Ep 82: Ron goes to a swap meet, and how to make your landing gear look beefier

[00:00:05] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron, I’m Tom man. It has been a terrible and terribly busy couple of weeks, hasn’t it? Yeah, it has like didn’t get much done except a few things. That makes you got a lot more. I did, I well, I guess, hobby related stuff. I didn’t get anything done well, which is terrible, but we did, by the way, put a new door in your house.

[00:00:29] New patio, sliding door on the back of the house, which was a big project. I appreciate your help.

[00:00:34] Oh, no problem, it was fun. I enjoy doing that kind of see, I don’t enjoy that kind of stuff at all.

[00:00:39] Like home improvement projects. Yeah, I would much rather be obviously working on a model airplane.

[00:00:45] Or working on a car in the garage or in the driveway than to work on home improvement projects. See, I would prefer to do home improvement stuff at somebody else’s house where it’s not my money and not my mistakes if something happened. Yeah, no, I understand. Yeah, but yeah, it went pretty.

[00:01:03] Smooth, I think, for a couple of amateurs, I, yeah, it looks great and it looks fantastic. Yeah, I really appreciate your help. I could not have done it without you. So well, I didn’t bring that up for.

[00:01:13] You to praise me. That’s okay, I know, but we’ll move on. But that was. That was that whole weekend. That was a whole. Yeah, it was the whole weekend. Saturday and sunday hours, eight hours or so on saturday and then a few hours on sunday, and then I planned on working on the sandpiper you did. That was my plans.

[00:01:28] For well, that’s previous weekend also. We were going to talk about that on this episode. We’re not.

[00:01:32] Going to okay, so this is why I need to not bring up like next topics, because it’s so fluid, like my plans were completely to have all that done and be able to talk about that this time. Sorry, I didn’t plan because things just happen like something from which to deviate from. It has been, or it has been, a stressful, bad couple weeks, like I had a toothache. I forgot about that while you were, while I was helping you, that you were not a hundred percent. I found out, by the way, I get to have a root canal. Oh, that’s fine, so that’s not going to be fun. I don’t like dental stuff, so that’s coming up.

[00:02:06] You like, probably about as much as I do, I think I’d: yeah, it’s it’s. I don’t like it at all.

[00:02:13] Terrible. It’s not fun. So I had that. I had a sick kid. Oh, piper was. She was out of school for three days. So it’s just when it rains, it pours. But before we get into anything else, let’s let’s thank our patrons. We haven’t done that for a couple weeks. Yeah, it’s been a while. I’ll let you take this one, okay. Well, I’ll be happy to- not to put you on the spot, I don’t think you. I wasn’t planning on it.

[00:02:36] But that’s okay. I always like to thank the folks that support us. It’s it’s more fun for me to

[00:02:41] Let you do it, because then we find out how you pronounce their names. Right, I’m looking at the

[00:02:47] List here. Oh, yeah, that one. Okay, here we go. I’m gonna try not to butcher these. All right, here we go. So these are the folks that are supporting us. Cory fulton, thank you. Rob derrick steve- yum, that’s all one word. Don shack, jeff from flight team: thank you very much. Garrett newhart, Ron struss, rick maddox and matt laurie: thanks guys, we sure appreciate your support. Perfect, you did a good job. Thank you very much. You’re getting better at it. Well, I did not add the r to don’s name this.

[00:03:19] Time. So hopefully, hopefully, he appreciates that also. Don’t forget: rcplanelab.com is the place to go to find out anything about us. See what we’re up to, which at this point is not too much. Well, we’ve got big plans. We do, we always have big plans, but reality doesn’t always follow. Along email: you can email me, Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at Tom at rcplanelab.com. You had to think about that, I did have to think about that, I did. You can also leave us a voicemail or text us at:

[00:03:50] Area code: 818-351-9846. Yeah, that’s right, I had to think about it for a second. You got it. Also, don’t forget, we have rcplanelab swag: shirts, hats, posters, cups, coasters, whatever you want. Check it out. Make a great christmas gift for yourself, since, let’s face it, nobody else will buy it, hey.

[00:04:10] Listen, if you guys are members of clubs out there, like if it’s like our club, we do a potluck kind of every holiday season with a gift exchange, and these would make perfect, relatively inexpensive gifts for your gift exchange. If I never even thought about that. So, yeah, that’s a good idea. Yeah, get on, get on the website and have a look. There’s some neat stuff there. rcplanelab.com. Yes, that’s the one, don’t forget, right? Okay, let’s move on. We have a couple

[00:04:38] Emails I want to get to first. All right, you want to read them? I’ll let you read. Yeah sure.

[00:04:42] So the first one is from liam. Liam has written to us before and we appreciate that. He says: hey guys, liam here, I’m glad you all found the extra 300. I also am glad that we found the extra 300. He said on episode 80: thanks for mentioning which episode because, like Ron mentioned last time, it’s helpful when you do that. That way we can go back and listen to what we got wrong. On episode 80. You mentioned that you weren’t sure how it got so far out into the beans. He says: well, I got to thinking and I wonder if the aircraft could have regained lift.

