Join us for the main discussion, practical takeaways, and stories from this episode of RC Plane Lab.
Finally! The Duellists have had their successful maiden flights! Tune in to hear Ron and Tom talk about how they went, and watch the maiden video below!
Episode 52 Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are retained.
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[0:00] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. And I'm Tom. So we're on YouTube. This is exciting. This is new. This is weird. Forgive us if you're watching us for the first time, because we're watching us for the first time. This is extremely odd, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't know where to look. Ron is really, really uncomfortable. It's just awkward.
[0:34] So, if you normally listen to us on your podcasting app, and you want to watch us on YouTube, head on over to rcplanelab.com. That's our website. And you can click that YouTube link that should be right at the top. Is that where you're going to put it? It's our website and you can click that youtube link that should be right at the top is that where you're gonna put it it's up there somewhere yeah just click the
[0:49] youtube link and you'll be able to look at our ugly faces now instead of just listening to us yeah exciting i know for us it's exciting i don't know about anybody else it's pretty exciting that's one word for it so why we're coming to you today is we flew the dualists, finally. Dualists finished. Finished. Yeah, we can actually say, not like the Trash Can Telemaster project, but these projects are finished. I forgot about the Trash Can Telemaster. We need to get back on that one.
[1:15] Well, yeah, when we get some decent weather. Oh, that's what we're going on? Well, that's what I'm going to blame it on. It's been six months, but that's okay. So, if you've been listening to our podcast, thanks. But if you haven't been listening to our podcast, this is going to be basically the wrap-up for our months, a month, yeah, I can't say that word, long dualist airplane builds that Ron and I have been doing together separately. We each built our own. We each built our own.
[1:45] We each built our own. So, two airplanes. So the project, we'll talk a little bit about the project. It's a project that we started back in March, April, something like that. And it started with a conversation that you and I had. I think it was like July or August. Was it? Well, I mean, I guess, did the project start when we downloaded the plans? Or did it start when we actually bought our first materials to start the project? I think it started in earnest
[2:12] when we decided to do it. So, I guess, yeah, I guess you're right. I guess that was probably, let's just say July. July. Okay. I'll go with July. So, yeah. I actually started gluing Balsa together in September. Because I have pictures to prove that. And the pictures are on our build log on our website. But anyway, the project started with basically a conversation. I don't know, on a prior episode, I was talking about a dualist that I had back in the mid-90s. Way back when.
[2:47] 90s that was back when that was given to me by a friend who had a fuel soaked airframe but he gave it to me and it was basically ready to fly had the engines had retractable landing gear had all that stuff and he just gave it to you he did he did he just gave it to me he didn't feel like messing with it the airframe was fuel soaked like i said so it was probably not long for this world. We'll leave it at that.
[3:10] So I took the airframe, took all the stuff out of it, stripped the covering off of it. At that time, it was fabric. It had been fiberglassed and painted. Yep. I didn't know that, actually. True story. Unless I forgot about it. I'm not sure if I… I may not have mentioned it. But yeah, it was actually fiberglassed and painted. Wow. But yeah, somehow the fuel and oil had managed to seep under the covering and soak the airframe. So there's a product called K2R.
[3:35] It's actually a carpet cleaner. It's really good. If you spray that on balsa, it will actually sort of draw the oil out of the balsa, which is kind of a neat little trick. So I rehabbed the airframe recovered it and yeah i crashed it you yeah you crashed it i failed to do a pre-flight which we always preach on our on our show pre-flight pre-flight pre-flight pre-flight pre-flight yeah so i failed to do a pre-flight and i crashed it and there was a conversation we had
[4:04] that how i really missed that airplane. And actually it was your idea. You said, what? You should build another one. I did because I'm sick of people just talking about stuff. Let's make it happen, right? Yeah. Let's do it. Yep. And so then I convinced you to build one also. Yeah. So then we decided we would build two duelists. And this was your first plans build. I was going to call it the Dueling Duelists. The Dueling Duelists, that's right. I think there may have been…
[4:32] You were going to title one of the episodes that if I recall correctly. Maybe it's this one now. Hey, no, that can't be this one, because this is like the Duelist Wrap-Up. The Dueling Duelist Wrap-Up. The dueling duelist wrap-up. Oh, we'll figure it out. The DDWR. Or DDWU. I don't know. I'm an idiot. What's the R? I was thinking WR because WR is like the first two letters of the word wrap. Oh, okay. I'm an idiot. What can I say?
