Ep 167: Oops, Dave did it again!

[00:00:11] Hello hello everyone welcome to the rc plane lab podcast i'm ron i'm tom and i'm dave you just stole my notes what are you sorry well i saw your your heading there and i'm like what the heck is he talking about oh yeah so anyway first off i want to congratulate spacex did you see that what spacex did this week it was wild yes i did dave didn't i did not i do not pay any attention to spacex so long story short they're building the biggest flying machine ever

[00:00:45] Biggest rocket biggest thing to ever move under its own weight and their goal is to have the whole thing what biggest flying which i shouldn't say moving enters the sorry biggest thing to actually fly heaviest and all that kind of stuff but their goal is to make it fully reusable long story short the booster that like the falcon nines like a first stage if you think of it in those terms that is called the falcon or not the falcon that's called the our ship thank you no the super heavy

[00:01:16] Booster super heavy it has i think 30 of their raptor engines on it so 30 engines and they they have successfully caught it on the little chopsticks bringing it back to land from where it

[00:01:31] Took off from where it took from where it launched yeah that's pretty nuts if you haven't seen the

[00:01:35] Video it's worth looking at it there are a few different views by the way that actually show the angle that it comes in at i saw one that actually showed like how far sideways it was coming in

[00:01:45] That's nuts cannot imagine the speed at which it approaches is crazy until the until they fire the the landing burn or whatever they call it yeah it's crazy just nuts like if you've not watched a spacex landing like them recovering a rocket of any kind the first time you see something like this it's mind bending it is it doesn't look real no it it looks like a simulation almost but

[00:02:16] It's totally real yeah unbelievable it's impressive yeah congrats to them that's quite an achievement yeah so anyway that's all i wanted to what i found interesting though okay was there was all kinds of coverage of the of the catch which deservedly so yeah but almost no mention at all of what what the starship the upper stage or the orbital stage whatever you want to call it what happened to it i mean there's very little information i mean it did what it was yeah it was overshadowed by

[00:02:46] First in history of ever catching something but yeah the the upper stage it was success too yeah complete success they landed where they wanted to apparently because they had a buoy out in the ocean with video of it landing of it yeah or watering i guess it wasn't really landing i guess it was a splashdown

[00:03:03] Hey that's better that's more apt but yeah for it i mean wow just wow the thing the booster to put it in perspective in case people don't know because i didn't know 23 stories tall that's how tall this thing is yeah like think about a building around here that might be about that tall the hilton is 30 yeah so it's almost that tall and that's the biggest thing around here yeah well i think the

[00:03:29] Full stack is as tall as the hilton isn't it yes yeah yeah so and i call it the hilton it's not the

[00:03:36] Hilton anymore but yeah it's always going to be the hilton yeah but it is as tall as that building yeah that's just and it moves it's mind bending and it goes like it's crazy nuts yeah so yeah congrats awesome can't wait to see what's next i think they said next year they're going to try

[00:03:55] And catch both the booster and the ship that's so crazy that's awesome but anyway that's not our well i guess it is kind of rc maybe with computers and stuff but i guess it does its own all its own thing it's hobby yeah well it's not a rocketry yeah if you can do that that's fine i'm trying to tie it into rc airplanes but i don't think i can do that my history of rockets right no i don't

[00:04:16] I know his history with rockets you've seen his history they tend to blow up in the airplane

[00:04:20] Oh those rocks i thought he meant like when he said history i thought he meant like when he was in high school or college or something no he actually did like model rocketry yeah my dad did that by the way he did he did a rocket that ended up being i think 11 feet tall i didn't know that this is a sign of the times they actually launched a live hamster nice yeah and pita can call yeah yeah no this was in like 50s 60s so did the hamster lick went no i mean yes it did yes yes it did until it stopped

[00:04:54] Well i mean the russians put a dog in space right well this didn't go to space i think this went all

[00:04:58] But 150 feet in the air and then no but it was more than them sorry dang it you're looking at me and that was on me put that on the floor okay it's okay now it's dave i hear the it's not me i hear the feedback from him oh well feedback is gone guess who it's not from it's not from you tommy i learned my lesson i can't hear the feedback anyway yeah it's all right so let's talk about rc airplane stuff shall we do that i have a few things i want to talk about first thing i want to talk about

[00:05:32] November issue model aviation has my review of the mb339 in it i'm kind of proud of that that's cool

[00:05:40] The number two the issue is on my countertop in the kitchen and i admit that i have not or the new issue of model aviation not the november issue i guess right the they were late i think with the october yeah and i have not viewed that yet but i i anxiously await the november issue yes

[00:05:58] Second published review yes i thought it turned out pretty good go read it go look at it and then go to our website for the videos i have a couple videos that we uploaded we just uploaded one actually of ali flying not just the maiden but he kind of put it to its limits it out yeah onboard video and all that kind of stuff i think was really cool yeah i had a camera on top and a camera on bottom it's a cool video they were our gopro 360 whatever you call those maxes i think

[00:06:31] I think so i had mine on top yours on bottom or something like that the other way around yeah pretty cool video i thought no ruining it with music all just jet sounds and and i actually prefer that honestly what no music no music yeah me too on flight videos anyway yeah i want to hear it yeah me too i can listen to music anywhere right exactly so go check it out rcplanelab.com slash mb339 i think pretty sure yeah i'm sure there's probably a link to it on our website right

[00:07:02] Yeah there you go but i don't remember what the actual that should be it yeah and on the on the video too i thought it was kind of neat so ali if anybody's seen him fly in person when he does a lot of his jet stuff he will go up to altitude and then dead stick landed yeah so he shuts the engine off completely 399.99 feet or however high up he is right and then like he did that on this video and he's got a good couple minutes worth of glide getting it down and lands it like without power he

