Ep 88: Kitbashing, and Listener Questions

[00:00:00] Hello everyone welcome to the rc plane lab podcast what's that look for well i just that

[00:00:11] Was very smooth intro i liked it you're you're on and i'm tom okay let's get this party started you okay there i'm good how you doing that was a really that was a good intro i was i liked it

[00:00:24] Oh well your face was you were like wincing like no i was smiling i was like i was thinking to

[00:00:30] Myself it was really smooth but i ruined it with my look compared so i just can't look at you from

[00:00:34] Now on when you do the intro whether i like it or not anyway any whoozle let's move on hello

[00:00:39] Everybody hi what are we talking about today so today i was thinking you had a really good idea with kit bashing we could talk about that a little bit so like hey your kit sucks well no i don't mean putting a kit down verbally i'm talking about modifying a kit in some way making it your

[00:00:59] Own oh yeah kit bashing very good idea to talk about there tommy no it was your idea to talk about actually it wasn't even my idea so we got an email this is it's it's funny how timing works on this stuff so i have been working diligently let's say yeah you like that word i do like that on my cavalier yes it's ready to fly now awesome we've talked about it before and i wanted to kind of get on to finishing it and getting it ready to go out and fly because i haven't made it

[00:01:32] Yet even though it's been like six years in the making so we whatever episode we talked about we ended up getting an email from a friend of ours well friend of the show tony tony and tony said i have recently found your podcast as i'm going through the episodes i've heard you refer to your sig cavalier with retracts do you have any pictures of how you installed your gear which i do and i will email those out and actually post them probably post them on the forums too sure way

[00:02:05] We have all this kind of stuff together so we can we can look at them good idea but he said i've thought about kit bashing the still available cavalier to create a pseudo sig commander this was a kit i always wanted while growing up but was never able to get now it's unavailable unless i'm willing to spend way too much to buy one on ebay yeah i'm hoping that your gear modification may mimic the commander's gear setup and i'm curious how well it worked it seems to have worked okay so far i haven't flown it right so that will be the final test but i think that's going to be good so

[00:02:41] With him wanting to know about kit bashing and us kind of talking about building kits and what kits we had in the last episode and stuff yes i think that would be a good thing to talk about so what is kit

[00:02:54] Bashing yeah well so a lot of folks may not be familiar with the term so basically like i said it's it's taking a kit that was designed by a designer and not building it as per the manual or the and or the plans yeah modifying it in some way that that was not designed into it like for instance the cavalier was not designed for retracts and you added retracts or changing the shape of a tail maybe it wasn't designed that way you changed it for some reason so that's what i call kit bashing

[00:03:26] So do you have a a certain level of changes that have to be made in order to call it kit bashing because you're talking about if you change the shape of a tail i we're modifying the kit

[00:03:40] To suit your preferences or needs so any kind of chain yeah i think so okay yeah like when i hear kit bashing i think like major modifications which that also falls into kit bashing i don't think of like with the trash can telemaster we change the shape of the tail on it because i like the look of

[00:03:59] It better it's a degree of kit bashing i would say and besides that that wasn't it yeah that's arf bashing to get technical which is a whole other level of bashing but anyway so that's what i that's what i call yeah i anything that you've done to the to the kit you pull a piece of wood out of the box and instead of gluing it together as per the manual you change it in some way and then glue it together that's what i would call and that can be that can be a very wide range

[00:04:30] Obviously like you touched on can be a wide range of modifications okay yeah well let's talk about

[00:04:37] The cavalier so the cavalier yeah because in your words you did a fair amount of kit bashing that is

[00:04:42] Kit bashed is that how you i would say yeah it's a yeah it was a bit bashed yeah you kit bashed it

[00:04:48] So we've talked about the original cavalier i had that was the first nitro plane i ever bought spent 80 bucks on it got it home and the whole fuel system was broken i had to repair it

[00:05:03] That was a lot of of good learning experience when i bought it i was told it was ready to go got it home put fuel in it i was still young like i said it was my second airplane fuel went everywhere i was like huh is this supposed to happen like is this how it's supposed to go or should the fuel not be coming out of the fuselage so the the thing with the that cavalier too though

[00:05:30] I don't know if you're familiar with them the tank is built into the front of the airplane there's no hatch there's no access there's nothing right so that is where i learned to fix my first airplane when that one got messed up we won't necessarily talk about how that happened and got rid of it don't need to oh really no that's like an opening for you to i know it's a new year water bash me

[00:05:54] It's a new year and i'm not gonna do those things anymore you're just gonna trailer that huh okay cool i'm not touching it you can you can try to you can try to provoke me all you want i'm not i'm not gonna take the bait provoke you to do what to do what you're wanting me to do i'm not gonna do it

[00:06:13] Okay so anyway when i got to this cavalier after that one got messed up i decided i wanted another cavalier the kits are still available like tony said you can still get them from sig and that's been a few years ago when i did this now i always wanted a plane