[5:07] Oh, wait. No, you're you're not no you're smart i was not fishing for a compliment but thanks or or affirmation that's it so yeah we started the project we i decided to start with dave platt's mark 2 plans instead of the original dualist 240 plans and the reason i chose that set of plans was because number one the mark ii has a slightly longer wing 69 inches as opposed to 67 exactly
[5:33] because bigger is better bigger is better that's i mean we we say that a lot but it's true the bigger they are the better they fly they fly. That was reason number one. And reason number two was the Mark II version was much simpler to build because it has all of the thrust angles and the wing incidence and the horizontal stab incidence. It's all set at zero. So it's all built nice and square. So that's why I chose that plan,
[6:01] but quickly discovered after we printed the plan that there were some things wrong. There were quite a few things wrong, actually, and it led me to build three wings. It did? Well, it wasn't necessarily the plan that caused you to build three wings, was it? I built per the plan, so why not? The plan doesn't say to build warp into the wing. I built warp into the wing because the plans were incorrect.
[6:29] So the wing spars on the wing or on the, yeah, the wing spars on the wing on the plan, the notches for the, wait, I said that wrong. I always do that. You were so close, though. You really were. You almost had it. See, I've got to think when I say this now. The wing ribs on the plan were drawn with the spar notches not lined up right. Exactly. So because of that and because of how we cut them with the laser cutter, they were cut exactly to plan with no fudge room.
[7:03] And that's what made me have a wing that was warped. Funny story. I actually may or may not have mentioned before you framed up wing number, was it? It may have been before the third one, so you may have already learned by then but i think i may have said how i had to trim my spar notches so that i wasn't putting my spar and trying to force it in there because what happens you told me
[7:32] that after number two okay because number one i actually broke when i was practicing doing the the vacuum bagging that's right so that's why i decided to start over on that one however yeah after i did the second one it was warped that's when you gave me the the brilliant idea of not just forcing the balsa in it yeah i'd never done it before i didn't know that's true i figured it was supposed to go in there lined up right so you just kind of push it in with
[7:58] a bigger hammer and and make it it was your first plans build so i mean i'll i can't fault you with that and that's probably some information i probably should have given you beforehand but you have built a kit before or two you always fault the teacher not the student so it is my fault okay well that's fine no i should have known i mean really but now i do and now the plans that we have that we have drawn
[8:19] are correct yeah and you we drew plans because as you alluded to we got a laser cutter which was something we that had to have had to have maybe but it was a it was a tool that we hadn't really or at least i hadn't really thought about needing until we decided to do this and man we decided to do this. And man, having a laser cutter certainly makes the process of creating your own kit, essentially, is what we did, so much easier than hand-cutting ribs and formers
[8:54] and things like that. I mean, I think you would agree. Oh, I would not have done it if I had to cut them all out by hand. Like, honestly, that's not to sound bad, but that's too much work. Yeah. So once we had the plans chosen and fixed, thank you, after kind of a cursory look at them, you decided that it didn't look like it'd make a bad electric conversion. Yeah. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted
[9:22] to do something a little bit different because building the exact same plane is kind of weak. I mean, why have two of the exact same thing? Yeah, I could see that. I like to be a little bit different. And I'm not a big nitro fan. You do like to be different. I take that as a compliment. It's a compliment. But I don't know if that's how it was meant. Yeah, it's a compliment. But I like electric because I'm not a big nitro fan. So electric seemed like the only
[9:45] way to go so yeah electric tail dragger because i didn't want to deal with the the retracts either and that's where mine was born yeah yeah so you you took some artistic liberty from the from the sacred dave platt mark ii plan i did. And I took almost no liberties. Like, I built mine almost exactly. Yeah. Almost exactly. I did have to make some changes. I wanted a little bit longer gear because we fly off of grass,
[10:12] which, looking back, I probably didn't need to add as much gear as I added. You have about 14 inches of ground clearance underneath your tail. It's up there. I'm not making that up, by the way. No, you're not. You have like 14 inches. But if I decide to re-engine it and put bigger props on it, I got plenty of room. Plenty of room to put the, I could probably put 12-inch props on this thing now and not have any trouble.
[10:35] But yeah, for the most part, mine is built per the plan to include the engine, two nitro engines retractable landing gear the whole the whole schmazzle so schmazzle yep schmazzle so so since you went electric and i went nitro mine ballpark ended up being about just shy of a thousand bucks oh my god are you serious yeah i didn't realize it was that expensive yeah i am i'm less than half of that really yeah so when did you
[11:14] spend your money i mean like what made it so expensive well i don't know i mean we've got probably about the same amount of money in in balsa roughly i would say because we built them nearly the same. I'm going to be a little bit less than you on that one, too. Okay, but not $500 less. Probably about $20 less. So what have you got in the, let's say, the motors and speed controllers? Motors I paid $23 a piece for, and I think speed controllers were about $30 to $35, so $70.
