Ep 124: Nice Weather, and Listener Questions

[00:00:12] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I am Ron.

[00:00:17] I'm Tom.

[00:00:17] And I'm Dave. What's up, Bill?

[00:00:20] Here we are. Yeah, it's been a few weeks, a couple weeks anyway.

[00:00:23] Yeah.

[00:00:24] Well, because I was gone.

[00:00:25] It feels like a lot longer than that. Preparing for my trip this summer. So, yeah, but like we were talking about before, we've had some pretty decent weather. So, got a lot of flights in so far.

[00:00:36] We had one day of good weather.

[00:00:39] Well, early February in Illinois. Early February, that's a lot of good days.

[00:00:44] That's true. I wasn't expecting. We actually got to go out to the field and do some flying. Yeah. You want to talk about what we flew then?

[00:00:51] Well, sure. What do you want to get into? Dave finally had a successful rocket ignition.

[00:00:58] Without an explosion or other type of mishap.

[00:01:01] Yeah.

[00:01:01] Very happy.

[00:01:02] One. One out of how many tries?

[00:01:04] All right. So, it took four tries to get a rocket motor to light. I think that thing is cursed.

[00:01:09] Okay. So, let's count. So, we had four non-fires. And then we had… No, we had three non-fires. Three non-fires. And we finally got to go on the fourth one. Two to three. Two or three explosions. Three.

[00:01:20] We've had two so-called explosions. One true explosion and one… Okay. Oops. Yeah.

[00:01:25] So, you've had two successful rocket flights.

[00:01:29] Three total. Three total. Successful.

[00:01:31] So, I had the first two that went pretty fine. There was two that day. Yeah.

[00:01:35] And then the one I blew up with you.

[00:01:38] That I didn't record. Yeah.

[00:01:41] I still… Then the one that went through the fuselage. Yeah. And then I just finally got the fourth. And it took four tries. That flight.

[00:01:53] Yeah. That plane has just been cursed. And you said it. So, flight, you said. Not flights.

[00:01:59] Flights.

[00:02:00] Yes. Yeah.

[00:02:01] Not… So, that discussion goes bunk about… Do we count this as one flight or four? See, I say that was one flight.

[00:02:09] I say that was one battery. So, that's one… One flight. Yeah.

[00:02:13] I was tempted to record it as four flights because… That's cheating. It was a takeoff, a landing, removed from the field. Landing gear had to be put back on it. Takeoff, landing. Removed from the field. Takeoff, landing. Removed from the field. But each one was 45 seconds.

[00:02:31] Yeah.

[00:02:32] I mean…

[00:02:33] That's why I think the best and only way that we can count it is by the number of batteries that require… Or tanks of fuel. Yeah. The number of batteries or tanks of fuel that goes from full to empty.

[00:02:46] Now, if I were to count it as one flight and just a bunch of touch and goes, it would go, take off, touch, go, touch, go, touch, go, touch, go. But it was removed from the field.

[00:02:57] So, I could cheat then. If I'm out flying my stick or whatever, I could take off, land, pick it up, go put it on the table, and then pick it up and put it back out, like with the engine running. Then I…

[00:03:08] That engine has to be shut off.

[00:03:10] Okay. So, I could shut the engine off or refire without putting any fuel in it. And I could count… I could probably get 50 flights that way. That's cheating, Dave. That's 50 laps.

[00:03:18] Yeah.

[00:03:18] Now, I do that with the L4, though. It's got such a big tank in it. I go out and fly it for 10 minutes. Come back. Land. Well, that's a flight. Eat lunch. I mean… And then take off again with the same tank of fuel.

[00:03:26] Yeah. But you've consumed a fair amount of fuel. It's not like you paused for 45 seconds and then flew again.

[00:03:33] It's like when… And that's… So, the point for me, for keeping track of flights, I don't know about you guys, is just to know how much we flew. Yeah. Like to actually find out how many times we had a successful battery go through an airplane.

[00:03:51] I concur.

[00:03:52] So, I don't want to cheat the system or I don't want to like… The point is not to get a high number of flights by finding ways around it.

[00:04:04] What I mean?

[00:04:05] Yeah. Like, I think that the honest way to do it is one full battery, one full tank, which is not fair when one battery in a glider lasts an hour. Well, okay. That's still one flight.

[00:04:14] So, on the Dave Patrick Ultimate that I have, that tank is good for roughly 30 minutes of flying. So, when I, get tired of flying at 10 minutes or I'm starting to worry about fuel or whatever, if I don't put fuel back in it, is that one flight or is that still continuing, is it a new flight when I go back out and fire it up and don't put fuel in the tank? I mean, we probably ought to clarify that. That's where I was at with the L4. One flight or two flight.

[00:04:44] It might be two hours between flights, but it's still the same tank of fuel.

[00:04:47] So, yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:48] That's, in the case of the, that, the comment though. I did ponder that one before I put it down and I did put it down as one flight.

[00:04:57] Okay.

[00:04:58] But I did put a sub note saying it was four attempts.

[00:05:01] I mean, you could, yeah, there you go. So, if there's a question, whether it's a one flight or multiple, you just put it in the notes and jot it down as the lower number, whatever it is. That's a conservative number. And then at the end of the year, if you're close to your goal, you could say, well, technically, if I'm five flights short, well, technically, I guess I could count.

[00:05:20] Technically, we're going to cheat then at the end of the year, but not at the beginning part of the year.

[00:05:24] Is that what you're saying? Well, I mean, if necessary. We're going to pad the notes. No, and I get it. Like, how would you count his Cub flight then?

[00:05:32] Well, then how do you count planes that have a very quick…

[00:05:35] I don't know. I'm asking you.

[00:05:36] Well, no, I, inversely, how do you count an EDF jet that you fly for two and a half, three minutes? Well, that is a flight. That's a flight. I mean, you can only get two and a half. That's my point. I agree with that. Yeah. You cannot pick it up and put it back out as is because it'll go poohy. So, in that case, an hour flight on a glider still is one flight. So, an hour flight on whatever airplane you have that runs that long on a gas-to-tank, on a tank of gas.

[00:06:04] I knew what you meant. Ooh, it's still, to me, one flight. And I might have done myself in by buying a 40-ounce tank for the… Because you're going to fill that on Tuesday and fly all week.

[00:06:16] Yeah, until next Tuesday without having to put any fuel on it. So, that's one flight.

[00:06:20] It, to me, is still…

[00:06:23] Okay. So, I should buy…

[00:06:25] Unless we want to try and figure out, like…

[00:06:27] This is why he has 15,000 milliamp packs. Yeah. Hey, what if… Okay, here's a what if. So, the Dave Patrick Ultimate is capable, let's say, of… Well, the Cub, my big Cub, is capable of flying 30 minutes on that tank of fuel. Yeah. I stop at 10 minutes and top the tank off. Is that a flight? Even though the tank is not empty, I top it off.

[00:06:53] Is that a flight? Oh, I do that all the time. I never drain my tanks.

[00:06:56] I would be more apt to call that a flight, yeah.

[00:06:59] So, then, one could, in theory, go up, fly for two minutes, land, put some fuel in the tank, and call that a flight.

[00:07:08] See, the point is not to game the system. I mean, there's a bit of an honor code, I think, because, really, what does it matter? How many flights we get? They're toys. To me, it's just trying to keep track of what you flew for the year and make sure it's more than the year before. So, if you want to try and figure that, let's call a flight for longer duration aircraft 10 minutes, then whatever you want to be.

[00:07:38] I think 10 minutes is a fair number on an airplane that's capable of flying for longer than that.

[00:07:42] On an average airplane, 10 minutes is about a normal flight. But, yeah. I mean, I would think so.

[00:07:48] I don't know. Some of your smaller electrics, which is what we fly a lot of recently, they're not going to reach, like, I can't fly 10 minutes with my Electrostreak. Which is why. Which, by the way, flies awesome.

[00:08:01] Hold on. Which is why I said average. Well, yeah. As in you have planes that'll fly for 30 minutes, and you have other planes that'll fly for three minutes.

[00:08:09] I would be more comfortable with, like, an eight-minute average. Oh.

[00:08:14] Honestly. 10 is so much easier, because it's an even number.

[00:08:17] Okay.

[00:08:18] It doesn't matter. I was not planning on talking about that at all for that length of time.

[00:08:23] It's good to have that, out there early in the year, so we're not gaming the system at the end of the year to try to make numbers.

[00:08:31] Well, and I've said that before, too.

[00:08:32] And really, the numbers really only matter to you. Not to me. Well, yeah, because you're the one that set the goal. You wanted to fly however much.

[00:08:38] Oh, yeah. Like, my numbers matter to me, but your numbers don't matter to me.

[00:08:42] No. And my numbers don't really matter to me, either. My numbers don't matter to me. So there you go. It only matters to you, so you decide.

[00:08:49] You guys don't even have to count. I am going to know.

[00:08:52] Well, I just want to know.

[00:08:53] Just because I'm in the same boat, I want to know.

[00:08:54] Actually, for me, days out flying means more to me than how many times I flew. Because usually, if I'm a day out flying, say, with you guys, like, on a Saturday, usually equates, on average, I'm going to say about six. Six to ten. Flights. Because I'll take a couple of airplanes, three sometimes, maybe, and fly them each twice, maybe.

[00:09:16] Yeah.

[00:09:16] So, to me, days out flying is more indicative of a good year or a bad year than the actual number of flights. Because I could game the system at home, too. Like, I could take my little P-51 out over to the school and fly. Oh, I got two flights in today. Okay. what I mean? Like, you can fly here at the house.

[00:09:36] Yeah, but I don't consider that gaming the system because you actually went and flew a battery through an airplane.

[00:09:40] Yeah, but that's not meaningful to me. Like, that doesn't indicate whether I had a good year of hobby involvement or not. what I'm saying?

[00:09:49] Of the fun side of things. I get what you're saying. Yes. There's less community doing it that way. Yeah. See, I would much prefer… But for me… Go on.

[00:09:57] Personally, I would much prefer going to the field with my friends and flying with my friends and cutting up and doing all the things that we enjoy doing together. Rather than to go out and fly by myself just for the sake of flying.

[00:10:10] It's like my Blade CX. I didn't record that. I've flown five batteries for my Blade CX in my workroom in the last week. I don't record any of those flights.

