jumper. Yeah, I’ve got the jumper t16. He’s got the radio master version I also. I started out with radio link because it has a two and a half mile link and the receivers are stupid, small like the lemon rc, and they’re 15 bucks or 12 bucks. They’re nothing for a six channel, which is pretty much all I needed. And I was like, and it was 115 price point at the time, which was half of what spectrum wanted for everything they had, yeah, and I was like, oh, I can’t.

[01:05:13] Do that and at the time I couldn’t afford it. Yeah, so I went with in between. Now nobody else uses it at all ever so I’m kind of on my own with it and I’m like, but their brand is the pixhawk, which is incredibly reputable. Everybody loves it. It’s like, oh, the pixhawk is top, top-notch stuff there, yeah, but their receiver and transmitter people it’s fully functional. It’s to me it’s as functional as the radio master, not maybe not as versatile and that I can’t do multiple protocols. But as far as

[01:05:44] What you can do in it’s as good as any other radio I found yeah and that’s I think that’s where we.

[01:05:51] Well, at least where I come off, as to where I just want simple. Yeah, I want simple, I want it to work and I want everything to work together, and I think that’s why the first airplane I bought had spectrum in it, and I think that’s kind of why I stuck with that, because you, just as you, as you move up, you get better and better and better until you end up, wherever you are at this point, because the first time, what are you? What are you laughing out there? Oh, I’m laughing because

[01:06:19] I’ve been in it for such a long time I’ve had to, I’ve had to start over three times. Okay, so I started with the, the old am- 72 megahertz radios, and then I made the jump to FM- synthesized 72 megahertz radios, and then I made the jump to spectrum, yeah, with the dss or the.

[01:06:42] Spread spectrum technology just to paint a picture for you guys. Right now he’s sitting in his rocking chair with a little cat on his on his lap and he’s all covered up. So I am this. Three of those facts are true. Three, I don’t have a cat now. You’re not in a rocking chair either. I could make.

[01:06:59] Well as I understand it you’re living in alaska or at least might as well be in the basement it’s.

[01:07:07] Friggin cold here. Yeah, I told him the other day we were supposed to record and we had to. We postponed it for a day, and it’s a good thing, because we had turned the air on like normal and I forgot to close the vents down here. And I came down, it was like 55. Yeah, I would have flipped it. It was 92 degrees outside and like 55 in the basement here. It was too cold for me, yeah, so

[01:07:29] And if it’s too cold for Ron then like it’s icicles over here sitting in this chair for me.

[01:07:37] Okay, so that was 40 for like this, the quickly operational planes, and then there’s like another 25 that are in various states of maybe I got inspired and got about to the 80 mark. Maybe it just needs electronics, or maybe it’s something that I flew and got damaged and it could fly again if I spend the 20, 30 minute to one hour quality time with it to suss out what happened and kind of redo something. And so I’ve got another 20, 25 of those. I also have maybe six or

[01:08:14] Seven flight test kits that are still in the plastic haven’t been opened and I’ve got just as many. I’ve have four commercial purchases that are almost arfs: the, the piranha, the asw, five, that little super jet, the little. Okay, now, because I’m thinking of it. I can’t think of it. It’s a little german edf, little flying wing kind of deal, and I’m trying to think of the one other one. I have something else that I purchased. It’s kind of, oh, a vapor.

[01:08:55] Oh you like what do you mean vapor like what are those things called the umx vapors.

[01:09:01] It’s every time yeah, oh okay. Or e-flight, yeah, and that’s part of why I bought the jumper, because I’m like, oh well, that’s spectrum and this is something else, and I’ve got a totally different thing over here, like I’d like to be able to run these little, and then minimum rc has this star voyager thing which comes with one of those little all-in-one boards kind of deal which I think runs a dsmx.

[01:09:25] Protocol yeah it just has everything like servos and everything built onto it you mean.

[01:09:30] Yeah, exactly, I think this one actually had ports out to the itty-bitty servos like the 2.7 Gram servos. Yeah, the linear servo, it’s tiny but it’s fun. Yeah, yeah, it’s but it’s fun. It’s just throw it in the air and it kind of hovers right. Everybody’s like: are you worried about hitting a car? Like it weighs nothing, like if it’ll do more damage to anything other than I promise you your car will.

[01:09:52] Is perfectly safe so flying in places you shouldn’t be flying it sounds like we’re talking to Reggie.

[01:09:58] Yeah, just get ready to say: no, that’s, that’s washington. If I could tell you the number of times I’ve said matthew, quit flying in your neighborhood, that’s because he comes over and

[01:10:11] We only have time to like look at a plane, not go out and fly it proper. You fly it down the road, right, and then I bring it back and I land it. It’s now what size of the planes? Very tiny, right, that’s true, joe. I feel your pain, buddy. I mean tiny.

[01:10:30] Enough but if you flew it into my car I know we’d be having worse that’s fine anyway so that aside and.

[01:10:39] Then I’ve got the seven, six or seven balsa kits. I got two gillows. I’ve got one lanes planes, the cuda, which I couldn’t resist. I know I need. I need a little bit more experience flying to be able to fly that the way it’s supposed to be flown, which is fast and angry, I don’t know what else. Oh, I’ve got a prendle d, a balsa kit for that. That’s pretty advanced. I’ve got the marabu. I’ve got plans.

[01:11:09] For it and I’ve got all the balsa for it, so I’m going to do that from scratch. And then I’ve got a turbinator and it’s like a trainer 40 or something like that. It’s like a low wing trainer.

[01:11:19] Plane that’s where I would start from the olden days that’s the one I would I would yeah next.

[01:11:25] That and the turbinator, I was told were the go-to planes, like they’re. If you have an adf- yeah, electric edf- like which I do, I see about the turbinator- you’ll be happy, or if you, you should.

[01:11:38] Or build a low wing trainer. Yeah, yeah, the trainer, I think, is a good one to get into flying with balsa, just because it’ll. It’ll give you a good like. Trainers are usually pretty easy to build. Yeah, they fly, I mean. Well, other people have figured out the problems and have designed them out of it, so it’s going to be a good flying airplane and you’re not going to be out too much time or effort in building one of those. I don’t think okay of those planes I would have.

[01:12:10] To say 35 of them. That’s the s3, viking, is the molded model. I was thinking, okay, I would have to say about 30 of those are designs I put together, either based on things I saw and wanted to make- a dollar tree foam- or was inspired by a different challenge or another, and they probably have a 50 success rate in getting to a flying, a good flying model. Aha, okay, and I say that because it there’s a much user and half of these were done. When I started I couldn’t fly for squat. Yeah well, 50, still a good.

[01:12:46] Number I mean like for building something on a foam and just trying to see how it’s going to work and.

[01:12:50] Fly and stuff. I mean that. I think that’s pretty respectable. And these are, these are planes. Nobody’s flown. Yeah, I mean like somebody would. Somebody made a sam 7, right, sigma, it’s an old world war ii kind of concept model plane. It looks like basically a flying wing with a big mustang front but it has no tail, so it’s a tailless, no rudder, just it’s a mess. Right and nope. There’s a guy who flew it. He made a fake rudder out of plastic and he said it was a bear to get balanced and flowing, flying.