[11:44] $23, hold on, $23 for the motors? Yeah, Amazon special. Nothing great, but they work wonderful. Wow. So what is that, $70, $90, $110 for two motors and speed controllers? Okay. Yeah, so I'm probably, if you factor in the two engines I have, yeah so i'm i'm probably if you factor in the two engines i have the tune pipes the headers
[12:15] props and spinners fuel tanks fuel line throttle servos yeah so i'm i'm probably double that i'm probably right at well yeah i'm right at 300 right there just just there's wow yeah there's 150 difference just right there. Wow. What kind of servos did you use? El Cheapos that I already had. I mean, like, they're $15. Okay. Yeah, I mean, nothing special. I think it was a Hitech, maybe, or Spectrum. I don't remember what they were, honestly.
[12:40] They're ones I pulled out of a different plane. I gotcha. But they're not high-dollar servos. They were $15, out of a different plane. but they're not high dollar servos. They were 15, 16 bucks a piece. Okay. So, so like I used what I thought were like mid level, mid grade servos. And I went with a high tech 56 45s, which are 39 bucks a piece. And I have quite a bit more than that. Yeah. And I have six of six of those yeah six of those plus a high-tech 225 for the
[13:06] retract actuator that removes the valve so that's seven seven seven seven seven yeah seven wow yeah and you've got four four oh wait a minute you have six i have four that are are necessary like also on mine i ended up because i like to be different too the pilots that i have in there first off it's forky and duke kaboom from toy story four because it's pretty cool actually awesome and both of those
[13:38] have a servo on them because they do turn when you steer the plane but that's not even necessarily necessary if that makes sense because i would say i would have four servos in that plane totally worth the weight penalty i think because those are like those servos are a buck 99 or something like that it was like a 20 pack on amazon for under 20 bucks i mean if it's less than five bucks you just may as well say free
[14:03] yeah i mean really well then each piece of balsa was free too then right and this hobby yeah i mean I mean, if it's less than five bucks, you just may as well say free. Yeah. I mean, really. Well, then each piece of balsa was free too then, right? In this hobby, yeah. I mean, well, I guess when you compile it and aggregate it, yeah, maybe you can't call it free. But no. Yeah, so I have roughly $300 worth of servos in my airplane.
[14:21] And those are, like I said, I went with what I, because you can spend way more than $40 on a servo. Yeah, so I'm going to say I have $0 because I already have them. But if not, I'll give you $60. Well, there's $200, $220 right there. My gosh. Yeah. So yeah, $220 there and the $150 in the engines. We're almost there. That's pretty close. Yeah. I mean, what else would there, oh, well, I have the retractable gear. there that's pretty close yeah i mean what else would there oh
[14:45] well i have the retractable gear so that was about i'm gonna ballpark it and say 110 bucks hey funny story about the gear so the nose gear that's on my airplane that we flew today is the nose gear that was on my original duelist from 1995. so that's all that made it across because you had a duelist bucket i remember that was the whole impetus behind yeah the dualist bucket i had for many many years and it was all the leftover pieces from that crash because i
[15:16] failed to do a pre-flight ailerons were reversed all because you didn't do that so many years ago many years ago made me build this airplane what's funny is I've made that same mistake since. So, I mean, take that for what it is. I haven't. I don't understand that. Like, I guess when I started in the hobby, I just got in the habit of doing a pre-flight every single time. Which is good. It's just, it's habit before you take off every flight. Yeah.
[15:41] It's just, it's so much easier to do it. I mean, I even did it recently. Remember? We were flying the little sandpipers. Anyway, off topic that's a while ago but yeah so yeah the nose gear is original well from the original duelist and the headers and tuned pipes and one of the engines are from the original duelist i I don't think I knew the engine was from the original dualist. One of them is.
[16:07] Yeah, the kind of ugly one, the darkish color one that I'm not real happy with the appearance of, that one's from the original dualist and also the wheels. Let me give you a little secret. I didn't notice any difference in the motors today. Oh, good. So don't worry about it. Oh, that makes me happy. I'm not very observant though. So if I'm the bar you want to you want to hit you hit that very well okay no but it looks good though i really like your airplane oh thank you
[16:31] so yeah that's that's the difference in cost so much cheaper to go electric i guess is what we're saying yeah well and i think there's a little difference in covering too wasn't there because i what did you use on yours? So, yeah, I used mostly monocoat. And I did use a little bit of the, I call it China coat, but it's the new cover or new coat. The same stuff that you just recently bought. Yeah, I bought some stuff from Value Hobby, and it was awesome.
[17:01] By the way, yeah, completely compatible with monocoat i'm just saying the new cover of the china code at least the stuff that i used it the seams stick to monocoat monocoat sticks to it i mean it's i mean for the price you can't beat it you really can't beat it it was 16 no 15 for a 16 foot roll and you used the metallic stuff and didn't have any trouble with the metallic stuff either. I used metallic silver. I used metallic blue. And I also used the carbon fiber one on mine.