[00:10:19] I get it. But to me, the number of flights also equates how much time I get to spend really flying, how much stick time I get, and how much I can improve based on that stick time.

[00:10:31] Do you record simulator time as stick time? I don't. No.

[00:10:36] Well, so much for that topic.

[00:10:38] Yeah. Okay.

[00:10:39] Not expecting that.

[00:10:40] Well, I think we've all agreed to basically just disagree. The numbers don't really matter to us so much as they do to you. And because it depends on your goal for the year. Yeah. Really.

[00:10:50] My goal is to fly more than last year.

[00:10:52] So I'm okay with recording flights the way I record flights. And Dave's probably okay with recording flights the way he records flights.

[00:10:58] There is no right answer. Only whatever works for you. Exactly.

[00:11:05] Good. Okay. Moving on.

[00:11:07] So same day that we were talking about before. Yes. We all did get some flights, but I'll still bring out, Dave. I don't remember.

[00:11:14] All I had was the Comet and the Electrostreak.

[00:11:19] Yeah. Which we're going to cover the Electrostreak in more detail. Well, when I get my. After Ron gets his started.

[00:11:27] I really thought it was done. I thought it was in the stealth camo. Oh, God.

[00:11:33] Because we can't see it. Because I can't see it. Yeah. I know. But yeah. Dave brought his Electrostreak out and maidened it successfully.

[00:11:41] Yes.

[00:11:42] Somewhat disappointed. I flew mine also.

[00:11:44] And like, like I've posted, I've never been so happy with an airplane and so disappointed at the same time. Yeah.

[00:11:51] Yeah. We were expecting more.

[00:11:53] Oh, a lot more. Yeah. But anyway, not to belabor that.

[00:11:56] What else? What would you.

[00:11:58] No, you guys can talk about that for a little bit. I just have nothing to say until.

[00:12:01] Well.

[00:12:02] I finish mine. Which I will be done by the end of winter. By the. The problem is you will be gone. Yeah.

[00:12:10] Well.

[00:12:11] So we'll. That'll probably be. Probably one of the first episodes in April. By the time we actually get around to talking about and actually talk Electrostreak builds.

[00:12:21] Well, Dave will be here. You guys can cover it without me.

[00:12:24] No, we need to all.

[00:12:25] Since we all did it. Okay. I think.

[00:12:26] Fair enough. Yeah. Which that reminds me. We received a message on Facebook today. Oh, okay. Asking about the build logs. Oh, yeah. Because it was. Yeah. Bernard Adderley said something about the. The build logs don't have a lot of content on them. Yeah. Which that's because I haven't built anything. So I have nothing to add. And honestly, I have not looked at the build logs on that because it seems like most of the guys that are doing it like to be on discord.

[00:12:56] So we have a lot of, I would say a lot more going on on discord. Yes. So if you want to follow along with other people that are building stuff, join discord. And that's probably going to be where you're going to see more. I don't want to say information, but more goings on.

[00:13:11] Yeah. But I have vowed, now that my electro streak is finished, I have vowed to go ahead and put that on our website on the.

[00:13:20] As a build log. Yeah. As a build log. And we'll get one for Dave too. He said he took like three pictures.

[00:13:25] He took like three pictures. Yeah. I have one. We'll get his three pictures and his build brief. And, and I'll, I'll put my, I'll work on that over this weekend.

[00:13:33] So I'm sorry. I get building and I just forget to take pictures.

[00:13:36] Yeah, I know. I totally get it. Cause I, same thing. I like, once I get in the, in the zone, I don't even think about stopping to take a picture of what I'm working on. But I did a pretty good job with my electro streak. So I'll, I'll put that out there and I'll owe that to you guys.

[00:13:50] Good. And then I'll do the same whenever,.

[00:13:53] Well, yeah. When you get started.

[00:13:55] When I get mine going.

[00:13:57] To be fair. To be fair. To be fair. You did actually start. I mean, you have your pieces cut and you do have. There's stuff glued together. The beginnings of a wing panel. So.

[00:14:09] Very little. Well, but I mean. Not nearly what I expected to be done by now.

[00:14:12] Well, to be fair. To be fair. To be fair. You have also been sick.

[00:14:17] I.

[00:14:18] I don't know if you wanted to talk about that.

[00:14:20] Oh, it doesn't matter. Or it doesn't bother me. I haven't been. Well, I don't call that sick.

[00:14:23] There is less of you now.

[00:14:25] So I had an emergency. What's the. Oh, my God. I'm still under the effects, by the. If anybody thinks I sound stupid, it's because I kind of am. I'm still.

[00:14:36] I still feel the effects. No, you're not stupid.

[00:14:38] I still feel the effects of the anesthesia. Thank you, Dave. My gallbladder has now been removed from my body. Didn't lose a lot of weight, like I was hoping. Because I don't know how much those weigh. But. he's missing more parts than I am now by count. He's missing three. I mean. Well, that's true. How many bones did you lose? If we want to talk about your knee, your leg. I lost 65 pounds. Yeah. I didn't even get. Mine's like ounces. It doesn't even count.

[00:15:05] That sucks. So. But no. So my voice is still. Doesn't feel to me like it's back to normal.

[00:15:13] It sounds normal. But I'm sure to you. To feel. Okay.

[00:15:15] Yeah.

[00:15:16] Well, it sounds weird to me.

[00:15:17] So. It takes a while for that stuff to get out of your system.

[00:15:19] Yeah.

[00:15:19] I've been sleeping a lot.

[00:15:20] Yeah. So anyway, you had the gallbladder removed.

[00:15:23] So that is what it is.

[00:15:24] And you've been home recovering. But to me. And you had not had time to do the stuff you wanted to do.

[00:15:28] A lot of sleep.

[00:15:29] So yeah. It takes time to recover.

[00:15:31] I've seen a lot of inside of my eyelids. But anyway. So yes. Before that happened. I did slowly get a start on it. Piper helped me glue the sides together. Because. Awesome. I.

[00:15:42] Used the laser cutter to make your fuselage.

[00:15:45] Which you guys were mad at me when you walked in. I don't understand that.

[00:15:48] Mad is such a strong word.

[00:15:50] But correct one for this. Sadly.

[00:15:54] It does look beautiful though. I love the design you did.

[00:15:58] Well, it's not.

[00:15:59] It's going to look really good too.

[00:15:59] So the whole reason is I was, to me this is to replace the shiny. Yep. And the shiny has the cutouts in the side to let the light shine through. And so that is what I have. Yes. Done with this. So I use falcata for the sides and bottom. And that's all the farther I've gotten. Just the sides and bottoms glued together. For the fuselage. Sorry. Yeah. For the fuselage. And then that has the lightning holes in it. Which gives me the ability to get light through.

[00:16:32] One that yells at us about turning off our phones.

[00:16:34] It's always his phone that goes off too.

[00:16:36] In my defense, I am still under the influence. Boggy. Yeah. So it's the drugs.

[00:16:43] It's always the drugs. Yeah. He's going to blame it on the drugs.

[00:16:45] Because I can, gentlemen. Okay.

[00:16:48] So yeah. So Dave flew the… Oh, I'm sorry. No, go on. Something further.

[00:16:51] Well, I was going to talk more about that day that we fly.

[00:16:53] The comet and the electric streak. And what did you take to fly?

[00:16:55] I actually took a bunch that I had to write down because I don't remember. The Lazy Bee. Mm-hmm. The Erratics, the Twin Otter, and the UMX Ultrix. Yeah. You flew a lot that day. I did. I was happy for you.

[00:17:08] I was very proud of you. Because normally, times pass, you come out to the field and maybe you'll fly once and you get very nervous. But you are…

[00:17:17] That comes with flying more.

[00:17:18] You are overcoming that, which I'm very happy to see.

[00:17:20] Like I said, that comes with flying more. You don't…

[00:17:22] Flying while other people are flying, you're getting more comfortable.

[00:17:25] And it helps that the people that were there were people that I consider friends. Yeah. That,… You trust. You're still able to… Yeah. You're not worried about where they're going to land as opposed to… Yeah. So how was the Lazy Bee? I was going to say, can we talk about the bee?

[00:17:40] Yeah.

[00:17:40] Feel free. I'm… That one is…

[00:17:43] That required a lot of work from you, too.

[00:17:46] That…

[00:17:47] Like to get that…

[00:17:47] Have you ever balanced an airplane with an adjustable wrench? Did I get that wrench back? Yeah. I got it back. Yes. You got it back. Gosh. So come to find out, it looks like the bee was a little bit tail heavy.

[00:17:59] Yeah. I balanced it. We were talking about, I think, a couple episodes ago that I got it finished and balanced. And it was balancing right on that spar. Apparently, it needs to be a little farther forward than that.

[00:18:08] About an adjustable wrench worth. Well, what else did we put up there? There was an adjustable wrench and something else. There were two things that we…

[00:18:15] Oh, you put something else in there? Yeah.

[00:18:16] Oh, I thought my wrench was it.

[00:18:18] No, it was your wrench and I think a screwdriver. Yeah, we had something else jammed in there.

[00:18:21] But anyway, that made it fly much better. But I'm going to be honest, that plane is just not for me. And you fixed the push rods. Fixed the push rods, yeah. But it's just not for me.

[00:18:33] Center of gravity and some control throw changes, I think, really made it fly much better.

[00:18:39] It did. Yeah. Yeah, you let me fly it. It was definitely better than the first time you let me fly.

[00:18:44] All right, so here's the thing, though. You were flying it and you decided to start bashing it around with this adjustable wrench that was just loose in the nose.

[00:18:51] He's pointing to Tommy, by the way. He forgot that it was just loose in there.

[00:18:56] Well, to be fair…

[00:18:57] To be fair.

[00:18:57] I did push it in hard, by the way.

[00:18:59] Well, I thought, if you're going to put an object, a random object in the front of an airplane, at least secure it. Don't just lay it in there. And I'm assuming, Dave is a pretty experienced, RC guy, and you're fairly experienced as well. Well… I knew you guys wouldn't just leave it laying in there, so I figured…

[00:19:17] He did jam it in there.

[00:19:18] Okay, so I figured it was safe to, not wring it out, but…

[00:19:23] It was… You did more than I would have. However, we did know that it flew.

[00:19:27] Yeah.

[00:19:28] And there was no way for the wrenches to go farther back. Yeah. So they couldn't have gone into the actual fuselage based on how I have the firewall and the battery tray and all that set up. There just wasn't enough room for it to go back. The only thing that could have happened is it could have come out through the battery hatch and just fallen out.