[00:06:35] With retractable gear when i started this build this is embarrassing when i started this build i had like five airplanes and none of them were retractable gear yet so i thought why not build it the way i want to build it i didn't know anything about kit bashing i didn't know anything about what i was doing at all and so it's it's taken me several years to get it to where it is now because it you work on things for a little bit it's pretty slick and then things get pushed off to the side and then you get back to it and finally make some more progress well the

[00:07:10] Thing is you learn a lot in those time periods of time too that is true and then you kind of go back

[00:07:15] And they help yeah they help go back and fix what you did that's what i had to do but they help move the project along but i so i wanted to finally get it to the point where i could fly it and it was a simple like it was to the point where all i need to do is check the center of gravity balance it and call it done like i had everything built for the the battery tray all that kind of stuff however

[00:07:40] When i did the cg check it turned out to balance it i needed 11 ounces of weight in the nose now that's a lot of weight just to have sitting up front for for no for not doing anything for you and since this airplane is nowhere near stock i didn't know how it was going to end up without having the plan to follow exactly does that make sense yep like extra servos were in there just built differently that's one of the problems with kit bashing is there's a lot that goes into

[00:08:14] Figuring out what you're going to do yeah it's almost like you're your own engineer almost well you have to be depending on a level extent exactly since it was electric that weighs different than the nitro motor you usually can find different batteries that'll fit in there and maybe get some more weight if you need but i didn't want to buy a bigger battery either because i already had a 4s 5200 which is big enough for that that's a scary size battery yeah big enough to

[00:08:48] Yeah i know what you're saying to go off and really do some damage and the first time when i had it put together i used a plastic nose gear in it that was i think yeah see i think that was one of the things that turned me off of doing it for a while because i i got to the point where just it didn't work very well well i got to the point where i could actually go outside and do taxi tests and stuff and i could never get it to go straight like that gear was it ended up actually the gear was broken which i didn't realize the one of the plastic parts that was supposed to keep it straight

[00:09:21] Had a crack in it which you only saw when it was under stress under stress yeah so i don't remember if you gave me or if i bought i know i bought but i know you gave me and i maybe i lost one i don't know what happened to it a new nose gear that's metal yeah and that made a big difference actually

[00:09:38] Yeah that one's mine by the way is it yeah i'm still short one do you remember like i didn't i buy one i thought you did but who knows well if i find it it's not like i need one any time

[00:09:48] Well if i find it i'll give it back to you okay i have no plans on doing another tricycle with gear anyway but anyway so i got that taken off and i because of that i had to tear everything off like completely from the nose forward had to be redone which is also disheartening when you think you're finished with something and you're not right the new gear while the bolts were mounted went or were the same the actual push rod was nowhere near the same

[00:10:19] Yeah same dimension the same area the push rod for the actuation right yeah and it was just a pain really to do so i ended up learning as you said earlier as you go through things you learn more i was able to actually get rid of a servo and run a single servo or single servo for the steering and the rudder which beforehand i had two servos on there which that plane had way too many servos

[00:10:51] On it that i mean it was just a rat's nest of wire i mean like really so i was able to get in there and kind of get everything taken care of and make it look a lot nicer however like when i first built it we didn't have the laser cutter i didn't really know about building hatches i had never done one of those before so when i cut the top off like where i was going to put the battery i want to make a hatch since i had everything off anyway that took a lot of kind of figuring out

[00:11:25] To do and i i ended up making three separate hatches until i got it done the way i really liked it but it turned out pretty good four magnets hold on that it's just it looks nice compared to what i had on there before but one of the one of the biggest things i learned by the way is with a laser cutter there is a curve oh really like well it does consume yeah i kind of figured that it would be a little bit but i didn't realize like how much it was so with the the magnets i got

[00:11:56] I i wanted them to be recessed in to the to the hatch themselves so the magnet actually measured i think it was 235 000 it's like 0.235 so my original hatch i cut at 0.230 figuring 5 000 would be would be plenty but it was so loose like really that i i was i was concerned glue would not hold that in over time like there was no fit to it whatsoever it was just floating around in there so i ended up cutting a bunch of different holes at different sizes to figure out

[00:12:30] What i needed yeah 220 000 is what i ended up cutting it at and it was a nice tight fit so the glue held it in so i've now learned i have a little bit of a curve that i have to deal with yep and the other thing with the laser too that i come to to learn it cuts in like a v so the top is wider than the bottom okay good to know that is good to know yeah yep just things gee whiz yeah so anyway so i got

[00:13:02] All that done i'm actually happy with how the whole thing turned out i ended up making a battery tray on the laser cutter and all that kind of stuff too i thought i would be kind of smooth and label the battery tray so i put on there sig cavalier 4s 5000 milliamp hour battery didn't realize until i had everything glued in i don't use a 5000 milliamp hour battery i use a 5200 well like i said you learn as you go learn as you go i have a plane now that is absolutely incorrect with what it says but

[00:13:37] That's okay plans for it say it should weigh in at five and a half to six pounds which i think you did

[00:13:44] Pretty well on the weight honestly i do too i am considering the amount of work and what you've added

[00:13:50] To it i'm oddly enough proud of myself you should be six pounds two and a half ounces yeah and this is the part i'm very proud of myself for not a single quarter ounce of extra weight anywhere in there to balance it out yeah that's perfect so it is all balanced just basically by what is on there yeah