[00:05:13] And have started in the opposite direction of Ron, causing it to fly further than y’all thought, he says. If so, would you be able to look at the parts of the aircraft to determine how it hit, for instance, more broken wings, bars on the port wing versus starboard, or a tail that was intact, indicating it was in a nosedive? He says I love the show. Keep up the good work, liam. Well, thanks for writing in lane. We sure appreciate that. I can say without a doubt that the damage to the

[00:05:43] The post crash inspection would have been probably nearly impossible for us to determine if it hit the left wing first or the right wing first, or if it was a nosedive, because I’m pretty sure that the

[00:05:55] Combine had at least run over it. Yeah, it was in pieces when I got it, so the wing tube was out, so I don’t know which side of the wing tube was bent. It’s so hard to tell when you don’t find it for so long. Yeah, because people that think they’re helping are putting it back where you can find it, but not necessarily keeping it laid out the way you would want to see what happened. Yeah, so, and I mean it,

[00:06:18] Happens, it’s well, and unfortunately it’s. It would be impossible to go back and look now, because it is.

[00:06:24] Been thrown away, correct it is well I it’s actually kind of ironic for the next email, but that plane is still in my burn barrel and has not yet been burnt. Okay, but it will okay. Well, I can also say:

[00:06:38] That we did tear some of the covering back from the wing when we were trying to determine whether it was corn chaff or bean chaff in the in the wreckage. Wreckage, carnage, and yeah, there was. It was just. Everything was shattered in both wing panels, yeah, and it was a lot of water damage. So, because it had been a lot of mold, a lot of crud all over, and what if, like it probably had, we found it the day of, or maybe within a few days before, the combine had gotten to it, probably, yeah, probably.

[00:07:10] Liam’s right. He probably, we probably, would have been able to kind of piece it together how it actually impacted the ground. But yeah, because of the time and go ahead, I was gonna say he’s also.

[00:07:19] Right that it probably was not as far around that curve as I thought it was and it was probably.

[00:07:23] Continuing to fly away from us. Well, yeah, and the angle at which you were able to see it, once it got below sort of the level of the corn, who knows? Yeah, so who knows? But yeah, that’s a very good question, liam, and we certainly had. We found it. We probably would have been able to determine at least some to some degree, to some extent of certainty. Yeah, so thanks, liam. Next email comes from josh. He says: hey guys, I’m really enjoying the show. I just wanted to email y’all about an issue I endured.

[00:07:52] Today at the field. Y’all, by the way, have you noticed, like most y’all I mean, that’s that stuck out to me.

[00:07:58] No, I like it. I do too. I lost. He says I lost total signal in my extreme flight: extra 300 v3 35 cc. So good size airplane and that’s- yeah, that’s a really pretty airplane. I hate what’s coming next. He says I’ll include some before and after photos, which he did. Would have been my fifth flight honor using a spectrum 8020 t, talking about the receiver there on his new spectrum nx8. The airplane was running dual 3600 two-cell LiPos plus a power distribution board.

[00:08:30] And he lost total signal. He says: the after crash inspection showed everything in working order. I hate when that happens, I know. He says: have you heard anything bad about the new receivers? I’m assuming he’s talking about the new spectrum receivers. He says: just curious, josh a. He says ps, the last photo was taken by my girlfriend, lol, she wants to have a viking funeral for her. I happen: yeah, I know what a viking funeral is and that is kind of funny. -Huh, but no, to answer the

[00:09:00] The question. I have not heard anything bad about the new receivers. I have not either, but that is.

[00:09:07] The worst feeling- and this is this- takes me back. I’ve said it before: you can’t fly something that you’re not okay not getting back. Because, as well or as good as you try and put things together, as many I’s as you dot and t’s as you cross, there is going to be that one time where something dumb happens.

[00:09:30] And you just don’t know what it is. Yeah, yeah, and, and unfortunately there’s no consolation for that. No, there’s, because you don’t learn anything now. Yeah, I’m not familiar. Familiar with the brand new spectrum receivers, because it’s, I mean, brand honest here. I’m old and everything I have is probably oh.

[00:09:49] I don’t want to hear it. You’re still eons newer than I am on some stuff. Well, maybe, but the I’m

[00:09:57] Assuming, I would assume, that the new receivers have data logging and if everything- and I always forget to do this myself, but there was a capability that the spectrum receivers had- that when, when you either you powered them down and the next time you powered them up, you could go through a sequence and it would like blink lights and if you had the, the data logger thing, that it could tell you it had this many frame losses in the last two minutes, it was turned on or whatever. So I don’t know if

[00:10:29] Josh, if, hopefully, if you’re listening- you didn’t indicate whether you looked at the blinking lights on the receiver when, when you went out to functional check everything, sometimes you may be able to learn from that data logging feature on the spectrum receivers, which is

[00:10:46] One reason: a lot of people like those. And one reason to read the manual, because I guess I don’t.

[00:10:52] Know that’s a thing either. So, yeah, I know, like I said, I’m, I. I know that there was that sort of capability. I don’t know how robust it is, yeah, how advanced it is right, but again, you have to know how to use it. And I, admittedly, I don’t know how to use it, but I know that the capability,

[00:11:10] Exists. Yeah, but that is those pictures. It’s a long shot, yeah, I mean I, I yeah. Nobody likes seeing pictures like that, and sometimes a viking funeral is the best way to end things. Yeah, and sometimes you.

