Ep 226: Super Scorpion Flights, Jet Progress, and a RadioMaster Roadblock

Welcome, butter squishies and Tom’s homecoming

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Tom. I’m Ron. And I’m Dave.

I guess the dulcet tones of Tommy’s voice—buttery smooth—reminds me of the… [opening transition unclear in supplied transcript].

Oh, Tommy got a butter squishy?

Well, actually, Lori got it.

Lori. Well, you have it now.

Daniel picked it up for her.

Oh, Daniel did. See, I get half the story.

So Daniel was at Casey’s in Auburn.

That sounds right. It sounds about right.

And saw one of these at the counter, I guess, and thought of Lori. Because the last time we were all together, Piper shared with Lori her collection of—what do they call them?

Just squishies. That’s what they’re called. That’s the new fad.

Okay. Well, Lori fell in love with one that happened to be shaped and colored like a stick of butter. Daniel saw that she was really enamored with that. A few days later, he was at a Casey’s in Auburn, saw one, and texted me, "Hey, do you want me to pick this up for Lori?"

I was like, "Yes, please." And he sent it with Dave this evening to deliver.

That’s so funny. Now you have the whole story.

I mean, you could just give her a stick of butter. It’s squishy, too, for a bit.

For a bit, until it’s not. Until Fred eats it.

Fred ate three sticks of butter with wrappers.

That dog. I’m so glad our lab is not like that.

You’ve got an atypical lab.

We must.

I thought she was kind of golden, mostly.

No, she is a—what’s a Dudley lab.

Oh, the coloring is specific to that kind of lab. Okay.

I’ve got a traditional lab that’s pretty much like a garbage disposal.

We had to get locking garbage cans, because she likes to—and still, if you forget to lock it, you just hear her walk by and get her nose in there, see what’s there, and hear it shut back down.

She’s not been anywhere near what Dave talks about.

I think she was probably [age discussion unclear] two or three when we got her. In the time frame Dave’s talking about…

Fred ate the three sticks of butter. I was making cookies. I had three sticks of butter out. He ate all three with the wrappers. The next day, he went and rummaged the empty box out of the recycling bin.

He really likes butter.

He likes butter better.

I like butter, not that much, though.

I don’t eat it raw. Or plain. I like it on stuff.

And the bad thing is, it didn’t affect him at all.

You know what would happen to me if I ate three sticks of butter?

I can imagine.

[Brief response unclear.] Try it. Just let us know.

No, I would not recommend that.

So, RC planes, huh?

Yeah, that’s what we normally talk about.

Actually, I don’t want to talk about that yet either. We had a "Hey, welcome home" party for Tommy and a going-away party for Tommy. It was kind of both.

Back, back, back again. Back, gone, back for good.

Maybe.

Lori threw a welcome-home party for me and invited all my friends, which was really nice. It was at a really cool new place called Legends Entertainment here in town.

I’ve never been there before.

It’s like an adult Chuck E. Cheese, kind of, but there are kids there.

Minus the animatronic animals, I guess.

Maybe like a Dave & Buster’s. I’ve never been to one.

Kind of in that vein, anyway. It was a good time. Lots of people showed up, which I was surprised by.

I was so glad Dave and Daniel showed up, because they’re the only two people I knew there.

Well, obviously—

My wife and kid went.

You knew me and Lori.

But you guys were off doing your own entertaining.

Lori was in her element.

I’m pretty sure that party was for Lori, not for me.

That was kind of my takeaway, too. "Tommy’s home! I’m going to throw a party so I can talk to everybody."

That’s okay, because she kind of got hosed during COVID. I turned 50 during COVID. She wanted to throw me a huge surprise birthday party and had the planning in progress. Then COVID happened and she had to cancel it. I think this was kind of a makeup.

I remember that. She was a little upset by that.

The next day after the party, I went back to where I was, just for a couple days. Me and our middle kid actually flew to Tucson and drove home, brought the other car back.

So now I’m home-home.

And you don’t have to worry about going back there for now.

Nope, not anytime soon.

No more of these welcome-home parties.

Hopefully that was the last one.

I’m hoping. We don’t need that anymore.

It was a nice time. A good turnout. A lot of people I didn’t know—could have been people just showing up for food.

I was going to say, you acted like you knew them all.

I did, except for the one guy who popped his head in the door and shouted [wording unclear; includes "drunkards"]. Aside from that, I knew everybody who was there, and they were all invited.

I was even talking to Crystal. I asked Dave, "How many of these people do you know?" Then I asked her, "How many people do you recognize? Not know, just faces—oh, I’ve seen them before." Like two.

We have an eclectic group of friends. I have my RC friends, which is you guys. Then we have our running-club friends.

That’s another thing—I’m not running unless I’m being chased by a bear.

I only have to be faster than the slowest person with me.

Then we have our bike club.

I forgot about that.

There’s not a lot of overlap between the three groups.

You’d think the bikers and the runners would—

There is some, but not between the RC friends and either of the other two groups.

There were three sets of tables, three lines.

We didn’t plan it that way, but it did work out that way.

Although Jeff [surname unclear] showed up, and he was a former RC guy, so he recognized Dave. I’m not sure if Dave recognized him. It took me a second: "Oh, I know who that is." It’s been a few years since he used to fly.

I keep working on him. He’ll be back. He’s semi-retired now. He works a day or two a week at the hospital. He works in the ER—or not the ER, OR. [Brief exchange unclear.]

Anyway, it was a good time. The next day I left, got home yesterday, and now I’m home.