[00:14:10] So i think and that's a really great example of kit bashing i mean this airplane was not designed to be electric no it was not designed to have retractable gear no and it was

[00:14:24] I guess that's it but but those are very significant changes from the design yeah yeah because the hatch ended up going where the fuel tank would be and that's usually built in completely to it so yeah i mean it's kit bashing i guess can be fun and i i kind of realized as we sat down before we started recording this we were talking i've never built a kit to plants yeah that well you've not built a lot

[00:14:52] Of kits no i haven't however yeah that that's an interesting that's an interesting tidbit of information because i've built lots of kits and have built relatively few and deviated yeah deviated from

[00:15:06] The plans so like my duelist although i don't know would you consider that kit i know those well i cut the parts so that would still be like a kit no those are plans built those are not kits yeah so plans bashing i'm like what would you call it like seriously because that duelist is nowhere near

[00:15:23] What a duelist is supposed to know absolutely true i agree with you on that i mean i'm not sure i would

[00:15:29] Call it kit bashing if you saw it you would still think duelist yeah oh yeah oh that's an interesting

[00:15:35] Duelist because it's still a duelist yeah so i don't know i mean that's i don't know what do you guys think listeners if you're out there still listening i wondered who you were talking to i was like if yeah if you are a fan of the show and you've been watching you we built some duels sometime back and now ron built an electric one i built a per the plans yeah per the plans it's not bashed is would you consider ron's electric duels a kit bash or a plans bad what would you consider

[00:16:06] It i'd be interested in knowing yeah because that is now a tail dragger and electric with twin electric

[00:16:13] Yeah and pretty fast and that was a learning curve too because whenever you deviate from the plans how many wings did you build three well it was a learning i did build three wings but that's not that wasn't because of what i was doing at the plans that was because if i remember right things i was doing wrong right yes i mean like i completely forgot to put dihedral in the second one and it's like well

[00:16:37] Crap i need to oh well i guess i did deviate from the plans slightly i don't have as much dihedral as the plans called out remember oh you rebel i yeah wow but it flies awesome so i i'm not unhappy about that decision yeah we'll call it a decision oh is that an accident it's an accident oh i didn't know that yeah i didn't set the i know that i think we talked about it briefly but i i did not set the root rib at the correct angle so i got half that the dihedral that i was supposed to

[00:17:08] But it flies awesome so i'm not i'm gonna say i meant to do that well i had zero dihedral on my

[00:17:14] Second one and i bet it would fly perfect probably but i knew i wanted to kind of have a little bit of correction to it stability yeah dynamics sure but the so between the two i've done not to plans like i said the hardest thing has been cg for me yeah like that's a pain my original plan with the dualist was two batteries like two completely separate electrical systems added too much weight quickly discovered that that wasn't gonna because each battery was over a pound yeah and there was just

[00:17:48] No way to really balance it with that and it actually flies really awesome on one battery yeah and you get pretty good flight time out of it i would say i was i'm i'm happy with how it turned out but yeah that's so that's kit bashing well that was not a lot on kit bashing but i guess that's all we can get huh well i thought you'd have some input i mean like i don't know you don't well like i said i i haven't you should kit bash your next airplane then i don't know well my next

[00:18:18] Airplane is probably going to be a cub i mean how do you kit bash a cub clip the wing well the kit i have you can build it either way so i guess i could make it into a two-piece wing kit bash it that way build up the center section solid and then put so that's supposed to be a it's a one-piecer yeah

[00:18:35] See that i think that was the biggest turnaround with making me not want to consider building like finishing the one that i had yeah but one piece wings are so hard to to move i mean they're they're just hard to fit like i said the one i i think the one i don't know what when you say hard to fit you mean hard to like hard to fit in a car sorry hard to transport no i got you because i think the one i was building was 78 inch that's a long it's yeah single wing especially when

[00:19:03] You don't have a a larger vehicle i know i don't but yeah i could kit bash the cub i guess make a two-piece wing somehow there you go maybe i'll do that maybe that'll be my first real kit bash you should i'd be proud of you you should do that okay well there we go i might need some laser cut parts then hey let me know we have one okay okay all right let's move on to something more

[00:19:27] Light-hearted listener questions what do you think sure let's have at it all right so let's see oh before we do that though i want a little reminder don't forget we have a build night coming up if you want to be a part of it it's for patrons only first one i think like i said is patrons only is good to kind of keep the numbers down a little bit let us learn what we're doing see how

[00:19:51] It goes yeah we're gonna make mistakes so we don't want our audience huge well and it's also

[00:19:57] Our way to say thank you yeah like we said last episode if you've ever been a patron and no longer a patron if you've ever given any kind of contribution to us or anything like that and you still want to be part of it perfect reach out to us we will gladly include you right if you have not been a patron and you want to be part of this go sign up now because it's going to be coming on pretty quick yeah end of shucks where am i going september end of february so it's coming up soon

[00:20:29] Coming up soon and we will be making or putting together our goldberg chipmunks man i feel off