[00:19:42] Yeah, so then we've got… So we're back to where we were before. Which is flyable.

[00:19:47] Yeah. Just not nearly as well.

[00:19:50] So this adjustable wrench is not the worst thing I've ever seen in those of an airplane to balance it. Back in the 80s… Back in the 80s when we were… I was still learning, and we had a guy out there… He had an airplane, and he ended up crashing it. And he had bought it at a swap meet and didn't take too much attention to it. When we went to pick up the trash, he had multiple live 45 rounds jammed in the nose of it.

[00:20:15] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:16] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:16] Well, I mean… That way it can go out with a bang. Live rounds with a bang. Primers, everything. Yeah.

[00:20:20] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I told you this one had a whole bunch of heavy bolts epoxied in the front of it. But it was crashed when I got it. Yeah. So I had to… I mean, like…

[00:20:30] And who knows what may have been removed before you got it.

[00:20:32] Well, right. And I had so much that I had to rebuild. And I mean, it's probably better now than it was before, because I put two hatches in. Nice laser-cut hatches. Yeah, it looks really good. That have the magnetic holders or whatever the…

[00:20:46] I'm sorry you're giving up on it.

[00:20:48] Well, I'm just… It's not… I'm glad I bought it, because I've always wanted one.

[00:20:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:55] But it just does not fly as well as I wanted it to. And it's good to have the experience and move on and get something. This is part of what I was saying when I was wanting to hone my collection. Mm-hmm. Yes. That just doesn't… It doesn't fit….cite me enough to keep it. I gotcha.

[00:21:10] Well, don't let it go too far.

[00:21:13] Well, if you're interested, we can figure something out.

[00:21:16] So it may or may not be going to Toledo.

[00:21:19] It won't go to Toledo anymore.

[00:21:20] Back from whence it came.

[00:21:21] I think it will go to Brian's before Toledo. Oh, I gotcha. Or apparently Dave or Daniel. Or someone… We'll see what it can work out. Yeah.

[00:21:29] Okay.

[00:21:29] It's a good-looking airplane. I mean…

[00:21:31] It is. I like the looks of it. And I actually don't hate the way it flies. Like, I didn't… I mean, it was kind of fun to fly. I definitely don't like the split elevator thing.

[00:21:40] It's a really good, calm, warm weather evening. Just float around just before dark.

[00:21:46] Yeah. And I have gliders for that. Like, actual gliders. So to me, it's not a necessity. It's superfluous. Yes. It's one that I do not mind losing to make room for more.

[00:22:01] So what else did you fly?

[00:22:03] The Erratix. Put several batteries through that. I know you don't like that one. And I get it. But it is a fun airplane as a practice airplane. It's just… It's dead simple. Just throw it up in the air.

[00:22:15] I like the fact that you flew it a lot. Mm-hmm. Like you… I mean, just the fact that you put a lot of flights… I don't know if I got…

[00:22:21] No matter what the airplane… Six or something on that one? Yeah, it was several. That's quite a bit, yeah. So I'm just happy that you're flying. Because I had a battery charger with me and everything, and we're charging them there. Yeah.

[00:22:29] And yeah.

[00:22:30] So… And then the Twin Otter. We had a little bit of issues with the CG on that one, too. Yeah. That one… Mm-hmm. It's much better now. A little nose-heavy for the factory. So I set it right where they said to set it from eFlight. And that is apparently a little too nose-heavy for…

[00:22:47] Very conservative.

[00:22:49] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:50] To the point where it was a little hot landing.

[00:22:52] Yeah, yeah. Well, and see, it was weird because it'll fly on a 3S2200… Yeah, 3S2200 or 3S3200 mAh battery. I had 2S2200 because that's what I got for Piper's AeroScout. It was very… Like, to get it to actually balance with that, I had to put three ounces of weight in the nose.

[00:23:15] So we took out, I think, an ounce and a half of that. I was going to say, did you take about half of that out?

[00:23:20] Yeah. I took one side out. So that would have been an ounce and a half. And I think I could probably, honestly, take the rest of it out if I had more time to kind of play around with it.

[00:23:27] I think it flew much, much nicer without that extra nose.

[00:23:30] Oh, for sure. I was much happier. The flare was prettier. Yeah. It just landed slower. Yeah.

[00:23:34] More like it should. It had a nice stall-style landing to it. Yep. Yeah.

[00:23:38] So, yes.

[00:23:39] That one is going to Joe Null. Yeah.

[00:23:41] It's a… Like, you let me fly that one, and that one is kind of fun to fly. Yeah. It sounds cool, too.

[00:23:46] I know.

[00:23:47] Like, with the twin motors, I think it sounds cool.

[00:23:49] It's a good-looking airplane. Like, I am so glad I got it.

[00:23:50] I'm not sure how I feel about the stripes on the props.

[00:23:53] I'm… The zebra props are not my thing.

[00:23:55] Yeah, I don't…

[00:23:56] I like them, but… Okay, so I like them. I like the right one more than I like the left one, because the right one is actually, like, perfectly lined up with the paint. The left one, you could tell one of them is off, because when it spins… It jiggles. It's not… Yeah, it's not like that perfect, sharp line going around that the other one has. We have paint.

[00:24:17] Well, I shouldn't have… It's not like I don't like them. I don't love them, but I don't not like them either. Does that make any sense?

[00:24:25] So here's how I look at them. If I got them plain, I would not paint them. I would not put the stripes on. If I got them with the stripes, I'm not going to paint them to make them the other way. Like, I like it, but not enough to actually make it so on my own.

[00:24:38] Makes me wonder, does the real one, like the full-size one, does it like that? Yeah, I've seen a couple photos. Oh, does it?

[00:24:43] Okay. It might be limited to one or two.

[00:24:45] To me, it makes it… I mean, I know it's a toy, but it makes it look like a toy to me. Oh, really? Yeah, I don't…

[00:24:53] I think it's because these things are used as small commuter airplanes and ambush mules and that type of stuff. And so they want the high visibility on the props. And those zebra props stripes do make it look…

[00:25:02] They're definitely high-vis. You definitely see them.

[00:25:04] Which I like.

[00:25:04] It's definitely a safety thing, but… Yeah. But it flies good. It does. So I'm excited for that. But I was listening to the most recent episode of the RC Roundtable podcast, and they were talking about they are all… Well, not Terry, because I guess Terry's a stick in the mud. But the other two… Sorry, Terry. But the other two…

[00:25:24] Ron is on drugs, so pay no attention to what he says.

[00:25:27] I'm actually not. I'm still coming down from the high. But anyway, no, so they are going to Jono also. And apparently, Lee is going to be bringing his airplane that is the same as mine. Oh, cool. So I guess last year… Dueling twin otters. Yeah. That'd be fun. So I guess last year he flew one of our mutual listeners' airplanes, Jeff Arsenault. One of his friends was up there, and I guess that Lee Ray was flying the twin otter and really liked it.

[00:25:55] So he got his own, and apparently now…

[00:25:58] Are you guys both going to fly them off floats then, off the pond?

[00:26:01] I would assume so. I didn't actually catch that if he said what he was doing on his there, but it'll be pretty cool. Yeah, that will be cool. So speaking of the RC Roundtable podcast, the other thing that gets me… So Terry, he has a knack for getting airplanes that I like. Unique airplanes, I would say. I love unique airplanes.

[00:26:19] So he ended up going last, it doesn't matter when, in the last month, to a swap meet, his local swap meet, and he ended up coming home with a Fliver, Ford Fliver. Ford Fliver. Arf. I did not even know they made him.

[00:26:35] A Fliver Arf, huh?

[00:26:37] I don't… I had one in the shop back in the day.

[00:26:40] A Fliver Arf?

[00:26:41] Yeah. Who made it? I can't remember. Off the top of my head. Somebody brought it in and sold it as a consignment.

[00:26:45] Oh. He said, but I didn't, I don't remember, because the old names don't mean anything to me.

[00:26:50] So it's the blue and silver with the three-cylinder radial. That's awesome.

[00:26:55] Be a perfect candidate for a Sato 90 three-cylinder. Also be a perfect electric candidate. Yeah. And I remember what he said, it was like a 70-inch wingspan. So it's a good size one. It's a good size one.

[00:27:03] Yeah.

[00:27:04] It's not a small one. So, and that was several years ago, we went up to the Henry Ford Museum, and they had one of those up there, which I, seeing that was one that I have always in the back of my mind thought that would be a good build. something just to find plans for and do a stick build with. So that's one day. That's something I plan on doing. One day.

[00:27:27] The seed has been planted.

[00:27:29] Many, many years ago. Yeah. But it looks very simple. I mean, there's not much to it.

[00:27:33] It doesn't look like it would be a terribly complicated build. Yeah. So. Neither did a trimotor.

[00:27:40] So, can we go back to our flying day and maybe some erratics going, whoomp?

[00:27:44] Oh, no, that was the Ulteryx. The erratics.

[00:27:47] Not erratics.

[00:27:48] I forgot about that.

[00:27:49] He was getting to that. It was fun. I mean, so. We, okay. I have a problem.

[00:28:00] It's the first step. Admitting it.

[00:28:03] No. So, we were flying our, the UMX Ulteryx. They are. Oh, my gosh. They're just so much fun. Such good, fun, dumb, fun airplanes. Mm-hmm. And I don't even know how it got started. Well, I do. Okay. Then tell it, because I don't.

[00:28:19] So, I think you accidentally dove at the ground and realized you were diving at the ground and pulled up, like, at the last minute while I was flying. I was also flying my Ulteryx. And I saw that out of the corner of my eye. And I think I said something to the effect of, oh, my God, Ron, I thought you had crashed. And you were giggling. And you thought, I thought I had, too. And then that sort of turned into, hey, let's see who can, who can, like, wait the longest.

[00:28:43] Dive at the ground and pull out at the last minute. Let's see who can win. You won three times.

[00:28:47] No.

[00:28:48] Just two seconds later. Whoop.

[00:28:51] Okay. So, I will say, I was farther away than I thought, which means the ground was higher than I thought. So, I thought I was pretty much over the runway. And I was just going to go straight. And so, I was also going full throttle dives straight to the ground. I mean, why wouldn't you? Well, you have to have the thrust to pull out, right? Exactly. And third, I believe. I remember right. The first few times we did it, we were 20 feet off the ground or something like that.