[00:11:22] Know that once you’ve, once you’ve salvaged everything you can out of there, that provides the closure that you need, all right to move on. So, anyway, thanks for thanks for writing to us, josh. Hopefully you get another beautiful airplane that doesn’t have the same fate. Hopefully it doesn’t sooner rather than later, right, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully he gets a new.

[00:11:45] Airplane okay, rather than that doesn’t have that doesn’t end up in the same fate. Yeah, yeah, I gotcha.

[00:11:51] So this weekend, yes, we did do some hobby stuff. This I did, so this was. I wanted to talk about the, the

[00:11:58] Swap meet. It’s swap meet season, folks. Yeah, unfortunately there’s not a lot around us, but well, yeah, we’ll go and we’re still dealing with covid, so the turnouts are probably not what they what they would normally be, but still well. So let me tell you about my previous weekend. Two weekends ago we worked at your house, so this weekend I had completely planned on going down. So this swap meet was in columbia, illinois, which is down south. I think they said it’s like 20 minutes south of st louis, so that way you kind of get an idea. It’s ironic that’s down there by where?

[00:12:29] Laurie’s dad lives. Oh, my wife, laurie. By the way- ironic, yeah, were you down there this weekend? That would have been ironic, I know that would have been. No, I had to work this weekend, so I know that’s why I couldn’t accompany you, but anyway. So my plan was to go there saturday morning, right, luckily- now I don’t often admit I’m wrong, because it happens so infrequently- I knew that was coming, but anyway, luckily I talked to Reggie friday night. Reggie saves the day. Reggie, as much as this pains me to say it.

[00:13:02] Saves the day on this one. So I told him I was going down saturday morning and asking if he was going to go, which of course he wasn’t. However, he texted me back later after we had gotten off the phone. He’s like: hey, I just talked to bob. I think that swap meet is on sunday. I’m like it’s not on sunday. Why would anybody have a swap meet on sunday? That makes no sense. Sunday morning, no, saturday morning, perfect day for it. Yeah, oh, my goodness, he was right. So I got online and looked and stuff.

[00:13:33] And I had even screenshotted the, the app screen, or not the app, but the, the, the flyer for it. And I hit, I would swear up and down. It said saturday, but it sure as heck said sunday, may or november.

[00:13:49] 7Th. What’s a good thing, Reggie, set you straight on that, because that would have been a wasted trip.

[00:13:53] Oh, I would have been a little upset, but it’s a good thing that was sunday anyway, because we woke up saturday to no water in the entire house- yeah, it’s part of that country living. So I had to go and get a new well pump, which was a pain in the butt, and get that changed. We broke some pipes and had to get that fixed and, long story short, it’s still not fixed because there’s a little leak that we sought to fix. I’m gonna do this weekend and blah, blah, blah, but anyway. So see home improvement projects. I hate.

[00:14:24] Them I, it depends on them. The home improvement: like I don’t consider that home improvement, that’s home repair either way, and I don’t like for me, like I want something to last and work forever and not.

[00:14:36] Have to be well, what they say about things. And forever. Nothing lasts forever.

[00:14:43] Okay, what is that from? I think it’s just a general. I thought that was a slogan for somebody.

[00:14:49] No, no, I don’t know. Yeah, whatever, that’d be a terrible slogan. It would actually be, wouldn’t it? I’m thinking? Maybe I’m thinking of a diamonds, or a man ge light bulbs, because nothing lasts forever.

[00:15:00] I’m just saying that would be a terrible slogan. Anyway, I we’re off topic, yeah. So with all that I almost didn’t go down. Okay, let’s get back on. So I almost didn’t go sunday to the, to the swap meet, because I still had a bunch of stuff to do sunday on there. But I did and I’m kind of glad I did. But while I was down there- this also goes into my whole weekend- my wife called me and said our son’s car wouldn’t start -oh, long story short, I think the motor shot and going to a junkyard. So

[00:15:31] There’s mark that up on the wonderful weekend. But the weekend was salvaged by going to the swap meet. Yeah, like that was my favorite thing for the weekend. For the weekend, because everything else was just crap. But let’s be honest, I mean, I mean, get right to the point- it was a bad weekend. Hopefully this one’s better. So anyway, columbia, illinois. It takes a little over two hours to get down there from here. Yeah, it’s quite a haul, and then two hours to get.

[00:16:06] Back and then I had to stop and charge for 15 minutes to be able to get home and all that stuff, which was fine. But anyway, I was surprised, that, far away, how many guys from our club we ran into. I ran into, yeah, well, we’re a small community, the hobbyists yeah, but relatively I mean. I mean there was a bunch of guys down there from our field and I was just like I said, I was surprised. But anyway, one of them had a table set up and he had a supercharged os 120 with fs or whatever and he was trying to

[00:16:40] Trying to get me to buy that for the tri-motor. But I told him I said no, no, we’re good on the tri-motor. Tommy’s got the motor set. I don’t know exactly what. I have engines and spares for those.

[00:16:49] Engines now. So I think we’re. We’re golden on powering the tri-motor, which the other thing is ironic, is I?