[00:20:36] Tonight like i just you've had better nights okay well probably because i'm letting you do all the talking tonight so well yeah because you have nothing but i will well like i said i haven't done a lot of kit bashing so but i'll take all the questions i guess awesome all of them i will sit back so yeah if you're not a patron and you want to be part of the build night it just it's it's easy to do just get on the patreon and sign up to be one of our patrons there's a link i think in a lot of our youtube videos right i think so yeah so and there if you've i don't remember where

[00:21:08] I put them there's links there and their places go to the website rcplanelab.com that's your home

[00:21:12] For everything rc plane lab yeah you can even get swag there by the way yeah or order it through there yeah yeah which i need to do another order my sweatshirt's not looking so great i need to get another one you need to take care of it i do i just wear it a lot well anyway so yeah and contact us

[00:21:30] Like if you have questions if you have show ideas we are we look forward to hearing from our listeners i feel great every time i see an email come through or a text message come through i'm like ah

[00:21:44] Excitement so something new to put on the show yeah yeah something we haven't talked about yet okay so the first email actually a series of emails from matt says hi ron and tom tom and ron no dispute on who's getting named first here he says i would like a lot to thank you for your podcast it is one of the most complete and accurate podcast about rc planes out there lots of interesting ones but you still are my favorite one got a lot of time on the commute to and from work well thank you yeah that's that's really really high praise because there are some

[00:22:17] Some interesting ones out there there are so he says most of my experience is from foam planes flight test style and lately my great planes escapade 46 which he's flying electric he says he crashed pretty hard on a treetop engine flew at least 100 meters from the crash he says it's been repaired not so pretty but it flies again his question that's all that matters by the

[00:22:42] Way that's exactly right it doesn't matter how pretty your plane is if you can fly it and you

[00:22:46] Enjoy it that's what matters that's the important part okay and his question he says balsa is oh boy here we go balsa is quite expensive and hard to get here in canada hey matt i'm gonna tell you right now it's hard to get everywhere right now yeah as we have and it's expensive here and it's expensive probably not as much as there he says i have access to a wood lot and different species of wood cedar spruce fur and was thinking about using a sawmill to do some super thin slices like a veneer of wood he says it works well and using those slices of wood instead of balsa to build my

[00:23:20] Own diy planes he says yes i have a problem like ron that i want to do everything myself on the cnc and with the 3d printer of course yeah and i don't disagree i mean if you can do it yourself why not it's cheaper usually it is and it's the satisfaction of that's the word i was going to use i'm sorry

[00:23:37] Just as satisfactory more satisfying even than building a kit he says since i have those

[00:23:44] Materials handy and available i would like to know if it would be suitable to use for building a 40 size ugly stick he says four stroke glow 61 asp which i have no experience with glow at all which easy peasy just watch our videos right and a two meter wingspan twin 70 millimeter edf airliner or should i stick to foam and fiberglass for the airliner thanks again and keep entertaining us you guys are great matt and then he has a follow-on he says i have another question i forgot to mention as a side project with my dad i received a rubber band powered balsa plane many

[00:24:17] Years ago and his kit is complete i also found on ebay a complete kit of the same model he says it's a comet aaron kerchief oh that's a fun airplane actually and my project was to build it and convert it to an electric flyer and get my dad to do it at the same time he just started flying ready to fly park zone cub sub 250 grand plane i'm not familiar with that one i think i

[00:24:41] Think is that similar to the champ yeah okay but it's so yeah it's a good park zone i mean it's a nice

[00:24:46] Small yeah it'd be good flying airplane obviously is there any place where i should reinforce the plane he's doing an electric conversion on a rubber powered airplane and have any of you guys made those kind of conversions greatly appreciated thanks matt okay so the first question about the the alternative we'll just call it alternative building materials i think that's a fantastic idea especially now who knows what balsa the availability of balsa is going to be in the future if we can find alternative things to build with i think that's great i think i replied via email

[00:25:17] To matt kind of describing what we were thinking about doing with some of the trimotor stuff with the the aluminum stuff aluminum composite panel yeah and then using that sort of as a as a base yeah building off of that so i think if you can if you can find something that's that's alternative to balsa i think i think it's great my only problem is like and

[00:25:44] That depends on what you're talking like veneers the veneers i'm used to very flimsy yeah very flimsy and not very strong yeah like usually they're made to get glued onto something right and they're the pretty face on something on top of this structure usually yeah right i mean i guess if you think you can get it to where it's strong enough like i don't know woods very well i don't know spruce compared to oak i just i don't know their properties like i could see building lighter with stronger

[00:26:19] Material like if you have balsa versus like a piece of oak you're not going to have to use the same size for the same strength right because oak is obviously stronger right but i don't know what is

[00:26:31] It yeah per pound is it weight does it compare i don't know yeah i think it's a great i think it's a great idea and i would definitely experiment with it like start with something

[00:26:41] Small like maybe a glider or something or better yet just build a stabilizer build something yeah there you go just to get practice with it and see how it works that's actually a really good idea it's hard to say how the glues are going to stick to it how i mean i know it's wood and all that kind of stuff but it's gonna it's just going to be different than building with balsa