Nice. To sum it up, I’m glad. Now you can get back to aircraft.

Hobby shops, receivers and swap-meet plans

Speaking of that, while Jake and I were in Tucson, we did hit the hobby shops.

Nice. How many are there?

There are two really good ones. Then there are other game-type stores Jake was interested in that sell modeling supplies. They’re kind of a hobby shop. They may not sell RC stuff, but they sell glue, paint, tools, modeling tools—hobby-shop adjacent, you could say. There are quite a few in the Tucson area.

We spent the whole day. We hit every one we could. It was awesome. It’s been a while since I’ve spent a day hobby shopping, and it was a good time. The only thing I bought was a receiver. It was on sale.

What did you buy?

A 631+ [exact receiver designation to verify].

Do you not have enough?

You can never have enough receivers.

I think I now have enough receivers. I’m taking some to Toledo. I have a bunch of Spektrum receivers I’m just not going to use. I’m going to be clearing out my receiver collection, but I’ll still have enough.

Older ones or new ones?

Older ones.

I still have, I think, four or five—easily five—new in the package.

I don’t have quite that. I have two.

They had a sale a little while ago. They were really cheap. I want to say like 50 bucks for one of the—631? No, maybe it was a 630, and the 631 was like five bucks more. Anyway, very much worth getting some to have on hand.

I have extra six-channels, eight-channels, and an extra ten-channel, too.

I have a ten-channel and now this six-channel, ready to go.

I’ll be taking a few out of some airplanes I’m selling, too.

Same. Is it bad that I’m looking forward to Toledo already?

No, I am, too. I know we have a while to go.

I had to put in paperwork today at work for that time off.

We have tables already. We have five tables, I think, between the three of us.

Four of us, with Daniel.

Four, yes, sorry. Daniel and I each got [table count unclear; automatic transcript says "eight tables"], and then you’ve got—

I got two, and you got one, right?

I’ll be taking lots of stuff.

That’s only going to be problematic the first day. As stuff starts selling, you can move it out more.

I can utilize the space under the table. Most of the stuff I have is stackable.

You didn’t come last year. What we did last year that worked better than I expected: I used a tablecloth that went all the way down in front. That gave us room to hide our stuff that wasn’t for sale, tools and stuff we took for pricing, all that kind of stuff.

I thought it was nice having a place to get stuff out of the way.

And Daniel’s stands got stuff up. We could double-stack.

Until he started selling all those stands and things.

He started selling those, I think, once planes were sold off them and people could actually see them sitting out.

Cool. Looking forward to that.

Me, too. Actually, I’m looking forward to any RC-related event or function.

We’ve got a few things coming up. Back-to-back swap meets, the week after next and the week after that.

We’re going to Decatur. Decatur, Illinois, has what I would call a solid swap meet. Not stellar, but good enough.

It’s pretty good for the Midwest. It usually has a couple of those "Oh, cool, I haven’t seen those before," or "Wow, that’s a good price" deals.

That’s where I picked up my first F-18.

That’s the place we both almost got the Super Scorpion.

What else have I gotten there? It seems like I always find something every year.

The last time I went, I bought that old Hangar 9 big stick.

Ultra Stick?

That I still need to finish, because I was going to put lights in it.

I forgot about that. That’s where I picked up my E-flite stick, whatever you call that one—the wooden, small one. [Exact model unclear.]

Then after Decatur, the week after that is Columbia, Illinois, down south by St. Louis. The winter one is usually pretty decent.

I didn’t realize they had two. I think that’s what threw me. I went one year and it was really good, then the next year it was not really good. Apparently that’s the timing.

I guess the fall one is much better. The last time we went was spring-ish, and we were both very underwhelmed. The year before that was when I bought the airplane I had built in college. That was a good one that year. It’s hit or miss, at least the spring one.

From what we understand, and what folks have talked about, the winter one is the one to go to.

Daniel went last year by himself and hit it hard. He brought back all kinds of stuff.

The winter one?

Yeah.

He came home with like four or five, didn’t he?

I remember. We went to the spring one and after ten minutes, "We’re out of here."

I’m looking forward to both of them.

Me, too. I will have to make some storage room just to get through swap-meet season.

Here, it’s so cold we can’t go fly. I can’t do much outside. What do you do? Just go buy stuff.

Now I’ll be in the market to buy, not sell.

It’s going to matter what shows up. You just never know.

I need to not buy things, let’s be honest. I was going to say "more selective," but honestly it should be zero at this point.

We always say it, but I’m out.

I went through the garage the other day and pulled everything down off the hangers. They’re not that dusty—that’s what I keep telling myself. It was after we went flying. I had a few planes down already, and a few I had to make room for.

I got everything out, rearranged everything, and made a pile of get-rid-of airplanes. I already have four or five sitting off to the side for Toledo. They’re kind of in my way, so they’ll probably stay in the trailer this winter. The trailer is inside in the shop, so I’m not worried about that.

We’ll see what else I come up with. There’s still more I look around at that I can get rid of.

These are built airplanes, pretty much bind-and-fly or plug-and-play. Probably plug-and-play, because I’m going to pull—well, no, they all have newer receivers. I will definitely keep those.

You don’t get your receiver money back out of airplanes.

I feel like having a receiver in them helps them sell. Somebody’s on the fence, then sees a receiver and thinks, "Okay, it’s 50 bucks more. Now I want this airplane because it’s ready to go."

But it’s an 85-dollar receiver.

I know, but it’s used.

Mine, anyway, are all FrSky.

