Ep 223: Tom’s Home, Dave Bought a Jet, and Ron Goes Scale

0:00

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron.

I'm Tom.

And I'm Dave.

You okay? You had to get it just right.

0:29

Imagine my surprise tonight as I am sitting downstairs getting all of my computer stuff set up, sending Tommy the recording invite link, and getting ready for tonight's episode. I'm sitting down here, and I'm like, "I wonder if Dave's here yet." I got on my phone and started looking at our cameras outside and see this white car pull up.

0:47

I'm like, "Who the frig is this?" Thinking, "Who is here?" Sure enough, who gets out of the car? Lori. And who else?

This guy. It's good to be home.

Welcome back, buddy.

Thanks.

We need to preface this because everybody here thinks this was the plan for you to be home now. Apparently, you were extended. I don't know how much you want to get into this, but Dave and I were not expecting to see you until April-ish of next year.

That's correct. I was supposed to be—

1:27

—there until April, and I'll make a really long story—

I'm home now. He got fired.

—longer. Basically, they told us to go home.

After telling you you were not going home.

They told a few of us to go home. It's a really long story, and there is some politics involved and military buffoonery. The short story is I am home, and I am home-home.

1:59

I don't have to go back. That is probably my last deployment of my career.

For us, that's good news.

Pretty confident. That's good news for me and Lori also. Lori and I, excuse me.

That changes a lot of plans. That changes the swap meets coming up. That changes Beloit. That changes Janesville. What's the—no, that's the same one.

That's the same. The Chicago one. I can't remember the name, where it's at.

Suburb.

2:35

That changes Toledo.

Toledo. That's probably the biggest one.

Massive change. I think we'll probably have to take two or three trailers to Toledo next year.

I have stuff.

That's why I said that. Apparently, Reggie has stuff.

I will not have a lot of stuff, by the way. I will have a few things, but I have not been in the buying mood.

Your absence has taken the flying spirit out of my body.

I'm sorry about that.

No, it's okay.

3:04

Thanks for blaming that on me.

Absolutely. I don't ever take responsibility for anything. It's not my fault. Seriously, good to have you home.

It's good to be home.

Quite the surprise.

I wanted it to be a surprise.

So much so that you lied to me the last few days.

Well, I didn't. They were untruths.

They were lies of omission.

There you go.

3:27

Today, for example, I told you, "Yep, I'm walking out the door now," or something to that effect. That wasn't a lie. I was walking out the door of the house.

You texted at like 5:30, saying, "Hey, I'm going into work early to see if I can get off in time to be out there." I'm sitting there thinking, "Holy hell."

Technically, he did.

3:45

He went in there to work early this morning.

That's exactly what I wanted.

I know. I'm sitting there thinking, "Man, it's like 3:30 where he is. That's impressive that he's going in that early."

So that I could get home in time to be on with us. That was not a lie.

But when I said, "I'm sending you the link," I just got a thumbs-up.

4:04

That also wasn't a lie. I was like, "Cool. Go ahead and send it. We don't need it, but here we go." I didn't lie. I just gave you the thumbs-up like, "Yes, you did. Way to go."

Boy, it's a gray area. It's kind of like the AMA selling the headquarters.

Anyway. I don't know why I brought that—

4:26

—up. It's good to be home. It's nice to be recording in the same room with you fine gentlemen again.

Makes a big difference.

I'm looking forward to flying. Even though it might be a little chilly, I'm going flying.

We're going. Last time Dave was out to show me his new toy, which we'll talk about here shortly, I told him, "You know what?"

4:47

"I think I'm probably done flying for the year," which is sad because I don't think I've even hit 50 flights this year.

Really?

It's pathetic. It's pretty sad.

I've hit goal already.

What was your goal? Two hundred? One hundred or two hundred?

One hundred. I'm well past that. I currently have 101.

I honestly think I'm at like 47, so maybe I'll hit 50. Good to have you home.

Thank you. Good to be home. I'm happy.

5:21

We're happy.

I can't wait to fly something locally.

You're going to get to help me with a bunch of stuff this winter, too, then.

Oh, fantastic.

I'm kidding. You don't have to.

Wonderful. You want a Reggie project?

No. I have my own project.

Ron has his own project, I see. Are we going to talk about that?

We will talk about that afterwards. Are we ready to move on from that?

Sure.

5:42

The other thing I wanted to bring up that I saw online: the AMA has announced a committee to look into reports of suspected radio interference and unexpected loss of control.

Interesting. I find that interesting. Is that a thing? That's a legitimate question. I thought with 2.4 gigahertz that radio interference and loss of control was not a thing anymore. Loss of control now is really more related to failures of the equipment, right?

6:17

That might be what they're trying to figure out, honestly.

2.4 is really overpopulated as well.

Not as much—well, I shouldn't say that. Yes. That's what they're doing. They're trying to find patterns in whatever reports they get. They're looking at whether nearby cellular equipment has anything to do with it. They're looking at our radio equipment and other possible causes. They haven't established what's causing it yet.

6:47

Obviously, that's why they're just now looking into it. We shouldn't jump to conclusions on, "Oh, it's cell towers," or, "My radio sucks," or anything like that. What they are asking, though, is if you've had anything happen, email amagov@modelaircraft.org.

Oh, boy.

Amagov@modelaircraft.org. Tell them what you actually saw, what happened to you.

7:12

Let them know the field name, address, date, time, what your time zone is, what your airplane was, what the receiver was, what your transmitter was, and roughly how many transmitters and receivers were around you. Also, club name, AMA charter number, approximate membership, if applicable, and a way to get in touch with you.

I see your face there.

Trying to hide it.

You can't now because we're looking at each other.

I'm imagining being on this committee—

7:46

—and the sheer number of, "Oh, I had a brownout," or—

Nobody will say that, by the way.

But you know what I'm getting at.

I do.

Poor installation. So many factors. How many reports is AMA going to have to filter through to get to a report that is a genuine failure of—not a component—of the signal because of interference?

It's going to be like UFO reports.

8:20

You can go to Facebook. You don't even have to go to Facebook. You can go to your club's Signal chat group or whatever. "Oh, I lost it last weekend. I just lost the signal."

Did you really, though? Or was it pilot error because you tried to pull out of an inverted loop too low? [Brief phrase unclear in the supplied transcript.] Do you know what I'm saying?

I fully get it.

8:44

Man, that's going to be a lot of work.

I would rather see them doing this and trying to find if there is a correlation between anything than just ignoring it, though. Right?

It's not us looking into it.

That's true.

9:07

I'm just saying I would not want to be one on that committee, trying to sift through all of that buffoonery.

They seem to be having enough issues, I would assume people talking to them about it or complaining about it, that they're going to do this in an actual, hopefully scientific way to try and figure out what is going on.

Hopefully, they will apply a scientific method to their research. I hate to be such a pessimist—

9:32

—but I feel for the guys and girls who are on that committee.

I do too. I get it. Like I said, I'd rather have them looking into it than ignoring it.

That's a fair point.

That's something they're actually doing, I think, for the good of the hobby, to try and figure out what might be a root cause.

Might not ever get to it.

But they're trying, I guess. Once again, if anything has happened to you, amagov@modelaircraft.org.

10:02

Help them out, guys.