[00:29:15] Oh, yeah, we weren't even close. No, I mean, not even enough to make me pucker. So, yeah, I went ahead and, I mean, full throttle.

[00:29:24] You embraced the challenge. I did. All the way to the ground. All the way to the ground.

[00:29:29] I mean, what am I out? Like, honestly, like, if you crash and mess that whole airplane up, it's $35 for the airframe.

[00:29:35] You did it three times or twice? Twice. Twice. No, thrice.

[00:29:39] Yeah, I think you did. I broke propellers twice.

[00:29:42] You broke two propellers and then just dunked them. So, three times. Yeah. And there is not a wrinkle on the airframe except for a little bit on the nose.

[00:29:48] Well.

[00:29:49] I mean, to be fair.

[00:29:50] It did break the nose. it was coming off. I had to re-tape it. But the biggest problem with it now is just the color of the airplane. It is now dirt color. Because it was into the mud. And it actually went into the mud pretty far. Yeah. But they're very durable. Yeah, very.

[00:30:08] And making an amazingly loud noise when they hit the ground.

[00:30:11] Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a very unique sound when an Alteryx hits the ground at full throttle, like, diving nose first. It's a, yeah, it's a, it's a very distinct.

[00:30:23] It was so much fun. I mean, like, I don't think I've had that much flying. I giggled a lot.

[00:30:27] Had that much fun flying.

[00:30:28] Yeah.

[00:30:28] In years.

[00:30:30] And you broke the same prop twice. Yeah, that part sucked. Because I had to buy new props. I got new props, by the way. I just haven't put them on yet.

[00:30:36] Well, it comes with props, extra props, Ben. Yes.

[00:30:38] Through those. I, it came with two spares for that side. And, yeah. Well, I, I didn't even, like, I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't paying attention to the fact that they are specific to each side. Like, each motor is counter-rotating. So, I just pulled one off, the broken one, and then put the new one on. And I, I'm glad I didn't. But, I almost, like, threw it. Because that was the other thing we were doing.

[00:30:59] We were literally just, like, throwing them like a Frisbee and seeing if we could take off. Which didn't always work.

[00:31:04] No.

[00:31:05] So, this time, I actually was just going to hold it and let it go out of my hand. Well, I didn't feel any, I didn't feel any wind from one of the propellers. So, it was the wrong propeller. So, it would have just, it would have been bad. Well, I guess not that bad.

[00:31:18] I don't know. Because. What would the AF-3X have done? It would have been interesting to see what it would have done.

[00:31:23] It would have sped that motor up to try and bring it around.

[00:31:26] It still wouldn't have enough thrust. It wouldn't fly.

[00:31:29] Well, no. Because it was, the, the, the one propeller was pushing the air forward as opposed to behind. So, the AF-3X would try and speed it up to bring it back into yaw.

[00:31:42] Yeah. But, it would also try to slow the other motor down, right?

[00:31:44] Yeah. It would crank the, the inefficient motor up. And it would slow the other one down.

[00:31:50] That would do a, awesome, like, flat. But it wouldn't fly, though. It would just go right. It wouldn't have enough force power. Like a Frisbee and then watch it until.

[00:31:58] Yeah. Yeah. But that's, no, it was, it was a bunch of fun. One through two propellers, like I said.

[00:32:03] We also found out it will not fly very well without any vertical fins.

[00:32:07] Yeah. So, I, I took the fins and left them off of mine just to see if the AF-3X would, and it flew, what, for about 15 seconds?

[00:32:15] You flew around for a little while.

[00:32:17] And it was weird. Yeah. It was very weird. It was kind of mushy. Yeah. And finally, it, crashed.

[00:32:22] I think the AF-3X said, screw it.

[00:32:24] Yeah. Not a wrinkle on it. They are very durable. They are.

[00:32:27] Well, they're so light. I mean, it's packaging foam and it's light. How can you go wrong?

[00:32:33] And so much fun. I recommend everybody have one of these and about two batteries because the batteries charge in like 10 minutes.

[00:32:40] Yeah. They charge pretty quick depending on what charger you have. And they're only five bucks a piece. Yeah. So, I think I have four.

[00:32:46] Loads.

[00:32:46] I think I have four too.

[00:32:47] You don't even need a big, and you can fly them at night because they put lights in them if you want to.

[00:32:52] Well, that's expensive.

[00:32:53] Well, but I mean, it's worth it. Yeah. Especially if all the lights work.

[00:32:58] Yeah. I forgot your afterburner lights don't. And those are very, like, I would consider those necessary to be able to tell. Well, if you're going to fly at night, yeah. Yeah. To be able to tell if it's coming at you or flying away from you. Yeah.

[00:33:12] Because the lights and the wing tips, yeah, they have a similar pattern top and bottom. So. Yeah. Yeah. Good times. All right.

[00:33:20] So, how did you straight fly?

[00:33:21] Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It flew great. I was very happy with how it flew. I was a little disappointed in the speed. Like, I mean, I wasn't expecting near what you were expecting, but overall, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. So, I was concerned about the plans. What's it called? Decollage? Yeah. I think that's what they call that. the relationship of the angle of attack of the stab to the wing. Yeah.

[00:33:50] You guys were talking about that being off a little bit.

[00:33:52] And, yeah, I don't know if it was, for whatever the reason, it was probably my build technique, but mine was off a little bit, so I had to adjust it and make sure that they were zero, zero, meaning the wing incidence is a zero degrees in relation to the datum, the horizontal datum line, and so is the stab. And I didn't know if it was supposed to be zero, because on my plans, they were off a little bit. It was like one or two degrees difference.

[00:34:18] So, I built mine zero, zero, and that turned out to be a non-issue, because it flies fine. Mine was fine as well. Yeah, and yours was perfect, so.

[00:34:24] Yeah. They're forgiving, which is good to know. Yeah, they're very forgiving. Very forgiving.

[00:34:29] I needed, like, almost no trim. It needed, like, two or three clicks of aileron.

[00:34:34] Yeah, I think, yeah, I think I added a little bit of downtrim and maybe a little, but, yeah,

[00:34:39] A little bit of aileron, but not much, if any. And mine was at 399.9999 feet in a couple seconds.

[00:34:46] Yeah. Yeah, the climb out on yours, the amount of vertical acceleration yours has is impressive.

[00:34:54] But I think the horizontal is not that much different than yours.

[00:34:57] Unfortunately, the speed is.

[00:34:59] But they're both very docile.

[00:35:01] Oh, yeah.

[00:35:02] Very easy to fly. So, anybody who's building one, fear not. Do not be scared of them, and you're going to come out underweight, no matter what you

[00:35:09] Do. Yeah, I mean, you have to be adding a lot of stuff for them to come out heavy.

[00:35:15] Just watch your tail.

[00:35:16] Yeah, just try to keep the weight out of the tail, so you don't have to add any weight to the nose, because a lighter plane would fly even better. Yeah. And ours fly great, so.

[00:35:24] Which concerns me, because you guys have bigger motors than I was planning on putting in, so I'm probably going to have to put quite a bit of weight up. Build your tail light. Well, that's, I mean, I'm putting LEDs in it, so that's going to add a little bit of weight, too. Yeah. We'll figure it out.

[00:35:37] It'll carry the weight. Yeah.

[00:35:39] I mean, after hearing you guys, I'm sure it will, but watching them fly, they look just

[00:35:45] Like, oh, and that's what I wanted to mention, having flown your shiny, and, God, I'm sorry, guys, having flown your shiny, and, and the shiny is the reason we have these now. If it weren't for your shiny, we would not have built these. Is that fair to say?

[00:36:01] Absolutely.

[00:36:02] I agree. So, having flown the shiny, and now having flown my Electrostreak, like, it feels like the same airplane. Like, in the air, granted, I have a rudder on the Electrostreak, and the shiny doesn't.

[00:36:16] Which the shiny does not, yeah.

[00:36:17] But even flying with the rudder, the plane feels just like the shiny. I mean, it really, even though the dimensions are not exactly the same, they're very, very close. Close enough. Yeah, it flies just like the shiny, which is a good thing, because that's why we did it.

[00:36:34] Yeah. And I'm going to be happy that there's a rudder. Yeah.

[00:36:39] Because it… Yeah, you'll like it, because it'll make hammerheads and stuff like that that you can't do with the shiny that you can.

[00:36:43] Well, I mean, not only that, but control and landing, coming down is just nice to have actual yawks.

[00:36:49] It tracks really nice. It almost tracks like a mini pattern plane.

[00:36:53] Yeah.

[00:36:54] Well, and that's how the shiny flies.

[00:36:55] Yeah. The shiny flies that way, too. The shiny flies is great. I'm going to miss it. I can't wait to turn my lights on at night, though. Yeah. See how that turns out.

[00:37:02] I hope it's bright. Me too. Like, I really hope… It's bright in the basement, so we'll see. We need to pull… I didn't even think you should have brought that over, and we could compare it to the actual shiny. Just turn the lights off, and just to see what the difference in lighting is. Because we know what that one looks like at night. Yeah.

[00:37:19] That's true. Yep. Anyway. Yeah, maybe next time. But yeah, I flew the shiny, flew the Ultrix, and I think that was all I… Did I fly anything else that day? Oh, I had that blue Toledo special that flies awesome.

[00:37:32] That thing is just ridiculous. That was what, $40?

[00:37:35] $40. Something stupid like that? Ready to fly. Like, add a receiver and put a new receiver battery in it, and that's all I've done to it. Yep. And it flies.

[00:37:43] It's not pretty, but man, it flies.

[00:37:45] No, it's not pretty. It's not a…

[00:37:46] It is pretty, though. I mean, it's…

[00:37:48] You like it?

[00:37:48] I love the shape of it. That was one that I like so much, I offered, if you decided to get rid of it, that I would be one to make it into electric. Yeah.

[00:37:57] But I'm not… I don't want to do that anymore. If I do anything with it, I'll recover it eventually, and try to make it prettier. Because I disagree. I don't think it's pretty at all.

[00:38:05] See, I think what I like about it, and whatever, make fun of me, the shape of the canopy reminds me of…

[00:38:13] It's an X-Wing. The Cybertruck.

[00:38:16] Oh.

[00:38:16] It looks like an X-Wing canopy.

[00:38:18] Kind of. Yeah.