[00:07:36] Can put it down exactly where he wants it and taxi right off the runway and stop better than i can

[00:07:43] When the power is on well it's impressive yeah he for sure he probably has tens if not hundreds of hours on that airframe alone probably during the development phase and all that stuff

[00:07:57] He probably has more time on than anybody else i would assume so he's quite comfortable with the

[00:08:03] With the airplane obviously so yeah he's able to do that with most of his airplanes i've seen him do that yeah that's cool and one of these days i'll try it on purpose well we have to fly a lot

[00:08:13] Yeah and you have to fly that plane a lot i want to get to that point so next year i think we'll do that more yeah with you having your jet that will be my excuse to fly mine more i guess i hope yeah

[00:08:26] I yeah but anyway that was that yeah cool video go check it out let's see what else oh we went to

[00:08:34] The field a couple weeks ago we did it was not a great day what are you talking about wasn't that bad it was not a great day we all had some sort of issue oh well minor yeah mine wasn't minor oh that's right i forgot about that yeah do you want to go over that first sure i'll talk about it before we get into that because dave's going to get more in depth on what happened to him dave and i have a

[00:09:00] Common issue that dave is going to go into detail but yes please tell us what so mine was plain

[00:09:06] Stupidity and not p-l-a-n-e-p-l-a-i-n oh so you were flying your viper i was i took off and flew right after you and i usually have a three minute timer that three minute timer tells me it's

[00:09:21] Time to land yeah we took off almost exactly i was like i took off and then you took off yeah

[00:09:27] And so you were up flying and you weren't coming into land yet and i was like okay i'm going to push this a little bit farther but what i didn't think of is i was making a few high speed passes that i should not have been making for battery conservation watch that meter

[00:09:44] So having said that i did come into land i think i was at i think the last time i looked down and thought okay it's time to come in i was at 330 340 something like that really pushing it yes and especially at the throttle settings you were flying that was the issue yeah and so it was a perfect like just coming in nicely for the landing it was coming in a little farther away than i wanted to land so i went ahead and kind of pitched it down and gave it i want to say gas but gave it throttle and it started to come at me and then like i heard your plane flying still and so i didn't notice that mine went

[00:10:21] Into low voltage cutoff oh so i tried to give it full throttle and then i was still kind of coming down i had control over it and then all of a sudden stole infamous yep nose dived right into the ground looks kind of like a banana now it does have a curve so yeah that was bad it was about

[00:10:43] 15 feet in the air yeah and then about 15 20 seconds later i landed if that yeah and so this was something i wanted to ask you do you think it was solely because of the way you were flying because the reason i ask is when i landed when i pull i have a habit of when i pull the battery out of my airplane even though my smart transmitter will tell me what the battery is at and i look at that too but i've got a checker and i checked it my battery was still at like 32 or 35 percent yeah on the checker yeah which is what i would expect which is usually a fairly accurate

[00:11:20] Representation of the right condition now there i will say i did not spend nearly as much time doing the fun i'm not going to say they're not fun because they are a lot of fun oh i know high speed low passes at wide open yes you did a lot more of those than i did i did more experimenting with flight envelope type yeah you were trying to get used to it because you drug your

[00:11:44] Flaps in the grass i did it was cool yeah so that's if you're going to do that and not go full speed you get more time obviously yeah which that makes complete sense but now my battery yeah the

[00:11:59] Battery i was using was a 5 500 not a 5 000. and i was only a 5 000. so that could be the difference

[00:12:05] Too and the other thing is when you were on the ground and at 32 percent that's not 32 percent under throttle true so your voltage is going to drop as you start using it yep and the lower obviously you get capacity wise the closer you get to that the less overhead you have exactly and i just i at the worst possible time had i had 10 seconds not even not even 10 seconds seconds if i would have had well i'd say five or six seconds throttle blip and you would exactly pretty

[00:12:38] Much yeah i think when i did that is when it went into the the low throttle cutoff and then it just it didn't reset right away and of course after it's laying on the ground all mangled and frankensteiny i still had the the throttle stick was up all the way and then all of a sudden just takes off going again i'm like son of a gun okay well that was on me so i got a new one we're good yeah i will probably fix that one sometime because i it's not going to be that bad to do no but i was in a hurry

[00:13:09] Because i thought we were going to go flying last weekend which we didn't yet but anyway yeah that's on me so and we can talk about that in a bit yeah we will on how tommy ruined my saturday

[00:13:23] Well you're not wrong it's okay it is my fault it's but so was that yeah i'm done you guys go so i also experienced an issue i took as a four planes i think most of them nitro so i it was a nitro balsa kind of a day for me which i loved took the dualist out why i took the dualist the t30 dave's t34 years now the little blue toledo special i call it the thing because we have no clue what it is forty dollars that flies is amazing and then one other one i forget what it was that's

[00:13:55] A bigger one oh it was your the pit not pits oh the skybolt yeah super skybolt yeah that one so i guess technically i experienced a couple of different issues but anyway i fly in the dualist and so i'll preface this by saying make sure well it ran fine after some some tuning that airplane has old irvine 40s on it which they're not they're not at the same level of performance

[00:14:31] Performance i guess one is quite a bit older than the other so couldn't quite get max without tweaking then anyway got it running yeah took off and did i make a full lap i think i think it was on the it died on takeoff you ended up no you're talking about the skybolt that was the sky i'm sorry so i took off and in the wind whatever made the right turn and then it was on the the downwind leg i guess that we heard something we heard this kind of a low hum moan and i'm familiar with that