There you go. Once again, try and make it a real thing that happened, not a servo locked up or anything like that. This is for actual radio loss, lockouts, frame holds, all that kind of stuff. That's the other thing, too. My radio, your radio, Tommy, and Dave, I'm pretty sure yours does, will tell you signal quality, losses on each antenna, frame loss, holds, all that kind of stuff.

10:28

You just have to remember when something happens, don't turn your transmitter off right away.

Correct. That's the mistake I always make.

I know, but it doesn't happen often enough for us to get that in our head.

Right.

I would think if you're flying and have a lot of holds or something like that, then that would be something, because that's enough of an issue where it might cause a crash.

10:51

To be fair, Spektrum, for example, in every receiver you buy, in the little pamphlet instruction—

I have never read.

Really? You've never even thumbed through?

No.

There's always guidelines in there for how you should mount said receiver. If you have it installed improperly and you're getting signal loss or whatever, my recommendation before you file a report, if something happens to the—

11:23

—AMA, just make sure your stuff was installed as per instructions.

If something happens to the aircraft, you mean?

Yeah.

Not in a carbon fuse, or—

Right. Exactly. They make receivers specifically for that.

They do. Anyway, I would not want to be on that committee, but kudos to the folks who I assume volunteered to be on that.

Or were voluntold.

11:45

Either way. Good job, and hopefully you figure something out.

Yes. Although I've not had issues. Have you?

All of my issues have been my own, and I'll be the first to admit that. Since I've got a modern radio, starting with my DX8, I have not had any radio-receiver glitch problems.

I just knocked on wood. Even with my broken antenna on my current radio, it didn't seem to care.

12:12

Honestly, the only issue I can ever remember actually having where I knew it was an issue and had to be careful with it was my DX4 with my Super Cub 14 years ago. That was when you just couldn't fly far away or else—

It was a distance.

Absolutely.

That was a 300-footer. That's all you got. Anything else, you're running after it.

You better hope you're turning already, start coming back to you.

12:38

Since then, no issues whatsoever. Good on the AMA for trying to get ahead of something, or maybe trying to get at the root of something.

There you go.

The next thing I want to talk about: we're in Halloween season, getting into it. You know what that means?

It's almost time for Halloween. Sorry.

All right, Mr. Obvious. Welcome back, Tommy.

Sorry.

13:08

Piper and I went to the store, and she saw some little cutout things that were Halloween-y, and she wanted them. I told her, "You can make your own." She's like, "What do you mean?" I said, "We have a laser cutter." Which, by the way, this also taught me our laser cutter sucks. I need to buy a bigger one.

13:27

Long story short, she came home, and I ended up teaching her how to draw things on the computer and how to program them, cut them on the laser cutter. We've ended up—granted, some of them are small—but we have cut out about a hundred different things. I'm trying to think what we've done: cats, ghosts, bats, and there was one other thing.

Spiders?

No, we didn't do a spider.

Cobwebs?

No. You're making it worse, by the way.

Sorry. What?

Pumpkins. Did I say that already?

No.

14:05

Pumpkins was the last thing. I was proud of her.

Cutting them out of balsa?

No, actually light ply. Then she paints them or whatever. She used markers on most of them and painted the witches—actually, not the witches, the ghosts. She still has a few of those to do.

Cool. Fun. Has she enjoyed it?

She has, actually. I'm proud of her for doing that stuff.

It's good to see her getting her hands on something.

14:31

Let's be honest, STEM is where it's at. The trades are important, but they don't seem to be the focus of education.

I agree.

Getting her to design things and use a computer for that kind of stuff is pretty cool.

14:53

I'm still trying to talk Crystal into letting me buy a bigger laser.

It's for the kids.

It's for Piper. It's for Dave's favorite child.

You knock it off.

[Brief joking exchange unclear in the supplied transcript.]

That says a lot. Because he hates Piper.

It was great when you got home and Dave gave you a hug and said, "Oh, good—"

15:14

"—I needed a friend." I'm like, "Huh. Okay. Wow."

That's not really—

That's what I heard. Exact words.

I think it was something like, "It's good to have you back, buddy."

You go away for a year.

Maybe you'll miss me.

Maybe. He might miss you. I don't know.

15:36

Add another 30 years to the friendship.

That's valid. That's fine. It hurts nonetheless, but that's valid.

See, Dave? You hurt Ron's feeling. Come on, it's hard to do.

Come here.

He's only got one.

I know. That's why I said it's hard to do. You're just going to have to give him a hug every time you see him now to make up for it.

Make it weird. Weird is fun.

Let's talk about Dave right now.

Oh, no.

Oh, boy. Dave has—oh, my gosh, this is so exciting—

16:09

—and in such a Dave way to join the club.

A very Dave way of doing it.

Dave, I don't want to steal your thunder, so you tell us.

Against my better judgment, I bought a turbine.

Woo-hoo! Notice how he puts a Dave spin on it, even. Almost like he regrets it.

I do right now. Walk into my house. I dare you.

What did you buy, Dave, first off? Let's go for that.

I ran across an extremely good deal on a very old Boomerang Intro jet.

16:50

That's literally its name, Intro.

Wait a minute. That's its name? So it's not a Boomerang intro jet. It's a Boomerang Intro jet. That's the name of it. That's weird.

"Jet" is not part of it. It's a Boomerang Intro, but it's also a jet.

Right, but I don't say "MB-339 jet." I don't say "Boomerang Ranger jet."

I get it.

Or "Atom jet."

17:16

It's a Boomerang Intro. Can't-pass-it-up deal. I'm going to have less money involved in this than I do my F-15.

That's insane to me.

Insane. But there are some caveats to this.

There's a little caveat to that because it's a Dave project. The first thing, in a way only Dave could do it: he calls me up and says, "Hey, are you home?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Can I come out and show you something?" I'm like, "Absolutely."

17:50

He gets out here. I'm starting to get excited because when something like that happens, you start replaying things in your mind. I knew he had talked about this jet. Am I the one who sent it to you first?

You sent it to me first.

I was talking to him about that jet, and I guess he knew the guy who was selling all that stuff because it was local to us.

I know the name, but I'd never actually met him.

18:18

I'm sitting there thinking, "Maybe that's what he's going to come out and show me." Then I'm like, "No, it's Dave. I can't imagine he would do that. He's so anti-jet."

I know.

He shows up, and I look in the back of his truck, and there's this beautiful jet. Don't be Dave, Dave. There's this beautiful jet. It's a good-looking airplane. It reminds me of a Sprint.

It looks a lot like it, with a few—

18:52

—differences. I've always liked the Elan and stuff that has the twin tail booms. He comes out and he's showing it to me, and the first thing out of his mouth was—I wish I could remember exactly—something along the lines of, "I regret this, but I bought a jet."

"Against my better judgment, I bought a jet."

Okay. I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "I shouldn't have done this. This thing is a piece of junk."

19:20

I'm like, "No, it's not. You will have it flying—"

It is so rough.

It's a Dave project, though. Dave, you have a knack for taking things nobody else wants to mess with and making them beautiful and fly well.

It's going to turn out nice.

The article he wrote for the magazine sums it up perfectly in the title: "From Trash to—"

19:51

"—Treasure."

There you go. This will turn out nice. It's just going to need a ton of work.

That's okay.

The scary thing is it flew last month.

I was just going to say the beauty of it is you know it flies and runs.

We went from "scary thing" to "the beauty of it." That's kind of funny.