[00:16:56] Actually know, like now the os one, fs1, whatever it is. There was another one down there too that the guy was trying to sell. I think he was like 125 bucks or something on that one. I don’t. Does that sound about right? That’s probably about probably about right there, and as I was walking by, another one of the guys from our field was talking to him about it and I think he might have bought that one. So good, another one comes back up north with us. Cool, the more, the better, the more the

[00:17:26] Yeah, yeah, the more nitro engines the better, especially four strokes, my favorite they, they do.

[00:17:33] Sound better, but anyway. So there was a few things down there. I think there was one guy that had a box of like 10 nitro engines for 50 bucks. I don’t, I didn’t heaven, I don’t know nitro engines enough to know what’s. I mean I guess five dollars a piece. I figure that’s probably not anything you’re gonna get hurt on, but I don’t want nitro, especially if you need them. What I’m saying? Yeah, had you been down there you might have thought of something to do with them, but who knows? I mean, you’ve already.

[00:18:02] Got like 1400 of them, I don’t know. Well, I’ve got a few. Yeah, right now for me to pull the trigger on a on a nitro engine purchase, it would have to be something special, like right now. Well, I.

[00:18:15] Did see so and there were a couple os’s in there. I mean, like I said they looked like they were all two strokes. There weren’t any. Yeah, four strokes in that box, but I did see, whatever we did the.

[00:18:27] Two cycle engine running video on: oh, the hp 61, the black one with the gold head. The gold head, yeah, there was one of those down there, oh nice, don’t know what size, because, yeah, they didn’t pay much of sizes. I think they did a 40 and a in the 61. Yeah, so you might have come home with that one. I didn’t even look at price, I don’t know, but it was fun, like I said, seeing some of the stuff down there. So most of the stuff down there, though, was full airplanes, sure, so I did buy two airplanes. Yay, I know this is the exciting part, except I guess I didn’t look too well like I rushed into it too.

[00:19:02] Much on one of them that I didn’t realize until I got home. So I bought an e-flight pa20, piper pacer, I think is what it’s called. Okay, if you’re not familiar with it, it’s about a 50 to 51 inch, I think, wingspan little three cell electric airplane. Of course it’s electric, of course, and it’s a red and black, which I am a sucker for. Red airplane. It’s a pretty airplane. It looks like almost like a blown up in some aspects, piper cub, which makes sense, I guess, because

[00:19:39] It’s a piper airplane. So I mean, like if you look at the tail, feathers and stuff on it, it’s all that same type of shape, but anyway. So I got it home and as I was pulling it out of the trunk I saw the elevators were kind of off a little bit and then I noticed that whole horizontal stabilizer was moving a lot, oh boy. So I looked at it and I was kind of moving it up and down. Well, the balsas cracked inside of it. Oh so I was like I heard it when it was in the trunk. I figured I was.

[00:20:13] One that broke it. I took it out, paid attention to the bottom of it. Somebody had glued popsicle sticks underneath and painted them to match. So that was how they fixed it. That’s how they fit. So I felt better because I knew I didn’t do it right. But that’s another thing I gotta fix. But it should be an easy fix. Yeah, that’ll be easy. I’m gonna have to find some of the hanger 9 ultra coat, I think is what’s on that one I got. I got plenty. See, I don’t have any of the ultra coat stuff. Yeah, so that’s got.

[00:20:40] A box full of that stuff and I think I’ve got like three or two or three shades of the ultra coat red.

[00:20:45] So we’ll get it fixed up good, because I don’t need that much, just enough for well. I mean, like, I don’t even think I have to cover the elevator, I think it’s just gonna be the stabilizer, which is tiny- yeah, it’s really small. That’ll be cool, that’ll be an easy fix. That one, I don’t think, came with a receiver, I think the other one did. I don’t remember one of them did. It’s only been a couple days. I had a chance to do anything with them. One came with the receiver, one didn’t and the other one

[00:21:11] Is. It’s a much faster plane, so we’ll see how that goes. It’s an e-flight shoestring. It’s a pylon racer. Yeah, I mean, maybe I shouldn’t have bought it, we’ll see you, okay. Yeah, I’m good there. Yeah, but it should be a fun one, looking at it like I was online at work because I was bored and need to do something. Apparently there was two different ways you could finish that, like they recommended two different power systems. One, they said, is a.

[00:21:44] Little over 90 miles an hour, and then the other one is 125 miles an hour. What it’s rated for, hey, I don’t know what’s in it. I know it was an e-flight motor, but I don’t know which one compared to.

[00:21:56] What they were saying. So that’s that’s going to be a fast alert. That’ll be exciting, yeah, it’ll.

[00:22:02] It’ll be fun to play with. Yeah, what else did I get? I also bought a little kit for like a 28 inch balsa kit for a electric airplane. We’ll see how that goes. So and it was funny because as I was walking out with the first airplane, I bought the red piper one- a guy saw me and we were talking as I was walking to my car and he said, oh, do you fly and stuff? Now we got talking just a little bit and he’s like: well, here, would you like this? And I’m looking at him. He

[00:22:36] Hands me. It’s a big box, it’s an air hogs storm launcher. I’ve never heard of it. I mean I’ve never really bought anything, air hogs wise- you see him at walmart all the time- but it was free. Yeah, it’s cool. So I’m I’m a big free fan because I might have fun with it- you never know. And I figured maybe it’s something piper can play with, a good way to get into her, sure, doing something. Rc came with everything. I mean controller, battery, everything. It looks like a little, it looks like an unlimited.