[00:15:11] Sound split second though oh yeah it didn't last long but i know what that sound is so immediately back off the throttle brought it around and landed no issue but i discovered that my elevator so the elevator on the dualist if you guys who have been listening a while can think back when we built these it's a the elevator has a joiner in between the two halves hardwood joiner and it's a hardwood yeah and i think what happened well anyway that joiner was broke so the elevator half that's not connected to the servo was just out there doing its thing in the breeze and what i

[00:15:46] Heard was flutter so and i think thinking back i think the way i have that airplane stored in my basement the tail sort of hangs down there close to where the door the entry door to the to the back shop i don't know what you call it i think i must have hit that with my elbow or something walking by

[00:16:03] It and or somebody else did no it was probably oh never mind i was trying to get the blame off you

[00:16:09] No it's oh it's my fault it's my fault for not doing a a thorough pre-flight because it's been a while since i've flown that airplane i should have really inspected it and i didn't but i think that's what the like i don't think it broke in flight is what i'm getting at

[00:16:23] I think it was broken before i took off oh see i think that's not correct i think it was broken in flight i think it was probably loosened if you knocked it but i because the the covering on the

[00:16:34] Bottom was ripped off that was from the flutter yeah the the covering was on the side that fluttered

[00:16:43] I understand that flutter but i i still i i think you would have seen like if it was completely unhooked okay like completely broken yeah like i think it was probably it was probably weakened damaged to where the first time you gave it damaged up or down elevator because i did do a

[00:17:01] Pre-flight right and you saw it move control and surface check yeah i did move but yeah it was damaged or whatever just enough to where it did not have the and solid connection yeah integrity good word so anyway uneventful landing it was an easy fix it's already fixed the covering is already fixed it's ready to go again and i took a newer irvine 40 that i i have like seven of these things i think i have almost as many of these as i have ys-120s anyway so it's ready to go and it was going

[00:17:36] To be one of my saturday planes that we didn't get to go do then it will be next saturday yeah so

[00:17:43] Anyway flutter i got lucky like had i continued to fly it at a high rate of speed the outcome may not have been as good which that plane is quite capable of it is now yeah now with the engines tuned and really really on the pipes yeah i think i think it might be a 115 ish now well we can at least find out yes we can and then the other issue i had real quick before we get to dave's the skybolt basically i was just trying to run it too rich yeah oh is that what

[00:18:18] It ended up being yeah just fought and fought and you leaned it out and boom hey i'm gonna behave

[00:18:22] Myself well it's scary those ys-120s speaking of ys-120s that's what's on the skybolt and that's what we're eventually going to put on the trimotor those things make scary power like i don't know if you guys are familiar with they sound ys's but i think that's why like i've just i mean for lack of a better word frightened of the of the amount of power these things make and rpm so yeah i was just running it too rich thinking that it was it was already at max rpm and it wasn't really even

[00:18:53] Close so it was loading up so i took off with the skybolt didn't even luckily didn't even make a turn and it died on the on the climb out so i just landed straight ahead and which is lucky

[00:19:07] You can do that at that field because it's so very long field long runoff so yeah but other than that it was a great day dave so yeah yeah that was abrupt and i'm finished dave you're up okay so my

[00:19:23] Big boo-boo was the goblin goblin is no longer with us now to refresh this is the airplane that

[00:19:31] You experienced we i should say because it did it while i was flying it too we experienced unintended surface deflection correct because the servos we feel that were being overpowered by the

[00:19:44] Performance of the airplane that and just the surface was being flexed right because it wasn't

[00:19:49] Supported well enough and then you came up with this cool solution you just added a servo per panel with another set of linkages and it really really did stiffen up it really made a huge difference it

[00:19:58] Really fixed most of the issues can't complain about the aircraft at all the aircraft itself as it is designed is a great flying airplane it's it's fun to fly scary but fun above half throttle it's scary yeah if it's properly powered well it's not scary there's there's the thing yeah it's so it was a experimental platform for me to just to see how far we could push this thing and we

[00:20:30] Found the never exceed speed limit you found its limits yeah it's rather spectacular and it bit back hard so we're speaking of flutter yeah so we did have original one flight on that saturday and we got what around 135 i think we got out of it right around that yeah 135 and that was not pushing it as hard as it could go it was just making one straight pass down the runway so the second

[00:21:00] Flight i decided to let it wind up more so made more than one pass and just kept it at full throttle and it kept accelerating i was doing a big basically a parallel loop with it and i heard i knew immediately what it was and chopped the throttle but it was 50 foot in the air and it was in excess 135 mile an hour so 50 foot doesn't take long to come and then it was minus about three

[00:21:28] Inches in the air yeah it happened so fast i barely had time to say -oh like that like at that speed

[00:21:37] It happened so fast i i know i chopped the throttle but other than that i can't remember anything else

[00:21:41] Just yeah boom it made a really really cool imprint in the cornfield you could see the aircraft in the cornfield yeah i mean the remnants of the air but you could see the outline impression you could see the two lines representing the leading edges of the wing and then a round spot connecting them like impression in the ground it was actually quite it was quite cool i've never seen one quite like

[00:22:04] That yeah we went and picked up all the pieces which most of the pieces i think i don't know originally yeah originally we thought we had all the pieces and i realized the motor wasn't there yeah and bob found the motor what like 25 yards away it was at least 25 yards away from to the side