[00:27:02] Yeah just understand that the process may be different right but yeah it's going to be harder

[00:27:07] So i guess what would be what would be nice to try if you can if you have balsa build the exact same thing two ways follow the plans with your balsa stick kit whatever construction you're supposed to do right for something simple like i said rudder elevate it doesn't matter what do the exact same thing in your own style with your own materials and see how that turns out weigh it break them both see how much stronger one is or yeah or what it is it's kind of like what we do

[00:27:40] With the falcata stuff i mean exactly it's heavier but we can make the like the ribs and stuff thinner so it might end up being a little bit heavier than the the balsa is but a heck of a lot cheaper and easier to source well at the time it was so far but yeah yeah it is going to be a little heavier in the long run but depending on what you're doing sometimes you can afford a little bit more weight i mean

[00:28:06] As as modelers we use we use balsa and have used balsa for years because of its qualities yeah and we've not found anything yet to match them but right i'm a fan of trying something new so yeah

[00:28:22] Especially if resources are limited exactly i mean you build with what you have i agree with that

[00:28:27] Completely yep so and so for his second question he says he's doing the the electric powered conversion of a rubber band powered model and he says any is there any place

[00:28:41] That i should reinforce the plane yeah are those generally built strong enough to withstand the

[00:28:48] Different forces that you're going to have with rc exactly no the short answer is no okay they're not going to have obviously a firewall to mount electric motor to they're probably not designed to handle the speeds that an electric power plant is going to impart to that airframe so there are some areas that i would concentrate on obviously the firewall in the nose where the motor is going to be mounted that needs to be strong enough to support the power output of the motor

[00:29:15] Wouldn't that be fairly strong though to withstand the pressure of the rubber band it depends i mean

[00:29:23] Like even though when like i don't know if you've ever flown a rubber powered bottle i have not i did like a lot many many many years ago as a kid like the little comet gliders and the comet rubber powered ones and the later it was the gillow's kits i think

[00:29:36] It was that's what they're yeah my kid put together a gillow's kit but i've never done but even even

[00:29:41] Some of the contest rubber yeah even though you wind it it gets tight it doesn't necessarily pull so much as it just get it's weird how the power is stored in a rubber band it's more torsional than yeah it's like i said okay but it depends yeah you may or may not need to reinforce the firewall but certainly you'll have to pay some attention to the wing saddle area and probably the wing halves the the the root joint maybe add a dihedral brace in there to because i mean

[00:30:11] This airplane is probably going to fly a lot faster than it was intended we'll have a lot more

[00:30:15] D's put on the wing exactly with rubber power and then anywhere you're going to add a

[00:30:20] Hinge because usually the free flight stuff is that you we don't have hinges yeah so anywhere you're going to add a hinge for the flexing of the control surfaces you're probably going to have to beef that up a little bit to accept the hinge what i mean i do yeah so

[00:30:34] So yeah but other than that i mean and you're probably going to be cutting well if you do ailerons you're going to have to cut ailerons out right i mean right because those aren't are they usually

[00:30:42] Built separately or is it usually well on the ones that i'm familiar with it's now granted it's been a long time so they may have changed them but the ones i built usually didn't have aliens you just put them on with trim tape you just you just kind of faked it you just put trim tape on that in the shape of the yellow and to make it look like but the wing was not cut for what i'm saying yeah so yeah that would be obvious if you want to put ailerons on it that'd be kit bashing

[00:31:09] See what i did there you did that but anyway yeah those are those are some of the areas i would

[00:31:14] Concentrate on if you're going to do a conversion hopefully he's already done that and he's been flying it and his dad with his dad for a while now hopefully because i think this email was a ways back but yeah thanks for writing to us man i appreciate it so next this one comes from alan he says hey gentlemen my name is alan davidson he sent that to us so i'm gonna say it i am from the great state of utah i'm a big fan of your show i wish you all the clear skies thank you yep appreciate that my question is about rc flying clubs how does one find clubs to join how do you start one up if

[00:31:50] There are none around you lastly how do you get a flying field sanctioned by the ama i don't know if this is out of your wheelhouse but i thought i would ask since you guys are members of your local flying club thanks guys keep up the great work cheers alan davidson well alan i can tell you that i've never started a club so i don't know the ins and outs of applying for membership with the ama but i do know that there's a fairly long list of requirements that have to be met before you can be an ama sanction club not the least of which is the proximity of your flying of your chosen

[00:32:25] Flying field to an airport and controlled airspace so that's definitely something to think about but the ama website is i mean a very in-depth i mean they have chock full of information so the information you need is there i guarantee it and if it's not they have an 800 number that you can call and they will get those answers for you so i'm not going to try to venture against because i'm not an expert and i don't want to steer you down the the wrong path so i don't know how to become an ama

[00:32:56] Field but i can tell you one quick and easy way to find an ama club that's near you get on the ama website they list all the clubs by region they list them by state they list them i mean there's several different ways you can filter your search you can find an ama sanctioned club i bet in five minutes or you can find the closest one to you in like five minutes just by getting on the ama website