That is true. Very true.

I wouldn’t say nobody wants it. The market is much smaller.

Exactly. We’ll see. As of right now, I’ve only got a couple of built airplanes I’m taking. Most of everything else is new-in-the-box ARFs. If you’re looking for good deals on ARFs…

I still need to go through and see what you have.

You don’t want to get that stuff I have.

I probably don’t, but I still want to know before we go. We’ve got some wheeling and dealing to do.

You’re already buying one of them.

Most likely. Anyway, looking forward to Toledo.

RadioMaster GX10 and U.S. availability

Speaking of Dave’s transmitter thing, that reminded me: have you guys heard about the RadioMaster GX10?

No. Do tell.

There’s a new RadioMaster GX10 and GX10 Max coming out, but apparently they’re not going to be available in the United States.

Really?

Because of the FCC. The foreign-made—what was it? Ban, or whatever it is?

The critical components on the Covered List, or something like that.

This is the first one I’m actually hearing of where there’s been a release that will not be available here because of that.

[Brief reply unclear.]

I’m curious about Spektrum and all that stuff. It’s been a long time since they’ve come out with a new radio. The iX14, I think, is the newest one. I don’t remember when that was. It’s been several years.

They’ve come out with plus versions.

They’re just tweaking the software and things. The hardware’s the same. They haven’t actually come out with a new radio. They had the 12, then the 20, then the 14.

They had that NX7, the white transmitter.

I forgot about that. That was new.

Still, that’s a few years old now. I wonder what happens when there’s a new one that needs to come out.

I don’t know. We’ll see.

Maybe we have to go to Europe.

Maybe it’ll be an NX20++ as opposed to an NX7e. [Model names in this joke require audio confirmation.]

I love bringing stuff up when we have no clue what we’re talking about. That makes it so much better.

I was thinking about the logistics. Like Dave said, there’s ways around all that stuff. But how would you get it? If you really wanted this new RadioMaster radio and lived in the States, how could somebody make that happen?

Good question. If it’s being imported, there’s going to have to be some sort of paperwork or documents, I would expect, if you’re buying it off of…

I guess if you knew somebody where it was being sold, they could buy it. But not a lot of people are going to go through that, I wouldn’t think. Not a lot of people have friends in other countries.

We do have friends who travel around the world, though.

That’s interesting. Would the customs people know what they were looking at?

No clue.

How expensive is this RadioMaster?

No clue. I didn’t look that much into it. It was just something I remembered seeing.

The highlight, though, is this is the first time we’ve seen something you cannot get in the States due to that FCC thing.

I’m picturing an entire Mexican cartel, DC-3s flying under radar.

Just for radios.

With boxes full of new radios.

Dave could be our poster child for [phrase unclear]. "This is what happened. He got caught." Anyway, moving on.

Dave Platt and the Duellist

Do you want to go into some sad news?

I don’t like sad news, but I know where you’re going with this. We’ve got to do it.

I haven’t really seen confirmation—I’m going to start by saying that—but I saw a lot of posts yesterday that Dave Platt died.

You looked it up, like 1933?

I think ’33. I’d have to—’33, ’34, or ’36, something like that. [Birth year and age not established in the conversation.]

He was low 90s, from what I could find.

Yeah. Good for him.

I’m not sure if I hope I live that long or not. It depends on quality.

For those who don’t know, Dave Platt was a model-airplane designer, a prolific designer, huge impact on the RC community. He came over, I think, from London, as I remember reading somewhere.

He was a little hard to understand at times. The accent was a little thick.

I’ve never talked to him or heard him.

I took one of his seminars at Toledo years back.

Nice. What was it on?

Scale detailing.

Not surprised. That doesn’t surprise me either.

I did look it up a little bit. He worked on the movie Battle of Britain in 1969, in London, and built and flew a Stuka for that one. Apparently he didn’t finish the movie, or something like that, because he got his green card and was able to come over here.

That is where he started in the States. So that takes us back to our Duellist. The reason this one stood out to me is he’s the one who designed the Duellist.

That Tommy crashed, rebuilt, and then I built one also.

From your bucket of bolts and parts.

Speaking of Duellists, somewhere in my travels in the last couple weeks, I’ve seen somebody doing an ARF Duellist. They’re not calling it a Duellist, but it looks like one.

Really? Sweet.

I’m going to see if I can rummage that up and give you guys the information.

I haven’t seen that. I’ll look into that. That’d be cool. Although I have a Duellist now.

I haven’t flown mine since the year we did that, whenever that is. That’s been a long time.

I flew mine last summer when we went to [location unclear]. It was being a little cranky.

One nitro engine is bad enough. You have to have two of them that have to be in sync.

It was 104 degrees. It was really hot. That was contributing to my standing on asphalt.

Dave Platt also had many, many designs. If you look it up online, he’s responsible for—I’m sure a majority of the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, even—pattern-plane designs. [The hosts are speaking broadly from recollection.]

I know my Contender was one of his designs. Dave has one, too, although he doesn’t claim ownership.

I’m just in possession of it.

For how long, did you say? Like 25 years?

At this point, it’s safe to call it yours.

Maybe.

You may as well, because they’re good-flying airplanes. Like most of his designs, they flew really well.

The thing that kills me on that airplane is the roll-counter-roll. You give left rudder, it rolls right. Drives me insane.

You could put a mix in.

You can, but it’s still weird.

The fix is just don’t use the rudder.

Pretty much. Just point and shoot.

Yank and bank—isn’t that the thing?