The beauty of the situation is that you knew it flew a month ago.

I understand that, but you're looking at the same idea of "it flew last month."

20:16

He's saying it's scary, and you're like, "The beauty part of it."

Right, I got you. There's possibly some structural areas that need looked at. I would not have flown it, I'll be honest with you.

In its current condition. Does it have retracts?

It's got retracts. It's got brakes.

Legally, it has to, technically.

I think it has lights. They're questionable.

The whole thing is questionable. They probably need to come off.

20:47

They're coming off. Somebody literally looks like they took two five-millimeter LEDs, put them on almost an angle bracket—a plywood piece of plate—and epoxied it to the very front of the nose. It's got something in the wing. Who knows if it's hooked up? I don't know.

I would nix the lights.

21:08

They're going away.

Smarter. Tell us all about it, Dave. What's it got for an engine?

It's got a Jet Central Bee, so it's an older engine. B-E-E, by the way, not B. Not the letter B.

Gotcha. The insect.

Yeah. It's propane start.

That'll be interesting.

21:29

I'm missing a few pieces for the propane-start system, so I have to track some of that stuff down. It doesn't bother me that it starts on propane. It's just an extra thing to drag around, but what the heck.

For guys like us who like to tinker, I think that's almost a plus. You like the stuff. Ron likes the stuff that you just hit a button and it works.

Yes.

Dave and I, we kind of like the physical—

21:57

—interaction with the model and tinkering. I think the propane start will be fun.

Cool. I have not fired up the module on it to see what time is on it, but he thought it was very low. He thought it was in the six-to-eight-hour range.

That's not bad for 25 years.

I have to get it fired up to actually see what's going on with that.

Did he say whether it had been sent in for service prior to that?

22:26

He had got it used previously himself.

Okay, so it may only have six to eight total hours. That's awesome.

I believe it's a low-time engine. Just looking at it, it's not scorched. It's obviously got burn marks on the back, but nothing excessive that leads me to believe it's high-time.

Sweet. Do they still repair those?

I did a quick search on the internet, and it does look like they do.

Nice.

22:53

I know a little bit about jet engines. The physical pieces of it are similar from engine to engine.

But there are different sizes, right?

There are different sizes. You have to be working on that engine. If you're repairing or blending a blade on one turbine—turbine, however you want to say them—the techniques and procedures would apply across the board, no matter what.

They're all tubes with fans.

23:26

What I'm getting at is if you can work on modern ones, you should probably be able to work on older ones.

A quick search looks like they're still around.

Sweet.

It is what it is. [Short phrase unclear in the supplied transcript.] If it goes kapooey and I can't get it serviced, oh well.

You buy a brand-new one.

Yeah.

See? He said, "Yeah." He's in. He doesn't want to be, but he's gotten—

23:52

—the bug. Dave would never admit it, but I could tell he's excited about it.

I would like to run it.

Look at that. The frown is almost straight across. We're getting so close to a smile.

I would have never bought it if the price wasn't where it was. The price was just, "I cannot pass this up for what it is."

You don't have to say, but do you want to say what you paid for it?

It's going to be out there.

24:21

Six hundred dollars.

Nice. You can't pass that. I've paid more for an engine than that before.

I made him take the receiver. I was like, "I don't want it." It was a 72-megahertz receiver.

He flew that on 72 megahertz?

Yeah.

Oh, boy.

I could have had it ready to fly for $600.

That's amazing. I'm super excited for you.

Like I said, for the money. It's also going to put me at ease going to fly it. It's like, "It's only $600."

24:50

Everything I fly is $600, or less, so I'm not worried about having four grand in flight.

Thanks for reminding me. That hurts, I'm not going to lie.

That's gone for me. Now I'm going to have 100 hours in it, stripping it, recovering it.

That's what makes us tick.

That's what I do, apparently, now.

Tell us about it. What all did you get with it? What needs to be done? What are you planning on changing? What's the wingspan—

25:18

—on that one? What did we measure it out to?

I want to say about 78-ish.

Not quite 80, but it's not tiny.

It still would qualify for the giant-scale length-times-width thing. It's got the Jet Central Bee in it. Pneumatic brakes. You guys are electric or pneumatic?

Electric.

I've got pneumatic brakes, pneumatic retracts, which apparently are still holding air from a month ago. They've got—

25:46

—still 50 pounds of pressure.

That's crazy.

It's got two booms. It breaks down like any other twin-boom, for easy storage and transport.

Which is nice.

I will say taking the booms off is a real pain in the butt.

Is it?

It's very difficult for me personally to carry with my situation, so I pretty much have to, and to get it in the house.

Why is it a pain to get them off—

26:15

—just out of curiosity?

You know those clamp brackets that hold the wings on? They also hold the tail on, but they're really fiddly. Once you unbolt the horizontal tail, I had to get a wrench and jiggle the little set screw back and forth until I found exactly the right spot that allowed it to release the booms.

The way those are held on, we couldn't figure it out—

26:41

—because it didn't look like there was anything that actually held the booms on, right?

Right.

We looked it up, and I guess the way these work—correct me if I'm not understanding it right—there's a little V that moves up and down that's on the bottom of it, right?

It's on the bottom. It goes up.

But you screw it from the top, right?

Yeah. There's a bolt on the booms, and there's—

27:06

—a bolt on the wing, and you turn it. It's like a four-millimeter, something like that, with a shoulder bolt. It captures the head of the bolt in this V as you tighten it up. That's what holds everything together. It's got a round hole in it. You put the bolt through, and as you tighten it, this V comes up and grabs the head of the bolt.

Oh.

If that makes sense.

It does. I'm tracking.

27:33

I haven't quite figured out how it does with the wing and the boom at the same time, but apparently it does.

Interesting. I think that's the part that was giving me pause. I wasn't quite sure how that worked either.

Cool, though. Apparently it works because it's in one piece, and it locked it down. I tried to pry it apart last night, and unless you release those screws—

27:52

—it ain't going nowhere.

Good. That's exactly what you want.

It is super fiddly, though. You have to get it just right to get it to release and/or lock.

That might be something you can adjust, though.

I can probably adjust it once I've got it all apart and can see what's going on. The other thing that's fiddly is getting the hatch on, too. The hatch is super fiddly, although I'm getting better at it.

28:13

It looks like it needs to be bent just a little bit more.

That's what I'm doing: grabbing the back, putting my thumb up inside it and two fingers on top, and clamping down on it. It squeezes it together.

I noticed there's a piece of metal on the inside of that.

That's going to be super hot to take off.

I think that piece of metal is probably what's pushing it out. You might be—

28:35

—able to pull that out and see if you can tweak it, nudge it a little bit. That's probably going to help hold the shape of that.

It's not that bad. It's just a matter of small adjustments. It's got a fuel tank in it, a fiberglass tank with an air trap. Looks like a pill bottle, which is just floating in there, by the way.

It was just sitting there.

Nice.

The tank's Velcroed in, so hopefully the hatch doesn't come off.

29:04

The hatch should hold quite a bit because that goes right over it.

Taking it apart last night, trying to get some photos of it, I went to lift up the nose of the aircraft to get a picture of the bottom, and it pukes kerosene all over me, all over my house.

Lovely.

I walked in the house this evening from work, and it smells like the airport in my house.

That's so cool. I love that smell.