[00:23:06] Hydroplane boat? Yeah, it’s. It’s not an airplane with propellers, but it flies. Yeah, it’s pretty. It says so. We’ll see how that works. And then he also handed me- it’s a little foamy, I don’t know what do you think? 32-Ish inch wingspan: yeah, that’s probably about right. Something in there what kind of looks like a texan t-34? Yeah, t-34 manner, whatever it is, turbo manner, because it’s got the looks like it’s got the turbine exhausts. Yeah, the things stick it out of the side. But anyway, hands that to.

[00:23:41] Me is like: here you can have this too if you want. It doesn’t have landing gear, although it has the nose gear which we can take off. You just need to throw a little motor and some electronics in that, and that should be a good little flying one too. I think, yeah, I think, maybe we’ll see. Yeah once again for the.

[00:23:54] Price it might match the. Was it the fuselage we brought back from brian’s that one day? Oh I.

[00:24:02] Forgot. No, we, we brought back both. Oh, that’s right we did, is that’s the one? You went back up for something else and he found the wing. Oh, that’s right, so we have the whole airplane now. Cool, but yeah, so that was another one. What else did I get? There was, oh, a e-flight. Is that e-flight? No, hangar 9, little umx yak 54. You do like the yaks? I’m? Yeah, I, it’s another profile, little foamy kind of thing. But is it a foamy? Yeah, well, yeah, because it’s the balsa, isn’t it? No, no, no, it’s, it’s foam. Oh,

[00:24:38] Okay, it’s foam covered in like saran wrap. Oh yeah, okay, it’s one of the indoor type for practicing 3d and all that stuff, so I figured it might be good for around the house here and flying down here in.

[00:24:50] The basement. Yeah, see what happens. It was 20 bucks, you can’t go wrong with that. What else did I get?

[00:24:55] I got a couple, so I know they don’t make them anymore and that’s why I bought both of them, with the propeller balancers, the e-flight magnetic ones. Is that e-flight? No, dubro, top flight, is it top flight? Yeah, so top flight. The magnetic balancers. I bought two of those. They were five bucks a piece. I figured, if you want one, yeah, you can have one, thank you. And then you reminded me, ironically enough, that when I offered that one to you, you’re like I already gave you another one, which I didn’t remember.

[00:25:26] Yeah, well, now we have plenty, four, something like that. Ironically, the one you gave me that I don’t remember you giving me was missing the, the center part, yeah, the armature or spindle. The spindle and the ones that I got had two full bodies and then came with three spindles, so now we have four full.

[00:25:48] Sets nice, but I think that was about it. I think we may have. Did we demonstrate? I think we demonstrated.

[00:25:55] Those in one of our videos. I don’t remember if we used that or not. I think I know you use the other one. You’re, you’re my dubro one that I yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe we didn’t use one, but we talked about.

[00:26:05] Them anyway. Yeah, I remember that. So now we have, yeah, several of those so cool. So, yeah, it was a productive trip, it was. We have another one coming up in two weeks. Yeah, in a couple weeks we’re.

[00:26:14] Gonna. Hopefully we’ll go to this one together. I plan on it. It’s a lot closer. It’s like a 15 or 20 minute drive from my house- well, from your place, yeah, yeah, and 45 minutes from your house, but that’s okay, not bad. You wanna come out here meet me? Are we just gonna meet there? What are you gonna do? I’ll probably just meet you here and go together, if that’s okay. Perfect, can’t wait. So yeah, so yeah.

[00:26:33] Productive, productive trip to the, to the swap meet down south. I wish I could have gone but I had to work, but maybe next time. Yeah, maybe some of the vendors that were there will also be at the.

[00:26:43] The one here in a couple weeks and I’ll be able to buy a bunch of stuff- kind of engine, that was that if it was a 40 or 60.. We shall well. Maybe he sold it too. Hopefully that could be. Hopefully he sold it. So when that’s why you want to buy a table, do you have anything to sell? I don’t, okay. I mean, I probably ought to, but me too, I, I don’t want to deal with it, I’d rather just go walk around and buy more stuff, buy more stuff and then yeah, anyway, but one of the things, so I think our main short topic for today, one of the things I noticed. Oh, I forgot I did see another airplane up there. I have no clue.

[00:27:18] What it was. Wow, off topic sorry, but anyway. So how I love old, like ugly type airplanes. This one, like unusual, this one took the cake. Like I don’t I- I probably shouldn’t even talk about it because I’m going to do a terrible job describing it- here we go. It was about a 60 ish, I would say, inch wingspan looked like. It was like an old model from the 60s, maybe 70s, but then again it could be 90s for what I know. But what? What it looked like? It was somebody’s like go-to airplane for years. That.

[00:27:54] Just was beat up but looked like it had taken care of somebody. Like really well, yeah, it was two cycle nitro engine. The whole thing came with an old FM transmitter and everything. Oh nice, 60 bucks.

[00:28:09] Like, honestly, it was high wing or low wing. It was a high wing and the wing itself, like it was, it runs. Yeah, it had ailerons. Okay, it was weird. I like I didn’t even think to take a picture, which was stupid on my part, but it was weird because, like, the center part of the wing where it mounted to the airplane looked like it just was like this big bulbous type thing. It wasn’t a cockpit, it wasn’t anything like that, because the cockpit was ahead of that, but it was just like a weird.