[17:32] And no issues at all. I gotta be honest. I really kind of thought the carbon fiber was gonna be ugly. I did too. I really did. But seeing it in person, it actually looks really neat. Yeah, I like it. It's different. But you didn't overdo it like you didn't cover the whole airplane with it well a lot of it let's just say the roll of carbon fiber one is what i have least of now i'm gonna have to buy another roll oh okay because anyway i like it i was i was skeptical i
[18:03] didn't think i was gonna i thought it was gonna was going to look silly, but it really doesn't. It looks pretty neat, actually. Yeah, thanks. I like it. Especially in the sun, like when the sun hits it and that blue. Today was the first time I've ever seen it in the sun. Yeah, I liked it. Right, right. It was pretty cool. So the original plan was to finish these duelists and fly them, have them ready to fly, and fly them on January 1st.
[18:25] Yeah, because we always go out to the field on January 1st. Right. And we figured that was a good time to try and make this happen. Yeah, because when we actually came up with that deadline, we felt that we had enough time left to finish them, and then also it would be somewhat meaningful to test fly these things on January 1st to kind of kick off the new year and make it kind of special. That didn't happen. Well, that didn't happen. No, not even close.
[18:52] So what, like, it started with an ice storm. Ice storm was on Friday. Yep. And then we had snow. We had snow on Sunday, which is when we were planning on doing it with our backup date. And then I got sick. And then I got sick. And then you got sick. So we were supposed to have… I'm okay. It wasn't just one… Everybody know I'm fine. It wasn't COVID. It was just some stomach bug or something. But it had me down for like four days. Yeah. And cranky, let me tell you. A little cranky.
[19:19] No, we were supposed to have like a half inch or an inch of snow that Saturday night and a Sunday. So we figured no big deal. Half inch of snow is not a big deal. We'll cut to five like a half inch or an inch of snow that Saturday night and a Sunday. So we figured no big deal. Half inch of snow is not a big deal. We'll cut to five inches of snow. Five inches is what kind of told us we weren't going to be doing it. So that's what pushed us back almost two full weeks, unfortunately. Yeah.
[19:36] But we're done. We flew them. We did. I'm happy about that. Yep. Flew them today. Flew them successfully multiple times today. Multiple fun flights. So I've got to be honest with you. Even though I've been, it's weird, even though I've been looking forward to this day for quite some time. I mean, my airplane was finished, it was actually, mine was finished right before Christmas. Like I think it was around the 24th or 25th, something like that, when I actually could call
[20:05] mine finished. Yeah, I was nowhere near there. You were just a few days behind. I was ahead of you for the longest time. And I kept you behind me on purpose for the longest time because you needed some… Because you're competitive. Well, no. Well, yeah. Maybe. Because you needed parts cut. And it wasn't like I was purposefully doing it. But I was busy doing mine, so I didn't have time to cut your parts. Right, right. No, I got it. I figured. I figured. I mean.
[20:37] But let me tell you, like, you hit me at the end, and you just passed me, and you didn't look back. Well, I got, I was really fortunate. We were doing some telework at work. So in between working, I could get some stuff done. So I was fortunate in that regard. And plus, there was a couple of weekends there where I had some long weekends with the holidays. So I was able to get some stuff done there too. Thanks to Lori for letting me do that, by the way.
[21:04] Oh, God. Whatever. Just because she's sitting here doesn't mean you have to thank her for done there too. Thanks to Lori for letting me do that, by the way. Oh, God. Whatever. Just because she's sitting here doesn't mean you have to thank her for giving you time. You're an adult. Anyway. I would have thanked her anyway. I don't know about that. So, yeah, when you passed me, like I said, you were finished. And I had so many things.