It's like, "How long does it take for kerosene to go away?"

29:32

You're going to find out, and you can tell us next week. Or the week after. Or the next month, or next year.

Or you'll just get so used to it, you don't even smell it anymore.

I'm super excited. We'll see. We'll get her all cleaned up, make it nice and pretty again. I really would like to find a new canopy for it. The existing canopy—does it look like it's been—

29:57

—tinted to you?

It almost looks like it's aged.

It's aged, but it's blue. I've never seen anything age blue before. There's a pilot inside it, but you can barely see it. I don't know if the previous owner may have tinted it, then it aged on top of the tint.

It's possible.

At some point in its life, it's run on its roof and ground away a good portion of the plastic. It's not got a hole in it, but it's got a divot. It's indented.

30:27

Looking at the Sprint, you might be able to take measurements and see if you can just get a Sprint canopy. I bet you could make it work, even if it's off a little bit.

It's a pretty generic shape.

It is. They're held on by screws on the outside, so it's not like it has to fit into anything.

It doesn't have to fit into a socket or anything.

Right. This one is all balsa and ply?

All balsa and ply.

30:50

With a structure like that, you should be able to modify it to work with something else.

I can mold something in.

Or you could always just paint it black.

No. That was the original thought, which is not my thing.

As much as you guys complain about no pilots in airplanes, you can't just paint it black and be okay with it.

Could you use it as a plug to pull a new clear one?

I don't know if it's stiff enough.

31:13

I might have to fill it with—

I know what you mean. "Pasture of Paris." That didn't come out right.

"Pasture of Paris," yeah. I said "pastor of Paris."

Oh, pastor. Fill it with the pastor.

Paint was the original thought, and then I realized how much damage was in the top of it. It would look weird once it's painted.

31:33

Right now, you don't notice it so bad, but as soon as you've got paint on it, it would look weird.

Gotcha. You're better off getting a new one. Maybe that's another thing we can add to our repertoire, trying to figure out how to make canopies. I honestly have a couple I could be replacing, too.

I would also like to change the intakes. They're minuscule.

31:53

They just look stupid.

Why are they even on there? Why are they necessary?

Because you've got to get air from somewhere.

But the engine is more or less exposed, right?

No.

At least on the back end?

No, it's all under that cowling.

Is it? Dang. Okay.

It doesn't even look like there's enough air vents to get in there. If it was ducted fan, I would say this thing's never going to fly.

32:19

This is moving more air than that. I would like to upgrade the inlets, once again, possibly if I can get the Sprint ones to fit.

There you go. I bet you can. I don't know why you couldn't, honestly. Just make a bigger hole and glue them on. Are the Sprint vents fiberglass, or are they built into the airframe?

I don't know.

Because I think the Sprint is balsa, too, isn't it?

I thought so.

32:44

Balsa and ply. So you may have to get a fuselage if you're going to do the vents.

No. The vents literally are just things that glue on the side on these. It's not built into anything. It's not molded into anything. You have your balsa side with a hole in it, and then there's the vents, like a ram-air hood. The old ones that you used to get—

Yeah.

—that you thought were cool-looking. You just glued them on top.

33:07

I never had one of those.

I never put them on, but I bought some just in case.

J.C. Whitney.

Actually, a swap meet, but that's probably where they came from.

Western Auto.

There you go. Maybe a few little upgrades to it cosmetically. If I can get the Sprint intakes to look—because they just look better, and I think they would function better. New canopy. The rest of it's just going to be recovering and—

33:33

—cleaning it up.

Reinforcing some places.

Possibly, depending on what the structure looks like. Structure-wise, without stripping the covering, it looks and feels solid. Doesn't really look like there's any issues.

Cool.

When it comes to the inside, though, that's a different story. It's a rat's nest in there.

That's a jet. It doesn't have to be, but that seems to be the—

Well, yes.

34:01

One thing that makes yours look worse at this point than it actually is: there's no receiver in there, so the wires aren't really going anywhere. They're just flopping around in there. But there are more lines than we're used to because he has two solenoids, one for the kerosene and one for propane. There's a valve in there to shut off one of the two. I can't remember which one it is.

34:29

The main kerosene.

That one has to be run on kerosene, right?

Yes, it has to be run on kerosene.

That's not a bad thing. I like the smell of it.

Less smoke, too. He's going to have as much in his tank and his fire extinguisher as he does the whole airplane at this point.

That's true. That's about where we were at, right?

Just for those two items.

Dang it.

34:57

It's worth it. It really is. I don't miss the money anymore.

It's already gone. I can't even think about it. Something that does bother me quite a bit about it, but it doesn't seem to be an issue, is the engine is offset to one side. It's not dead center in the airplane. It's horizontally fine, but it's offset to—what was it—the left?

Left.

35:19

If you're looking at it from the nose, the right-hand side is wider than the left. If you're looking at it from the back, it's farther to the right, I think. I don't know. I don't see any physical reason to have it offset. I think it was probably easier for them, whenever they mounted it, just to make one spacer for one side than it was to make two.

That would drive me nuts.

That is probably going to get fixed.

I can't think of a reason why you would do that.

35:46

It's not far enough off the centerline that it's going to cause yaw, but visually, it's disturbing.

If you're looking with the hatch off. That would drive me nuts. What do you think, a quarter-inch or so?

It's probably off by at least three-eighths.

Dang. That would drive me nuts.

It's far enough off that it's easy to see with the eyeball.

I would have to fix that.

36:11

Dave can do it, and you probably will.

Not a problem. We can machine parts.

That's a very Dave thing to do. I love it.

If I find a reason it's offset once I'm digging around in there, then we can obviously leave it alone, but I can't see any reason that it is.

You need to modify the airframe enough so that it is not an Intro anymore. Then you can name it something else that makes more sense. That's a stupid name.

That is a dumb name.

36:42

Somebody just gave up. "It's introductory. What are we going to call this thing? Just Intro. Be done with it. Let's go. Move on."

Have you said the vintage?

The best I can tell, it's roughly 20 years old. The control module for the engine is marked 2004, so assuming it came around that time. That lines up with some of the things I've seen on the Intro online. Videos are like 16 to 18 years old.

37:15

There's some stuff I've seen from 2005, 2007. That seems to date it fairly decently to about 20 years ago.

Awesome.

The tires are bald, by the way, so I don't know if I need to find new tires or not.

Do the front and rear match?

Maybe they're supposed to be bald, then. I don't know. They've got grooves. You can tell where they had siping, but there isn't anymore.

If they were just plain old slicks, then cool. Just recut some grooves in it yourself.

37:50

Stick them on the lathe. I'm just wondering how thick it is.

They're usually solid rubber, aren't they? Mine are.

I don't know about mine. If nothing else, they might need to be turned. They do appear to be a little flat, angled.

A little camber.

I'm pretty sure the tires on both of mine are solid.

I would imagine. I don't know why they wouldn't be, honestly.

If I destroy them, I destroy them, but chuck them up and try to at least level them off—

38:13

—because I can't imagine having an angled tire is going to be good for anything.

When you say "angled," what do you mean?

The tread is worn unevenly.

Does that mean it's actually making contact now on the ground at that angle? Is the gear truly 90 degrees?

It's only sat on my carpet, so I don't know if it sits flat.

That's what I'd worry about more before you try and fix anything.