[01:13:23] He’s got a video or two and he says: good luck. So I built one of those, a flying submarine which nobody’s built. It’s an, it’s a- it’s literally a napkin sketch- and the k-lanin k-12, which was reported to have flown pretty well. But there’s a lot of weird complex stuff going on with the wing and the hanging elevator and aileron surfaces. They’re they’re reverse profile wings, so the they have a the clark y, but upside down for the control surfaces and they have push out rudders. So you

[01:13:58] Know they. They’re drag rudders on the wingtips, interesting, and it’s no, no tail so it. Those are like some of the first three I tackled. I’m like easy to fly. I mean no reason, easy just to be fun. What am I? It’s great. What I mean like? I mean if you look at the list when you go down, look at the list, like these are all like concept planes that nobody has any idea for the fly and I was just curious to see. One: can I make it look like it’s supposed to? And two, can I, can I actually get this thing to fly? And I usually get about 50 of the way, which is basically get it to look the way it’s.

[01:14:33] Supposed to and I get it to the point where it’s really close to being able to fly if only I knew more.

[01:14:40] And you’ll sort of, or you’ll circle back to that sometime soon. Oh, they’re still. The nice thing is, though, if you’re talking about 35 of those airplanes, you’re at less than 50 bucks. Yeah, that’s it. No, it’s a little bit more than that. Oh, is it? Is it more than one? Okay, so let’s even say they’re 30. I was gonna say, even if it’s four per, you’re not out a lot of money on that. So that’s pretty awesome. No,

[01:15:01] No I’m not out a lot of money but I mean I have a foamy bird of time that’s I think eight.

[01:15:06] Or ten sheets of foam board. That’s- I’m sorry, it’s a full scale- 12. Yeah, that’s amazing to me because I’m I’m doing the math in my head. That’s, let’s say, 12 bucks worth of phone or 12, and that’s like three pieces of four inch by eighth inch by 36 inch balsa. Yeah, so I mean that there’s just that much difference in and what you guys actually get to build with. Yeah, so I can understand why you build so much more than we do. Yeah, well, matthew does anyway. Well, the fact that it’s

[01:15:36] Cheaper and they can do it quicker too yeah they can they can write like I tested a prendle d.

[01:15:42] Concept the, the nasa prendle d model, which is a concept plane that they had, and I tried to make a replica and I did and I was trying to fly it and I literally flew it on the worst moment possible and it flew back on me and cracked into the ground and cracked in half and I was like: so eventually I kind of was talking to one of the. He was actually the pilot of the concept plane and I had an epiphany like an hour before he got. We got on with him. So the next day I went and checked it out and

[01:16:13] It flies amazing awesome and I was able to fly come up with the idea and have a prototype.

[01:16:19] Working within the week yeah that always feels good when something comes together and works the way it’s.

[01:16:24] Supposed to yeah it’s awesome yeah all right so I’ll stop so that’s my number somewhere on 75.

[01:16:30] All right, Tom, it’s not. It’s not near as impressive as that, I think. My total numbers- I’m just going to round and say it’s 50 total now these are 95 of these are balsa planes. So, figure the investment, that’s about the same, maybe not quite the same as 75 total airplanes, but anyway I’ve got about 24 of them that I can, that I could take charge a battery and go fly. Right now six are in the various stages of build or repair and then I’ve got 16, roughly 16, in the queue.

[01:17:10] That I’m going to build eventually someday.

[01:17:15] That’s got to feel nice. So I’m a Ron’s called me out several times he’s called me a hoarder, which really hurt my feelings, but anyway it’s a good hoarding. I said that before, like that’s supposed to be a compliment, but I figured some someday I’m gonna retire, like hopefully someday in the next 10 years or less I’m gonna retire, and then I don’t want to be bored, right, and I love airplanes. So it’s not that I’ve been stockpiling, but when I find a, a decent deal on a on.

[01:17:45] A kit that maybe I, that I had way back in the day, or a kit that interests me, or whatever. I pick it up and I stash it in the basement. So yeah, I’ve got. I’ve got a small stash of that. 16.

[01:17:58] If you think 16 is a small stash, but if you’re picking them up at good deals, it’s not a, it’s not hoarding as much as investing for the future. Well, that’s, that’s the way I offload them.

[01:18:11] Yeah, joe, that’s the way I look at it. I mean, like I said, I don’t want to be bored in my retirement and I love to build. I love to build, I love to tinker. I’ve always been a tactile learner, right. So flying around on a simulator in retirement is not something I want to do. I want to build and tinker. So I have, I have things in the queue to satisfy that, that itch when I retire, and they’re not getting cheaper. No, and that’s that’s. The other thing is like, even if I decided not to,

[01:18:42] Build these and they’re in my estate when I die. The wife if she coming to me if she wants to sell them. I’ve instructed her on how to find the correct pricing for these things and she will.

[01:18:55] Price them accordingly how did you I’m now hold on I’m curious on that one how did what did you tell her.

[01:19:01] Well I showed her how I find the prices oh okay so that’s what I told well that’s timeless so that’s.

[01:19:07] Good, because things will change when that time comes to push up some daisies on your end and get rid of your plane. Yeah, we took a turn to the weirdest, but that’s okay. So, yeah, man, let’s all.

[01:19:21] Tom, I hope you have many a year of happy flying left ahead of you, but I appreciate that. No, I think you want me to die so you can get on my like gangbusters- that’s what it sounded like. No Ron’s over here just trying to get a hold of your estate and shove you out. You don’t have a I.

[01:19:37] I truly want to bounce from you and Tom, listening to what some people tell me when they go to estate sales, you, with a 16 box queue, is: you are in great shape. Yeah, yeah, I, I promise you, compared to the things I’ve heard, they’re like: oh, this guy had like 50 untouched, right, completely sealed boxes. Yeah,

[01:19:59] Let alone the ones he opened up, and 16 that’s depending on who you talk to. That’s not a huge number, but I’ve passed up a lot of airplanes that I could have bought too, that I didn’t, because either they didn’t interest me, I mean I don’t buy them just to buy them. Yeah, like I buy them. You’re discerning. Yeah, I buy them either because I like that one. Well, because I like that one, I mean I like it enough to want to build it someday, not to try to save this and then try to turn a profit and flip it in the next week. Yeah, that’s not what I

[01:20:31] Do. Yeah, so you’re a hoarder, a collector and I’m into biplanes. I mean, a fair amount of those 16 are biplanes actually. Yeah, such a, I don’t know. Yeah, anyway, well, they’re pretty. It’s twice the wing for.

[01:20:45] The book, exactly, see, but joe gets it. But there’s so more. I mean, there’s just that much more to deal with. You got to do twice as much to install it, you guys. You got to keep two or two wings for a guy.

[01:20:57] Like me that makes me twice as happy well that’s all I mean yeah I was gonna say when it’s when.

[01:21:02] Hooking up each wing and each wire each connection brings him happiness that’s way more happiness yeah.

[01:21:10] I mean he sounds all innocent and happy about doing stuff on the podcast, but I’ve been there when he’s got to hook stuff up and things aren’t quite going right and the motor’s not running right and

[01:21:21] That’s true yeah I mean braggle fraggle sounds like times a man after my listen I’m not gonna.

[01:21:27] I’m not gonna say that it’s all sunshine and roses. I mean there are there are days that, yeah, that I just want to take that trash can Telemaster and put it right back in the trash can.