That’s what that airplane does best. It was a pattern plane, and at the time that’s what they did.

It works nice. It’s fun to play with on landings and stuff.

Sad to see anybody who was that influential in the hobby go.

But, you know, let’s call it 93 years old—he had a long and interesting life. [Age remains uncertain.] Left a permanent mark on us.

For sure. Hopefully, after we’re gone, people will remember.

His designs will live on.

People won’t know who—"Who’s Dave Platt? I don’t know, but his airplane’s cool." [Closing wording partly unclear.]

Shall we move on to something a little happier?

The newsletter and website

One thing I wanted to bring up before I forgot: did you guys know we have a newsletter?

Yeah, I get one every week.

No, seriously, for the last couple months I’ve been doing it.

I had no idea. No clue.

Does it go out via email?

It does.

I’m not getting it, then.

Because you haven’t signed up for the newsletter. You have to opt in. You guys might want to do that if you don’t know what I’m doing.

Sure.

That’s what’s going on behind the scenes. I’m trying to do it monthly. We’ll see how well it works. If you want to sign up, it’s RCPlaneLab.com/newsletter.

I will opt in.

I’ll do it.

The last issue I sent out a week or two ago—it’s been more than that now. About a week. It was the beginning part of this month. It covered what we talked about in our episodes, what was going on, a little about the website, and upcoming events we were going to.

The website looks great. It really does.

Thank you. I didn’t even ask for a pat on the back on that. I was going to say [wording unclear], but I knew that wasn’t right.

Anyway, that got weird.

I spent some time navigating it a few days ago, and I was very impressed. It looks very good, Ron.

Thank you. Good job.

It was a pain in the butt, but well worth it.

It’s very easy to navigate.

We need to update our pictures, though, because I no longer own the airplane I’m holding.

I did update mine.

Dave no longer has the airplane he was holding.

Did you fix it, finally?

It’s ready to fly. I have not test-flown it, but it’s been fixed for over a year.

Then I guess I’m the only one who needs to update the picture.

Exactly. Give me a new one.

I’ll send you one. Maybe I shouldn’t have had sunglasses on.

You can use whatever picture you want. How’s that sound?

It matches my magazine article.

There you go.

We went flying—

That’s the last—oh, I’m sorry, go ahead.

You just cut me off, and I stopped, so I forgot what I was going to say.

Oh, for crying— That’s why I was going to have you go.

Are you serious?

Yeah. We’re old. It’s fleeting. I completely forgot.

What I was going to say is we went flying the other day, and we also have a little update on Dave’s jet he’s been working on.

Dave’s derelict jet. The DDJ. [Nickname expansion to verify.]

What order do you want to go in? End with us flying, or end with your—

Go with me, because [short phrase unclear]. I haven’t had a whole lot—

That’s the attitude. That’s the spirit, Dave. Let’s just get this over with. I can stop listening after this guy.

Dave’s jet: turbine time, fuel fittings and rebuild plans

I haven’t been able to go flying or anything recently. My furnace was broken.

Not anymore?

That’s good, because it’s going to be really cold this weekend.

Can we complain about that really quick? The low is supposed to be 25 Friday night and Saturday night.

You’re going to think that’s warm here in a month.

That’s baloney.

That’s [wordplay unclear].

I didn’t want to use your word.

Anyway, I got a new furnace up and running, so we’re good there. I just haven’t had a lot of time to devote to modeling of any sort.

Loser.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the internet buying parts.

That’s modeling.

It’s in preparation for modeling. I ended up pulling the engine and all the engine accessories out of the DDJ.

Are you really going to make—it’s going to get DDJ on it somewhere?

Good.

It’s been sitting on my workbench. I was able to fire up the handheld unit and get the time on it. It’s right around 15 hours.

Sorry, again, this is a Jet Central Bee? Not sure exactly which model? Bee Plus or Bee?

No, because it’s a B-E-E, he said, right? It’s not like a letter B.

I don’t know what it is. I looked up the serial number, and the internet doesn’t help a lot. It’s really low. It’s a 50-194 [serial number as transcribed; verify against the unit].

Probably before the internet was invented.

I’m guessing 50 appears to be the series, and 194 is a sequential number. To me, that says it’s probably a fairly low number.

It tells you starts and run time, but didn’t give you any date information?

Just serial number, total hours—or minutes, actually—the number of cycles, and how long the last cycle was.

How long was the last cycle? Do you know?

Not off the top of my head. I didn’t pay that much attention. I wasn’t really interested.

Just curious how long his flight was, if he said he flew it not that long ago.

I was thinking the same thing.

I think he was lying. I don’t know. I can go back and look, but I don’t know off the top of my head. I was more curious about the total time and cycles.

What have you got?

It’s got 15.2 hours and 110 cycles.

So you still have 9.8 hours left until it needs to be sent in to someone.

Somewhere.

Or until you get a new one.

We’ll see how that goes.

That’s still a good long time. Several seasons of flying, depending on—

Let’s be honest. It shouldn’t be, but for us it is.

You never know. This thing may be excellent. It may do great off grass. Who knows?

Perhaps next year we can all get to the point where we have to have an engine rebuild.

Wouldn’t that be expensive?

What’s the rebuild, 500?

I don’t even know, to be honest.

I thought we looked into that.

We did a long time ago, but I don’t remember.

Somewhere along the line, I saw three on mine. [Price unclear; maintenance intervals and costs are recollections, not verified service guidance.]

Maybe that’s what it was. Regardless, you fired up the ECU?