38:40

If they're worn to where you're actually getting full contact, I'd leave it.

Maybe that's why they're worn.

We'll look at it. Everything's going to be inspected to the nth degree before.

Sweet. That's Dave's Derelict Jet.

Dave's Derelict Jet. The DDJ.

That's its new name. Better than Intro.

39:03

That is better than Intro. Just the Derelict.

No, just DDJ. I like DDJ.

We'll come up with something. Are you thinking colors? Are you going to go back with the same colors that are on it? What color is it now? It's red, white, and blue, right?

39:21

It's red, white, and blue. Have you seen pictures of it?

Yeah.

I've been tossing stuff around in my head, and I think I have settled on doing a Vampire scheme.

That's going to involve sky blue.

Oh, boy. Actually, I'm really bad at seeing blue. I'm better off with gray. I probably ought to avoid that. I'm thinking of a Vampire scheme, an Australian Vampire scheme specifically, because it is a Boomerang.

You could put a kangaroo on the side.

39:53

Then be able to use the kangaroo roundels and do it in a desert-tan scheme.

There you go.

The tan will pop in the sky, even though the bottom is going to be sky blue. There will be plenty of side area and everything to look at, so it doesn't scare me that bad.

That'd be cool. I like it. That's an unusual scheme for you.

I've had one Vampire EDF in that scheme.

Sweet. It'd be different. Dave's part of the club.

40:24

I know. I'm so happy.

I want to run this thing.

He's rolling his eyes. We'll bring it out sometime. Like I said, we'll put it on a stand. We'll make something if we need to.

I need to get everything dragged out of the fuselage. The plywood plate that everything's mounted to is oil-soaked and flimsy and missing a few mounting screws.

Oh. At least it was flown like that. If the engine comes loose, it's contained, so whatever.

40:53

It's just going forward. There's no FOD screen, so when the screws come out—

Perfect. That might be something—

I need to look into finding a FOD screen.

—trying to find it, especially if you're going to fly it off the club field here.

There is essentially no way any garbage is going to get into it. The intakes are so high up on the wing. They're above the wing, not the front of the wing. The other intake is literally on the top.

41:17

Something would have to work really hard at getting in there.

The only issue you might have, and actually probably not, is if something came in from the front gear, where that hatch is, or where that goes up into. It would have to get through so much.

It would have to go through all kinds of stuff to get to the engine, and the fuel tank's in the way. It blocks 90 percent of that access anyway.

But how far down does that go? We haven't seen underneath.

41:40

Everything's mounted on a plate. What's under the plate?

The fuel pumps. There's a lot of stuff: all the retract stuff, the air cylinder for the retracts and the brakes. I'm assuming they're a shared system. I don't see two cylinders, maybe, but I haven't taken anything apart yet either. I've never dealt with air brakes on something before.

How many shots do you get before the brakes are gone?

One.

42:06

I don't know if that's true. That'd be something. I bet it's more than one. You can cycle gear three or four times usually, and that's using a lot less air than gear, right?

Maybe they're spring-loaded, and that uses the air to keep them open.

Oh. They roll right now.

They've got 50 pounds of air in them.

Maybe. Interesting. I have no idea. All this cool stuff you're going to be learning as you go. I love that.

42:38

He's going to be in. He's going to love it, and he's going to hate it at the same time.

I got the tanks out of the house, so I'm much happier now.

That's awesome. I'm happy for you, Dave. I can't wait to hear that thing run.

Wait until he buys his first gallon of oil.

Don't mention that.

I don't even know if I need a five-gallon can because I don't fly it that much.

43:05

You say that, but with as fast as that goes through stuff, if you had a good weekend, you could easily go through five gallons, right?

That's ten flights, for ours. We don't know what the consumption is on this.

I bet it would be higher.

You think so?

It's older. Less efficient is my guess.

How big is the tank?

Don't know. It looks about the size of a bread box.

43:35

About a half-gallon would be my guess, just from looking at it.

I'm guessing two liters, which is roughly half a gallon. A gallon is what, ounces?

One hundred twenty-eight.

That's it. Okay, so five gallons, maybe it is. If that's what it is, maybe 15 flights.

That's a weekend.

We'll find out here soon. You're going to be flying it quite a bit, learning it, having somebody else—

44:11

—you might maiden it, I don't know, whatever. But there's going to be the flights you have to fly in order to get your waiver and all that stuff.

To get mine, and mine was expedited, if I'm honest, I think I went through half a jug, two and a half gallons, just getting my waiver. Like I said, mine was kind of expedited. I did it in the minimum amount necessary.

44:42

You'll go through a five-gallon jug pretty quick. Technically, your first five flights without a buddy box have to be with a turbine pilot already. Before you can go out on your own, you're probably 10 or 15 flights easily.

I'm back at zero. I'm going to have to start over pretty much. Yes, I have the waiver, but I haven't—

45:06

—flown mine in over a year. That's one of the winter things I want to do: go through, drain all my fuel out, change the lines and all that stuff because it's been a year.

I've got two different sizes of lines. The propane line is a different size than the fuel lines, and even the fuel system, I think, has got two different sizes of lines in it.

That's weird. Old school, I guess. I don't know.

45:29

I know nothing.

Change your lines, change your filter. It's going to be cool going through it. It'll be good.

I think I have new line at home.

I need to get some.

I bought line for the Atom, and that's going to sit a while, so I can use that line on the Ranger. What I was talking about was actually becoming proficient as a pilot again. It's going to be like starting over for me.

45:54

I'm going to have to get on my Slow Ultra Stick and a bunch of other airplanes and work back up to it.

I'm going to do a lot of Viper and Scorpion flying before I take the jet out again.

We're going to have to spend the day at Eli coming up.

I wasn't planning on that. That's going to be fun.

Maybe November.

46:18

We might get good weather in November. You never know.

It's going to happen. It probably will, since everything seems like it's just getting pushed out farther. It was 93 degrees yesterday.

And 33 tomorrow night.

That's crazy. How dumb is that?

It is dumb. Stupid Illinois weather.

I had other jet issues.

Do tell.

I got a used UMX Viper for, once again, another very good price, which I won't mention.

46:47

Somebody paid him to take it.

Nice. I wish people would pay me to take their airplanes.

I took it out. Reggie was out with me and gave me a hand with it. He threw it for the first flight. No problem. I had it in the SAFE mode that's got the launch assist. All good, no problems. Beautiful, straight out. Couldn't ask for anything better. It tracks really nice and straight.

As pretty much every Viper does.

47:17

It flew exactly as I expected it to fly. Fine and dandy. Landed, didn't knock my nose off like somebody else.

Good for you. I'm very happy to hear that. See the love?

Later, I flew some other stuff. I went to do my own flight, put it in SAFE mode, threw it, and it immediately nosedived right into the ground.

What? Why? How's your nose?

Perfectly fine. All it did was knock the canopy off.

Dang it.

47:51

As soon as I tossed it, it immediately nosed over and headed for the ground. One hand on the radio.

You know what you should do? You should write a report and send that to the AMA. Sorry. That's amagov@modelaircraft.org. That sounds like an interference issue.

I think you had a radio issue.

Must have. Absolutely. Reggie went and got it for me because I was perched on the bench.