[01:21:40] How many motors did y’all go through on that thing? The one we finally settled on was number four. Number four, yeah so, and we went gas, so I’m happy on that one. Yeah, yeah, that’s what I wanted to end up. It runs and flies great now. So much dedication. Yeah, we’ll see. We’re tenacious, we are that’s. We’re not smart enough to give up impresses. Yeah, we’re not smart enough to know when to give up. So

[01:22:06] We just keep pushing yeah and that’s okay yeah so anyway yeah so what’s next you guys have.

[01:22:14] A history segment. You usually do right. So history, when we initially talked about doing this crossover episode- well, a long time ago. But as it became more of a thing, I said: well, we do a flight history segment, do you mind if we do it, you’re like, yeah, that’s fine, as long as we get picked a point. Yeah, you didn’t tell me that part. Yeah, they got, they got to pick the plane. I don’t think.

[01:22:41] I said it. So then, are they doing this one? Because they should know more about this plane after the research they must have done to get to the model they’re doing. Well, you just gave it away, yeah well.

[01:22:52] To our listeners anyway no you guys do a lot of models we gave it away to us it was going to be.

[01:22:57] Surprise, even though we told you what to do it on. Hey, rod and Tom, I’m doing the ford tri-motor today. That’s a great idea. You are so smart. Anything about that airplane? You guys talked about it a.

[01:23:13] Lot and I wanted to know more about the history I’m so glad that joe has gone and saved our butts with.

[01:23:19] That me too, joe. What do you got buddy? Yeah, we’re gonna see how much. I got the ford tri-motor called the tri-motor, but its nickname is the tin goose. Now why? Why he was given that name, I don’t know, but first flight was in june of 1926. It was manufactured by stout metal airplane division at the time then of the ford motor company. I say at the time because the stout metal airplane company was bought out by ford but years before william bushnell stout

[01:24:02] I believe, is who started the company. He sent out a letter to a number of investors, or a number of leading manufacturers, asking them to invest in, I guess, his company, what would become a stout metal, the stout metal company, asking them for a thousand dollar investment and with that letter made the statement: for your one thousand dollars you will get one definite promise you will never get.

[01:24:33] Your money back. But, as I understand it was because the he knew: look, you’re never going to get your money back from this investment, but we’re going to do some really cool things and you’re going to be a part of that. And so they went on to make up some designs and then came along with what would eventually become the ford tri-motor, the. The tri-motor is an all-metal construction. The exterior skin is corrugated aluminum, so it’s very lightweight. That corrugation gives it a lot of.

[01:25:07] Strength. That said, as you guys go to do yours know that the corrugation causes a lot of increased drag, so you’re going to have a reduction in performance from what you’d necessarily expect.

[01:25:22] I’ve got a question before you, if you don’t want me pausing here. What direction is the corrugation going from the back? Yeah, it’s running with the air, with the airstream. Yeah, so it’s like a train car.

[01:25:34] Yeah yes got it yeah okay go ahead yeah but so it’s definitely better than if it was going.

[01:25:41] Across. There’s some turbulence for you. No, actually, what it’d be like a kmf thing where there’d be like air pockets to kind of essentially create the air for it. Yeah, okay, I’d be curious to see that in.

[01:25:56] Smoke tunnel well you guys do it and let us know how it turns out yeah okay.

[01:26:02] Challenge like that. You watch it careful now. Now, I do still have some of that old sign material you gave me when we first got started, you remember. I mean I could peel one layer off of that and might be able to do something with it. That’s not the same we’ll. We’ll get a crinkler, it’ll be great. Okay, we’ll 3d print a crinkling thing. You got the current, you got the 3d printer, that’s it. Go ahead. Yeah. So, even though it’s not perpendicular to the, to the airflow, it’s that much more surface.

[01:26:34] Area. So added strength but reduced performance. An interesting bit about the design of the wings and the fuselage. They followed very closely the junkers designs. Yes, the ju52- yeah, I don’t have that one in the list that I was looking at, but the ji, the junkers f14, junkers k16 and junkers g24 were the ones that were mentioned in what I was reading. Okay, junkers ended up suing ford.

[01:27:09] Company. This was after ford bought the stout metal company and became stout metal airplane division. Junkers sued ford when ford attempted to export the trimotor to europe and won the case due to how closely the trimotor followed junker designs and ford actually tried to counter sue in the 1930, 1930s in prog but also lost that case. So let’s see, designed primarily for passenger.

[01:27:48] Use. It could carry 11 passengers and three crewmen. And I didn’t know this until I didn’t see any materials. But I was watching a video on the trimotor. A guy had it in his, I guess, personal collection museum. There’s a. There’s a toilet in the back of the plane. Oh, I did not know that. See, yeah, yep. So this became sort of the first real commercial person. Person, yeah, yeah, person.

[01:28:23] Yeah airline there we go matt’s laughing that I can’t find the word I guess happens to me all the.

[01:28:30] Time I’m laughing it’s if you’re gonna lighten the load somewhere at the tail of the plane.

[01:28:37] Yeah but you’re carrying the load back there first and then you I know look the sensibility of it.

[01:28:45] Doesn’t really carry through, but I’m just saying my mind right there. I’ll be honest as, as I have all right, go ahead. Sorry, that’s a really neat little fact. Is that one of the first ones to have

[01:28:57] A bathroom in the plane. I’m not sure, but I would have to assume that it is largely because this was the first of its type to be used in this manner. I’m not sure that there were a bunch of like too many other airline type planes and I know that this sort of set the tone for future airline- yeah, future airline planes. So no, I don’t imagine any others had a toilet in the back up to this point.

[01:29:28] Okay, so it was a pioneer. Potentially- yeah it, it would see it would sit 11 passengers. It utilized some of the sort of the tri-motor has a very thick cord, and so they use that aspect to actually make in the wing baggage storage for passengers, and that’s where some of the luggage would go.

[01:29:53] Is inside okay good place for it smart too because it doesn’t change your CG yeah that’s what I was.

[01:29:59] Thinking right store all the bags right on the yeah right that’s right CG that’s awesome honestly that.

[01:30:05] That thick hershey bar thing reminds me of the taylor aero car that thing’s just a monster of a.

[01:30:11] The aspect for issues the tri-motor is just so ugly it’s beautiful I mean that’s I don’t.

[01:30:18] Think it’s ugly at all, really like I think it’s beautiful, like I. There’s nothing in my opinion. There’s nothing ugly about it. I think the, the ju, fit, the, the junkers or yunkers that ford may or may not have, may or may not have copied from, was actually a low wing and actually I think that airplane is ugly, yeah, but the tri-motor having the, having the, the wing up high on the shoulder,

[01:30:44] Like that. I think it’s beautiful. I like I said, I like the airplane a lot. I think it’s beautiful ugly but I think it’s so beautiful. Well, maybe lumbersome does lumbersome sound better, and just like it’s.

[01:30:55] That’s a, that’s a better. Yeah, I just I don’t know. I think it’s gorgeous. It kind of looks like a, like a balding man with a furrowing brow. Maybe that’s a determined look, but balding looks like a furrowed brow, like he’s looking in the mirror or a determined look like I’m getting.