Fired up the ECU. Had it all lying on the counter. I didn’t have a radio hooked to it. I just used a servo driver to power it, so it was yelling at me the whole time that it had lost link.

"Yeah, I know. Get over it."

I started pulling it apart. I took the engine apart so I could see if I could change a few lines going into it. They look easy enough to do. I spent a lot of time on the internet and found a bunch of Festo fittings and lines to build my fuel can, because I’m not spending $300 on a fuel can.

For the last couple weeks I’ve spent [short exchange unclear]. I think that sounds really bad, but yeah.

Wait until you have to buy the fire extinguisher. That’s the one that really irked me, price-wise.

I haven’t even looked at that yet.

Don’t.

I’m going to have to. I spent $150 on fuel line and fittings.

That’s about what you’re going to spend on a [extinguisher type unclear] extinguisher.

Mine is technically a fuel extinguisher.

A fire-putter-outer. How’s that?

Works for me.

A bunch of that stuff started rolling in today. I’ve just got a few more items to pick up, and we’re good to do the projected first start.

We’ve got the holiday coming up, so I don’t know. Probably in a week and a half, two weeks, but that puts us right at the holiday.

I can tell you I think I’m free the day after Thanksgiving.

I’m not. I’ve got to move a trailer and work a [word unclear].

I think I’m free the day after the day after Thanksgiving.

It’s possible. I can make that work, too.

The day after the day after the day after Thanksgiving, I’m pretty sure I’m free.

Actually, we’re not free that Saturday after, because that’s Columbia.

Maybe after that. That’s two to three weeks.

I would take a day of leave to assist.

I just need to get it mounted on a piece of plywood and test it.

You’re more than welcome to come out here. We don’t have to worry about noise as much out here.

I live in the ‘hood.

I know. You might draw some attention to yourself, though.

We’ll see. We’ve got new neighbors. I need to break them in.

"Let’s get used to this. This is what I do."

[The group imitates a turbine sound.]

I hope it doesn’t sound like that.

That’s really bad bearings.

Looking forward to it. That’s where we’re at.

After you run it, you’ll be able to start recovering?

Then I’ll be putting it back. Once I’m sure this thing works correctly, it’s a matter of ripping everything apart and replacing bits and pieces.

Have you decided anything on servos?

I haven’t looked at servos yet. The one I can see is a DS811 digital—

8811, probably?

Yeah, 8811.

That’s a good JR servo, back in the day.

It looks like it’s got JR servos. I haven’t pulled the covers on everything yet, but the couple I can see are JRs.

From back in the day, though. We’ll see. Flaps and rudders, I’ll probably leave alone. Aileron and elevator, I’ll probably put something a little more [word unclear] in there.

I think that’s a good plan.

Newer ones can go bad just as quickly as older ones.

That’s absolutely true. I’ll see what’s actually in there. The plan is to replace the criticals. The nose wheel, the rudder and the flaps—I’ll leave those alone if they’re serviceable and seem decent.

What are you doing receiver-wise?

Probably one of the power-safe FrSky, ten- or twelve-channel, whatever it is.

How do those work? I don’t know anything about them other than what we’ve dealt with with Spektrum. Same setup, two batteries go in and everything’s on one board?

Good question, because I don’t know. I haven’t looked.

I do know you can turn the aircraft on from the transmitter.

It’s got a remote switch. Same with ours, if we shut them down with the transmitter.

I haven’t really looked. That’s what’s going to go in, one of FrSky’s power-safe [exact receiver/product family not confirmed].

Are those stabilized?

You can get them either way. I’m probably not going to get stabilized. I don’t usually fly a gyro, and I don’t see this thing really needing one.

Unless it’s squirrely on takeoff, I might need one on the nose wheel, which I can put a standalone gyro on.

[Brief joke about a gyro unclear.]

I can’t wait to hear more progress.

It’s getting there slowly.

It’s not all that slow. You’re doing a pretty good job.

I had to pack it all up and put it in a Ziploc bag, because I can’t take the kerosene smell in my workroom anymore.

I like that smell, but I can understand it might be overpowering.

Especially in the size of workroom I have.

You don’t want it contaminating everything you own, either. Put your clothes on and go to work smelling like kerosene.

You don’t? I don’t work at the airport, unfortunately.

True.

I work with a bunch of women, so they’re going to complain.

For comments and questions, that’s Dave@RCPlaneLab.com.

I’ll tell you they’ll complain.

Don’t get us in trouble, Dave. Although no women listen to this anyway. [The group jokes about who might be listening.]

If you’re a woman and you listen to the RC Plane Lab podcast—

No, it’s Ron at—

No, it’s Dave@RCPlaneLab.com. By the way, he’s single.

He is. Ready to mingle.

I don’t know about that.

Poor Dave.

Ron’s glider and the covering test

I forgot, I did do a little bit on the glider.

You did. It moved since the last time I saw it. It’s in a different location now.

That’s just laying there on the stand.

That’s Daniel’s stand, one he sells. It holds up that whole glider very nicely.

It does. I actually like those little stands. I use it more than any other stand I’ve got now.

I can’t wait to start using mine.

Mine usually stores on top of the microwave over in the corner. When I need it, it comes right out. It works perfectly.

The last time you guys were here, the nose wasn’t on?

No, it was sitting over there on the other stand.

The nose is on. That’s the first time since I got the sticks—the joiner tubes.

[The group jokes about finding the right words.]

It’s difficult for me to do words. I got the joiners cut down and put in to the right size. It looks much more impressive with the nose on.

