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 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 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 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 p.s 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 the question i have not heard anything bad about the new receivers i have not either but 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 as well or as good as you try and put things together as 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 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 you looked at the the blinking lights on the receiver when when you went out to to functional check everything sometimes you 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 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 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 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 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 for me to 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 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 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 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 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 the red piper one a guy saw me and we were talking as i was walking to my car and he 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 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 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 the wing itself like it 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 as 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 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 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 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 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 rcplanlab.com 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