[21:20] Like I had several things that I was putting off because I didn't want to do it. The biggest one was I didn't want to do it the biggest one was i didn't want to make the canopy like i knew my canopy was not going to be easy to do yes and i just there was just such a long list of things i needed to do and i did not want to make the canopy luckily yeah we we really kind of ran into some good luck here. Well, so I hadn't planned on making a trip up to Dynamic Balsa,
[21:50] but it got to the point where we needed a few things, and we had to do a last-minute trip up there. I had started to work on the plug to make a canopy for my dualist, for my canopy, plug for my canopy. For your dualist canopy? That's what I was going for. There you go. And I didn't get it finished, but I got it good enough to where I was like, if we're going up there, I'm going to see if he will make one for me on his Vecuform machine and
[22:16] just kind of see what we can get it to fit, hopefully. So we went up there and he was nice enough to run me a couple of them. Yeah, it's not as good as I wanted it to be, but it worked. It's not. And that took a lot off my shoulder. I think it looks good, honestly. I say I don't like it. I mean, it's completely on me because I didn't have the fit right with the plug. But I could do better and I probably will eventually do a little bit better. But
[22:40] I'm so glad to have that finished. He took he took a lot of work off my shoulders and I think because of that, I was able to get finished in time. And by in time, I mean, I was kind of late. I was still working it on the first or working on it on the first, but. Well, but that's only because, because you knew the weather was going to be garbage and you knew we weren't going to be flying on the first. I took a night off. So you took a night. Yeah. those last couple weeks
[23:05] so it was like any moment i had not doing anything else was just working on the do list me too i mean it was you can ask lori she said right there but is that what it was like every spare minute i had i was yeah i was downstairs working on that man but once i had the momentum going it was hard to it was hard not to work on it because i was making such progress every night yeah yeah and that always makes it
[23:29] easier to go back and work on it does and what we didn't we we chose we chose this airplane because of the way we chose it but we yes we chose it because of the way we chose it well what i'm getting at is we could have chosen something easier. Well, yeah. You led me astray on that one, too, I think. But trial by fire, that's for sure. To build a duelist from plans is not something that most first-time plans builders usually try to accomplish. Had I known
[23:59] what I was getting into, I might not have. But I'm glad I did. Honestly, it was a difficult build, but it's not so difficult that you shouldn't do it. And think about everything that you've learned. The hard way. The hard way. The hard way. By doing it and then having you come over and be like, why did you do it like that? Oh, yeah, I should have told him. Yeah. You did it that way as you looked so, like, disgusted at it. I was giving you more credit i guess than you than
[24:25] you deserved i figured you would since you had built a couple of kits i thought one kit well no that's not true you built a cavalier i did and then half of a cub i i wouldn't even say half of a cup that was i glued a few sticks together and thought nah no actually that one stopped because i bought a cub and i didn't need a cup anymore so that one just kind of and actually some of those sticks went into the duelist oh that's handy yeah so now you can't
[24:57] finish that cub oh i didn't plan on finishing that cub like i already why'd you start it well because at that time i planned on finishing it but by the time i took the sticks out of it to use on this i didn't plan on using it makes perfect sense there's those disapproving eyes so today went well though i thought yeah well i mean it didn't start well like like i was really nervous at the start because if you recall
[25:26] i had not run the engines on my particular airplane together on the airframe until today so i went there a little bit early yeah i said let's meet there at two and i got a text from you at noon saying i'm i'm on my way Well, I just really, really, really wanted to get the engines ran because I had not run them on the airplane together with that fuel system. So, yeah, I got there a little bit early. And then, so, yeah, I still had not ran them when you got there.
[25:56] And I was really, really, really focused on trying to get them started because I was having some difficulty to get them started. You were, actually. Like, you were not in a great mood when I got there. Well, I know it appeared that I was not, I was actually in a good mood. I was just really, really concerned, focused, worried, not mad. So many emotions that look like mad, but not mad apparently. But not mad. Angry. Angry. Disdainful for me when I said hello. I got the stare.
[26:30] The stare. So yeah, I had a lot going on upstairs here, when you got there, but yeah, I had to do something I don't normally like to do with my nitro engines. I had to use the electric starter today. And that was difficult in itself because you didn't have all the stuff with you that you needed. Well, I had the electric starter. You did. That's good. But yeah, no battery. So it was kind of a MacGyver moment. We had to string some cords together to run it off the
[27:00] battery off my vehicle that I used to take the airplane out there but adapt and overcome and that we did and i got the engines running you did which by the way thanks to bjorn at rmj machine works for the rings the engines once i got them running they actually ran ran pretty good still need some break-ins still need some tinkering but but yeah when you got there i was I was very nervous.
[27:25] I think the biggest thing with making it difficult to start is probably how you have them set up. That could be. I mean, your fuel tanks leak the whole time if you have too much fuel in it. They're set a little high. They're as low as I can set them, but they are, in relation to the centerline of the carburetor, they are fairly high. So they do tend to want to siphon fuel into the carburetors. They weep like the SR-71. They do, actually. Yeah.
[27:52] I remember that from when I was a kid reading that in school. And they don't stop weeping until they're almost out of fuel. Almost out of fuel. Kind of like an SR-71. Yeah. If there's nothing to weep, it stops weeping. It does. The fuel tanks are probably not in their ideal locations, and that's probably contributing to their ideal locations. And that's probably contributing to the difficulty starting. But I will on a day when we have much better weather
[28:11] and warmer where I can not have the pressure of flying the thing that day for the first time ever. Yeah. But, looking back on it, I was really nervous and focused, but you seemed to be very at ease today. Well, it was electric. I didn't have to go through all the problems that you had to deal with. Yeah, but it was still a maiden flight, right? Ron? What? It was a maiden flight, right? Yeah. Define maiden for me, please. Well, so you have a story to tell i well you seem to
[28:46] be pushing me to tell a story well there's a story there and you need to tell it so okay our listeners deserve the truth dang it there was a while there where you couldn't handle the truth that's true i was very upset about that i you were which is why I wasn't even going to talk about it. But here we are. Here we go. Well, I'm over it. We're fine. So, and I think our listeners deserve to hear the story. So, Friday we had a nice storm.