It’s a big airplane.

I like it. That’s how it’s going to stay. I’m leaving the nose on. I’m going to pull it apart again, get everything cleaned up and make sure everything’s good, then glue it on for good. That way I can do one-piece covering on the side. I’ve decided that much, at least.

I did a little test panel on a balsa wing thing I’d been playing with a while ago. I need to practice more and get better at that.

I don’t think it looks that bad.

I think it looks fine. It just needs more practice.

The biggest thing, honestly, is that was something I was playing with, trying to make a wing on the laser cutter, which is small, so that’s all the bigger I can do. I didn’t sand it or do anything before I put it on, because I knew it wasn’t anything that really mattered. I didn’t really care.

My first time ever doing Stix-It and all that stuff. It shreds like razor blades.

I noticed. Don’t judge my cuts on there, because they look really bad. At the same time, it was a quick test to see how it went together. I wanted to see the colors I had. I think we all agree both colors need a little adjustment.

Small tweaks. You’re close.

But not quite all the way.

For a test piece, your first time using fabric—

Sexy fabric.

Thank you. I think it looks pretty good.

The colors need adjusting. I’ll definitely change that a little.

That’s the point of doing this, to dial it in before you get to the bigger airplane.

You’re modeling.

I am working on it.

Progress. Taking a little bit out of Dan’s book. I like it.

You’re not assembling. You’re actually modeling.

I’m excited. It’s going to be a cool project. I can’t wait to have more time, if that ever happens.

You have to make time.

I do. I need to not be so lazy at night. By the time nine, ten o’clock rolls around, I’m done. When I say nine and ten, I really mean eight to nine. I just didn’t want to sound worse by saying it that way.

I don’t see what the problem is.

By the time I get Piper to bed and work on something and all that, I’m beat. It’s sleep time.

I get it.

It would be nice. It’s hard. It’s time-consuming. I enjoy it, but it takes time away from other things I could be doing.

You don’t regret it.

No, I’m just saying that’s where I am at this point. A little progress. We’ll try to get more done, hopefully this weekend, because I don’t actually have that much coming up.

When you start covering it in earnest, we should document some of that, put it on the website.

That’s a great idea. I never, ever thought of that. The build log is started already, from my—

Oh, is it? You have a build log for the glider?

Yeah.

I must have skipped right over that one. I reread your Duellist log, then reread my Duellist log. Those are good, by the way.

How did I miss your glider? I’ll have to go back and check it out. Sorry.

I was going to say, unless I forgot to link to it when I changed everything, but there’s a page on there.

There’s also the jet, when we put that together.

That’s awesome. And your Vimana. I somehow missed your glider.

There’s not much on there.

If I’d known you were doing that, I would have documented the reconstruction of the nose in more detail.

Not going to lie: when you did that, I completely forgot I was doing it. It has been on there that long.

That was done a year ago.

That’s true.

Good job.

Thanks.

I was going to ask something. I hit on it with Tommy before we sat down, before Dave got here. Dave has done this more, so I’m going to ask you the same question.

I’m looking at the nose on this thing. A lot of compound curves that look like they’re going to suck.

Koverall will go right around that.

Okay. Never mind, then. I might have to have you show me.

You might have to put a couple little slits at the worst, but yeah.

My other question was, does it have to be Koverall? Is there anything stopping me, in parts where it’s going to be more difficult, from just sealing it, sanding it, acting like Koverall’s on there, and then—

I’d at least glass it, just to give it a little more strength. That first bump into the back of the car is going to ding it.

There’s a lot of soft balsa in the nose.

Koverall will go right around that. That’s no big deal.

In that case, I’ll have you come out and show me.

Sounds like I’m going to end up doing it.

No, I want to do it.

Dave just acquired another project.

No, maybe, but no. I want to know how to do it. It’s one of those things—if you don’t know, there’s really no way without trying it.

I tried covering it with regular covering, and you can see there’s nothing on there now. That’s for a reason, because it didn’t turn out well.

It’s pretty workable. I’m not saying it’s super easy, but it’s doable.

Cool. Anything else, or shall we move on to our flying day, and that will be the end of it?

Let’s do that.

Nobody can hear you shaking your head. Thank you for that information.

If you want to take it, go ahead and start.

I’m going to take a little drink.

A full day at Eli Field

The day after we recorded the last episode—didn’t we talk about it? We were all excited. We were going to Monticello for the day. And we did.

It was cold and windy.

I stared out my window at work and watched it rain all day.

We hit rain on the way over, but it didn’t rain while we were there, which was nice.

It rained all day here.

We were just far enough east to miss it. It was colder and windier than I would have liked. However, the wind was right down the runway, so that part was nice. We flew almost everything we took. I forgot to count. We have pictures, but it was a sizable number of airplanes.

What did you take? Your 70mm Viper, your 90—

I took both Vipers. I took the little 10e Cub—or 25e Cub.

25.

The 25e Cub I didn’t fly. It was a little too windy. I took the jet, didn’t fly that. Wasn’t comfortable yet. I took the V900, flew that a few times. What else? My wing. I took the Assassin.

We were there all day. We got there about 9:30, ten o’clock, something like that. Didn’t leave until it was dark.

Because we had to fly our night planes, too.

It was a great day, even though it was a little cold. Could have been a lot worse. We made the most of what we could.

The night flying we did—I only had the Slow Ultra Stick with lights that I took. I hadn’t flown it since I put the new parts on and reassembled it from the ring-of-fire incident.