[00:38:19] Yeah, I could see that.

[00:38:20] I don't watch any of that stuff. Was that Star Trek or Star Wars? Yeah. Star Wars.

[00:38:25] No, you're right. I could see… Yeah, that shape definitely does look X-Wing-ish. To me, it looks like a… Not to derail the conversation, but to me, it looks like a mix between a HOTS and a Great Plains fun one.

[00:38:37] Yeah, there's definitely some HOTS in there.

[00:38:39] It's like a weird…

[00:38:40] I don't see a lot of fun one in it.

[00:38:41] Yeah. Do you really? Yeah, a little. Yeah. But anyway, you've got one. We'll set them side by side one day, and you'll see. But the fun one has a tapered wing. Yeah. I think it's got more HOTS in it. Yeah. I don't think this was a kit. I think this was… This is plans or scratch. Oh, yeah.

[00:38:57] The way the canopy goes on and all that kind of stuff does not look kit or ARF to me at all.

[00:39:04] Anyway.

[00:39:04] And I think Dave is right, too, that they built it upside down, and that's probably why…

[00:39:09] Why the control horns or the servos are on the top of the wing instead of the bottom. I think you're probably right.

[00:39:13] Yeah. I think somebody had their plans upside down.

[00:39:16] Probably. But, yeah, whatever. Still good flying airplanes. At least they don't get caught in the grass that way, right? Yeah. So stay nice and clean. Yeah.

[00:39:22] I don't know. But a good-looking airplane, nonetheless.

[00:39:24] And it flies awesome.

[00:39:25] Anyway.

[00:39:25] So, anyway, yeah, good day. See? Yeah. Good day in February. We all got lots of flights in. I got a sunburn. Yeah, and Dave got a sunburn.

[00:39:33] It's so odd. My skin felt weird. Are you that fair-skinned? Actually, one of the drugs I take makes me photosensitive.

[00:39:40] Oh. So no pictures. Mm-hmm. Is that… That's not what I mean. I'm funny, guys. Just let it be. Come on.

[00:39:47] I was trying so hard not to laugh. It was kind of funny.

[00:39:50] There's no comeback from that. I was trying.

[00:39:53] Okay. What else? You have… We have a few listener emails. Because we didn't have a lot to talk about on this episode. Well, we've actually talked quite a bit more. We've been going for like 40 minutes so far. Yeah. But we can get through some listener…

[00:40:07] Yeah. I've got a few here that I'll go ahead and read. This one comes from Chris. He says, I just found out your pod… I just found your podcast recently and I've really been enjoying it. Thank you. Thanks for the great content. You're welcome. I do have a quick question. You've mentioned Brian's place several times recently. What and where is this hobby shop? He says he tried to Google hobby shops around Illinois, but he can't seem to find this unicorn.

[00:40:33] He says it sounds like a place he needs to visit. I agree. It definitely is.

[00:40:37] It is kind of a unicorn.

[00:40:39] He says, thanks and keep up the great podcast. I agree. It is a unicorn. But what we're talking about is Dynamic Balsa. That is the name of the hobby shop when we talk about going up to Brian's place. That's where we're going. It's in a very, very small town of Leonor.

[00:40:54] It's a green bin, a post office, a bar, and a hobby shop.

[00:40:58] There are more RC airplanes in Leonor than there are people. Because I think there's 350 is what the sign says for Leonor. Yeah. There's a…

[00:41:07] Yeah. Yeah. For sure. It's just west of Streeter, Illinois. Yeah.

[00:41:11] Yeah. 15 minutes, maybe 10, 15 minutes.

[00:41:13] It's fairly convenient to almost…

[00:41:17] Nowhere.

[00:41:18] Nowhere. Yeah. I mean… Really? There's… It's a significant drive for us. It's about two hours. It's about an hour, I think, and 20 minutes for folks from, southern Chicago. But it is at least somewhat close. And if you're within a comfortable driving distance, you should definitely check it out. I mean, the place is awesome.

[00:41:44] Yep. It's very much worth it. Which reminds me, do you want to talk about what we're doing with Brian?

[00:41:49] Yeah. I was going to mention that since we're on the subject of Brian. Yeah. Pretty exciting stuff. Brian approached us and asked us if we'd be interested in a collaboration, to which I, of course, said yes. So we are building and going to fly the new Hangar 9 Pawnee Brave 20cc ARF, which is brand new from Horizon. Like they just announced it a few weeks ago. Brian got one in and said, hey, why don't you take this and all the stuff to make it fly? I put it together.

[00:42:19] You can do a build log, do whatever you want to promote the podcast and then fly it for the summer. You guys take turns flying it, fly the bejesus out of it. And then I'll give it away in the hobby shop towards the end of the flying season, September, October or something like that. So, of course, I jumped on the chance to do that since I happened to be there. So, yeah, we're going to put this thing together and fly the bejesus out of it.

[00:42:44] I'll do up a build log and we'll put it on the website. So far, I've already started on it. You're almost finished. Because I was really excited.

[00:42:52] Yeah.

[00:42:53] So far, a pretty decent build. And there's a few notes that I'll make on the build log when we get it up on the website. But yeah, our first collaboration with Dynamic Balsam, I'm really excited about it.

[00:43:04] Yeah. So what do you consider things you will put on the website about it? Like, what have you come across? Do you want to talk about how you built the kit or what?

[00:43:12] Yeah, I'll do like a standard kind of a build log.

[00:43:14] I mean, like on here right now. Do you want to talk about some of the things you've encountered? Oh, sure.

[00:43:18] Yeah, just a few things I've encountered. There's, so the first thing, the ARF comes with LEDs that you install in the wing for landing lights. Cool feature. Very cool. The instructions tell you how to install them into the wing and how to put the lenses over the top. And that's it. The instructions don't really.

[00:43:39] And then they forget about it.

[00:43:40] Like, they don't mention it again. It's like, yeah, they never mention it again, like how to hook them up or how you might make these operational or whatever. So I had to do a little internet research. And then I actually contacted Horizon, which they gave me a really great answer. But LEDs will run off of a three-cell LiPo. So if you're going the electric route, we're going gas. We're going to put a Stinger 20, which is an RCGF, Stinger 20cc on it.

[00:44:05] You already put, you say we're going to, but it's already done. It's done. But yeah, we're not powering it with a LiPo. So I'm going to, I've got a small little three-cell, I think it's a thousand milliamp LiPo that I'll stick in there and I'll put an RC switch. That's what I call them. I'm not sure if that's the actual name. But it's like a relay.

[00:44:23] Yeah, from what you described, it's a relay.

[00:44:25] Yeah, you plug it into a channel on your receiver and I can flip the lights on remotely via my transmitter, which Dave brought up a really good point before we started recording. Apparently, you can take an old servo and turn that into an RC switch, which that's genius, if you ask me. Well, maybe we, I think we should talk about that in a future episode, because I think a lot of people would probably benefit, because I know I have multiple servos at home, but anyway.

[00:44:53] That you don't trust the flying airplane. That I don't trust the flying airplane, but I would certainly trust as a switch, an on-off, simple on-off switch to run some lights.

[00:44:59] In fact, I use something very similar to that to launch the rocket on the 163.

[00:45:05] So there you go. I think that would be a worthy discussion later. But anyway, yeah, so the instructions don't tell you how to operate the lights.

[00:45:12] And they don't have any connectors on it either. There's just bare leads on the very end. Here you go.

[00:45:18] And they're pre-tinned, I guess. So there's that, right? They're what? They're tinned. The end of the leads are tinned.

[00:45:23] Yeah, they're ready to be soldered or something, I guess.

[00:45:24] But who knows what? No mention of how to install them. And then the tail wheel setup is a little, I think they may have misdrilled the holes for the tail wheel bracket mount, because it interferes with the tiller arm on the rudder, which is not good. So I built a little shim to put on there, and I put a little extra bend in the bracket. So that's good. And then, let's see, what was it? Oh, there's a lot of discussion online about the CG, which I'm fairly concerned about.

[00:45:56] A lot of guys that have built them and flown them, they're saying that Horizon is extremely conservative on the CG, and it's very, very nose heavy. So I'm concerned because, that these gas or two-stroke engines are very light in comparison to a comparable size nitro or even an electric motor that has similar output, right? So I'm concerned. I don't want to have to put a lot of lead in the nose to get it to balance at a too far forward CG. what I mean?

[00:46:28] So I don't know. I'm going to wait until I'm completely finished and check the CG and see if I need to add weight. And if I do, I'm going to have to use caution. Because like I said, I don't want a nose heavy airplane. This airplane has flaps, and I think it has so much wing, I think it's going to have a fairly forgiving envelope anyway, and CG, range.

[00:46:51] But that's one thing that, I think we'll need to dial in, and hopefully Horizon got it right in the manual, but we'll see.

[00:47:00] That seems to be a theme, like eFlight and Horizon both, especially with the Twin Otter on that too. Yeah.

[00:47:07] So, I mean, I get it. you want your first flights to be successful, and you're probably better off with a nose heavy airplane than a tail heavy one. I agree. But let's, let's be sensible about it. This airplane has a lot of wing area, and it's a thick airfoil. It's going to be a, it's going to, I think it's going to be a very forgiving airplane. So, and I want to take full advantage of these flaps, man.

[00:47:29] And see, that's the problem. I don't want to like it that much. Like, I really don't want to like this airplane. Right. Because then I got to buy one. Then you have to buy one. And I don't want to buy one.

[00:47:37] When we give this one back to Brian to give away, yeah, maybe, you'll have

[00:47:40] To buy one at that time. Yeah.

[00:47:42] So anyway, yeah, I'm really excited about this collaboration. Thanks, Brian, if you're listening, which I don't think he listens, but if he does. Yeah, he doesn't even know I exist. Thanks. Oh, yes, he does. We talked about you when I was up there to get the airplane.

[00:47:55] Oh, yeah?

[00:47:55] What did you say about him? Well, he wanted me to check on the crankshaft out of Daniels. He goes, so we talked about him, and then, yeah, he mentioned it. So, cool. Okay. But yeah, very excited. Moving on. Is it okay?

[00:48:09] Yeah. Okay. You're driving now.

[00:48:10] I'm done. So here's another email.

[00:48:12] Excuse me.