48:23

He picked it up and gave it a Reggie once-over, which, I don't know, I would have looked it over a little closer, but Reggie said it was fine. I just left it in SAFE mode, and he tossed it, and it flew beautifully. No problems whatsoever.

It's a Dave thing.

It's a Dave thing. I am wondering, and this is pure speculation on my part, if I didn't throw it hard enough to activate the launch control.

The launch assist.

The launch assist.

48:49

It saw a nose-up, because I always throw my stuff a little bit nose-up. If it grabbed it and goes, "Nope, nose is up," and pushed it down—

Then you don't have enough airspeed.

There's not enough airspeed or altitude to get it back. I'm just wondering if that's what happened.

It's quite possible. It does take some inertia.

49:05

I know you can set whatever, but I think the default is significant. It requires a significant—

I didn't throw it that awfully hard because I knew it had plenty of power. All my other UMX stuff, I just kind of loft them out there.

That makes a lot of sense.

49:19

Like I said, if it came out nose-up—

I just bet.

—and we were just too low to do anything about it. That's the only explanation I've got.

I'm glad it didn't do any damage.

It worked perfectly the first time.

And the third time.

Well, no, because launch assist was off. I just launched it in AS3X mode.

I got you. It's almost like that airplane doesn't really even need hand-launch assist.

No.

It sounds like you could just—

49:45

—give it a toss in SAFE mode, and off you go.

It's got enough—not SAFE mode. AS3X mode.

I still thought you had one. I don't know why, Tommy, I thought you did.

No.

I like it. It flies good.

Sweet. Speaking of, you said Reggie, and that reminded me. Now that you have a jet, are we putting money on who—

I'm going to fly before Reggie does.

There we go. Are we putting money on who actually—

I think we've got a pretty good shot because we're approaching winter—

50:16

—and I'm going to get it done over the winter.

Right. Who's going to have their turbine waiver first? I vote Dave.

I'll have it first.

Okay. Reggie's only, what, three years behind?

It's three years now.

He just needs to take that to Toledo.

I had plans on it down the road anyway.

It's funny you should go down that road, because I'm going to admit something here.

50:51

I honestly thought your first jet would be Reggie's jet. In my heart of hearts, I believed that.

Quite frankly, I didn't think it would be my jet, but I was thinking I was probably going to get my waiver on it.

I firmly believed that jet would end up being yours. Here's how I imagined it going down: you do a lot of work for Reggie, work on three or four airplanes, and he gets behind on paying you. He's like, "Here, take this jet. I'm never going to fly it."

51:24

"I'm scared of it."

I don't think it would ever be a give-me situation, but, "Here's a greatly reduced—"

Yes. But in my mind, sorry, Reggie, if you're listening, I really believed that Reggie's jet would have ended up—

This will probably spur him to getting it going, just to beat me.

Why? It did no good to have him beat me or to beat Tommy. I don't know. It'd be nice to have them all out there, though.

God, I can't wait to fly again.

51:52

In the amount of time that Reggie and I made the deal of both getting jets and flying at the jet event, I have now flown in two jet events. Tommy has gone from, "I am not getting a jet. There is no way I'm getting a jet," to having two of them. Dave now has gone from, "I am not getting a jet. I will never get a jet. Jets are stupid," to now having a jet and still saying jets are stupid and all that—

52:22

—stuff.

My house tonight. In fact, I even asked the lady at work, "Do I smell like fuel?"

Jet A?

"Sniff my shirt. What do I smell like?"

Oh, God. Why do you have to make it weird? You always have to make it weird.

At least he said "shirt."

That's true. He did say "shirt."

I didn't say "socks."

Okay. Sock. It's been a jet type of time. This guy. Good to have you home, Tommy.

I feel more like myself.

52:56

Anyway, guys, I'm going to need a lot of help with this thing.

Good. Not good, but good that you're there.

I don't think you're going to need much help at all. It sounds to me like you've got a really solid plan. You're going to go through everything. You're going to recover it, more than likely in some ugly colors. But it's a jet. It needs to be brightly colored, I think, so you can see the thing.

The biggest thing—

53:15

—I can oversize the roundels, the red, white, and blue.

That's true. That'll help. Do we need to take a moment here to pause? I hear Lori. Lori's on the phone, but she sounds a lot like the Peanuts parents.

Peanuts. Charlie Brown.

It's amazing. She thinks covering her mouth with her hand makes us not be able to hear everything she said.

Why is she calling you? How does she know that?

Yes, I told her.

Oh. Wow. It was only lying to me, then, apparently.

I didn't tell her.

53:57

I'm joking. That's okay. Jeez. Dave, back to it, I will be more than happy to help with anything you need.

For sure.

It's one of those things where it was very complicated when I first got into it, and now it's like, it's not complicated. There's a couple of different things, but not at all like black-magic stuff.

Most of what I've got to do is internet research. Get the start procedure. I found a manual for the propane start.

Nice.

54:26

I do have that manual.

For that actual motor?

I think so.

Nice.

It's a propane-start Bee. Might be a Bee 2 that they're showing me. I'm not sure.

Bee plus, Bee minus.

I bet once you fire up the ECU, it'll tell you what it is.

I'm going to have to learn that procedure. I need to find the center of gravity, even though the guy I got it from said, "Eh, it flew fine. I don't know where it's at." I'm a numbers guy.

55:00

I want those numbers.

Now that everything has changed and been moved and batteries are taken out, you have no idea where it was with him anyway. Are there any marks on the bottom of the wing?

Nope.

Of course.

There's a wing spar.

It's usually pretty close to that. Right on the tube.

Then control throws. That was another thing I need to track down. How far the flaps drop.

You don't need a lot of throw with a jet.

55:22

I'm just here to tell you.

You would think. It's weird.

I don't know on the flaps, though. I found a manual for the Elan, and it says you want the flaps to drop 90 degrees. It's like, "No, they don't make lift at 90 degrees. All they do is make drag."

You're overcoming a lot at idle. There's a lot of thrust still at idle. You're not adding lift so it'll fly slower.

They're speed brakes, basically.

55:50

They're both. Landing flaps are basically, just get them hanging out there to slow the thing down. I fly most of the pattern at half-flap, and they do generate lift.

That does. I don't know where they quit generating lift.

I usually don't go full-flap until I'm on final.

Okay. You get it lined up with the runway, then throw the laundry out.

Yep.

I do it before I make the last bank.

You do it before you turn to final.

56:24

I do it normally after I've already turned onto final. I just need to practice more and get used to it again.

Same. Maybe my technique could be better, but I have a total of, what, 15 flights on it? Total. Maybe.

I think I'm close to 50.

Nice.

Between all the previous flights and all that stuff.

Nice. [Brief phrase unclear in the supplied transcript.]

56:47

I'm excited for you, Dave. Congratulations.

We're going to have fun with this. Next year, all three of us will be flying jets.

I hope. I've got a couple of small projects at home I have to finish up. I was trying to make room for a Reggie project to get some money flow, but I need to hurry this up a little bit.

Cool. Especially now that there's a competition.

He doesn't even know I have it yet.

He will tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night, because I think he listens.

57:20

Sweet. He'll know Tommy's home, too, tomorrow night.

Hey, Reggie, I'm home.

That'll be fun. That's why I wrote Reggie down, because I wanted to say something. I didn't want to interrupt him, but I wanted to remember to ask him who was going to have the jet done first.

Nice. What have you been building?