When we got there, I flew it. It was fine, no issues. Then it must have had a loose wire, because as I unplugged the battery, the wire that went to the lights pulled out, too. It was soldered into the battery connector.

I was so paranoid something would happen, because I knew the lights were a little janky from the crash. I almost brought a soldering iron, then thought, "No, these are fine." I went over every joint the night before. I stayed up until 11:30 getting everything done.

That was after we’d just finished recording, too. I remember making fun of you for calling it quits and not fixing it. You actually stayed up and fixed it.

I got it all taken care of and made sure the lights worked. Then I got there, pulled the wire out, and had nothing to fix it. I was thinking maybe we could run into town, Farm and Home or something, and pick up a small soldering iron. The solder was there. All I had to do was heat it up.

Time got away from us. We didn’t do that.

Dave looks like he’s about to fall asleep.

He’s yawning. That’s why he wanted to go first.

It’s been a day.

We lucked out. You had one flight in after it got dark, and one of the guys from the field came out and started talking to us. It hit me: "Wait a minute. Do you have a soldering iron?"

"Yeah, absolutely."

I got it fixed. We had a couple flights after that. Just a gorgeous night, relaxing. Probably the most fun I’ve had flying in a long time.

When the sun went down, the wind went with it. We could fly the Slow Ultra Sticks without it. They fly fine in the wind, but I was doing really smooth landings because there was no buffeting wind like we’d been fighting all day.

We ended the day on a very good note.

Ron’s Yak, Blue Angels F-18 and Super Scorpion

What did you take to fly?

We talked about this airplane a while ago: the Yak I found on the other side of my basement. It was hanging in the rafters. I did kind of forget about it. Finally got that one maidened after I put the new receiver in.

This is one I got from you. I don’t know the history. The wings aren’t removable.

It was part of a package deal I bought a few years ago when I got my iX12. That package.

I like Yaks a lot, and that’s why it hasn’t gone anywhere. I did fly it years ago. It’s been a long time. The receiver was the old AR636, or whatever, that you had to program on the ground, blah, blah. It was a pain in the butt.

After I found it, I knew I had an extra receiver, threw that in, and thought, "I want to fly it again." That’s a really good-flying airplane.

It looks great. It really does.

The color combo is reminiscent of the Beast. That’s probably why I like it so much.

I agree. It has that color combination.

It was so windy that plane was flying forward but hovering. I landed it at probably three miles an hour ground speed.

Your rollout was measured in—

A stall. Pretty much.

I don’t know if I flew it once or twice.

Twice, I think.

I got it dialed in as much as possible. I need to take it out again. My God, that is such a good-flying airplane. It can go out with me more now, with the bigger vehicle and trailer. Before, I didn’t have a way of taking it places.

That’s a bigger plane for a one-piece airplane.

It’ll start hitting the circuit more. I enjoyed that a lot.

I was in the mood of, "I need room. I don’t care if things crash." A couple years ago, I got the E-flite F-18, the Blue Angels version, from a guy at Joe Nall.

I’m not going to lie, it was last year.

Was it a couple years ago? You didn’t go last year.

I mean this year. The year before this year.

I know what you mean. It would’ve been ’25. I went with you.

You were with us?

[The group compares memories of 2024 and 2025.]

I could look up when I got it, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve had it a year or two and finally got it out. It flies pretty well, too. It was windy, which made it a little less enjoyable. But I maidened that one, and I’m looking forward to getting it out more often.

What else did I take? The one that’s become one of my favorites, because it looks so good and flies so well. You know where I’m going?

No.

You have one, too.

The Super Scorpion.

I’m not going to lie, that flew much better than I expected. It’s in Viper range for how well things fly.

You can sneeze. It’s okay. You don’t have to hold it in and blow your eyeballs out of their sockets.

[Brief exchange during a sneeze; wording unclear.]

It flies very similarly to a Viper. Maybe better. It’s to the point where the airplanes I’m taking to Toledo next year include two of my Vipers. The 70 and 90 are going.

It makes me sad, but I get it.

You might be able to talk someone in the group into keeping it.

You want one?

Not me. Daniel. Closer related.

That’d be good for him as a first EDF.

I’m not going to say anything negative about it, then.

The thing is, it uses an oddball battery. It’s also a one-piece airplane. You’re really not going to be taking that apart.

He’s got a pickup and a trailer.

For him it doesn’t matter.

Sportix, Bighorn and Assassin wings

Then I took the E-flite Sportix. That’s another one that seems to go with me. It’s fun to fly.

That’s the first time you let me fly it. It is a lot of fun. It’s quick-release, toolless. It goes together and comes apart so fast. It’s a nice airplane. I feel like it would be a good 3D trainer, maneuverable enough to develop some muscle-memory movements.

I enjoyed flying it to the point where I was thinking about getting one of my own.

I don’t think it’s as aerobatic as the Yak, though.

I don’t think the surfaces are as big. Still, it’s quite maneuverable for what it is. I liked it.

The other one you liked—

I like all airplanes. What are you talking about?

The other one you were surprised about, which surprised me, too, was the OMP Bighorn.

That was fun to fly, too.

That one would be a good 3D trainer.

It’s absolutely capable of that, a lot more than the Sportix. I was landing it, and it’s so light, when you completely let off, the whole thing would blow backward. I was landing it, going back 20 feet and taking off in the same space again.

Almost crashed it. That was on me, because I was trying to see how slowly I could get it to take off. I was using landing flaps instead of takeoff flaps. It got airborne at walking speed, maybe a little less. There wasn’t enough air going over the ailerons to keep it from flipping. It got a little gust that flipped it over.