[00:48:13] This is a, well, actually, this is a message from the Contact Us on our website. This is from Gary. He says, hi, Tom and Ron and Dave. I'm covering my 91-inch DHC-2 Beaver, which I'm not going to.

[00:48:28] Move on.

[00:48:29] I have been able to, I haven't been able to find the Cuprite 21st Century Trim Iron. It's on a lot of sites, but is out of stock or discontinued. I thought I had found one on a site in Texas that turned out to not exist. It was Chinese. Visa credited him the lost cash. Thanks, my goodness. He said, he asks, any suggestions regarding secret sources would be appreciated. Thanks, and keep up the great work.

[00:48:55] Gary, I wish I could tell you that we knew of some secret source that you could still get 21st Century irons, but unfortunately, they are gone. Like, legit gone. The trim irons. Well, any of them. Well, even the regular irons. But the, yeah, but the Cuprite trim iron, the 21st Century trim iron that you're talking about, those are gone. And so, Top Flight and Hangar 9 also used to produce trim irons with the smaller shoe to get in the crevices and stuff. Those also are gone.

[00:49:27] So, other than eBay or maybe getting on RC Group forums or RC Universe or Flying Giants or various RC forums in the classifieds, other than that.

[00:49:40] You're just going to have to get lucky and find one in the swap meet or eBay.

[00:49:43] Now, something that Ron and I had talked about doing, it's been a while ago, Amazon sells edge banding irons. And what these are, these are irons designed to iron on the edges of your countertop, your Formica countertops.

[00:49:59] And they look identical.

[00:50:00] They look absolutely identical to the 21st Century. The nicely shaped ones that we like. Right. And they're digital. Yeah. And that's what this meant. Yeah, for the big ones, not for the trim iron. I'm twisting my fingers like you can…

[00:50:13] Oh, I get it. Well, I'll do this because that's how you change that. That means digital. I'm fake pushing a button because that's digital.

[00:50:19] Anyway, we were considering trying one of those, but then we happened to buy the last remaining 21st Century irons from Brian.

[00:50:28] I think between all of us, we ended up buying like five or six of them. Yeah.

[00:50:31] I have one stashed away, and I think you've got one or two, and I think Bob has one. Anyway, so that would be, in my opinion, that would probably be the closest resemblance to the 21st Century iron. But the trim iron, I don't… You're SOL.

[00:50:48] I think eBay or… I baby my top flight one every time I pull it out. It's like, oh, be careful. Yeah.

[00:50:55] Yeah. Unfortunately, that is a common theme with the RC stuff, with these great tools that we used to have that are now gone. thank goodness Dubrow has brought back the sanding, the shaped sanding bars. Hopefully, another company maybe down the road will pick up, the 21st Century designs for RCUs. But for now, Gary, I'm sorry to say those are a unicorn. See one?

[00:51:22] Snag it.

[00:51:23] Yeah. And see, that's the other thing. Go to swap meets. Yeah. I have one of the 21st Century trim cover iron that is broken, and I just cannot bring myself to throw it away. I keep telling myself, it can't be that hard.

[00:51:35] The trim one or the actual iron? The trim one.

[00:51:37] Okay.

[00:51:37] Yeah.

[00:51:38] And it's… No, hold on. It's not the 21st Century. It's the Hangar 9 one. Okay. Still, same basic principle. But I just… I can't make myself throw it away.

[00:51:46] Yeah, because you think maybe you could fix it someday if… It's a resistor's bag. That day never comes. Yeah.

[00:51:53] But I haven't gotten rid of it, so…

[00:51:54] So, good luck, Gary. I hope you're able to find one. Yeah. Scour the internet, and then go to swap meets. You may… Because I do find stuff like that at swap meets. And buy multiples. Yeah. Yeah. If you find one, buy several.

[00:52:07] I don't remember seeing any at Toledo last year, because I probably would have picked up another one just as a spare.

[00:52:12] I didn't see any 21st Century irons, but I did see a couple of Hangar 9 regular irons and stuff like that.

[00:52:18] Yeah, that didn't excite me much.

[00:52:19] Which didn't interest me, but yeah.

[00:52:20] But see, like, right now, the ones that we were talking about on Amazon, they're like 70 bucks.

[00:52:25] Yeah. Yeah, that one that we were looking at.

[00:52:27] Yeah.

[00:52:28] It's kind of pricey.

[00:52:28] I'm like, I don't know if it's worth for us right now to get that for that price just to try it. Yeah. Considering we have…

[00:52:36] So, there was a discussion I was looking at, I think it was on RC Groups, that was talking about this very subject about the edge banding iron found on Amazon. And they said it worked identical to the coverite iron.

[00:52:48] Well, that's good to know, because I like the coverite iron much better than my Hangar 9. Yeah, me too.

[00:52:54] Yeah, so that's that. Okay. Next up, we have a, I believe this was an email. Yep.

[00:53:02] No, this is a text message. Sorry.

[00:53:05] From Colton Thompson. He says, I've been watching y'all's YouTube videos, and I have an OS-70 four-stroke engine that I can't get running. Okay. I've tightened the high-end needle all the way up and backed it off two turns, but I believe the low-end needle has been messed with, and I don't really know where to position it. It has started and ran for about three seconds and died, but I just don't know enough about tuning them to get it to stay running.

[00:53:29] If you could shoot me a text back or even a call to maybe walk me through a couple of things, that would be awesome. Thank you, Colton.

[00:53:35] Which we did. Which we did. Yep, I responded. I will say the easiest way to take care of that is to go electric.

[00:53:43] Short of going, to the dark side, an OS-70, which I happen to own one of, and I looked at my carburetor, and so I didn't want to mess with my needle settings, but I went ahead and did it anyway, and my high-turn, my high-speed needle was out two and about three quarters, almost three turns. So, your mileage may vary, right? Elevation, temperature, density, altitude, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly. Glow plug.

[00:54:13] Yeah, type of fuel, glow plug even has, so, conservatively, I would start with a high-end needle. Two and a half to three. Two and a half to three turns out from fully closed. That's what I was thinking. And on the OS-70, at least on my carburetor, my low-speed needle, the face of the needle is flush with the face of the barrel that it is installed in, so that if you looked at it end on, I'm sorry, from the side, it would be one plane. Does that make sense?

[00:54:39] That's where my low-speed needle is set. Now, I didn't actually thread it in and, count the turns out, but Dave has a really great way of setting up low-end needles, too.

[00:54:49] So, take and block your throttle barrel open at an idle position. You can stick a, like a one-and-a-half-millimeter L-wrench in it to hold it open about that spar. Then take your fuel line off your inlet port and put a small piece of fuel line on it and blow through it with it in idle position. You should be able to pass, with pressure, air through the carburetor.

[00:55:18] So, back off that low end until you start pushing a little air through the carburetor, and that should get you in the ballpark where it should run. It's probably going to run like Pooey, but at least it's someplace.

[00:55:30] It's going to run. It's starting from, yeah.

[00:55:31] And you'll hear hissing. Like, I've done that method also, and yeah, I just, same thing, block the barrel open so that there's about a, one-and-a-half-millimeter. One-to-one-and-a-half-millimeter. Yeah, and then, yeah, blow through the needle or through the fuel line and keep turning that needle out until you hear hissing.

[00:55:50] Oh, back off your main needle valve a lot.

[00:55:53] Oh, yeah. Yeah, you want, well, it doesn't have to be a lot. You just want to make sure that fuel would be able to flow through the high-speed needle, but yeah.

[00:56:01] What's the point of blocking it open? Well, the air has to have somewhere to go.

[00:56:06] As they go together, that barrel, if you notice, goes in and out, so that controls your idle mixture. As that barrel slides in and out, it pulls the low-end needle out of the spray bar. So as more it opens, it pulls that needle further and further out of the spray bar, so then it's then running on the main needle valve alone. I got you. So it's pulling that out of the way.

[00:56:29] Yeah, so you have to have it, if it's completely closed, your low-end needle can actually block the spray bar, and you're not going to get any fuel through it.

[00:56:37] So could you just set it, like, with the plane turned on?

[00:56:42] Absolutely.

[00:56:42] Okay.

[00:56:43] Absolutely.

[00:56:44] Okay, that's what threw me, because you said to make sure you block it and stuff. Yeah. I didn't understand, like, the difference between that.

[00:56:48] Assuming the engine is on a bench, but yeah, if it's in the airplane, yeah, you could turn everything on and then move the radio, move the… To a high-trip position. Yeah, just a little bit open, so that at least air will move through the spray bar.

[00:57:01] Understood.

[00:57:01] Yep. Cool. So that was… Thanks, Colton. Appreciate that. This was an email.

[00:57:10] Are you sure?

[00:57:10] No, I'm not sure. It's an RC Plane Lab message from Dan. So that's not an email, but that's okay. He says, hey, Ron and Tom, I enjoy your podcasts whilst building flight test foamies in my hobby space, he says, which is getting very crowded. He needs to fly and crash more often. I agree with the fly, but don't crash. There's always room for more. You can reshuffle, whatever you have to do. Or trade as needed. Or trade. Don't crash them.

[00:57:37] I appreciated your comments on Mac, M-A-A-C. He said, you shed some light on this current situation that I wasn't aware of despite being a member. By the way, Dan is from Canada. I'm a lone flyer out in local pasture land and not privy to club matters or politics. Don't get me wrong. When I attend a club's events, I meet great people who want to fly in a controlled and safe environment.

[00:58:01] I see that they have worked hard to be able to maintain their flight areas autonomously, despite what Mac or the feds mandate. I refer to Mac in the same breath as feds to highlight the point you made about Mac execs keeping members on a short leash. The fact is, we don't have the lobby power that your large membership does in the states. I get that.

[00:58:23] However, there must be a better way to resolve the current issues without asking members to stand on their heads and spit quarters. And then he's asking for suggestions. He says, regards, Dan. Thanks for contacting us, Dan. Before I comment on that, I want to read another.

[00:58:42] Yeah, because I've not read that. So this is an update that came out from Mac a little bit ago.

[00:58:48] Oh, I was going to read the other email, and then I was going to read the stuff from Mac.

[00:58:51] So this is not an update from Mac yet. Well, it's coming.

[00:58:56] So we got another message. This is from Trevor C., not Trevor F. He says, hi, Ron. I heard you guys talking about the Mac suspension today. I think you guys nailed it when you cited only 10,000 members compared to AMA's 160,000. the truth of it, the truth of it is that as model pilots, our voice is comically small. and to that fact, add to that fact that most cities have bylaws against flying, which makes park flying almost always illegal.