Okay, time for my story. It's a pregnant pause just to make everybody be like, "What's he going to say?" I want to—

58:00

—talk a little bit about my giant glider.

Ah, yes.

Start with a negative: it's not as giant as I thought it was.

What?

I've done a lot of research on this now, mostly because I'm looking for wing tubes, and they are nonexistent. I cannot find exactly what wing tubes I need for it. Apparently, this Phoenix glider, a Ka-8B, they made two versions, but it's kind of hinky with what's what. A lot of them are—

58:42

—there's a six-meter version, which is apparently what I have. Then they also had a six-and-a-half-meter version, which is not what I have, from what I can see. What's confusing, though, is why a foot-and-a-half difference? That's not really worth making. The later versions were marketed as a six-and-a-half-meter airplane. From what I can tell, the fuselage was the exact same. I don't know what would have changed or when it changed. This plane—

59:12

—actually goes back to not quite as old as yours, Dave, but I think this is around 2010, if I remember right, 2008, 2010. It's pretty close to the same vintage. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to it. I started recovering it, and Tommy, you finished the nose of this airplane for me. You got the Torcman removable-propeller thing and all that done before you left last year.

59:43

When you gave me the news that you weren't going to be home until next year, April, I was like, "Okay, perfect."

Making the best of a bad situation.

I was like, "Perfect. I have this glider that I want to get done before he gets home." I've been mulling over in the back of my head what I was going to do with it. I have started covering it with the Value Cover. It's white, and it's got some of the—

Carbon?

Yeah, carbon-fiber-look stuff, too.

Good-looking.

1:00:19

I do like that.

It does look nice. I have a full wing panel done. I have the rear stab done. I have the rudder and all that finished and covered and ready to go. I'm redoing everything. Here's the reason: I ended up at the Illini Warbirds & Classics that was held at Eli a few weeks ago. There were a lot of scale airplanes there, obviously, and I've gone down the scale rabbit hole—

1:00:57

—with this airplane. My original thought was, "I'll just go back to the normal Ka-8B red-and-white covering." I thought, "That's boring," which it kind of is. Everybody has that. It's normal. I started looking online for other full-size airplanes to see if there was anything that would be cool. A few Google searches later, I ended up finding a gentleman named Karl—

1:01:29

—Striedieck, and he had a Ka-8B with the N-number N1000Z. He set a world record in this airplane for out-and-return distance in 1968. That was my first, "Okay, I actually have an airplane that is maybe worth looking at and modeling."

All the pictures I found from back then were black-and-white, so I had no clue what color it was. I kept Googling, getting farther and farther in this rabbit hole, and found out that he actually is still alive and still around.

1:02:10

He has a website for his own glider field, which is called Eagle Field, and his email address was listed right on it.

1:02:31

I ended up emailing him, explaining what I was wanting to do. I told him I had a six-meter glider, and I wanted to ask if N1000Z was the airplane he set the world record in and if he had any color pictures. He wrote back that same morning, and the first thing he said was, "I'm honored to see old 1000Z reborn." He said that is the actual airplane he set the record in, in 1968.

1:02:55

He also said he remembered when he did that, the Schleicher factory was really astounded because this airplane is not one that's supposed to go far. I'm going to be honest, I don't know a lot about gliders, but I guess the sink ratio is kind of high for this. It's almost like a trainer glider. Apparently, when you're learning how to glide—

1:03:18

—you're in a two-seater airplane, and then this is a very forgiving first single-seat type airplane. He sent me some color pictures, which are kind of hard to make out. I put them here. I don't want to give it away. Here's what he sent me. I will show you two. I'm not going to post these online, only because they're not my pictures to post.

It's very classic-looking.

1:03:49

I love it. It actually has a story behind it. The flight was on March 3, 1968, when he was 30 years old.

When he was 30? Okay.

The record for the out-and-return distance at the time with this airplane was 476.6 miles. That sounds like a lot to me.

Sounds like a lot to me, too.

Apparently, how you do this: you declare where you're starting from, which was his field, and then you say, "I'm going to turn around at a certain point—"

1:04:25

"—and come back." It's there and back, so you don't have to worry about wind pushing you or cheating that way. This was a record for that category of flight, not just for this airplane. His wife ended up towing him into the air with a Jeep at Eagle Field.

That's how they do it. Jeeps are really common for that.

1:04:51

It must be. He headed southwest along the Appalachian ridges, went down to his turn point in Virginia, and came back. Just like slope soaring, how you ride the ridges and get the updrafts. I guess it was cold, and he had to—

1:05:13

—deal with gaps. Every time he crossed a gap, he would start losing lift, so he had to make sure he got to the next one in order to get himself back up before he ran out of altitude. On the way back, he ended up taking a longer trip than he planned on because of whatever the lift situation was. I don't know. Technically, while the distance was 476.6 miles, it's a little bit farther—

1:05:41

—than that because he didn't fly a straight line. How long do you think it took him to do it?

How many? Four hundred seventy-eight miles?

Four hundred seventy-six point—476 miles.

If he averaged 50 miles an hour, eight hours?

Eleven hours.

Eleven hours. That's a pretty slow airplane, too. That's impressive.

1:06:06

I showed you guys the pictures he sent, so that tells me pretty much what I plan on doing as covering.

A very simple paint scheme.

I know, which is nice.

Awesome. You'll have the documentation to back it up.

One of the pictures he sent is of that airplane in a tree. That was a different flight, so that didn't have anything to do with this. It was actually before his world-record flight.

Okay. He—

1:06:33

—repaired it. He said he tried to get it airborne with the car tow, and he had to let go or got disconnected, whatever, before he had enough airspeed. I told him, "That had to have been scary." His response was that it was. It probably wouldn't have happened the same way now because those trees are 60 years older. He also said he rebuilt that in his living room.

God, that's a good-sized house.

1:07:05

Think about it. I don't know how big the wing panels are, if there are multiples like ours, but we talk about how we do our repairs in the house. Can you imagine?

I cannot.

Pulling a full glider wing inside and rebuilding it pretty much the same way we're doing all this.

The Intro filled up my living room. It won't fit my shop assembled.

Let's find another name. Intro to what, Dave?

The DDG.

I just cannot imagine.

1:07:32

He repaired this and then went out and flew the record flight.

That's an awesome story.

I asked for some clarification on the colors. He didn't have the exact colors, but from what I've been able to figure from the color on the pictures—you've got to realize these pictures were taken in '68.

Scanned.

They've been sitting around for however long, then scanned before they were sent.

Color chrome fades.

Right.

1:08:04

He said it was more of a medium blue and a cream. Of those pictures, the closest one I could find was the one in the snow. The other ones, if you look at the tree color and all that, it just doesn't quite look right. But with all the pictures he sent me, I have enough information on everything, where the numbers go and all that. Where I am—

1:08:32

—now on this airplane, I have a fire lit under my butt because I know what I'm doing. It's not just, "How's it going to look when I'm done?" I actually have something to go with. What I said before about having all my pieces covered, I now get to uncover them because I'm going old-school with this. I'm going to do the Koverall and Stix-It and paint. I'm going to take a—

1:09:00

You're actually going to do a fair bit of modeling.

I am going to take a page out of Dave's book.

You'll find that stuff so easy to work with.

I'm looking forward to it. I already ordered 16 yards of fabric, Koverall from SIG. I don't know if it's going to be enough or not, but I got a pint of that Stix-It.