[29:13] And I got everything finished on the airplane on Friday. And since we were going to be doing some video and stuff for the maidens, I took it out on Saturday. for the maidens i took it out on saturday because the weather was a little bit nicer on saturday but you had something going on so you couldn't fly saturday it was a family event ah family family see how i'm making this your fault by the way but anyway so saturday i took it out
[29:38] and i did some taxi tests and stuff because i hadn't ever had it like move on its own. Right. And I kind of want to see how everything went. And I want to see how the camera mount worked and all that kind of stuff. So I went out and taxied it back and forth several times. One time when I taxied it, apparently I went a little too fast and it just jumped into the air. Straight up. I mean, very fast.
[30:04] Like I wouldn't expect him. And I kind of blame the air. Straight up. I mean, very fast. Like, I wouldn't expect him. And I kind of blame that one on you, too. Oh, jeez. It's all my fault. Because you kept telling me that this is a fast airplane. You kept telling me that it was, well, pretty much a fast, heavy airplane. And I wasn't expecting it to go airborne at such a low speed. Like, 10 miles an hour is all it took. And you've seen the video.
[30:27] So, I mean, like it was not expected. It was completely unexpected. I was shocked. And then, yeah, so I technically flew mine. You can call it a maiden if you want to. I don't call it a maiden. It's the first flight of the airplane. That's a maiden flight. I didn't want to. I don't call it a maiden. It's the first flight of the airplane. That's a maiden flight. I didn't trim it. I didn't do it.
[30:50] I don't even remember the flight as much as I just remember, oh, my gosh, I got to get this back down and not in the trees. I've never flown. Because that's a real concern here, actually. I've never flown an airplane that big at this house, like ever. And I wouldn't on purpose do that. Like I've never taken a plane out there that size to fly. A little bit smaller that I've known how it float or how it
[31:12] has flown before and stuff I've done, but something like that, no. So yeah, I did that. I kind of got a little bit ahead of myself and then I couldn't believe it happened. I came inside and called you. You were like, oh, that's cool, blah, blah, blah blah blah and then after we hung up you got a little upset yeah i got to thinking about it i was like that son of a gun we were supposed to do this together and camaraderie and all this kind
[31:36] of stuff and ron went out and flew his airplane without me i fully understand that but i sure didn't mean to i know and I sure regret that it happened, except for the fact today for me. Today went really, really smoothly. Today was kind of easy. It was easy going. I kind of knew what to expect. I wasn't as upset as you were about things. Not upset. I wasn't as concerned, let's put it that way. You didn't have that pressure.
[32:01] Mine had technically flown before. Yeah. But at least today you got to fly it a little bit more and trim it and actually kind of enjoy the flying of it and understanding that oh i built this and i flew this and no i actually didn't enjoy that flight believe it or not really like i'm glad i flew it but it's still like there was just so much going on i was nervous like more nervous than I expected to be. Okay. I didn't, like going into this, I didn't care if it crashed.
[32:30] Like it was just one of those things. It was like, if it crashes, fine, no big deal. And that, I mean, you've said that before. Yeah. And I, I get it. But it's just like you put so much time and effort and work into this thing. It's just hard to believe that you would feel that way about an airplane. Well, I felt that way. I felt that way about that airplane until I got out and had to fly it. And then it's like, everything just changes. Okay. And yeah,
[32:54] I didn't want to see a crash. I didn't, didn't really even want to fly it. but it all went well. It was a little tail heavy and I think that's what made it not enjoyable for me. Okay. I could see that. Because it was difficult to fly and wasn't as fun as it could have been. We did a little bit of moving of a couple things on it and then you flew it and you kept talking about how well it flew and how
[33:16] good of a flyer it is and all that. Yeah, I'm not exaggerating. It flies really, really nicely. Well, so had I had another battery, I probably would have taken it up again on my own to kind of see how it went. Oh, yeah. There's another day for that. Yeah, just know that, next time, I mean, you'll have no issues. I mean, that airplane, I mean, wow. It really does fly nice. Probably owing to the fact that it's two pounds, over two pounds lighter than mine. Under two pounds.