[00:59:26] And there aren't many places to fly. we have to be at a Mac field or on private property, which most people can't access. I understand. Another wrinkle is that Nav Canada can be brutal to work with. Transport Canada is pretty reasonable. Those are the two organizations that, are sort of… Driving. Driving. Yeah, thank you. Flying this.

[00:59:49] Right. Yeah. Piloting this. Oh, that's even better.

[00:59:53] Others may not see it, but when dealing with an issue like this, good faith is very powerful when you are attempting to hold on to self-regulation. Mac asking us not to fly during the winter makes a lot of sense and gives them the best chance to solve the issue. He's talking about good faith and goodwill here.

[01:00:10] The rumor is that fields were, were sanctioned that shouldn't have been meaning Mac now has to very quickly review all fields, removing the risk flight in a dangerous, dangerous location. That is, is the show of good faith that buys time and understanding. it is not a very Canadian thing for Mac to attempt to show control over the community. I can see why people might think that is what is happening and that misses the greater picture.

[01:00:37] To add a little more context, there is a movement in Canada for the government to reduce the number of self-regulated professional bodies. Engineering practice in Quebec is a good example. Other provinces responded to the revocation in Quebec by bolstering their self-regulation efforts and making sure they follow the acts that create them. What Mac is doing follows that, follows what professional, these professional bodies are doing.

[01:01:01] It is a model that is working and only Quebec has lost its self-regulation for engineering. Okay, the fact of the matter, I have a comment on that. the fact of the matter is that we have no large populace or large manufacturers such as origin hobbies, to lobby for us. So quietly creating the strongest position possible for Mac is our best move.

[01:01:24] A publicly driven social media effort would simply undermine the self-regulating status proving that we can't act in our own best interest and effectively turn Mac's governance over the federal government. Nothing could be worse than having non-RC pilot governing RC pilots. To that, I agree.

[01:01:41] -huh.

[01:01:42] I hope this provides some local insight into the situation here. I'm certain the system is vastly different for you guys. In the meantime, I'm sure a lot of people will quietly fly under the radar where no one could be bothered to say anything because they just don't care and aren't bothered. Besides, indoor fun flies are way warmer right now. It's currently minus 10 C in Edmonton. I imagine that's pretty cool.

[01:02:04] I was going to say, I don't know what that means.

[01:02:05] Love the podcast. Keep at it. It's the best thing to listen to when working on planes. Cheers, Trevor. Trevor, thanks. I want to read this update from Mac and then we'll have comments if you want. Actually, I'm not going to read the whole thing.

[01:02:19] I was going to say it's three pages and I haven't read it, so.

[01:02:22] But, just a few things I wanted to, to talk about, and I hate to just, quote random things because it could be taken out of context and I don't want that to happen. But basically, here's one nugget. It's important to understand that as we reopen sites, members can only fly at sites that have been reauthorized. we will create reauthorization certificates and place them in the airfield records on the Mac website.

[01:02:50] So members can easily confirm their field status. So Mac has already reauthorized some sites. It's going to take time for them to do all of them.

[01:02:59] They're doing the easy ones first.

[01:03:01] They're doing the easy ones first.

[01:03:02] I would expect.

[01:03:02] First, yes. non-RPS sites. Sites that are exclusively non-RPS, that's remotely piloted aerial system, will be reauthorized in the first group of sites provided the club rules and documentation are in order. this may require some additional information. So club rules to ensure public safety is considered at each location. So that is what I would call priority one. That's like the easy ones that they're doing first. Right.

[01:03:29] Then class G, which are talking about aerospace here, more than three nautical miles from aerodromes or airports. The roughly 200 sites in controlled airspace at the surface and more than three nautical miles from the closest aerodrome will be the next to be reauthorized. Provided the club rules and documentation are in order, we expect those sites to be reauthorized by the end of January. I don't know where they're at on that, but yeah, I haven't seen any updates.

[01:03:57] That touches on what you were saying. They're doing the easy ones first, right? More than three miles from an airport. class G airspace. I'm assuming that's airspace they're talking about. Easy peasy. Easy, not in danger of flying into a, an approach zone for an airport, right? Easy to reauthorize as long as the club documentation is in order, right? Next, the roughly 154 sites.

[01:04:22] So we're only at 350 sites to this point, in uncontrolled airspace at the surface and within three nautical miles of an airport. We need to follow a new Mac policy that is being developed keywords being developed, to comply with TC exemption for, that policy is expected to be approved by the board this coming week. And this was put out January 23rd.

[01:04:46] So about a month ago from tonight's recording.

[01:04:48] Yeah.

[01:04:49] We're behind.

[01:04:50] Yeah. The, the clubs will be advised of, what changes need to be adopted. And once they are compliant, they will be reauthorized. Since this process involves some feedback and possible rule changes from the clubs, it is hard to put a timeline on this step. However, this step could be completed in the second half of February if we all work together, right? So we're nearly nearing the end of February now.

[01:05:13] And you could probably, if you're a Mac member, I'm sure you can get on the Mac website and determine if, if your, if your field is in this, particular, grouping. If it's been reauthorized or not. and then it goes on and not, and then they, they touch on personal sites, personal sites are unregistered sites at a personal location, like a dock at a cottage or a pasture on an acreage.

[01:05:42] We are considering the best way to manage the use of these sites to ensure that RPAs, that RPA flying is not happening in controlled airspace, but we're not there yet. Our immediate priority efforts are directed at registered sites, club fields. while we work through the reauthorization of those sites, flying from personal unsanctioned sites remains suspended.

[01:06:04] So Mac is now telling people, well, I mean, they've always been telling people not to fly at their personal sites, and they have Mac control and they don't like under there. Well, and this, yeah. And this doesn't have a get well planned for those sites.

[01:06:24] Well, I mean, yeah, I'm not Canadian. So like, I don't understand everything on that, but to me, if you have some that are truly problem, childs, children, whatever, deal with those as opposed to knocking everything off.

[01:06:42] Yeah. Does that make sense?

[01:06:43] Yeah.

[01:06:43] And so that, like I said, I'm, I'm paraphrasing and I'm, I'm excerpting from this Mac update, which one of our listeners was so gracious to send us. so yeah, so the, one of the, comments that we got, was about lobbying power. yes, I agree that having a, a large, group base to lobby for you is important, but it shouldn't be, what I mean?

[01:07:21] Like, no, I understand what you're saying. It should not be coming up as an issue.

[01:07:28] Right. Yeah. So I guess my, my issue with, with this whole thing is the fact that instead of telling the, like the, the places that were in no danger, right? The places that have been, the sites that have been operating for years without issue are now being affected by, I don't know the number. But it's the problem children considerably smaller. Yes. a number than the fields that aren't causing issues.

[01:07:58] Like, so every, like one person poops and everybody has to wear diapers. what I'm saying? It's, I don't feel that that's a weird way to put it, but what I'm saying?

[01:08:08] Absolutely.

[01:08:08] I don't feel that that, even, even though, Trevor makes really good points, I still don't feel that this was the right course of action, no matter how big your organization or small.

[01:08:19] Yeah. It should be deal with the, the problem that you have without a broad swipe of the brush

[01:08:26] Without, without over politicizing, politicizing, yeah, the, the, the, the left wing or right wing or however you want to, like, I think we are appeasing for the sake of appeasing. Like, I think we, in this particular situation, I think they like exactly like you said, deal with the, deal with the issues that are the issues and don't make everyone else pay. That's the bottom line.

[01:08:57] Well, that's the problem with, what's happening here too, with the whole RC airplane drone, it's all getting lumped together when the problems are not those of us that fly at our fields or those of us that go in our backyard and fly over our own property. Nope. The problems are the, the people that have long range FPV that do not follow what is in place right now. Right.

[01:09:21] The, the laws and rules and bylaws that you're supposed to follow under the AMA safety code and all that kind of stuff. They're the ones that by being irresponsible are shining the spotlight on all of us. Right. And making us pay a price.

[01:09:37] Unfortunately.

[01:09:37] Yes. And that is the problem with technology as it does advance.

[01:09:42] That is one problem. Well, yeah. There's many others, but yeah. So anyway, yeah, that's enough about that.

[01:09:50] Well, I did, I did a quick look cause you were talking about how many sites and stuff they were reallocated and how many were going to be open and stuff. I don't remember what the numbers were. You said there were the easy ones were 390 or 400, whatever.

[01:10:01] No, the first group of 200. Oh, that was the easy ones. Okay. And then there was another group of 154 that were relatively going to be easy. So a combined total of 350 that they could conceivably get online in a short period of time.

[01:10:17] And then the rest was lower numbers. So I did a quick, and that's why I missed some of what you were saying. Cause I was looking up really quick. So the AMA apparently has over 2,500 sanctioned flying sites and it said 195,000 members. So that is quite a bit of difference. And I don't know how that equates percentage of population. I don't know what Canada's population is and all that kind of stuff, but.

[01:10:40] I bet it's pretty similar. I bet the percentage is similar. I bet. You think so?

[01:10:45] I bet it is. That we'd have to look that up. Liars per capita.

[01:10:48] Right. Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea. What percentage of the population? Well, I mean, it'd be impossible because not everybody joins Mac or AMA, right?

[01:10:57] Well, true, but you get a base. But, I mean, that's, that's not the point. I mean, the point is, yes, we have more members in the United States and that money does hopefully help us out in the long run, which is why I have no problem paying my, my dues every year. Yeah. Yeah. You look so pensive. Like there's so much you want to say.

[01:11:17] Yeah. I just, I feel bad for the, for the modelers and I say modelers in Canada. I don't consider drone pilots modelers.

[01:11:27] Correct.

[01:11:28] So.

[01:11:28] I agree.

[01:11:29] Okay. Moving on. Do we got time for, it's our show.

[01:11:33] We say how much time we have. Well, I'm going to read this one because I like it and I like the. You go girl.

[01:11:38] This is from our friend, Ron Struss. He says, I need a new build table before I tackle the electro streak. Ooh. Yes. I've used our kitchen table or a card table for past builds, but I need a more formalized and larger workspace going forward. I have a workbench, but I want to keep that clear for house projects and for messier model building tasks like metal cutting and soldering. I get that.

[01:12:02] Understood.