This size airplane, you might need another pint.

That's expensive.

It's not cheap, but it is so awesome. Did he—

1:09:28

—build this from a kit, or—

No, he bought that. I think he—

Now you're going to make him remember stuff.

I think that was a 1962 model, so it was a few years old when he bought it. He bought that, I think, the same year he bought the land for the glider strip that he still has. By the way, he still flies. He won—what was it?

1:09:57

There was some sort of competition back in 2024. It was like a duo-pilot thing, two-pilot, and he won some sort of competition on that also. He's 89 years old now.

Wow.

I looked at their website, and their last—not open house, but their last fly-in where you could come to fly those—was September, just last month.

Wow. Okay.

He's still very much into it—

1:10:26

—and doing stuff. Like I said, I love the colors. I love the way that looks, and I think that's going to be a good-looking airplane.

I'm going to ask probably a dumb question, but does he still have the airplane or remnants of it or anything?

No. That airplane is still around, and he said the person who owns it now is in Tennessee.

I'll be darned. Where is he?

Pennsylvania.

1:10:47

Pennsylvania. Okay. You probably said that.

I did.

Nice. That's why I had to think.

The airplane is still alive. That's awesome. I don't know if it's the same N-number or not. I need to do a little bit more research on that, but I'm more interested in that version of it, just with the history behind it.

That's awesome. Are you going to pull the motor and everything out of this one?

No.

You're going to leave it?

1:11:06

No, because it makes no difference. If I want to do a glider tow, it's still perfect for that. If I just want to fly it without a tow, that was always the point: to be able to do it both ways.

Cool. Very cool.

A lot of this, too, not only was it from the scale event, but talking to a couple of other people at the field who do gliders and the glider event that they have.

1:11:31

Apparently, a lot of the guys out there are very down-to-earth and cool and will help you with stuff.

Sweet.

I had offers from one of them that, whenever I'm ready to go out, he can teach me glider tow. It'll be good to get somebody with experience to teach us, as opposed to us just going out and playing around.

Cool.

I did already order the fuselage tubes. I have to cut those down, but I have those now.

Did you find wing tubes yet?

No, I have not.

1:12:01

One step at a time. Fuselage tubes. This is going to be a very expensive thing. From what I have seen on tubes, they're probably going to be close to five or six hundred bucks.

What?

To get the right size, from what I've seen. I hope I'm wrong.

Holy smokes.

To get the exact sizing on it, my plan—I have the metal lathe out in the shop—is to make a few small pieces, mic them down to make sure they're the right size—

1:12:35

—before I order anything, and see if they slide in.

That's a good plan.

I think they're 22 millimeter, but I don't know.

They've got to be really long, too.

They have to be long. They have to be strong. There's four tubes, the shoulder tubes, that go right next to the fuselage. Then there's two longer ones that go on the outside. I think those are going to be carbon fiber, and I think the—

1:13:07

—rest of the ones on the inside are going to be aluminum. Like I said, I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll be able to find something. What I've done so far: I ordered that stuff. I got the paint samples, because I think the first thing I need to do, and I'll probably have to have your help, Dave, is build myself a little—

Just build a little test frame.

I might actually make something that has undercamber to it, too, because these are—

1:13:36

—undercambered wings, so I want to make sure what I'm doing will stick.

My Sopwith Camel project from years ago is covered with that, and it has undercambered wings.

I might ask for your help, if you remember how you did that from the '80s.

Just push it in there as far as you can, and don't overheat it.

Don't overheat it. What do you guys use, Stix-It?

Stix-It.

Okay.

1:14:04

Does that stink a lot? I've heard that's pretty smelly.

You don't want to do it down here.

When you say I don't want to do it down here, is that just the painting, or is that also—

All of it.

Even when you heat it up, it starts to—

Once it dries, it's not nearly as potent, but it still smells. Ironing it on down here probably wouldn't be too much of an issue, but definitely brushing it on, applying the Stix-It, it stinks because it's got to flash off all—

1:14:30

—kinds of chemicals.

That's what I figured. I didn't know if painting could be done in the garage and then bring it down here to do the covering.

Absolutely.

Okay.

I don't know if you can vent these windows or not, just pull a little air to dump it outside.

If I have to, I can.

I've never technically seen his basement windows.

They're always covered.

They look better covered.

1:14:57

A little box fan pulling some air through would go a long way.

I think I can do that.

The undercamber shouldn't be an issue.

Especially, it's not hugely undercambered, and they're pretty big, so there's a lot more area where I can get it to stick. I'm excited for that. That's my update for now. Hopefully, by the time Dave is flying his jet, I'll have this about ready to go.

That would be sweet.

God, he just put me out five years.

1:15:31

No, I was saying I have to hurry up and catch up to you, because I honestly have not done anything on this other than—

Look at it?

Although I did do—

You did the easy part. You bought stuff for it.

But I had to figure out what to buy, so that was a little harder.

Okay.

What I am very concerned and upset about—there were the—

1:15:56

—hatches on here for where the servos go. They need replaced, so I traced them, designed it up, and I was going to laser-cut it. I cannot laser-cut those.

Too big?

Huh?

Too big?

No. I can't cut through with the laser I have. I cannot cut through this eighth-inch Baltic birch plywood. Eighth-inch.

Another reason to get another laser.

You need a bigger laser.

I'm laying the groundwork.

More powerful.

1:16:23

I already told Crystal if I do that, it's going to have to go in the garage, which she seemed to be okay with.

She didn't want it in her house. I don't blame her.

Usually, that stuff would go out to the shop, but it can't freeze, so it has to be in our garage. Our garage never freezes. I'm laying the groundwork. We'll see. I don't know if I can justify it, to be honest. They're pricey.

You could always cut the pieces by hand.

No, no, no, no, no.

1:16:49

Scroll-saw everything.

What I did think about doing was, when you cut that on a laser, it gives you a perfect spot where to cut. I thought, if I do have to do these that way, I'll just mark it with the laser, and that'll tell me where to cut. But it won't be as cool.

No, but what's most important? Getting it done? The final product, or making it look cool that no one will see once it's covered?

That's the thing.

1:17:18

You will never see that because it literally will be inside the airplane.

See?

Let me ask you this, too, while I've got you, because I'm toying with this in my mind. The fuselage splits in two pieces. You see that because you took that piece home. Why do I need to leave it that way?

I have no idea.

I think I want to leave it permanent and glue that on so I can cover the whole thing in one piece.

My only thought would be maybe for access. Now—

1:17:50

—that there's a motor in the front, you might need to maintain it.

Look how much you can get to it, though.

That's true. That's a big hatch on the front.

It is a huge hatch. That's something else we can discuss, but I think I would like it better without a seam in the covering.

Okay. Cool. Oh, boy. It's almost an hour and 20 minutes. We have talked a lot.

That's all I've got. I'm out of stuff. Tommy, welcome home.

Thank you very much.

1:18:22

It's good to be home.

Glad to have you. Let's do some flying.

We will do that. Until next time, thanks, everybody, for listening. I'm Ron.

I'm Tom.

And I'm Dave.

Good night.

Good night.

Good night.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at RCPlaneLab.com or email us directly at either Ron@RCPlaneLab.com or Tom@RCPlaneLab.com.

1:18:48

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