[00:22:20] Yeah of the crash which is wild i thought well it's a pusher so probably kind of went in at one angle and then i think it whipped off to the side well that could have been too yeah too the aircraft

[00:22:32] Itself was actually not bad for as hard as it hit the ground the problem was anything that was in the airplane went through each itself so the two new batteries were completely destroyed i was scared to even put them in the truck they they stayed at the field the receiver was broken in half i've never broken a receiver in my life not to mention breaking one in half i have broken one

[00:22:57] And the speed control i believe is what broke the receiver in half on its way out of the airplane

[00:23:05] Yeah and the capacitors were all smashed the board was broken and of course all this equipment was brand new i've got so much anymore well it was three flights old four flights three and a half

[00:23:17] Yeah well the sky id survived at least sky id we think mostly thank god i forgot to bring it up because it was mine it it broke the connector oh i've got it it pulled the wires out of the

[00:23:29] Yeah i haven't looked really closely at it but it did not have any surface damage so i think it survived if not i get you a brand new no i'm not worried about it no it was ron's idea to put it in

[00:23:39] There was it yeah yeah then it's like hey can you well we wanted i mean everybody's talking about well how fast is it well i have this thing with me let's figure it out let's go and i really would

[00:23:50] Have loved to know how fast it was going and how many g's it pulled when we hit oh my gosh yeah

[00:23:54] Can you imagine a lot so i mean it was doing at least i mean let's say conservatively it was doing at least 135 when i hit the ground it was going faster in 135 right but i mean worst case scenarios at

[00:24:06] The slowest it was because it was wide open yeah like i mean it did not slow down in the least when it hit the ground no until it hit the ground then it stopped really fast it did the wing panels didn't look that bad though the wing panels were actually completely reusable if it didn't break the plastic that was on them oh the little joiners yeah there was there wasn't even a ding which is shocking considering kind of dinged up when i saw them oh did they i thought maybe i didn't see many things on them but all it did was take and break the plastic where it joined the fuselage

[00:24:40] And that's why they failed yeah and one of them had a slight little divot in the leading edge the other wing panel was it looked like it was brand new which is shocking yeah absolutely

[00:24:54] The impression that it left on the ground it must have hit completely square yeah something anyway

[00:25:00] Yeah it was a spectacular crash the reason for the crash flutter now different than yours yours was a control surface flutter which is continuous flutter okay mine was due to it's called divergent flutter it was an entire wing started twisting ah yes okay and it built amplitude yeah quickly very quickly like split second quickly yes and what it actually ended up doing is the way the fuse the wing mounted to the fuselage it's on a fairly stiff carbon fiber

[00:25:36] Square shaped square tube yeah that slipped into another carbon fiber square tube very very rigid very very nice and then the the root of the wing was then bolted through the blow molded fuselage and that bolt went through the abs plastic or whatever it is on the edge of the wing and secured it there what happened i believe is the right wing because the left wing did not look like this the right wing fluttered and ripped itself from the fuselage when it did that it allowed the wing to

[00:26:10] Twist even more very very quickly so it took all the torsional rigidity out of the wing and it pulverized that inner spar when i went to actually pull it apart when i got home the spar itself the carbon fiber was just shards of strands there was no yeah there was no spar left it was just strands of carbon fiber oh for sure that's flutter and it just pulverized it i'm surprised

[00:26:36] It didn't like start spinning then because that one side is going to act it would have it didn't have

[00:26:41] Time if i would have if it had time if it had been higher and like straight and level because you were kind of in a dive you were you were kind of making like you said the the loop he was trying

[00:26:50] To get as much speed as possible having gravity help had you been level and higher that's exactly

[00:26:55] What it would have done it would have done a reggie it would have done the worst and then it would have been coming down like a frisbee yeah it would have spun it probably would have saved the batteries

[00:27:01] Too but probably would have saved a lot of stuff yeah because the other wing would have stayed

[00:27:05] Attached and helicoptered yeah just yeah flat spun or whatever but no dave had to try to go fast i don't know if you guys have noticed but dave has a tendency to to put it nicely overpower

[00:27:21] His airplanes like or try to like the east i mean the e-streak is overpowered but it doesn't go very

[00:27:27] Fast it's torquey well yeah well it climbs like it does it oh it's yes a rocket yeah it's it is faster than any of them we have but barely well whose is close mine's not close mine's daniel's is pretty close oh is it yeah oh okay yeah what about mine oh wait wait a second yeah i see what i oh yeah you

[00:27:51] Don't i want to make sure i called that out before somebody else did jeez so this is not the first

[00:27:58] Time i've experienced fluttering an airplane let's see i've lost four airplanes due to flutter i lost lost my radian xl to over speed in the airframe i had which i didn't think it was going that fast but apparently it did it was on a dive too wasn't there's a limit slight dive slight dive because it was getting far away i had tons of altitude so i wanted to kill some altitude and bring it back a little faster so i just pushed the nose over a little bit it didn't accelerate more than a few feet and i saw the wings start twisting and that's a long narrow aspect ratio wing so i mean if

[00:28:33] Anything's going to over speed and twist you're going to see it in a glider yeah then i took and lost my little foam f15 mig 15 scratch belt fan foam or fan fold foam once again it was just a high speed pass with it flutter pulled the throttle back and then it's too late it just completely destroyed itself yep i rebuilt it i built a brand new one there's nothing to rebuild

[00:29:03] And i added an additional spar from what was on the plans and i then i also fiberglass the wing and now when i fly it i am mindful of no high speed high energy passes only full throttle is only used for straight up and down or straight up no down yep and i've not had any problems since although i have seen it flexing and it's like okay throw back throw back throw back there's the cusp yep you're no faster of course we lost the goblin and many many years ago i lost a scooter quick