[00:33:18] And searching yeah but that doesn't mean it's going to be close to you exactly that's that's

[00:33:22] Absolutely true yeah especially in utah utah's big state there's a lot of open unpopulated areas in utah i'm sure so there's just probably going to be clubs around the the major metropolitan areas maybe a few cities here and there but i imagine if you're out in the sticks

[00:33:39] You'll be driving that's the place to be anyway i mean ron says that because that's where he lives i like being in the country but good luck i mean like that is a great thing to do is trying to get more people flying more fields more ama sanctioned events going on and all that that's

[00:33:56] That's what you want to see more people doing this and not and not that i want to take any business away from the ama you can certainly have a club excuse me start a club on your own and not be an ama sanctioned club there's there's there's plenty of those out there still yeah and all that takes is a group of guys like-minded guys and girls that like flying models and and you get together once in a while you find a place to rent slash buy slash whatever or a place that maybe is friendly to rc airplanes and let you fly there for free i mean it just takes a few like-minded people getting

[00:34:28] Together to say hey let's do this and it is weird it just happens yeah i mean i don't know what utah is

[00:34:33] Like but i know there's a lot of open area out there but like it for where we are if we were friends with a farmer that had no problem with us putting a field in we are more than legal to fly on private property as long as we're following all the faa stuff yep i mean it's right it's a good idea to be a member of the ama and to be charged and all that kind of stuff i'm not saying don't do that right because there is a lot of benefits to it sure most of which is just something you're only going to

[00:35:06] Get through them that's the one of the biggest things is lobbying for the hobby they do a great job on on all that kind of stuff too with our dues and because the ama does

[00:35:19] Such a a good job at at regulating and and lobbying for us at in congress it doesn't we don't have to be experts at all of that because the ama does that so alan thanks for thanks for writing to us it is certainly out of my wheelhouse the the ama specifics about starting a club and stuff but hopefully you can find an ama club near you that's not too far of a drive and enjoy this great hobby with other like-minded folks yeah let us know how it goes yeah

[00:35:50] Okay so next this one will be a question for ron this comes from stan he says i have a lander's technology edf electronic or electric ducted fan in case he doesn't know that new that was purchased some years ago kv3000 serial number l00a15853 i'm not sure if i needed to say that but there it is it's in the email how can i know what size battery should be used with it three cell

[00:36:19] Four cell six cell or other thank you stan johns so bad news on that one that's not an easy thing to find out if what i mean obviously serial number who made it and all that reach out to the manufacturer most of these reputable manufacturers are going to have a way to contact them and we'll have information on on what it what their product needs you don't i mean you don't want to throw in like a 6s battery and then burn it up because oh it

[00:36:54] Seemed like it should have done it you just want to be careful and follow what they say there's that's the downfall with electrics is if it's not labeled you really don't know yeah and it's it's unfortunate yeah that's one of the learning curves with electrics you just got like maybe maybe

[00:37:12] Maybe if we had a little bit more information like like how much does the plane weigh what type of

[00:37:16] Flying does it is it designed to do necessarily oh really eds pull a lot of time anyway oh that's true they do high revving high rpm okay and it just well stan if you can reach out to

[00:37:30] The manufacturer if the manufacturer is not available or or not around anymore which is a common tale i think lander's technology is still okay i think perfect well if they are yeah reach out to them and if not another resource you can use or some of the rc forums like rc groups rc universe if it's still i think it's still going i haven't checked my account in a while but anyway chances are there's a thread somewhere on that on the user forums that will probably cover that question

[00:38:00] In detail so stan thanks for contacting us appreciate the appreciate the

[00:38:07] The ask message message thank you the question yeah kobe brain i'm telling you it's real all right so the next one comes from mark he says hello ron and tom ron was first excellent and informative podcast you discussed briefly on converting a weed whacker engine for rc planes could you discuss the process on how to do it reducing weight what electronics to buy and how to install on the engine type of engines that work better than others manufacturers who make the electronics

[00:38:37] Thanks mark absolutely i can talk about that a little bit and i'll try to make it short basically you find a a weed whacker or a chainsaw or some sort of small implement engine that you want to use you cut everything off of it that isn't necessary to fly okay so if you're going to stick with the magneto ignition that comes stock on most of them cut everything off that isn't magneto ignition or necessary for flying it shields things like well because you want it to be light well no

[00:39:11] No no why would you switch to electronic ignition over the magneto okay so i was going to get to that but okay never mind then i'll sit back and you just go you go through your thing and if there's something

[00:39:24] You don't come so yeah cut everything off because weight is a premium and there's a lot of

[00:39:30] Cast in stuff on the crank cases of these engines that that we don't need like duct work for cooling because these things are usually housed in a fairly tight housing we don't need all that because we put them in on a big open nose with cooling that we don't need it air coming in with a propeller in front so yeah cut everything off of it that isn't necessary for flying it and if you're going to like i said if you're going to keep the magneto ignition obviously keep all the mounting for the pickup coil and the and the flywheel and all that kind of stuff