[01:31:15] There wow I can do this I can well you yeah you can’t see the picture that matthew shared me but.

[01:31:21] Now that I’m looking at it- yes, sorry, it’s look, it’s got great cockpit visibility because it’s got a glass ceiling over where the cockpit is and it’s got the thin little we’ll call eye slits. What I mean? Yeah, no, I know what you’re talking about, because

[01:31:38] The glass comes out it’s a an odd shaped cockpit glass yeah I can it’s again there’s there’s a lot.

[01:31:46] Of. There’s a lot of character that I could see where you’d fall in the plane which I’m looking at. In certain parts of it I’m like now the junkers, did they have the cowl around the, the pistons some?

[01:31:57] Of them and for the try, those looked weird. Yeah, so some of the versions- not to take away from joe’s history, because he’s probably got, he’s probably got this, but some of the later versions of the trimotor, like the 580 and the ones that they put the higher horsepower engines on, they had cows around them and then, and the j52 did sort of the same thing. Yeah, right, but cowlings were new at the time. People were you still had to cool these engines. They were air cooled, so wrapping a cowl around them wasn’t, wasn’t an.

[01:32:31] Efficient way to keep them cool, that it took them quite a few years to develop the baffling and all that kind of stuff that you had to put inside the cows to take advantage of the reduced

[01:32:41] Aerodynamic drag that they gave you but you get the air moving where you wanted it yeah.

[01:32:46] But yeah, yeah, yeah, just putting a cowl around it isn’t going to get the air moving per se. Right, you have to do something, some fun things with it. But, boy, when you do, it works. Yeah, yeah, but I mean.

[01:32:57] It’s just a. It’s just a beautiful airplane. The engines hanging out there in the air, you can see, you can see all the cylinders and, yeah, I don’t think there’s anything unattractive.

[01:33:06] About it Ron okay I’m maybe I use the wrong word let’s move on I think lumbersome sounds I think.

[01:33:15] That’s a good descriptor because it’s it’s like a heavy lifter of a plane it’s got broad shoulders.

[01:33:20] It’ll get it done. Yeah, it’s not like a sleek, beautiful type airplane that well you would consider like eye candy, like a fighter. Well, not even that, but even like a like: oh, come on, I mean fighters. Yeah, they’re very sleek, very fast, but I don’t know nothing sexier than like a fox wolf.

[01:33:39] 190, Like that is a sleek. Those don’t do anything for me, like spitfire or a spitfire. Yeah, spitfires are also gorgeous. Spitfire does it for me, but yeah, I mean it’s a different kind of airplane.

[01:33:52] And it’s a different kind of gorgeous. Okay, it’s a different kind of beautiful. I got you, you’re right. I agree. There we go. Sorry, joe, we cut you off. No, you’re good, this is how we do it in our show.

[01:34:05] Sometimes, definitely sometimes. So no, and raw Tom, you’re perfectly fine to have gone over variance, because I hadn’t gotten the variance in my notes so I hadn’t typed all that up. I’ve got a little more that I can go over and then I’ve kind of reached the end of notes. I’d take there’s there’s a lot of information out there. Surprisingly, it’s a little hard to come by outside the wikipedia page.

[01:34:32] But yeah this I was I yeah you were with about to interrupt me again I was gonna say.

[01:34:42] I was just trying to help you get to where you were. I see, I see some of your notes and I was just saying it’s okay that it’s designed for the 11 passengers. I got it, thank you. So it was designed.

[01:34:55] For that carry 11 passengers, three crew, but it could be easily adapted for hauling cargo. I think it got used as a mail carrier plane at some point and I also know it was used in some of the armed forces. As the name suggests, I had three motors. Now I didn’t see this in the wikipedia page. I was watching that museum guy talk about it. I think you’re probably talking about kermit weeks.

[01:35:23] Might have he did a full tour of it there’s a couple others too is there a couple of those.

[01:35:26] Yeah okay eaa actually does a they got a page on there might have on their website anyway sorry.

[01:35:36] About that. That’s okay. No, no, go ahead. So, even though it had three motors, I thought it was interesting. It could run just fine without the center motor, but if one of the side motors went out though, it was a lot more problematic. Yeah, and I guess that has to do maybe with where the power position was positioned or how much rudder in input was necessary to overcome the, the differential thrust right, I don’t know, that was just something that was discussed, the apparently.

[01:36:11] It’s really bad on the adverse y’all and that might be due to the corrugation, I don’t know, or if it’s just big control surfaces. So as you guys go to make y’alls just be aware you go to go into a turn, adverse y’all is going to be a big problem with that one right on. If it had a prandled wing it wouldn’t have that problem. Yeah, well, this kind of predates prandle a little bit. Yeah, no, technically.

[01:36:36] Yeah, by about two years. God really was prandled, that old, his design, his, his concept and the. The four-page paper that he wrote all the findings up on was in, I think, either 1920 or 1931.. Okay, it was early.

[01:36:53] The. A couple of little tidbits. I got the. The control- the control mechanisms are largely outside the plane. Yes, it’s beautiful, it is weird, I love it, but I but I dig it. Yeah. Yeah, we’re gonna try.

[01:37:07] To replicate that on ours. What? What do you wait? What do you mean? Do you do you mean that basically all the stick controls run to pulleys outside the plane? Yep, there’s raw say, there’s rocker arms outside.

[01:37:18] The plane. Yep, that’s what those and then the wires run outside too. If you’re looking at that, yeah, if you look at that picture you sent me, yeah, you see that you below that, you see that like t-shaped thing coming out. You have a black oval, yeah, yeah, well, not the black oval, but that t-shaped thing. That’s what’s reaching. It’s got cables that run back and are engaged in control surfaces. That’s.

[01:37:43] Crazy, that’s a bell crank. Yep, yeah, yeah. So all the all the wires are on the outside of the airplane, so when you’re flying and you can actually see them working and moving. Yeah, it’s awesome, it’s pretty.

[01:37:53] Wild mm-hmm and all the instruments on there, and I think you guys know this. But all the instruments in the cockpit are only reading the center motor. That’s exactly right. Rpm, oil pressure, oil temperature, all that for the external motors. You got to look out the windows at the motors, at the actual motors.

[01:38:11] On them yeah they have all the gauges mounted on the pods outside so you have to have really.

[01:38:16] Good vision to fly the ford track no doubt you think they would know now they the guy was saying.

[01:38:24] It was a really good plane to fly, gentle in his own right, but apparently it was also a guy that was doing an acrobatic routine with him years ago. Can’t imagine that. But yeah, and I wish I could remember the name of the organization. But there is one that goes around and does flying tours: eaa.

[01:38:48] The experimental aircraft association has one it is actually going to be in springfield this weekend.

[01:38:53] Yep, well, where are you? Why aren’t you going there? We are, oh, we’re going, we’re gonna, yeah, we’re gonna try to go out to the airport and at least get pictures of it and stuff. Yep, yeah, so last time.