[33:43] Just under two pounds. Just under two pounds. That's right. That might have something to do with it. It has really light wing loading, but thank you, by the way, for letting me fly your brand new airplane. I preferred it. But it really, and I'm not exaggerating, it really does fly well. And they both do, actually. Even mine being at, we'll just say 10 and a half pounds. At that weight with those engines, mine flies pretty nicely, too. I'm pretty pleased.
[34:08] I'll talk a little bit about my first flight. Actually, hold on. I think I just realized it is going to be over 2 pounds by the time you add your fuel because you were dry when you were doing the weights on it. Yeah, but you never really, you don't weigh them wet. No, but you've got to take that into consideration. Then I shouldn't weigh mine with a battery. If we're not weighing it with fuel that's my fuel okay so what does 12
[34:31] ounces of nitro method or alcohol weigh i don't know 12 ounces i thought that but you got me i'm sitting there thinking well are we talking 12 ounces 12 ounces of volume or how does that work? Okay, fine. Whatever. I don't know if it actually weighs one ounce per ounce, fluid ounce. It may not, but I just thought it was funny to say it that way. Moving on. You got me on that one.
[34:59] So my first flight of the day after I got the engines running was aside from the takeoff takeoff was strange was pretty uneventful flew I didn't have to add much trim I think I got a few clicks I had to put some down well we had the camera on it so that really kind of messed with the trim so the second flight without the camera I think I actually went back to neutral trim because… Oh, did you? Yeah. At any rate, it flew… Yeah, the takeoff was interesting. You were like…
[35:28] I mean, you were trying to go vertical, and you were like 20 feet up in the air before you could do anything. Not intentionally. I'm still… I think it has something to do with the springiness of my gear. And I think actually, now that I think about it… The fact that you already started a foot off the ground. Well, it's almost airborne. It's just the wheels are on the ground. Isn't that how they all are? Because it's so tall, it's almost airborne. Oh.
[35:52] Except the wheels are still touching the ground. Bad joke. Anyway. Very bad. I think the attitude of my airplane when it's sitting on the ground, it's actually slightly nose down. Or at least it looks that way. And then when you start moving the airplane and the nose gear kind of springs back, it goes nose down even further. So it takes a lot of up elevator to kind of overcome that. And then by the time it makes it past zero and then back positive, it just shoots.
[36:20] I think that's what's going on, which I can correct for in the future just by technique. I don't have to physically change anything about the airplane, I think. You can raise your nose wheel. No, I can't. It's as high as I can make it. Oh, is it really? Yeah, there's no more room. That's why I lengthen the nose of the fuselage so that I could put that really long nose gap. You might have like a half inch or something in there still.
[36:43] I would have to grind some of the wing root away to clear the wheel oh my god to make it longer wow that's pretty bad but at any rate yeah once once i get past the takeoff which was a little hairy on the first one because like you said it it sort of jumps into the air and then it's 20 feet in the air before i even realize what's happening but then once I level it off and kind of trim it out, it actually flies really nice.
[37:07] I have to admit that I don't think mine flies as nicely as yours does. Why do you think that is, though? Is it built better? Well, it's lighter. Yours is built lighter. I'll give you that. Lighter wing loading. Yeah. Built better. It probably has a lot to do with the weight, though. Like, honestly. Yeah, for sure. And here's something else that I almost don't want to admit. The fact that it's electric. it has that instant throttle response. There's no lag.
[37:41] There's no waiting for the engines to kind of clear themselves out when you go from… And mine will get better with tuning, but… You don't have to tune electric. Yeah, that electric, it's no lag. You give it the throttle, it's right there. And the fact that it's lighter than mine, it really does fly nice. I think you've got a really nice airplane on your hands. Well, thank you. I like mine too, but mine's faster. I think we can both agree that mine's going to be a screamer
[38:12] when I get all the little things worked out. I mean, probably. I mean, you got to get, and mine sounds cooler. Oh, I don't know about that. Oh, no, mine sounds way cooler. See, I don't know about that oh no mine sounds way cooler see i don't know about that i like the electric wine i mean yours sounds cool and yours has kind of this weird whistle howling noise that it makes too i have no clue what that is but i like i think it's the cows but yeah i
[38:36] don't know it's it's different but it definitely has a like a howl like a whistle yeah to it as far as like when mine is like down low a wide open throttle when i'm that i love that sound it sounds really nice anyway to each his own so i'm very relieved mine has flown three times i flew three times today yours is flown now three times total flew it twice today yeah so you guys can do the math
[39:09] and how relieved are all of our listeners going to be this is the last time they're going to have to hear us talk about these gosh darn dualists again yeah doulas are over yeah anytime we mention the word dualist from here on out is going to be just a just like a footnote to the that particular podcast. Oh, hey, we flew the Duelist today. Like, honestly, I was getting sick of talking about it. I was getting sick of living it. I wanted it to be done and behind us. So I'm glad this is done.