[00:40:01] Some things i've done with with magneto ignition i've cut the flywheel down to make it a little bit lighter because weight we're always trying to save weight as long as you keep you don't need the cooling fins on there right because we're not we're not moving air because air is going to be moving for us so i usually i've chucked them in a lathe before and cut the fins down to because all you really need on that flywheel is that magnetic that's embed or that magnet that's embedded into the housing of the flywheel that's all you really need that for and it's a lot of

[00:40:36] Weight spinning so for that reason i like to convert mine to electronic ignition and ch ignitions that's my go-to for for anything ignition related because they make you'd be surprised they make or they used to make kits for just about every type of weed whacker chainsaw whatever you want to do and they make other parts too like for example prop hubs because when you get rid of that that big heavy cast aluminum flywheel you're gonna have usually you get rid of the potential

[00:41:13] Mounting point for your propeller so you're gonna need a prop hub and things like that so ch ignitions does that if you don't want to buy stuff if you're handy and you're good with a metal working lathe it's really super easy to make your own prop hubs that's what i did on all of mine happened to work in a machine shop at the time so i made my own prop hubs i made my own mounts for the for the pickup coil actually it's a hall effect sensor which actually is a small magnet you just raise counterbore a hole into your prop hub and glue the magnet and then you're done and then you can

[00:41:45] Mount your usually it's a the pickup sensor is is mounted on a plastic tab with elongated holes that's already round so it just kind of mounts to the nub of the crankcase where the crankshaft comes out two small holes you're doing it's super easy to do you can even do it with a hose clamp i've seen it that way too but anyway ch ignitions that's the place to go to for conversions like the other question part of his question was type of engines that work better than others i've had good luck

[00:42:20] With pulan i don't know who makes i think it's kiritz i think that's who makes their engines they seem to run really good ryobi is another common conversion i've converted one of those i think ron you have it now 30 cc yeah so with a little with a little ingenuity if you if you want to do it yourself you certainly can but you it takes if you're going to do the electronic ignition conversion you might want to if you're not going to buy the parts to do it then you

[00:42:50] Have to be kind of handy with a lathe but it's really not rocket science and this this topic is covered in depth at rc groups on the there's actually i believe an entire now forum just for oh really yeah for this so well you didn't answer my question though no the the why would you go electronic

[00:43:08] Ignition over that i understand the weight thing but also if you went with magneto is there any any more of an issue with feedback it's not in my experience because the magneto ignition they

[00:43:22] Have they already have usually shielded high tension leads which you get with electronic ignition also so i've never now granted i've not had a lot of it because i usually don't keep the magneto but ones that i've seen convert like dave taylor flies i believe a couple of airplanes with with magneto and he's never had issues and he used to fly those on 72 megahertz and no issues at all

[00:43:45] Just seems like that would be simpler to not have to worry about a battery and all that it is the problem

[00:43:49] So so one of the advantages you get and i could talk about this for a while but i won't but one of the advantages you get from electronic ignition is customizable spark curves right to make the airplane easier to start or to make the engine easier to start if the hot if the if the system is reading below a certain rpm range i think it's like 2200 or whatever it is it advances the spark to make it easier to start and then when it once the engine is running it gets past that then it goes into a whole different spark curve and advance and all that so that's one advantage

[00:44:21] You get from electronics it does all that kind of stuff to make the airplane or to make the engine easier to handle does that make sense yeah i guess i can see that so that's that's another advantage and one of the other is like i said all that weight yes the the it's simpler in operation the magneto but it comes at a cost but it comes at a cost right and they are kind of harder to start because you really really i mean they're designed to be pull starts you're getting them up to a pretty good rpm and more than one revolution to get it to go exactly so usually a magneto

[00:44:54] Equipped engine requires an electric starter which as i'm not not a fan of but i've been using more and more lately because it's cold and they're hard to start so but that's

[00:45:05] If i i might have a couple old engines and out in the shop is that something we should do or could do sometime like i wouldn't mind seeing how that's actually done converting one oh do a conversion yeah

[00:45:17] I don't have access to that machine shop anymore so well i have i have a metal aid what do you need for it oh well just i mean you've seen that yeah preferably some high-speed steel cutting bits or carbide would be even better cutting bits and tool holders and the tool rest and i've got all that cross feed cross slide and all that kind of stuff got all that oh well if you've got all that

[00:45:40] All we need the only thing i don't have is the the end tailstock yeah can we do it without that

[00:45:47] Shorter shorter pieces yeah we could absolutely then we should try that sometime i think that'd

[00:45:52] Be fun okay we'll put it on our list of things to do in the next 10 years there you go all right

[00:45:58] All right mark that hopefully that answers a couple of the questions but yeah do it like there's the i mean the topic is covered like i said in depth at our rc groups which is one of my favorite hangouts so thanks mark for reaching out to us okay slade writes to us slade says hey can you give me some tips on landing this is a challenge for me slade you're not the only one it's a challenge for a lot of people it was a challenge for reading for me for many years yeah so it says thank you for the podcast and tom i love nitro planes too awesome another nitro one