[00:28:41] Shaped. I once again I probably shouldn’t even talk about this because I’m so off topic, but it was held on. It was held on with drywall screws. Wow, I mean, that’s the kind of airplane I’m talking about- that just looked like: hey, I gotta make this thing fly. Let’s do it. We got to make it fly and go have fun with it, and I love those for some reason. Yeah, but yeah, 60 bucks. Honestly, I wish you had a picture and I know I wish I’d bought it, but I did not. I don’t think I had room.

[00:29:11] In the car at that point for it, or else, honestly, like if I had gone with you with your suv or something like that, it probably would have come home with me. So it’s probably good I didn’t go. No, I kind of miss it, like I wouldn’t mind having it for some reason. Why didn’t you take a picture of it? I can’t believe you didn’t. I wasn’t thinking I didn’t take any pictures up there. I should have. No, you didn’t. I didn’t get any texts. Like I feel bad, I’m sorry. Like well, that’s okay, I didn’t. I didn’t know if you wanted to see what was going on or if that would be like a sore subject.

[00:29:41] Like: oh, I’m at work, this is baloney. No, no, no, I’m not like that. Okay, I like to see my friends having

[00:29:47] Fun. Well, it wouldn’t have been a selfie or anything but well, but I would have known that it was you and would have known you would have been having a good time and that would have made me happy. But oops.

[00:29:56] That was my phone. So going, going back, you just don’t care at all, I don’t do anymore. No, we’re just doing this, let’s, let’s do it. So the main kind of what, the main thing I want- yeah, you’re drinking, the main thing I wanted to talk about today, I think okay. So a lot of the airplanes I saw up there were cool looking airplanes, but one of the things that really annoys me- mark it up with a list of a lot of other things that annoy me- overpriced. Were they all overpriced? No, they didn’t.

[00:30:27] Seem to be okay. I mean, they seemed that’s not where you’re going with this. No, there were. There were a couple of them that were, because that’s what annoys me, like when I go to a swap meet.

[00:30:35] Let’s be honest, we go to swap meets to hopefully get deals, and I feel like I’m looking at the airplanes that you got. I think you had pretty good deals. I think so too, but occasionally you’ll run across this- this one guy or girl selling an airplane that is clearly not worth what they’re asking and that annoys me. They’re very proud of what they have. Yeah, I mean- and I’m guilty of that too, I’m sure like there’s stuff that I would probably want more than it’s worth, but so I just keep it right and that’s why I have an air basement full of airplanes. So there were only a couple that

[00:31:09] I asked about that. I thought were more expensive than what was fair. But if we’re going to talk about pet peeves, which is not the point of this, sorry. What I don’t like is when you go up somebody that has something like an airplane for sale on their table. Hey, what do you want for that? Oh, here it comes. Yeah, what will you give me? Yeah, I will give you 20 bucks, right, I mean I, I don’t want to go first, yeah, well,

[00:31:30] I will give you five dollars. How about that? Yeah, exactly like. Let’s put a starting point at least.

[00:31:35] On there, right, tell me what you’re thinking. Like I’m not gonna know, 50 bucks, and then now you got some place to start from. Yeah, if you’re. If you’re gonna say it’s a 300 airplane to me, it’s like I’m gonna offer you 50 bucks, I don’t want to upset you, right, so I’m just gonna keep walking. Yeah, so I’m gonna ask, or even make an offer. That annoys the crap out. That is a pet peeve of mine too. But back to our topic. Sorry, okay, this thing, let’s get serious. Now. This is: should we start over? I mean, I don’t know, okay, so seeing a lot of airplanes there and it reminds me like with my super sportster.

[00:32:07] Too. Very nice looking airplanes, nice looking wheel pants, like the whole airplane just goes together well, and then this dinky little piece of wire, this piece of metal that connects your airplane to your landing gear. Oh, like that, if you don’t have built up gear, or like an actual decent mount- sorry, my gosh, sorry about that- like an actual decent, like bent metal plate type gear. Can you do anything to make it not look so wimpy, to not look so cruddy, spindly, spindly, like yeah.

[00:32:42] I mean I don’t know. No, I know what you’re saying. Okay, good, because there’s a couple things you can.

[00:32:46] Do things I’ve done in the past, like- let’s take your super sportster, for example, the eighth inch gear wire. It’s pretty small diameter, a couple of things you can do. Kns- this is bigger than that though. Okay, but I mean the. The processes would be the same. Okay, kns- whichever most modelers are going to know that name. They make wire and tubing, and for modelers, they make a streamlined tubing, and what I’ve done in the past is I’ve taken the, the gear wire.

[00:33:20] Before you bend it right if you’re, if you’re using preformed wire. This, this process, may or may not work, but on airplanes where you bend up your own gear wire on the long leg- the leg that goes down to the bend where the axle is- you cut a piece of this kns streamline tubing, slide it over that and then make your bends and then to fasten it in place. If you rough up the gear wire before you put this piece of tubing on there, you can fill in each end with a little bit of epoxy and let that cure.