[00:29:36] Quickie 500 quickie 500 airplane in combat so streamer combat oh and just overstressed the airframe this one was caused by surface flutter instead of wing flutter this was surface flutter and it stripped the gears in the servo and this one didn't technically crash but it did

[00:29:58] Not not crash it was an arrival with a heart it arrived with a hearty thud yeah but it was salvageable no big deal on that one so go back to quickie 500 combat i don't think i've ever when did

[00:30:11] This was the free-for-all in taylor missouri they used to have that fly in and it was a free-for-all combat so 50-foot streamer so whatever airplane they weren't just all quickie run hundreds but you brought aha okay i bet yours was the fastest one out there well you wonder what was in the nose ys45 yeah so yeah it was substantially fast yeah do we want to go over reasons yeah or maybe what

[00:30:40] You can do to prevent flutter correct oh so i'll start that's up to you now so you can do lots of things the most the the most obvious is to make sure that the linkages are nice and tight there's not a lot of play in like the clevises the control horns the servo arms things like that make sure your clevis pins not tight but not loose in the holes of the arms no slop whatsoever that's kind of why i like i've gone to ball links on most of my stuff because there's no slop with those

[00:31:13] You can also seal your hinge gaps yeah nice tight hinge lines or be mindful of the gap when you build them that's another way you can avoid flutter and you can also avoid flutter by avoiding high-speed

[00:31:28] Dives in front of the flight line in an airplane with like three times the horsepower you're supposed to have don't over speed the airframe yeah yeah so there's a structural limit that any airplane's going to come apart it's the vne number yep never exceeds speed limit so but yeah the big one is the no slop in the system and it's going to vary depending on aircraft sure it is yeah i mean long

[00:31:53] Push rods are typically more prone to flutter than short stiff push rods 3d type airplanes with huge surfaces way more prone to flutter surface yep that's why they are designed to fly somewhat slowly although now some of the airplanes that are doing xa or extreme aerobatics rifle rolls and things like that are done wide open as fast as the airframe will fly but they do those with the surfaces deflected which when you preload the surfaces that somewhat takes away the flutter effect

[00:32:25] Because you're loading the surface so mindful of that if you're flying 3d planes at high speeds you're very much prone if you're not going to load the surfaces you should expect flutter

[00:32:39] Counterbalancing your surfaces another way to help prevent so explain what a counterbalance is some counterbalance is lead added to the leading edge of the ahead of the hinge line whether it be in a aerodynamic counterbalance like on a cub with the little part that sticks up over the rudder or you can actually add a little blob of lead i've seen sinkers used on a bent wire that sticks out ahead of the hinge line you want the surface to balance on the hinge line yep ideally

[00:33:12] When you disconnect the any control linkages the surface will stay where it's at it won't droop it won't neutral yeah yep so that's they can do that either via weight like he's talking about with an actual physical piece of lead or weight mounted to the control surface extending ahead of the hinge line or you can do it via aerodynamic means with a piece of the control surface ahead of the hinge

[00:33:36] Line yeah which when it's sitting on the ground is not going to balance but in flight in flight yep

[00:33:41] Which is why you see all these extras and edges and yaks and all that that are designed to have the the ears that come out like i'm trying to put it in yeah they look like ears yeah because they're

[00:33:53] That stick ahead of the hinges yeah yeah and you can even go further with that as you can add lead to the leading edge of those extensions to physically balance it just not aerodynamically so yeah what else torque tubes those are very prone to flow and that's what got me with the scooter was the

[00:34:13] Torque tube yep that we're talking about the the wire that runs within a piece of brass tubing that has a bend on either end one end of the wire is epoxied into the control surfaces like the old way we used to do ailerons or a joiner wire on elevators and then the other end is bent up and that's what connects to the servo those are notorious yeah for flutter the wire will waller out the hole in the surface and then you'll get looseness there and that'll cause flutter or and then you use a

[00:34:45] Mechanical advantage it has due to the bends yep so i'm assuming that's why most newer airplanes have gotten away from using those at least higher performance yeah it's simpler straight shots

[00:34:57] Honestly i think what is what has sort of made that method obsolete is the fact that we use separate servos on the wings now yes they're not worried about so that we canals yes back in the day when a four channel radio was 500 bucks yeah i mean a servo was 50 bucks yeah yeah we wouldn't we wouldn't waste a channel by putting another servo now that servos are basically disposable yeah some yeah pretty

[00:35:20] Much especially if they're in goblins yeah there were 11 servos and those things survived those are one of the few things that oh really i got four servos back and the velcro battery strap and that was pretty much it is the motor okay i don't know the wire was ripped on it but the motor itself looks okay but i don't have a speed control to run it up on to see if it's good so i'm assuming it's okay

[00:35:40] But not certain yeah i'm just lucky with being on the back of the plane maybe maybe it didn't bend the shaft or something yeah launched 25 feet yeah or 25 yards not 25 yards yardage yeah it was good distance it was so there you go flutter better try to avoid bad yeah and the telltale

[00:36:01] Sign is a hum if you hear anything that's different immediately pull the throttle back and pull the nose down it sounds like an a10 yeah exactly if it does yeah but get that nose up to load the surfaces yeah and slow it down yep it's a very distinct sound and once what it is

[00:36:20] You can pick it out instantly and you can tell who knows what it is because as soon as that's heard at a field those that know what it is their eyes go straight to the sky trying to figure out which