[01:39:05] Right. Well, last time it came was about four or five years ago- I remember exactly when it was. Yeah, I went up, they were giving rides and stuff and I went and flew in it with my wife and only kid at that time. Yeah, and it made them sick. So they don’t want to do it again, but here’s okay. So if you have a chance to go up in it when that plane comes around- I don’t remember how much it was, it doesn’t matter, but there’s one seat where you can pay extra to ride in the cockpit. Now, when I went up on the flight with

[01:39:37] It. I decided not to do it because I wanted to sit back with my family, which the way that the seats are on that is, it’s a single seat on each side, so there’s an aisle in the middle and then a single seat on each side, so you’re not sitting next to anybody. But anyway, so you could pay extra to ride in the cockpit. I wish I would have, because the guy that did it didn’t really say anything until he got out when we were all getting off. He actually got to fly the airplane. So how cool would that have been. It was like an extra 50 bucks is all, yeah. So, oh, yeah, yeah, that’s that. That would have been sweet.

[01:40:10] Yeah, that would have been sweet, but that’s so. That’s one of the reasons, by the way, that, like the tri-motor has a special place in my heart and I know Tom likes it too. But I’ve growing up I was a ford guy, like I don’t know why, I don’t know why. That’s kind people pick those two. Don’t worry, I know it’s like I’m justifying myself, right, but anyway. So I was a ford guy and so ford and airplanes is cool because it’s ford, it’s ford and airplanes. And then we actually went up to

[01:40:41] The henry ford museum up in dearborn and they have one of these on display there too, and that actually was like within a week of when I was flying out. I think we went like up there a week beforehand and I knew I was gonna get to fly it on the next weekend when I was here in town. So learning about it and then flying on it, it just like that has stuck out to me and that’s why we’re building the model of it, kind of to push ourselves on doing something big that we’ve never done before and see how much we

[01:41:10] Can screw this up. Well, it’s a- I mean, joe mentioned it in his research. It’s a. It’s a docile, easy to fly airplane. Yeah, and in model form. If we can build it light enough, I feel like I feel like we’re gonna have a real, a real winner. Yeah, because I think so too. If we can get a light enough and we can make it look like as close as we can and keep the scale outline. I

[01:41:40] Think, I think it’s gonna really get a lot of attention. Yeah, what I mean? It’s gonna sound awesome, it’s gonna sound great, it’s gonna look awesome. We’re gonna hopefully replicate the, the corrugation, as close as we can, anyway, and so yeah it’s, I think it’s just gonna be a real.

[01:41:56] Sweetheart someday well are those three motors the same size so are you asking me or joe I’m asking.

[01:42:06] Anybody who can answer joe go ahead I feel like yes but I could be wrong so you are correct.

[01:42:16] On some versions they had three identical engines, but on some of the later versions the center engine was a different spec than the, than the two out on the wing. Okay, more horsepower in the center. So yes and no makes sense. Yeah, no, joe’s, joe’s, correct. Yeah, some versions had three.

[01:42:34] Identical engines. So a four cell running a higher pitch prop in the center, two, three cells on the outside. There you go, same diameter -huh -huh. I see where you’re going. Not that I’m thinking about building one or designing it. I think you should think about building one. I think we should do. Should I design it to be the same size as you guys are building? I was just gonna say that you should do the same size we are, because I’ve got those two motors that are the pancake ones that spin 15 inches. Right, if those are about the right size to scale, aren’t they? Yeah, I don’t remember what size, I think.

[01:43:09] We like I think we the math we did worked out to where it was perfect for those ys120s which.

[01:43:15] Turns 15 to 16 inch props. Yeah right, that’s what I’m thinking. So if I did the electric version and found a good equivalent for the center pod, we- I’m- we- might be in business quicker than- oh, yeah, you, definitely, absolutely you have ready. Not quicker than you I’m? I’m just thinking we may have, like the, the motor equipment, oh, and the actual like components to be able to actually start really putting it like. If we start putting it together, we start can start actually getting the motors in

[01:43:46] There, like there’s. There’s a couple stl files that make really great nine piston radial engine dummies. Yeah, whatever, yeah, dummies and they. They got the motor set so that you just mount it in there and it looks amazing. That’d be cool. Yeah, printing out three of those would not be. It’d be worth the four days of printing or whatever. Yeah, yeah, that’s what we’ll.

[01:44:12] End up doing, too is kind of making some dummy radials to go on it. But yeah, you should build one too. I think that’d be fun. It would be fun. You’ll be done before we are, oh for sure. Oh, it’s so nice- I’m just kidding, actually that might, maybe that’ll speed us along. I don’t know what’s your wingspan, so I can get it one inch, 12 feet bigger. Yeah, 140, actually, I think it ends up being just over that.

[01:44:33] Like 146. Oh man, yeah, 46 is a little bit tall for a foam board build. That’s huge. Yeah, so I fly at a 40 acre field and so this is not unreasonable for that field. No, no, heavens, no, 40 acres would accommodate this.

[01:44:52] Yeah easily no problem so well no faster than it flies either yeah it’s a slow yeah it’s not yeah.

[01:44:58] It’s not going to be a, it’s going to be like a lumbersome big Telemaster. I mean that’s kind of how I’m likening it, how it’s going to fly, that’s how I envision it, but it’s going to sound awesome.

[01:45:08] Okay, awesomer than a Telemaster, yeah, but better go for like 150 inches on the low end. Just be sure you make it, man, just make sure, just make sure he doesn’t make it bigger than us and bring it to under, that’s right. 48, There you go. Yep, that’s right. I like where you’re going with that. I’m just saying, man, I hear you: yeah, so that’s the tri-motor and that’s why.

[01:45:30] Why we are trying to build one that was a great that was a great history lesson joe thank you yeah.

[01:45:36] I wasn’t done oh hey joe do you have any other yeah do you have any other tidbits that we.

[01:45:43] Need to talk about joe what else you got buddy you’re good no we just we sidetracked so.

[01:45:51] No, there was. There’s one more thing. I one more thing only because I found it interesting: the braking system, and then I’ll I’ll end the segment it. It’s a pull stick brake, but it goes just like back to the left, back to the right or back to any varying degrees, and when you pull, so where we might think accustomed to brakes in the rudders, this brake was a big handle. It was like gear shift, like your manual drive, and so it was really only good for taxing. But they utilize a

[01:46:26] Dual master cylinder system at the bottom of the stick and so, as you pulled it back into one direction, it would engage one side of one master cylinder more than the other, and that would. That’s what gave your differential braking on this. I did not like a rocker to the master cylinders and

[01:46:43] Depending on where the stick was the bottom of the stick it would pull either or right in different.

[01:46:51] Amounts. Yeah, proportional too, and yeah, right. And so what was actually if? If, say, you were the, say you were sitting in the left-hand seat, it was really easy to break, say, back into the left, because I was pulling it back and towards you. But if you were having a break and get to the right and you were in charge you’d, you’d hand it off to the person that was sitting beside you say, hey, break for me in this direction, because you couldn’t pull, you couldn’t easily pull it away from you.

[01:47:25] Breaking you’d have to hand it off to your co-pilot to break in that direction while you continue.

[01:47:30] To do other things yeah that’s really interesting I did not know that Tom’s face lit up it really did.

[01:47:36] Yeah, that’s that. That’s fascinating. I can see his wheels turning in his head like right now going. How am I going to model that in the model?

[01:47:44] Well then I’m glad I went ahead and got that last youtube video me too that’s awesome yeah like in.

[01:47:49] My head I’m trying to figure out the linkage involved to get the to get the yoke to move in.