[00:33:54] And that thing’s not going anywhere. And now you’ve got a nice streamlined strut that looks a lot like a wing strut, only that’s going to your gear now and that kind of cleans up makes your wire actually.

[00:34:04] Look like something kind of hidden door, doesn’t just look like a yep round piece of wire exactly.

[00:34:10] And the same, the same process. That same process will work on just about any size gear wire, because kns makes that streamlined, tubing in a few different sizes so you can get it really small, you can get really big and you can accomplish the same thing. If you don’t want to go that route, or if your gear is already bent, like your super sportster, you can. You can take a piece of- and I would use hard balsa or maybe even base wood, as crystal likes to call it, and

[00:34:42] Bass wood, by the way, is what you’re talking about. Yeah, oh, and that reminds me not to cut you off. So my order of balsa that I’m supposed to be getting from it’s on its way? Yeah, it’s supposed to be, but I haven’t got anything shipped to me yet. I was told it was going to ship by friday, three weeks ago, and I haven’t gotten anything. Still nothing. Yay, anyway, back to your- sorry, your- bass wood. So, yeah, you.

[00:35:02] Could take a piece of hard balsa or bass wood, cut a notch in it for your wire to sort of sit into, and then you can shape that piece to an airfoil shape or whatever kind of shape you want and then- same thing- rough up the gear, epoxy that piece in there and then sand that slot- there’s gonna be some squeeze out of the epoxy. Sand that smooth and then you can paint it or cover it with monocode or ultracode or whatever your favorite covering of choice is, and achieve the same sort of effect on smaller airplanes. That works really, really well because it doesn’t add a lot of.

[00:35:35] Weight and you’re not changing the, the CG or anything like that dramatically on larger airplanes. What I’ve done before is: let’s say, for example, let’s say it’s a- well, let’s say it’s a big cabin type airplane like a, like a SIG cadet or maybe even a cub, which cubs actually come, built the way I’m getting ready to describe. But if it comes with trainers were like, really notorious for this. They would give you two gear wires that were bent, two opposing 90 degree angles, and then

[00:36:10] They would stick: one gear wire would go up into a block on one side of the fuselage and then the other gear wire would kind of sit next to it and go up into the opposite side. So they were actually two separate pieces of wire and they were just springy and kind of gross. Yeah, what I liked to do way back in the day is I would bend up my own gear and I would bend that piece as a solid piece and then I would bend another piece to look exactly like that, only maybe a little bit smaller or larger, depending on how you want to do it, and then mount it like it would be a cub gear you’d have.

[00:36:42] Two gear and then you’d rotate the one back, match up the axles, wrap them and wire and solder them, or you could even epoxy them with a little bit of a kevlar string, so from the side, like if you’re.

[00:36:55] Looking from the side, it almost looks like a triangle exactly, and I like that. Yeah, and then.

[00:36:59] I mean that’s a good. Yeah, you’d fill in the space in between with some balls or whatever to fit in there nicely, and then wrap either end of it with fiberglass tape and epoxy, or

[00:37:08] Whatever to stiffen that up. So that’s the kind of thing I would like to do. On the super sportster. However, I think the super sports would be a little bit different. Yeah, I don’t think, it only has. Yeah.

[00:37:21] It only has the one wire out on each wing panel, right? Yeah, well, on the fuselage. What do you mean, wing panel? The super sports to the, the gears in the? Oh, you’re talking about the tail dragger. Yeah, okay.

[00:37:32] Well, no, I get. Okay, you’re right, but anyway, so in order to make that triangular piece on any airplane, let’s say, if we’re going to try and put that support behind it, yeah, to kind of make that wider at the top, what do you have to do special? Or do you have to do anything special to the actual airplane in order to make it? I guess, like when you land, all that pressure is going to go back on it. Do you have to do anything to strengthen where it mounts usually? Or yeah, well, for

[00:38:01] Sure you’re gonna. You’re gonna clamp that somehow to the fuselage, like with landing gear straps or whatever. So whatever those screws that hold those straps on the gear- excuse me, you’ll want some hard points for those screws to thread into. But also I would want to build a channel across the bottom of the fuselage for the wire to sort of sit into, so that’s kind of recessed a little bit. And I usually make that channel out of hardwood with a slot cut in it on my table saw.

[00:38:29] That’s how I would give you like an eighth inch wide, exactly. I got you and then the benefit of doing.

[00:38:34] That if you make your block widen up, it would also serve the purpose for being a hard point for the screws. Oh, I can make sense, yeah, but on your sportster, something else I’ve seen done. I’ve never done it myself. Instead of going with a, a streamlined shape, you can kind of accomplish the same thing by taking a piece of balsa and faking it, make it look like that triangle piece, but don’t actually have a piece of wire on the aft or the trailing edge, and then you glue that with.

[00:39:05] The with the fiberglass tape wrapped around the gear- what I’m talking about.

[00:39:10] I, I get it, but that would almost scare me because, like, with that just being wired, you’re still going to have the front to back movement when you land. Well, you leave, you leave a little bit of a gap at.

[00:39:22] The top to allow the wire well clear in case it flexes. But yeah, I’ve seen it done that way.

[00:39:27] I’ve never done that myself, but I’ve seen that done. I think there’s some airplanes out there that are.