[00:36:30] Plane is going down and even if it stops immediately land yeah yeah don't continue flying oh this is

[00:36:37] Okay it stopped doing it no problem now no if it did it once it'll do it again and probably worse yeah i mean now everything's loose it could be something as simple as loose covering but you want to find that out yeah loose covering generally speaking is a higher pitched yeah sound but the onset of flutter is usually a low hum that is a very distinct yeah the divergent

[00:36:59] Flutter like i had with the wings it was a lower pitch than your elevator issue those are typically

[00:37:04] Higher pitch yeah i think you are probably hearing with your elevator thing you were hearing a lot of the the covering also because that one had a kite like sound to it it did yeah and i think that's

[00:37:19] Probably that's probably what i sound that we got thank goodness yeah because if i continued flying i probably would have lost at least half the elevator yeah if not the whole one so which i'm glad i didn't i like that airplane yeah me too so there you go flutter did you want to talk about that you absolutely can if you want okay so getting into the winter building season well that's really i

[00:37:47] Want to rush it we're in the fall here we're we're in the fall frenzy trying to hurry up and get all

[00:37:54] Of our flights in yes but soon unfortunately it will be time to put all the toys away for the winter and then focus on other things like building stuff sorry about that like new toys for the spring so it's a good reminder to disconnect all your batteries like don't leave those nycads plugged in bring them in the house if you keep them outside or nickel monohydrides yeah unplug them bring them in take them out of the airplane ideally and put them on a bench where you can easily put a top them off throughout the winter i'm talking about nickel monohydrides

[00:38:27] And nycads go over your airframes this is a good time to set up your repair plans for the winter yeah build yourself a list oh this airplane needs this i would like to do the redo the push rod on that one or landing gears a little wobbly on that one exactly i got a retracted sticking on this one whatever and stick a label on your plane so you don't forget hey that's a good idea we'll post a note with the notes that you wanted to do so and then it says done when you're done and then you can ready pull it out throw it away yeah so go over all the the nuts and

[00:39:01] Bolts and make sure everything's good to go so that when check your surface for slutter for looseness yeah yeah if you got some extra wide hinge gaps go ahead and seal them this winderm tape works great on that yeah on some of the smaller airplanes that works so if you got a

[00:39:19] Monoco covered balsa plane i like to use monoco to seal it from the bottom that way that way you don't see it from the top so yeah put your planes away safely change out your fuel line oh that's a good tip too especially the gassers how long do you get on those they say three years i've seen them go a lot longer i've seen them go shorter i think it depends a lot on the quality of the fuel

[00:39:44] You buy and probably the amount of use it gets yeah if it's it's dry it should probably last a little bit longer than if it was used and then dried and then used and dried yeah or no maybe i'm

[00:39:55] Backwards on that no i think you're right because the the ethanol and the fuel starts to dry it out dries it out yeah so it pulls the oils out yeah so there you go i've got some that are five six

[00:40:04] Years old now then they're perfectly fine although i probably really still should change them just to

[00:40:09] Be safe yeah at least the clunk line anyway so it's like the important one yeah so there you go

[00:40:15] Here's your annual reminder so for electrics what do you have to do look for loose nuts and bolts motors working their way loose props to the nick in them or a crack yeah hiding underneath that spinner that you can't see that's exactly right take if you'd never take it apart take it apart look at all your servos make sure they're not ungluing themselves or unscrewing themselves however they haven't been there okay let's be honest though who does that every year do you really go through every airplane you own i go through it before i fly it the next spring if i know there's a problem

[00:40:48] Then yes it's like oh the last time i flew it last fall it acted kind of weird then i'll go through it mostly when i break them out in the spring then i'll go through them real quick yeah before

[00:40:58] I throw them in the car mostly i'm talking about airplanes that are going to need attention over winter now's a good time to put it away so that you can give it the attention it deserves i

[00:41:08] Know the last time i ran my fokker d7 it was a little gaggy on the carburetor it needs a carb rebuilt there you go so there's a winner to do it yank the carb and rebuild it that way it'll be ready to go it ran last year it just a little yankee yeah but i don't go through every airplane i don't either

[00:41:26] I i don't have mostly airplanes that so a lot of the airplanes well maybe not this year but certainly last year i didn't touch a lot of my airplanes since i had put them away from the year prior so i repairs for the winter that way when spring gets here you don't have to worry about repairing you

[00:41:53] Can just go flying and give you something to do over the winter yeah or plan on builds well that's

[00:41:58] Yeah the other yeah i like to get my repairs done like it's like a weight on my shoulder if i know an airplane needs some attention it's hard for me to focus on anything else until that airplane has got

[00:42:09] The attention it needs i'm just the opposite if anything's broken i have to fix it right now yeah that's except for i just let the ultra 600 sit since may you did yeah i did that's surprising and that surprised me too it's like man what what am i doing i need to get this thing fixed

[00:42:26] And it's almost ready we all know oh it's ready to go now oh yeah oh that's right i found the props and we don't know how they shipped me my motors so yeah what were the props they were actually in the box of spare parts i took to joan oh ah well that makes sense because it makes sense because you took it to join all yeah i normally keep those props in the box i store the aircraft in for some reason or another they ended up in the spare parts box at least you found them so you're just leaving all that stuff in the joan all box for next year then yeah right now the props are in the aircraft box where

[00:42:59] They're supposed to be so i can find them when i'm at the field and run into an issue issue yeah so