[39:36] I'm glad I can say I built one from plans. And I'm glad I can say I'm moving on to build something else. I'm glad they're behind us. I never really got sick of talking about them because I never get sick of talking about model airplanes. But yeah, I'm glad they're done. And I'm glad we can move on to whatever's next, which is? Well, I've changed my mind a little bit on what's next. Okay. And that's your fault. It's always my fault. In a good way. Well, because
[40:01] you gave me a kit. So I have a kit, I got it together. I had talked about maybe doing a stick. Everybody should have a stick. Well, and you've said that for so long. So I thought, what? I'm going to try it. They fly so nice. You just take them out there. You throw them around in the sky. And they don't have any bad habits. Everybody should have a stick. So now I will have a stick so now
[40:25] i will have a stick when i'm finished with it yep but yeah so because of that you gave me the the kit that you had for the 40 size stick and i'll be putting that together great planes big stick 40 for anyone who's interested same that's why i said you gave me a stick size 40 kit whatever so that'll be the next thing i do and then we'll kind of go from there and see what's next we have other things we need to work on but
[40:48] yeah that's such an easy building kit you'll have it you'll have it framed up in a in an evening yeah i mean i've been looking at the directions it's it's pretty simple you're going to use the adjusted jig absolutely yeah yeah that'll make that'll make that go even that much quicker. Yeah, that's my next thing. You? Yeah, my plans really haven't changed. So I want to finish the Horton project and get that off my table so that we can then concentrate on our next big project,
[41:18] which will be a Ford tri-motor. A big one. The only reason my plans changed is because I added something to it. Yeah. You've got something that you're going to have to fill the time with while I finish this other project. Oh, that's exactly what I need to do is find something to fill the time. There's so much extra time. You're going to go electric? Of course. Why did I ask? Do we even need to ask? I don't ever want to buy another gallon of nitro fuel. I would be okay with that.
[41:48] You seem to waffle a lot on nitro. I go back and forth. I love the smell of it, but then I watch you deal with it and have to tune it and all that stuff. And it's like, I throw a battery in, I go, I'm done. No, I get it. It's so much more conducive to enjoying the hobby i think yeah no i get that if if if you're more into flying than tinkering then yeah electric is gonna be gonna be easier but i i still enjoy the tinkering aspect
[42:17] of it and even though i didn't look like you enjoyed it today well i i was still enjoying it even even if it didn't look like it okay like i'm looking back on the day i had a good time true all things considered i had a fun and hearing those engines run so cool yep so anything else that will do it for me that That's the last time that we're going to talk about dualist projects. From here on out, it will be a footnote in one of our episodes. If you hear the word dualist,
[42:52] it'll just simply be, hey, we flew the dualist today. Or hey, I flew the dualist yesterday or whatever. Or I crashed the dualist. Hopefully not that. Hopefully it's not a I crashed the dualist. You don't want to do it again. No, I don't. what? I just thought of this. Now I got to find a place to store the dang thing. Yeah, I haven't thought that far ahead. It's still in our dining room. I'll just bring it out here. There's lots of room here. There's no room here. I'm full.
[43:18] No room at the end. Anyway, all right. Anything else? No, that's it. I appreciate everybody. Thanks for watching this first YouTube episode of ours. Yes, this awkward weirdness of I still don't know where to look. I promise they'll get better. Just like if you go back and listen to our first audio-only episodes. Please don't. They were really awkward, and this one's probably that way too. But they'll get better, we promise. If you've listened to anything other than the first one,
[43:45] don't go back to the first one. We're going to stick with this video format for a while. Hopefully. Hopefully until the end, whenever that is. Well, yes. Hopefully longer away from now rather than sooner away from now. I hope that makes sense. That made no sense, but I think I kind of get the gist of it. Yeah, so you can look for some more YouTube stuff coming from us, some how-to stuff. And from here on out, all of our podcasts will be video. Oh, put that on me. That's the plan.
[44:13] Isn't that what you told me? It's what I hope to do, but don't stick me to that. Oh, my apologies. Our goal is from here on out to put the podcast on video. Sure. No, that's the goal. You're right. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. Maybe we don't like doing it in video. I don't know. Well, you definitely don't like doing it in video. I'm not a big fan of this yet, but we'll figure it out. You need to figure it out because we're doing it.
[44:37] Well, we can see who's pushing this, and that's okay. It's good to get out of your comfort zone. It is. Now, anything else? Because we said that like five minutes ago, and you said no, and then you kept talking. I did, didn't I? I do that a lot. All right. Until next time, I'm Ron. And I'm Tom. Good night.
[44:53] Good night. សូវាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប� Thank you.