[01:47:54] That direction. That’s freaking awesome. I imagine it. It’s similar to like of the flying wing mechanisms where it’s a, a elevator- wait, is that right elevon? Yeah, where you have both controls. So there’s a general rocker and then there’s also the, the aileron left and right controls, so if you’re pulling back on the elevator, the whole mechanism moves forward and backwards and, yeah, they can still go side to side. So I mentioned something similar to that, but for

[01:48:24] Breaking cylinders very cool I dig it well there we go so yes that’s our project coming up and that.

[01:48:32] Should also be yours it sounds like there he says really considering it so I like I’ll have plans.

[01:48:38] Next week. All right, 12 feet plus, right, hey, by the way, if you, if you look at my page, you’ll see the 35 designs. All of them have plans that I’ve made. Nice, that’s my build process. I think it up, I draw it up, I print it and then I do the ball, the beta build, make tweaks, then I release them for the alpha build and then I then I release them as a beta. I just want people to build stuff and have fun. Well, that’s.

[01:49:06] Part of the hobby. That’s really what it’s about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Flying guys. You mentioned that, that the your mission statement is to keep people flying, or what was it exactly?

[01:49:20] Let’s just go back to the footage I said and we’ll call it that it was so eloquently worded: yeah, helping you through the hurdles of rc aviation hobby.

[01:49:35] Yeah, and I feel like, like our mission statement is, it would be kind of similar. Only we have a mission statement okay. Well, I mean, if we had one, oh it would be it would be similar because we want to. We want people to get into the hobby and stay in the hobby, because if they don’t, there would

[01:49:52] Be no hobby right yeah and I’m sick of everything closing down and not having tools made like we.

[01:49:58] Used to have and all that kind of stuff hey speaking of tools did you want to talk about our tool of the.

[01:50:03] Week that’s right you guys requested that we bring back tool of the week we did can I request you put.

[01:50:10] In the sound bit it’s time for rc plane labs tool of the week we tried like it’s very difficult.

[01:50:20] So you mean we tried. Well, okay, so we came up with one, but it’s very boring, so don’t like get excited or anything. So here’s the problem with tool of the week. We thought that was something we could kind of bring in and talk about a lot of these different tools that we like to use and all that stuff. Apparently we don’t use a lot of different tools. Come to find out. Come to find out, yeah, but a lot of them you can’t get anymore. So we don’t want to talk like, hey, these are tools we have.

[01:50:47] You can’t get them ha and we don’t want it to come off that yeah we didn’t want it to come off.

[01:50:53] Like that. So it seems like I’ve looked up some of the balsa tooling just because again I’m looking at like, okay, well, I need, and I’ve noticed that you can 3d print a good portion. Now I don’t know if they’re worth printing- some of them are, but I wonder how many of the tools that were from yesterday, from yesteryear, yeah, have been. Basically people said, okay, we still need this, we just nobody wants to make it anymore because it’s well, the quantity is not there to.

[01:51:24] Make it worthwhile, right, right, but we can 3d print one, because if you’re doing that kind of thing, boy, is that tool helpful? Yeah, yeah, and I’m wondering how many of those are out there in that method, in which case you can still talk about it and just say, hey, because it’s not something everybody needs all the time anymore, because not as many people build balsa, most of them just are. Fair statement: this, this tool, you can print out on three universe. Yeah, it’s great, true, and that I mean. That would be a

[01:51:49] Good way to look into it too, but there’s a lot of people that don’t have 3d printers and that kind of stuff too, which is unfortunate. That brings in a whole nother hobby of what a lot of us like right to make tools for another hobby, and it’s yeah, but anyway, so anyway. So today’s tool what’s?

[01:52:06] The tool this week so it’s a tool that every hobbyist has used at one point or another and probably.

[01:52:13] Has ready access to right now whether it’s foam balsa foam and balsa really like foam covered balsa.

[01:52:25] What about corrugated cardstock yeah there you go cardboard board with balsa but the.

[01:52:33] Si material. What is that? I know what we call it in our industry, but that’s proprietary to us so I don’t want to say it. But you’re talking about, I know, like the fluted type material, that’s it.

[01:52:46] Yeah what’s the plastic no it’s bad the stuff that’s really classic yeah there’s a anyway yeah.

[01:52:52] That’s the one I’m thinking of yes you can use this tool on that also yeah give it away Tom.

[01:52:59] Well, it’s the X-Acto knife, the exact. So boring, but yeah, boring, yes, but I mean without it, without that one tool, man, could you imagine how difficult this hobby would be? You could not cut hardly anything without it. I mean, try to like what, like what are the alternatives? Like a box knife? Well, a razor blades or straight edge razor blade? I mean, they don’t always call the old trusty sawzall or that. Yeah, so right. So without this tool, I like, I can’t believe we’ve not. Yeah, we actually have not done.

[01:53:37] That before done that one before it’s such low-hanging fruit that we probably just didn’t even.

[01:53:43] Think about it, but what it’s a? I think it’s appropriate that this episode is when, that, when that tool made us like I agree, thank you guys. Yeah, I agree, perfection. Well, what so? What’s a feature?

[01:53:56] That makes the X-Acto knife better than the other ones it cuts well so for starters I mean you can put.

[01:54:02] You can replace the blade easily and cheaply. Blades are relatively inexpensive. They’re small enough to be useful for our hobby, like they’re not so large and cumbersome that they’re difficult to use. I mean, the list goes on, Ron. I mean, yeah, you can cut things with them. They come in a form factor.

[01:54:26] That is good to get to details see there you go yeah the number 11 X-Acto blades that we I mean like I.

[01:54:33] Buy them 120 at a time on amazon yeah buy them in bulk yeah and they’re they’re really cheap yeah.

[01:54:38] Have you worked with any of the other shapes I have? Yeah, somewhat like the number 10 blade, the, the scalpel blade, and then they actually up for a long time. In fact you might even stay still be able to get them from X-Acto, but they actually made a serrated saw blade that fit in the number 11 handle. Awesome, I’ve got one. I mean: perfect little thing for making like the, the notches or the holes in the in the side of a fuselage for your switch. Perfect for that, what I mean, yeah, so, yeah, I mean.

[01:55:09] They make a lot of different blades and I’ve used a majority of them and there’s other companies.

[01:55:16] Also that make sure that you can get to put in for hinge cutting, yeah, for slot cutting, that’s right, that kind of stuff exactly when. When I, like I said it’s the number 11 blade is what I buy in the hundred fold. Yes, just because you go through them quickly. I don’t know how long they last, like for cutting foam, because I don’t do a lot of that, but I know like covering an airplane MonoKote really tears them up. Two to four sheets of foam board, yeah, yeah, okay, the paper’s, yeah.

[01:55:44] It’s the same, just okay, and it’s not like it. It would still be a good knife to use generally for other things, oh sure, but it’s just not sharp enough for what we need to use it for right.

[01:55:55] And the handle. Like you can. You can get the, the, the handle, in lots of different flavors. You can get aluminum ones, you can get plastic ones, and the ones I really like are the aluminum sour patch, exactly, yeah right, the serrated- well or not serrated, but the knurled ones that have for the grip, those are my favorite. Did we really just spend like five minutes talking about an X-Acto knife? Who knew, heck yeah, who knew that they were so interesting? Nobody killed us.