[00:43:07] Yeah real quick i'll talk about saturday ron and i did we include we didn't include dave on our plans did we i knew nothing about it i sat home all day and sulked oh so did i well so did well so did ron ron and i had these plans it was my birthday saturday last saturday was my birthday thank you and we were going to happy birthday i don't know what you mean thank you we were going to go to eli field with truck loads of airplanes and fly all day and then at the end of the day where we're

[00:43:40] Going to come back here and have dinner and stuff sounded like it was going to be a wonderful saturday here is in my house oh yeah sorry here at ron's place but yeah i got sick friday night and so this is totally not airplane related but i i feel like it's worth talking about so i don't normally vomit like i haven't i haven't vomited i hate in years like tens of years i will fight it right because i just hate i just hate the feeling i hate the whole all of it i hate everything about it

[00:44:14] So i will fight it i'll go through the cold sweats and the drinking the ginger ale or whatever to try to calm everything so i don't puke right well friday i don't know if i if it's something i ate or whatever but friday night about bedtime i started not feeling great stomach a little sour a little gurgly mergly so like it'll pass i'll take some ibuprofen and wake up in the morning and we'll go do our run and then we'll go fly and it'll be a great day about 1 30 in the

[00:44:47] Morning could because it had been so long since i had last gotten sick like this i didn't remember ron's turning green over here yeah i didn't remember the feeling that immediately preceded yeah so i woke up at 1 30 with this feeling i'm like i think i'm i don't think i can fight this i think i'm gonna hurl i think i'm gonna bomb so yeah from about 1 30 saturday morning to about 4 o'clock in the morning it was not a good time and then at your age you got to worry about throwing your back

[00:45:23] Out exactly well funny you should say that because as i was curled over the commode yeah i was getting cramps in my legs no i was really i was getting cramps in my legs so i was trying to find a comfortable position so that my legs weren't cramping and while i was puke it was a good time oh so yeah and then saturday i was just spent so i laid on the couch and did not move all day saturday did your wife hold

[00:45:49] Your hair back for those that you don't know that tom is completely bald yeah i'm the bald one so i don't have any hair no she didn't have to hold my hair back but no i'm pretty sure she slept through

[00:46:05] All of it really well i mean i was trying to be polite not wake her up but it's trying to vomit private and then i'd get your rush out the the bedroom and close the door behind me and then rush into the bathroom and close that door behind me so hopefully the door the noise didn't make it past the door yeah oh so on the weekend before so i apologize to do that i apologize that that i ruined your saturday it's okay i got other things done and yeah the weekend before was laurie's

[00:46:35] Birthday and she also hurled not because she was sick though that was from that was self-induced that

[00:46:40] Was over drinking good times good times anyway so we will try hopefully again this saturday so

[00:46:50] Day weekend this saturday the weather looks really good the plan is wonderful don't jinx it i said looks you said looks really good just don't jinx it so early like well obviously i'm gonna go run or whatever but then i would like to be on the road no later than 10. i would like to be on actually earlier if i can but yeah the runner i'd like to leave here about nine okay but yeah we're gonna go to eli field and fly all day you guys are gonna force me to end up joining aren't you yeah

[00:47:23] That's the plan it's so con well i don't want to say convenient it's not convenient but having that paved runway to fly our smaller airplanes off of is so nice it makes a huge difference and just as important electricity yeah there's so the recharging and stuff like yeah it's and it's also nice having

[00:47:44] The pavilion to be under and in the shade until it's time to fly and yeah there's lots of there's

[00:47:51] Lots of reasons to it's a quality field yeah and i can honestly say i mean like every time i've been there everyone's been nice oh i've never dealt with a yeah i mean there's a rudy tootie yeah

[00:48:07] Me either so yes sometimes you should you should join sometimes some people are over talkative even and you don't get as much flying in but that's fun too so yeah i enjoy it's all about being an aspect of it

[00:48:20] Yeah part of the group and but yeah that's the plan for saturday and you can fly as one of our guests

[00:48:26] No problem i actually have a little bit of conflict oh i've got agility trial this weekend i gotta drop the trailer tomorrow it's friday saturday sunday and i gotta pull this trailer back sunday

[00:48:37] Boom but what are you doing saturday agility trial he said friday saturday sunday well but he talked about the trailer he said he was dropping it off thursday and then picking up sunday he didn't say

[00:48:47] What he was doing friday and saturday i'll see if i can blow saturday off but i i definitely have

[00:48:52] To be there sunday i'm definitely blowing saturday off when we're gonna go fly might be one of the last don't say that i want more well it's so weird because today well let's see last night and tonight freeze warnings we got down below freezing so this is now the weather of oh my tires are low as you get in your car and you pull out of the garage and they're fine then 10 minutes later as you're driving and they cool down it starts yelling at you that's quite annoying by the way it always makes me think something is actually wrong and i have to want to rise my trailer this weekend oh that's you should

[00:49:25] Have done that already only because it froze the last two nights the last two nights it wasn't that bad okay it was a hard freeze it was a frost warning i thought no there's a freeze warning

[00:49:38] Hard starts enough heat in it it's fine okay well you'll know when you pee in it next year

[00:49:44] One year i did not get it completely winterized and it blew the faucet off in the kitchen

[00:49:52] I mean he'll need it for joe and all next year right yeah well he'll have to repair it before joe

[00:49:57] And all yeah just make sure it's good i got the bathroom door laying on the table right now anyway

[00:50:01] Well you don't need a bathroom door on your journal yeah it's just you and daniel

[00:50:06] He doesn't even use the bathroom in the trailer there you go he goes out back why not like a cat is there anything else that we have missed no i think that completes our episode of randomness