[00:46:31] Plane i have is a cadet mark ii and it has modified control surfaces i take a lot of your tips with me and apply them to where i fly i'm new and i'm 12 years old thank you slade well slade that's good to hear i'm glad you listen to our tips and apply them to where you fly i appreciate that

[00:46:47] Go ahead no i was just gonna say like landing is landing is the thing that separates a good pilot from a great pilot you can always see how well somebody can fly by how well they land that's true do you agree that's yeah it is difficult is very difficult to do it is probably

[00:47:10] One of the more technical things in a flight well landing is not difficult to do the airplane's gonna

[00:47:16] Land one way or the other landing successful landings where you can take off again right and so it's one of the things where you just practice practice practice i mean i've said it before one of my favorite things to do when i go to the field is take off fly around once touch and go yeah fly around again touch and go i mean just that repetitive approach repetitive everything yeah and

[00:47:40] Eventually you get really good at it you do i mean add that so so yeah so tips on landing practice i mean that's the biggest tip i can provide and preferably you have a large space to land on yeah and challenge yourself by trying to make your available space smaller does that make sense like try to land in the same spot if you can over and over and eventually you'll you'll develop kind of a relationship with the airplane that you're flying you'll get become familiar with its characteristics and whether it needs right rudder on take all those

[00:48:12] Sorts of things but yeah the biggest tip i can offer would be practice and hopefully get yourself an area large enough to allow you room for mistakes yeah i mean it's practice in the air

[00:48:24] Slowing down to kind of see how the airplane gets when you have to apply a little bit of elevator to it to kind of get it on the edge not to where it's going to stall but on the edge i mean that's well i

[00:48:35] Can tell you that the cadet mark ii that slate is flying very forgiving airplane that's a great great has trained hundreds if not thousands of pilots and that airplane does it has really nice stall characteristics it warns you like it it doesn't really stall and snap and do anything right it just sort of mushes so even if you do happen to get a little bit slow it's a very forgiving airplane and the landing gear is nice and cushy too so it takes a lot of abuse but yeah exactly what you said yep

[00:49:06] Try to try to learn the behavior of that airplane in the air before you before you try to land

[00:49:11] It but and then fly it to the ground yep yeah like don't you are in control until all of the wheels are safely on the ground exactly right and don't take it for granted that well i'm a foot off the ground i'm fine yep i can give up no yeah that's usually when most yeah i mean it is and it's it's so difficult to not get the bounce i mean it's on the airplane but yeah well but you see a lot of people to where they that's like hey decent landing and then it's one little porpoise a little

[00:49:42] Poor i mean it looks like a dolphin coming out of the water and that's just getting used to the airplane getting used to its characteristics seeing how it lands and getting that speed down is so important but difficult so practice practice practice i mean i hate just to say that that's it

[00:49:59] But yeah so slate thanks for writing to us the biggest tip we can offer is practice and it's fun right so practice makes perfect all right next comes from mort mort says hello ron i'm mort age 15 a beginner at flying rc planes started last week when mort wrote this so awesome i found your podcast and it's wonderfully helpful i finally signed up for the mailing list which is great we think that's great also wondering if you have any tips on flying these light foam beginner planes in the wind

[00:50:33] Thanks oh that's a tough one yeah if you just started flying no wind is your friend yeah i would

[00:50:43] I would i would echo that sentiment these light foam airplanes don't generally handle wind very well anyway so if you're new to flying i would try to pick a pick a day that's calmer yeah and i don't know

[00:50:57] What kind of airplane he's talking about i don't know if it's a small foamy with as3x i don't know right it's just like a profile type airplane that makes a difference too obviously as3x makes it a little bit more forgiving but yeah the one of the hardest things to accept about this hobby is that not every day is a flight day even though you want it to be absolutely true patience and i found too

[00:51:27] Normally if it's a windy day when dusk is kind of upon you the wind dies down quite a bit it does so you might have enough time to get a single flight in before it gets too dark but that that's patience is probably the best thing i i can say until you get used to it once you've been flying for a while you don't think about your next move like once it becomes habit for you and that's kind of the same with with slade with the landing thing once it becomes habit right then you don't have to

[00:51:59] Worry as much about what you're doing and you can go out when it's a little bit windier yep that's just

[00:52:04] But if you have to fly in the wind point it in the wind and land land into the wind yeah you want you want the wind in the airplane's face if that makes sense for takeoff and landing but the because if

[00:52:18] Not what happens if you have a tailwind you lose your lift well yeah well i'm if he just started flying probably doesn't know that he probably doesn't know that so there you go if you have a tailwind then that breeze comes from behind you and all the lift that your plane has you're going to lose it exactly so fly into the wind and try and stay out of the wind as much as possible until you're used to it that would be preferable but when it is windy sometimes it's fun to see if you can fly backwards i think we've all done that oh yeah yeah all right well that's the last one for this

[00:52:54] Time yep anything else you want to talk about nope me neither okay then let's get out of here let's call it all right everybody thank you for listening yes thanks for listening have a wonderful

[00:53:04] Evening good night good night i hope you enjoyed this episode of the rc plane lab podcast for topic suggestions to ask questions or to give anything back 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