[01:12:03] I went to an office furniture resale store today, hoping to find a suitable work table. Lots of tables were on the floor, but they all sagged eighth to a quarter of an inch, in the middle. I, I totally hear what he's saying there. I've seen it, brought, I brought a 48 inch straight edge along with me while I was shopping, with legs on each end and no support in the center. It's not surprising that the tables sag over time.

[01:12:27] The more I looked, the more I thought building a table makes more sense than buying one. My current plan is to build a bar height table, 42 inches. so I can work standing up or sitting on a bar stool. That's actually a pretty smart idea. a wood frame would be topped by plywood or MDF board and then topped by pink foam board or pin sticking. Oh, four pin sticking. Excuse me. hope to cut straight and true on the frame. So the build surface ends up nice and flat.

[01:12:55] My question is size. The electric streak plan sheet is three foot by four foot. So a three by five table would allow for work on both sides of the plan and provide a foot of side space for tools and supplies. I can see building up to 60 inch wingspan models in the future, but probably not bigger. basement space is limited. So I want the table big enough, but not bigger than necessary.

[01:13:17] From your experience is three by five large enough for a build table or should I go larger? And if so, how large? What about bar height versus table height? Thanks, Ron.

[01:13:29] Wow. I'm going to be honest. The height thing I never really thought about before.

[01:13:32] The height to me, I've worked on taller tables like your bar top here and I've worked on my shorter table at home. And quite frankly, I prefer the shorter table. I sit in an office chair, that's got the hydraulics that can go up and down. if your table is too tall, you have trouble with a larger aircraft reaching down inside an airplane. Once you go up and then back down, you have trouble getting down inside it.

[01:13:54] So that's where the shorter table comes in much more handy.

[01:13:57] See, I, okay. So when you were putting the Pawnee together, I hung out with you, whatever day it was, Tommy, and I had never been around somebody else that sat when they were working on things. Like I, I'm a stander. I move around. I'm not nearly as meticulous as you are at how clean you keep your, I mean, obviously you can tell, like, I was very impressed, like, as you would cut something off that you didn't need anymore, it would directly go into the garbage can.

[01:14:29] That's not how I work. That's how I should work, but that's not how I work. Like you've seen my tables down here. So I'm, I'm actually thinking about trying a folding table with, as you're going to talk about a, a hollow core door, and trying that for one of my next builds with a chair height, chair.

[01:14:49] Yeah. So for the reason Dave mentioned, I'm not a particular fan of tall tables as workbenches either, because the exact reason you're talking about, sometimes you need to dig your arm down into a fuselage to route a throttle push rod.

[01:15:05] Especially with a larger aircraft.

[01:15:06] Yeah. And if your table's too tall, you run out of, you run out of reach because you have to reach up and then you have to reach down in.

[01:15:13] Well, for a larger aircraft, I work on the floor if I need to.

[01:15:16] See, as you get older, you'll discover that it gets harder and harder to get off the floor.

[01:15:22] I am discovering.

[01:15:22] I mean, I'm sorry.

[01:15:23] And I got to get a Labrador retriever out of it too.

[01:15:26] Yeah. So for lots of reasons, I don't, I don't build on the floor. I just, I can't physically.

[01:15:31] I sometimes cover on the floor because I get tired of dropping things. Oh, I see. So if it's on the floor, it can't go any further. Yeah.

[01:15:37] But anyway, so for me, a card table, a folding card table, I use those plastic ones I get at Sam's. The, I think they're.

[01:15:46] Either five foot or six foot. The five foot. Just fine.

[01:15:49] Yeah. The five foot is what I currently have.

[01:15:51] I'm on a six foot.

[01:15:53] And they do sag in the middle, right? They absolutely do. Because just like Ron mentioned, with legs on the end and then a hinge in the middle with the, for the folding tables, they sag in the middle. So they're not flat. And to cure that, what I do is I go to Lowe's, Home Depot, whatever. And I buy a 30, 30 inch, I think is the one I bought last time. That would match the size of the tables? Hollow core. Yeah. 24. Yeah. Hollow core Luan door.

[01:16:20] And I set that puppy on top of the, on top of my table. And if it needs a shim in the middle, sometimes I'll throw a towel or something just to kind of support the center of it. But I put adjustable feet on mine. But the, oh, that's a good idea. Really good idea. But currently there's nothing in the middle of mine. And it just sits right on top of that table. And then I take my two inch pink foam and cut it and throw that on top of the door. Now I have a completely flat.

[01:16:45] Building surface.

[01:16:46] And just flip it every now and then. Yeah. So it doesn't take a set.

[01:16:48] Yep. Once in a while I'll take the door, like between projects, between airplanes, whatever, I'll take the door off when I'm cleaning everything. Cause I clean a lot too. And I'll, yeah, exactly. I'll flip it over and put it all back together. And that's what I use. And that's what I like to use. And it's a great height for me, because if I, I can stand up and work on it, it's not so low that I can't do that.

[01:17:10] And if I need to get up like on a larger plane, like this Pawnee, for example, and reach inside, I just move the chair out of the way, stand up. And now I've got ready access to whatever I need to get into. So that's my setup.

[01:17:23] And the nice thing about that too, is if you don't always have a project, you can take it down and store it fairly easily in the storage side of the basement or something like that, it's not a permanent fixture. Right. Exactly. Although for you, it is. And for you, Dave, it is. Yep.

[01:17:37] Well, mine's, mine's a dual purpose. I've got, I don't use the foam anymore in the pens. I use the magnet building boards. But when I try that, when I take the sheet steel off the top of it, I've actually got carpet squares on mine, the self-adhesive carpet squares. On the door. On the door. So now I have a nice soft surface. I do a lot of foam aircraft, which, that's just been my thing. the softer surface, they don't get nicked up as bad.

[01:18:04] They don't slide around as bad. And if I need to, the, I can flip it over to the other side of the door, which has nothing on it. Oh, yeah. So really I have a three-sided door. 2D.

[01:18:16] How's that work? I was going to say, hold on. I'm building on this inch and a half wide by.

[01:18:21] So I have a non-carpeted side. I have a carpeted side. And then I add an additional top. Yeah. For the steel. Yeah.

[01:18:28] Or the steel. Oh, now I see where the three came from. So he's got three building boards. A tri-purpose. On one door.

[01:18:34] Yeah. Two sides, three surfaces.

[01:18:36] Yeah. So that's, yeah. And I like the carpet. Yeah. That's actually, I may incorporate that on my next cleaning. Because I'll be due for it here pretty soon. Yeah. As soon as I'm done with Pawnee. But anyway, that's my setup. And Ron, your setup is a little bit different. Wherever I can fit.

[01:18:54] But I've got, like I said, countertop down here that I work on. All my stuff I've always worked on at a higher, higher desk. My mind just went blank. Table. Higher. Table height. Whatever. Elevation. There you go. That's not what I was going for, but that makes sense. Because I, like I said, I don't tend to sit when I work on stuff. I spread out a lot when I build. So I'm not very organized in that regard. So I'll go from one table to another. And then a lot of times.

[01:19:24] Well, but you also, what makes you tick is you don't typically work on one project at a time. No. Like you'll have several going on at one time. And for you, that just, that just works. So.

[01:19:36] Yeah. Because I get to a point where I don't want to move on one of them. And then, which is, yeah. I've got one sitting behind me.

[01:19:43] Like that. So the eel's just sitting there, isn't it?

[01:19:44] Yes, it's been sitting there for a while. It's been sitting there for a while. But I do. No, I got nothing to say on it. Anyway.

[01:19:50] It'll be done. Now, there are times that having the higher bar heights would come in handy.

[01:19:54] Yeah.

[01:19:55] But the times it would don't offset the negatives.

[01:20:00] See, like I said, I just, I don't like to be stationary, I guess. Like I, with, I don't know. Maybe I need to try it. Like maybe I really need to try just a smaller table size.

[01:20:12] Even though I'm sitting and working on a project, I wouldn't say that I'm stationary. I'm still moving. I roll a lot. Like, yeah, I move my chair around a lot. I'm, fiddling with this. Like I'm not stationary for very long. You're more stationary than I would be.

[01:20:28] Like when I'm working behind me over here.

[01:20:30] Yeah, I'm lazy. My legs would get tired.

[01:20:32] I will work on both sides. Like I'll do something over here. Well, that's the luxury of building where you build.

[01:20:37] You have room on both sides. Like where I build, I only really have access to one side of the table, realistically.

[01:20:43] Yeah, I have only one side. Yeah, and Dave for sure only has one side. So. I would love to have a peninsula to work on, but that's just not doable. Yeah, a peninsula and a bar. Yeah. I mean, I work in a 10 by 12 room with a 75 gallon saltwater tank in it.

[01:20:59] What you are able to produce in that tiny little room still. I know. It's awesome.

[01:21:05] And so quickly. Yeah. God. Puts me to shame.

[01:21:08] All right. So that's all. That's all.

[01:21:10] Is that all we got?

[01:21:10] That's all I had. Yep. I just wanted to hit that last one from Ron, and I wanted to talk about the Mac stuff a little bit and get my anger.

[01:21:20] You're too quid in? I don't know. What do they use up there? Yeah, I don't know. You're too. I sound like a complete idiot.

[01:21:28] Two tenths of a euro.

[01:21:30] Huh.

[01:21:32] So anyway, a folding table will work just fine. Yes. With. Yep.

[01:21:36] Proper top.

[01:21:37] Exactly.

[01:21:38] Yep. And you can always support the center.

[01:21:40] And you can buy the damaged doors for a song.

[01:21:43] Yeah. And that's something else I should have said. I don't buy the brand new shiny ones off the floor. I go and find the scratch and dent ones.

[01:21:51] And you don't buy the six panel ones either. It's the flat. Yeah. Completely flat. Mm-hmm. Yep. There you go. Anything else? Or are we finished?

[01:21:58] I think that's it.

[01:21:59] I'm done. I'm spent. I bet you're tired.

[01:22:04] Thursday's our hard day at work for me. That's our busiest days. Oh. Yeah. I've been off work for a while. So I've just been sleeping.

[01:22:11] Okay. So I'm about ready to go do now. Gentlemen, it's been fun. Yeah. Everybody, thanks for listening. Yeah, thanks for listening. Until next time, I am Ron. I'm Tom. And I'm Dave. Good night. Good night.

[01:22:36] Good night. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.