[01:56:25] By the way nobody actually thinks they’re interesting all five of our listeners have now stopped listening.

[01:56:33] Between the two between the two separate podcasts five thanks mom.

[01:56:43] Oh we double our listenership now just because of his parents.

[01:56:49] So well, one of the things I notice is I’ve seen people who I’m like, hey, do you have a? Because I’m like, hey, let’s build a plane together, do you have an X-Acto set? And they pull out this, this like box, oh the, and I’m expecting them to just have the aluminum like stick, yeah, and they just show they have a blade net, which is what we have, but they pull out this whole set and there’s like three different style handles, different diameters, yeah, and there’s a. There’s a myriad of like 20 different blades, yeah, with different curves, and usually you buy them at like a dollar store, and that’s where

[01:57:21] They belong I agree but I was surprised when they pulled out this whole set I’m like.

[01:57:26] What do you even use all those for? Yeah, what? What is that about? I’m the same way like. I have a couple of those. They’re in that little like minor and blue plastic cases that don’t ever stay shut because they’re just so cheaply molded. But yeah, it’s like two or three different size handles. They have the fat ones, they have the skinny ones, they’re a little bit longer and stuff, and yeah, there’s nothing as good, in my opinion, as just a single normal X-Acto blade on a normal X-Acto.

[01:57:57] Handle I like the large handles because you can also I can also use those handles for my razor saw.

[01:58:05] Blades. They go in there and I can lock them down. I can use that handle with those blades. Oh, I don’t have that. Like my razor. Also good for the chisel blades, like if you’re, if you’re carving out wood blocks, the fatter handle is easier on your hand. I can see that. Yeah, so there you go. But you should use a razor plane instead of a chisel. Well, not if you’re hollowing out the inside of a block. Oh, that wouldn’t work with a razor plane. So, yeah, not at all. So there you go. All right, here’s an idea for your.

[01:58:29] Next tool of the week. Do you have one of those three, two, one square blocks for machining? Yeah, I use them. One, two, three blocks. Yeah, what I mean? They’re these kind of heavy, perfectly square steel blocks.

[01:58:41] That help keep things where they should be. Yeah, I have, yeah I’ve got a pair of those- nice actually they’re. They’re great because, well, they’re. They have three different dimensions. Right, there’s a, there’s a, a long skinny side, a short skinny side, and then there’s the big flat on either side, and they’re great for if you’re building with balsa, you can, you can hold your parts square right there on the bowling table with those as they’re, as you’re gluing them up. Yeah, I use them all the.

[01:59:13] Time that’s. That’s what kind of I was going to ask if you use that at all. Absolutely like which tools are worth having when you start and which ones, like, really just don’t just you only buy it if you really desperately need it because you can probably get away with it. Are we talking building kits then? Yeah, yeah, I guess I’m for if we’re done with the X-Acto blade, yeah.

[01:59:37] I think we’ve belabored it yeah we’re gonna skip we’ll talk about tools quickly from here on we’re.

[01:59:42] Not going to talk about each one in depth yeah no I just no I’m not expecting you what I’m just.

[01:59:47] Saying yeah so basically an X-Acto a razor saw with a with a miter box probably yeah okay and.

[01:59:55] Some various clamps, I mean that’s. I mean that’s really yeah. And then a piece of foam like a nice building service, just to build like xps kind of- yeah, like the. Well, I use extruded yeah, that’s what I used to, because t-pins expanded polystyrene, yeah, xps. And then I just use the push pins. I don’t like the t-pins because they hurt my fingers, so I get the. It’s a little bit more expensive, but you use them over and over again, so it doesn’t matter. The ones that have little plastic heads.

[02:00:27] On them that are about a half inch tall or so, by maybe a quarter inch wide. Yeah, yeah, I was wondering which pins you use. Yeah, I have t-pins as a backup in case I don’t have enough of the red ones. I.

[02:00:38] Use both because sometimes you need the skinniness of a t-pin to fit in a tight spot or whatever.

[02:00:43] Or twist it to kind of hold another piece down at the same time yeah exactly that too but okay.

[02:00:48] But yeah, I didn’t know that they had a different thickness depending on which direction the pin like it was. It’s actually like a rectangular, like a t-pin. It’ll lay flat, I mean.

[02:00:59] Think of it as folding a paper clip into a t and then making one end sharp. Yeah, okay. So if, as you’re holding it down, like I said, if you want to kind of span a gap or something, you only get a quarter inch or so on each side, maybe a little bit less, and then you can actually kind of use that little bump to hold something else down, if you needed to. Yeah, yeah, instead of like pinning through the part.

[02:01:21] You can use the under surface of the t to hold the part down yeah plan almost as a clamp okay yeah.

[02:01:27] Yeah, I was wondering: do you pin through the part and just say, stick, darn it like it’s a bug? It depends. I mean, yeah, or do you stick, or do you basically kind of align it with the pin? Sometimes use that the pin is stuck in there. Yeah, to keep the alignment. You’ll find whatever works best.

[02:01:45] For you is how you’ll do it like I said there’s sometimes I go through the part and sometimes I.

[02:01:49] Don’t. Yeah, really, really small or thin balsa parts. I generally don’t pin through them. Yeah, I’ll pin next to it and use the head of the pin to hold the part so you don’t split it. You don’t split it.

[02:02:02] Yeah okay thin thick or medium CA and or aliphatic resin thin CA and medium CA that’s really all you.

[02:02:14] Need, or, if you’re really patient and old school aliphatic resin. Yeah, that’s what he said. I don’t know if you heard him or not. Oh no, I was talking. I’m sorry, I probably talked right over. That was the.

[02:02:25] Last thing he said: oh okay, yeah that I. I just went ahead. I wanted to try my hand at saying that word because it’s it’s like saying elephant, yeah, like a hobbit, yeah. Well, just, it’s such a fun. Wood glues.

[02:02:38] That’s the easiest yellow glue or whatever and epoxy if you didn’t say that already yeah.

[02:02:44] Epoxy, I didn’t, but I five and well, five and thirty probably I’d say. So, yeah, five minute and thirty minutes is what we use. So it’s like, if you’re for my screws, do I want to use loctite, the blue bottle, or

[02:02:57] Red ball I hope you’re joking joe I hope you’re joking because I’m about to go the fluid.

[02:03:09] Is there a history here that I’m missing no I just hate red loctite with like a passion well I hate the.

[02:03:15] Fact that the blue loctite comes in a red bottle yeah that’s really confusing yeah I agree but does the.

[02:03:21] Blue one come with the red container or wait no it’s no they’re both in the red container the.

[02:03:28] Red loctite is permanent and like, when I say permanent, I mean like frustratingly permanent, like not let me get out the get out the dremel with the cutoff wheel. Permanent. The blue loctite is better, yeah, and if you use it in moderation it does what it says it’ll do. But I’m

[02:03:47] Not a huge fan of loctite period so yeah when I need it I use blue I’ve never used red I don’t.

[02:03:52] Even know red yeah I knew that I knew that was a touchy soldier it worked yeah I only have.

[02:04:00] The blue liquid one yeah because if I had both I’d mess it up and yeah I want to take a quick trip.