[00:39:32] Designed that way actually. But yeah, that’s a. That’s a couple of ways you can do it. Another way you can do it is to replace the gear. So on the sportster, you could- you could probably get away with instead of using the wire. The block is probably wide enough that is built into the wing to accept a piece of aluminum so you could bend up, instead of having a, the l-shaped piece of wire. Bend yourself a or a z-shaped piece. Bend yourself up a z-shaped piece of aluminum, then you can make the leg portion of that any shape you want. I actually have other landing gear that would

[00:40:05] Probably fit on that. There’s that too I didn’t think about. Yeah, that would make it look a little.

[00:40:10] Better. Yeah, there’s lots of different ways you can. You could tackle that. You can even. You could even epoxy or, even better, landing gear strap, aluminum piece or even a piece of hardwood, like maybe a light piece or a piece of light ply real thin, in whatever shape you want, and then strap it to the gear leg and then you wouldn’t even have to worry about epoxy. Make sense, yeah. So, yeah, there’s several ways you could tackle that. Make it look a little bit better. My favorite is to, if you don’t like the, the looks of the wire, rough it up and paint it the same color as the fuselage which

[00:40:45] That’s or an alt, or maybe a complementary color, or black, black always, black always works. But

[00:40:50] It’s still just so small and spindly. That’s probably yeah, but anyway, and I think sometimes

[00:40:55] The wheel pant is the culprit more than the gear. Like if it was just the wire going down to the wheel, maybe it wouldn’t look as bad as mismatched. Yeah out of place. Yeah, out there you go. Yeah out of place. But yeah, take the wheel pants off. Maybe you don’t need to fix your gear wire.

[00:41:15] Mismatched out of place. Look, I don’t know, I mean that’s something like that. I’m gonna have to work on this. This will be a busy, busy winter. As long as I have the time to work on stuff, yeah, and

[00:41:26] That’s the thing, right? I mean because so much I mean it, as has happened about every episode. We, we, we hit on this. Plans seem to change. I mean, a plan is something that I feel bad like, I feel so lazy.

[00:41:45] Like I really feel like it. It’s really not about being lazy, it’s just like stuff happens, like there’s.

[00:41:51] No way you could have predicted that your well pump was going to go out and then you’re gonna have to deal with the car thing. Yeah, there was no way to plan for that. Yeah, I get it, so it’s just.

[00:42:01] It’s. I want to actually be able to spend time on the hobby. Yeah, like that’s what I’m looking forward to: that we change time, so now it’s getting a lot colder outside, so there’s less to do outside. So hopefully, hopefully, we’ll be able to get back to it here pretty quick. I think we will. I think we.

[00:42:19] Will, because my big project for the- really for the summer, was going to be that door, and now that it’s done, I don’t have to worry about that now. So you wait until fall, I know, see, because everything kept happening that required my attention before I could focus on that.

[00:42:36] Door, so we’re going to get to it. We’re going to, but the holidays are coming days off.

[00:42:40] I’m getting some days off and I’m not going to be deployed or anything like that in the near future that I know of. So, yeah, I’ll have some time to do some stuff too. So I’m going to get back on the horton. That’s my plan. I got to do gear doors and then mount the wings and then, yeah, I got a bunch of stuff to do on that, but I’m going to get back on it. Actually, I’ve got some days coming up out here pretty soon. I’m gonna start working on that. Oh, and we’ve got some videos to

[00:43:03] Shoot for youtube, by the way. Yeah, we have some repair videos we got to do. I think we have stuff lined up for a good two or three more videos at least. We just got to get time to do it, maybe.

[00:43:12] This weekend. Hey, I gotta, I gotta try out that new ignition and the ignition onboard glow thing that. Remember we talked about a few episodes. This is more than a long time ago when you broke the.

[00:43:22] Yeah, one for your, for your triple, whatever. Yeah, the sato three cylinder. So, yeah, cool stuff coming is just bear with us. We’re sorry, I’m not sorry, I mean stuff. Well, I am sorry. I feel like we just I need to do more. We will. Okay, building season is coming and I’m looking forward to it. Yeah, we need to get started on the trimotor. All right, I think we’ve rambled enough like. I hope this is.

[00:43:47] Yeah, I can apologize for rambling. Let’s do better next time. Hey guys, if you’re still listening at this point, if you haven’t turn, turn the radio can’t say dial, yeah, tune in. I mean, if you haven’t, if you haven’t turned us off by now, with the season coming, the building season coming, and we’re gonna eventually go back to recording weekly. Okay, I don’t know how we’re gonna do that. We’re going to need stuff to talk about, because until we get started in earnest on our big project here and

[00:44:18] The other videos that we’re wanting to do. We could sure use some ideas on stuff you guys want to hear us ramble on and on about. I’m sure hearing us ramble on about landing gear is probably not what you were expecting this episode, but if you want us to talk about something specific, hit us up on rcplanlabcom. There’s lots of ways to get in. Get a hold of us there. You go all right. Well, I’m gonna knock it off for

[00:44:41] This one. You ready? Yeah, all right, let’s. Let’s put an end to this and let’s start a new out of its next time. All right, until next time. I’m Ron, I’m Tom, good night, good night. We hope you enjoyed.

[00:44:53] This episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast for topic suggestions, to ask questions or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast app until next time. May your landings be gentle.