Because it’s so overpowered and responds so quickly to the throttle, it was able to be saved without hitting the ground.

The shrubs saved it.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. My memory completely emptied that one out. It didn’t even punch a hole in the covering.

I did it on purpose. I was trying to do that.

You were trying to land in the shrubs upside down?

Upside down. I did it. First try. Didn’t even put a scratch on it.

That’s turned out to be a fun airplane. I get it out a lot.

Did you get to fly the Assassin?

I did. I got part of a flight on Tommy’s Assassin.

Make a rock run?

No. He didn’t enjoy it enough to spur him into finishing his own.

If it helps, I did look at it.

Because it was in the way of something else?

No, because I thought, "What’s the next step?" I saw it was the cord—no, I think the next thing is to cut the slot for the joiner, or spar. After that, I have to do the cord around the outside. I don’t want to do that right now.

He’s done step one.

I did do step one.

It goes really fast. I dreaded the cord, too. If you build it without lights, it’s a two-evening project.

I’m not going to do that. That’s the other thing: I don’t have lights for it. I got online and started looking at them and lost interest.

They’ve gone up in price a lot. When I got them for the Slow Ultra Stick—maybe I got them through AliExpress, and that’s the difference—I think I paid less than five dollars for a 16-foot roll.

They’ve been more than that for a while, at least on Amazon.

Maybe I need to check AliExpress again. It takes so long to get stuff, but what do I care?

That’s true. At this point, it’s been two years. What’s another month? You’re not in a hurry.

My problem is, when I’m ready to work on something, I’m ready.

But I’m not like, "Oh my God, I’ve got to work on this now."

I get it.

They’re fun airplanes. They sound cool. I like how well they bounce. I’ve seen them bounce really well. But if it wasn’t for you guys, it wouldn’t even be in my thought process right now.

It’s so small and easy. It goes with me every trip to the field now.

If we were going tomorrow, it would go. If I had my own done, I’d probably feel a lot differently.

Yours looks like you. Dave’s looks like Dave. Daniel’s looks like Daniel’s. You guys built them for yourselves, not the way I’d build one for me. If I had mine colored and done the way I wanted, I’d probably like it more.

Gotcha.

Not that yours aren’t beautiful.

Mine’s ugly.

Red, black and white.

Mine’s just raw, with all my stickers.

That’s what yours is. Fine. Everything’s fine.

I like how you did your lights better than how I did mine.

Because mine takes a nuclear reactor to power them? Twenty-five amps.

[Brief response unclear.] I’m not talking about that. The color combination. I like red, white and blue, obviously, but mine does something weird when it blends. It turns into a weird—I can still tell up from down, which is fine. There’s something weird with the blue for me.

Mine’s just red, green and pink.

Times ten.

And white. I forgot the white. There’s a lot of white on there, because you can’t look directly at it. It’ll blind you.

Of course his doesn’t have a switch, either, because that’s brilliant.

Neither does mine.

But yours isn’t like 7,000 watts.

A million lumens.

How many candlepower is that?

Yes. All of them.

Weather, New Year’s flying and goodbye

Was that the list? All you took?

I think that’s all. I took the Hangar 9 Cub, but it was too windy. Same with the jet. I just wasn’t feeling it with the jet. I did run it, at least. If it wasn’t for the wind, it would’ve been a lot different.

The cold did kind of suck, but the wind was worse. We got there, felt like it warmed up a little, then stayed.

I’m glad we went out to eat. It warmed me back up and gave the weather time.

All in all, a good day. It was fun. I’m glad we did that. I don’t know what the rest of the season looks like, but I’m going to take advantage if we get—

It’s not good at this point.

I looked yesterday, and it was like, "Hmm, no."

Saturday, not only is it supposed to be 25 as the low, but 25-mile-an-hour wind—or 23.

That’s just mean.

When it’s that cold, make it windy. Then when it warms up a little, let’s have it be nice.

I could deal with the cold, but the wind takes the fun out of it.

My fingers, when it gets cold—

You have that fancy glove thing. You should use it.

I should, but I’m still cold.

We’ll try to get out another time this year. If not, then we don’t.

I’ll be out New Year’s regardless.

That’s not this year, Dave. Gosh.

It’s this winter.

We’ll talk about it later.

My New Year’s Day stuff is figured out pretty much New Year’s Eve, depending on the weather report. Maybe it’ll be something floaty, or a heavy wind penetrator.

He said "penetrator."

I can guarantee the Assassin will be going.

I’ll bring mine. I can drive it into the snow.

That’d be kind of good.

Full-gone, and they’re mostly white anyway, so it’d blend in. You’d never find it.

Turn your lights on.

Get it under the snow and turn the lights on.

I’ll have to put a switch on it now.

They’ll melt the snow.

We have a switch for you, since you didn’t want it, didn’t need it.

Is that it?

I think so.

Anything else, Dave?

I’ve got to do some modeling stuff.

Get off here. You can go to bed.

Please do some modeling so I’ll have something to talk about on the next one.

It’ll be good, then. You started it. Get us out of here.

Thanks, everyone, for listening. I’m Tom. I’m Ron. 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 give feedback, connect with us at RCPlaneLab.com, or email us directly at Ron@RCPlaneLab.com or Tom@RCPlaneLab.com. You can also text us or leave a voicemail at 818-351-9846 [confirmed against the previous transcript and episode-page contact information; current automated export garbles the number]. Please subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.