[02:04:08] Back to the, the super glue and talking about the thin, thick and all that stuff. So if you’re putting something together and you and you don’t mind waiting for the glue to dry- wood glue or your aliphatic resin- the nice thing about that is it sands much easier. Oh man, yes. So okay, if you, if you’re patient- which sometimes I’m not depending on, like where you’re building, and if it’s a joint that you’re kind of concerned about, yeah, that you’re going to actually see through, like when you cover it. Wood glue works a lot better because you can sand it down a lot easier. Yeah, yeah, I think I heard you.

[02:04:42] Say in a previous episode- one of y’all’s episodes- that the aliphate not out the CA gets into the balsa and they kick it, or you give it time to cure, but it hardens harder than the balsa absolutely.

[02:04:54] Yeah, yep, yes, when you so, when you sand it, like if you’re joining sheets together, that joint where the two sheets are joined together, that the glue that’s in there will be harder than the surrounding balsa, so that when you go to sand it and try to sand it smooth, you’ll be sanding the balsa away, but the glue you’ll have a hump there where the, where the glue is. Yeah, so you’re almost.

[02:05:18] Making corrugated sheets yeah almost yeah oh there’s an idea no it’s not an idea terrible idea anyway.

[02:05:24] But anyway, yeah, that’s why, that’s why our the little how-to I did, that’s why I join sheets, end grain or, I’m sorry, edge grain together with the halophatic resin, because it does sand much better than the CA. Yeah, all right, thank you. Yep, do you tend to make?

[02:05:46] When you make logos for it, like, let’s say, you cover your stuff in like monocode or whatever. The technicode or technicolor dream code or whatever this stuff is called china code is what I like, I mean.

[02:05:58] That’s that’s not the actual name but it’s so much cheaper and easier to use anyway go on sorry.

[02:06:04] Either way shrink. I’ve, honestly, I’ve used dollar tree cellophane and spray 77 the back of it, yeah, and done that. It seems to work. Any plastic shrinks when it gets hot. So yeah, it is so, so just the window is a little bit different, yeah anyway. So, looking at that kind of stuff, when you’re making decals for that stuff, how do you tend to do that? Do you, do you like put it on a mirror and like finely cut it, or do you get like a vinyl sticker cutter thing like and just

[02:06:35] Get it that way, or well, how can you do that? Or how do we do that? Because how do you tend to do it? Because I look, I one of the things I love to do is to get a little bit of, like pizzazz. Yeah, absolutely.

[02:06:51] So I’m I’m big into tools, so I have a vinyl cutter. Okay, a lot of people don’t, so yeah, you can absolutely cut it on a piece of glass or a mirror or something with an X-Acto knife. I don’t do that because that’s a lot of work. I mean honestly, I do that because I don’t have a vinyl.

[02:07:12] Cutter. So just recently I had to put some iron crosses on a stick that I was recovering and Ron printed them out on his large format printer, brought them to me and then I used those as templates. And then I taped the template to the back of the monoco and trimmed it out with the knife right on top of my sacrificial mat. What are they called? Yeah, like the cutting, cutting mats. Yeah, there you go. So that’s how I did it, because I don’t own a vinyl cutter and it was going on a nitro airplane and nitro and vinyl don’t get along. Yeah, you got to watch what you get for that. Oh, okay, yeah.

[02:07:48] But you don’t have to worry about it yeah but if you’re doing electric yeah vinyl is fine.

[02:07:52] Vinyl is perfect and much, much quicker and easier. Well, I know for matthew and I: two and a quarter hours in, we’re just hitting our good stride. But

[02:08:06] Well until next time I am I’m wrong yeah and I’m tired so.

[02:08:14] We’re just going to cut it there okay.

[02:08:18] Well, real quick, I wanted to say yeah, and maybe I’ll do this for both of us, however you want to do it, but I want to thank everybody for tuning in, yeah and listening. This episode has been- I won’t say a long time in the making, but it has been a long time dreamed of, especially between Ron and I. Yeah, going way, way back. So, yeah, I think you brought it up like a year and a half ago. I mean, it was when we were just first getting started. Yeah, it’s, we weren’t we both of?

[02:08:49] Us were still pretty new to them. Yeah, I think I brought it up like this might be an interesting, but I was hesitant to bring it up. So before we get too far, Ron, I know that you have electric.

[02:09:01] Motors, probably too many, I mean. That’s not really true. You can’t possibly have never. But yeah, is it possible that you could set one aside and build like a, like a boxy plane, maybe something with a, a foamy- that’s not a profiler with us, oh god, would you? Would you be up for trying it and just seeing how it’s different and it may not be better and you may never touch it again? You are putting me on the spot to say yes, I’m putting you on the spot to see if you’d be interested.

[02:09:38] In making another thing that we do in the future together what I will not say no to that I will just as I took your challenge with the tri-motor inadvertently- you volunteered for that.

[02:09:51] One, by the way, no, no, so honestly, the thought of building with foam like that has is not anything that ever it doesn’t get you excited. But what plane do you get excited about? Well, the. The problem with that is the plane that I would like to build like. That is completely round, and well, that’s way too much for me to get in the foam with a round fuselage. But anyway, no, I’m a huge fan of yak 54s, but now, having said that, there is there is an airplane that has gone between several of us here.

[02:10:30] That is a foamy yak, it’s a square fuselage, but that flies. That flies really well, but it’s just not. I mean like I don’t know how to. I will try, there we go. How’s that? Yes, I will try, we will build one.

[02:10:46] Together. However, you can pick the plan. I’ve never built a yak, well no, I’m no good at 3d flying, so I’m all about trying that with you and watching mine burning and crashing to the ground in a fun.

[02:10:58] Hilarious way. Well, here’s the thing: you, you pick the airplane, you send me the plans, I can print them here. I can do all that stuff. No problem, I’ve got all the electronics I would need. Yeah, and we will.

[02:11:10] I just want to. I want to pick a plane you’d be interested in trying out as a foamy. That’s all okay, we get it. That is half the battle. Right like getting something you’re going. Oh, that’s pretty interesting. Let me see how that goes. Well then, anyway, sure it sounds like a yak, might be the.

[02:11:28] Answer: I’ll find something for you, we’ll talk. Well, yeah, we’ll talk later, we’ll figure it out. That might be kind of interesting to kind of come to your side of the hobby and then one of these days you come to the dark side and build balsa. The dark side is coming, that’s for sure. Good, all right, cool, okay. So

[02:11:44] Joe, are you gonna take us out? I’m sorry, I was at least going to start it and then see if Ron wanted to finish it, but I wanted to follow up and say, guys, thank you for coming on with us, letting us come on with you. It’s been a good time, yeah, and I’m sorry that my stuff’s been having connection issues, but it’s been a wonderful conversation. From what you’ve heard of it, it has hasn’t. Oh, I’ve been able to hear it, don’t worry.

[02:12:13] But I also want to thank listeners- ours and yours, who’ve tuned in. Hopefully they’ve enjoyed this conversation as much as we’ve obviously enjoyed having it, and I think I want to forego the rest of my normal outro. But, Ron Tom, y’all got a bit of an outro. You want aviationrcnoobcom?

[02:12:35] Rcplanelab.Com good night sounds good I’m joe I’m Ron I’m matt I’m Tom good night good night good night y’all.

[02:12:44] Good night.