[00:50:19] Randomness so don't forget go to the website watch the videos watch the well videos because you don't really watch any text or reviews read them read them look at them enjoy them we worked hard on them you worked hard on those yes i'm getting a bug to write something you should do it you should the

[00:50:45] Website needs content dave's corner ooh then you can put in there whatever you want no one will read it

[00:50:54] It's just all complaints i was just gonna say things that make me unhappy by dave

[00:51:01] Oh that's oh boy get off my lawn get off my lawn all right you guys all know i'm not that bad

[00:51:12] I feel like you bring a balance like ron is always the super positive everything is awesome roses and flowers and and then yeah you bring in the the reality and i'm just kind of

[00:51:23] Bounce back and forth yeah i'm waffling so how is my not reality though i like to look at the good

[00:51:28] In things it's more fun that way i think it's bad i didn't anyway i'm not as really as sour as i

[00:51:37] Come off on this or in life or when we see him off of this or or on discord all right different

[00:51:48] Different story there is something i'm looking forward to this winter oh yeah yeah i want a night fly over snow i'm thinking that would be cool so cool yeah i can't wait for a nice snowy night that's

[00:51:59] Hot would be cool so what would we well all tricks is well did we i don't know if we talked about it on here if i was talking to somebody else but apparently snow is good to use instead of the skis oh floats floats work better take your rudder off yeah maybe it was on here we talked about i don't know but i think it was touched on it yeah i think it was that was precipitated by talking to somebody else about it but yeah i think that would be kind of neat to do yeah let's do that yeah twin otter on floats and i need i need a good night does it have enough lights though the twin

[00:52:32] Otter it wouldn't be at night for that one okay that's what i mean i need a good night flyer that i can put yeah i mean the ultra says would be perfect for that yeah i still yeah anyway i still want to put lights on my slow ultra stick but i actually want to buy another slow ultra stick to do that too

[00:52:49] Does that make sense yeah like i don't i don't know i don't want to ruin one yeah kind of i get that but anyway but yeah the stuff we've been right flying even over grass it really lights up

[00:53:03] The ground it does just get that reflection i think it's so cool yeah and see the other thing too now like night flying is no longer going to be like late it's gonna be 4 p.m it used it used to be we we were out right after work yeah it used to be we were out there till 9 30 and then it's okay well now we gotta fly because it's finally dark and now you're right it's gonna be straight from work out to the field and it's gonna be pitch black by five yeah 5 30. so why didn't like why are we just now

[00:53:28] Coming up with this like we have time why haven't no but i mean why haven't we done this in years

[00:53:33] Previous we haven't done night flying before like this really has been the first year we've done a lot of night flying yeah that's true i mean i don't think you're right i don't think we ever knew newt flew i don't think we never night flew before the shiny well the ultra says we've flown them at

[00:53:52] Night but they don't really light up the ground real good i mean you could see the shiny before that

[00:53:56] Though i don't know i think it was give or take the same time i think because the the shiny was yeah i'm

[00:54:05] Pretty sure the shiny was first maybe the shiny is what made us buy the ultrax's because they had

[00:54:09] You could get the light kits for them no what made us buy the ultrax's is we actually saw them flying at our sea fest the first year we went and the lights were just under added bonus yeah because we thought those were the dingiest things when you saw them until they actually see them fly it's like oh my god this is fun and then you fly one it's like and that's even better yeah so yeah i i'm pretty sure like i i didn't have any night time flying stuff before the the shiny okay well there you go yeah we're gonna make that happen this year it's gonna be fun this year and next year this this is

[00:54:43] Whenever it gets snow i gotta get something ready yeah see i wonder if you could put floats on a on a viper maybe you could just belly land it i think hold on tail heavy's done that with a

[00:54:55] Mono float that's right oh really tail heavy yeah the youtube channel yeah they did that i think what was it was it a viper i don't think it was a vibe it was a viper-ish yeah future maybe or something like that but yeah they it would have enough power oh yeah yeah they put one single float i i think on it and then i think it may have had spawns and i can't remember how they did the wing

[00:55:15] Test yeah they flew a jet off the water try and find i was thinking about snow but yeah that would be

[00:55:21] Okay i need to try and see what kind of floats i can get yeah you have a viper you could probably modify that could be my just jerk around and jerk around mess around whatever or just get some of those dubro skis and put on there nice because that would be fun to do that at joan all with floats on the viper too that will be different we'll see what happens that's all i got that's all

[00:55:45] I got i got a set of floats sitting in the garage you can have nice they are brand new in the box never opened for my grand tundra oh cool perfect that would be perfect why don't you because i don't have a grand tundra anymore it kind of caught fire oh that was that one yeah

[00:56:00] That one what do you have now the piper the no i've got the fms 1700 millimeter super cup

[00:56:07] Which now has newer tires well would it fit on that it can't it came with floats i already got

[00:56:14] Perfect then yes i will take that there you go awesome and you want to set a big wheel to talk him out of it well i just i didn't want him to say yes thank you yes thank you yes no problem

[00:56:22] Like i said the box is still sealed cool nice i'm gonna go skis somewhere now you've got a project for

[00:56:28] The winner yay not like i didn't already stop it i know this place is a mess now i don't see i don't see anything that's not assembled around here there's the negative again huh all right i'm done are you done i am done i'm finished i'm thanks for listening good night good night good night

[00:56:47] Hope you enjoyed this episode of the rc plane lab podcast for topic suggestions to ask questions or to give any feedback connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either ron at rcplanelab.com or tom at rcplanelab.com you can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846 please subscribe rate and review us on your favorite podcast app until next time may your landings be gentle