Ep 89: Speak Softly and Fly a Big Stick!

[00:00:04] Hello everyone and welcome to the rc plane lab podcast i'm ron and i'm tom it's been a while

[00:00:15] Yeah it's been a few weeks since we've gotten together and recorded an episode it's been about

[00:00:20] Four weeks actually you not for a bad reason well no you had a very nice little vacation you

[00:00:26] Took well it was kind of a vacation i mean it was work but but it was it was also a vacation so it was a workcation a workcation you took your wife i did yeah lori went with me so we went to hawaii for work i've never been i had never been either until this what a beautiful place i mean if it weren't so expensive to live and and just do anything there i'd retire there really it's that beautiful price is that high though so yeah gallon of gas depending on where you buy it four dollars

[00:00:59] And fifty cents for the cheap stuff well it's 360 here that's true that's true gallon of milk it's like almost five bucks oh my god what's bread give me bread how much is bread i think i bought a loaf of bread there and i think it was 3.99 and that was in the commissary the i don't know a commissary is an on base for military personnel usually it's a little bit cheaper than whatever the market ouch outside the base is yeah so 3.99 for a loaf of just bunny you

[00:01:31] Know white bread it's usually two bucks or something yeah yeah so i mean the cost of living is higher the real estate obviously there's only so much of it there yeah there were the the price of housing is extremely expensive but you enjoyed your trip but i did yeah yeah we spent almost two

[00:01:49] Weeks there like i said i was there for work but i flew lori out and she joined me and yeah

[00:01:56] She she loves being hanging out on the beaches and things like that so that's what she did while i was working and then on my off time we did stuff together we did some hiking and some other fun stuff a lot of wind it's very windy there i noticed that it was like windy every day like no flying anything there huh well i mean i i did do a search there are some club a couple of clubs there really we were on the island of wahoo which is not actually hawaii the big island everybody says the big island that's actually the island of hawaii it's the hawaiian island chain i didn't know any of

[00:02:32] This until i got there but yeah apparently there's a couple of clubs on the big island which we didn't we didn't make it to the big island but i didn't see any hobby shops while i was there i

[00:02:43] Looked i cannot imagine what balsa would cost there oh my gosh well if there is you could even get it there true i mean figure everything has to go how many miles off offshore from california to get there yeah several thousand i think yeah i didn't want to say a number and sound like an idiot so i

[00:03:01] Just well i mean i can tell you that so the flight from from dallas to honolulu was six and a half hours

[00:03:06] Wow at 500 whatever miles an hour so do the math i can't do the math but anyway yeah beautiful beautiful

[00:03:13] Place i would go there again in a heartbeat if it weren't so expensive yeah well it's it's good to

[00:03:19] Have you back yeah it's good to be home i have not seen you since that funny story like while we were

[00:03:26] In hawaii in paradise you guys had quite the winter oh my god yeah we had we had a foot of snow actually which is something because we haven't had that volume of snow in quite a while oh it's

[00:03:37] Probably been a decade that i can remember if not more yeah that we've had that much like it's so bad that they actually closed my work down for two days like nobody was in the office really and i had to work from home for two days which i kind of got spoiled i can't work from home too many distractions i don't get any work done well i'm not saying i got a lot done but i'm saying i got stuff done that i had to do and there was a lot of other things yeah going on where it's like oh i'm gonna go do that because why not yeah but right so i did get some stuff caught up on airplane stuff and

[00:04:12] Worked on some stuff when i was home good working yeah right but yeah i didn't

[00:04:18] Have nearly as much fun as as you did on your trip yeah yeah but it was funny so coming home because of the weather flights were delayed or canceled just straight up canceled yeah so i was not able to fly back into the airport that i left from so the day the day after i got home laurie and i both got home the same day and the next day which was a sunday laurie had to drive me to the airport that i left from to pick up my car and i had to take a shovel with me to dig out

[00:04:49] My car because it had snowed so much when while we were gone no i don't remember did you

[00:04:56] You left from north of here yeah left from bloomington peoria oh peoria okay and then you flew into st louis springfield oh you flew into springfield yeah oh that's handy yeah why did i have st louis in my mind that's where laurie flew in and out of okay yeah okay yeah she had her sister take her to the airport and drop her off and pick her up and all

[00:05:19] That she got a couple extra days out of it right she did she so she was supposed to leave a couple of days before me and because of the weather flights were canceled and so they kept delaying and canceling till finally her travel itinerary home pretty much matched mine and we just we actually flew together from from hawaii all the way to i think phoenix is where we yeah where we had

[00:05:41] To well you had to slip away yeah but wow but we still both went to chicago and then from chicago

[00:05:47] She went to st louis and then i went to springfield wow yeah and then sunday we got to drive up to peoria to get my car had to dig it out yeah it was actually i took pictures of it's funny yeah wow well yeah i didn't i didn't miss any of that i was i was happily oblivious in paradise yeah well and

[00:06:06] It wasn't just the snow that we had it was first off it started as rain that switched to ice that went to snow yeah but then we had 30 mile an hour winds with like 40 mile an hour wind gusts oh jeez so we had i think there was a couple spots in our yard where the snow drifts were about three

[00:06:21] Feet deep oh my gosh well and you sent me that video too of your of your camera and it was it looked like waves like the time lapse it did it looked like waves of snow it was pretty kind of

[00:06:32] Cool it added like an inch every time you saw a wave go by yeah it was it was cool all right enough of that should we talk about airplane stuff well it's an airplane podcast i know but we haven't seen each other for a while so it's kind of catching up too but anyway sorry i bored you i saw something cool on on what was it facebook marketplace i love that place except i was too slow somebody else bought it see that happens sometimes it was an adjusto jig oh we love those for 10 bucks ten dollars like i was looking at the picture and everything looked like it was in

[00:07:02] It really like it had all the standoffs that had everything that went with it and the guy's like this breaks down i can ship it for like 20 bucks i'm like wow 30 so for 30 dollars yeah for something

[00:07:12] That probably goes on ebay for over 100 and what do you pay for yours yeah let's not talk about that

[00:07:18] I still feel bad because i stole mine from you that's okay yeah that's what friends do right still suffer from each other and it's all water under the bridge i don't hold it against you much i hope not so so ten dollars that's a shame you missed it yeah i don't need it but when you see a good deal like that it's always a good it's hard to pass it up to buy just to have spares

[00:07:44] Probably a good thing that that you missed it because you don't really need it you're right i mean somebody else got a really good deal and that's hopefully whoever bought that is somebody new to the hobby and just now starting to build airplanes let's just hope that that's what happened

[00:07:59] I i when you never know i mean it could have been i hope it's not somebody that's trying to sell it and make money off of it yeah all that bad stuff there's a lot of that out there but in my mind it's going to a new hobbyist yeah so let's see what else we're going to talk about build night coming up exciting february 26th is what we have settled on so we actually by the time this comes out we will send out emails to our patrons this is going to be patrons only just our way of kind

[00:08:32] Of getting together and saying hi to a couple of them or however many show up i don't know we're going to be building our super goldberg nerd i can never get that right goldberg our goldberg super chipmunks electrics electrics that we got from muppet brian's about a year and gosh two months ago now it's been over a year time flies but anyway so the first one is going to be on discord we're going to do that i think we're going to try and set up a discord server after this to kind of see if anybody would want to join we'll see i don't know i mean we're learning too so i don't

[00:09:05] Know discord so if i mess something up then i mess something up and more about it than i do so how does that make you feel pretty confident actually there's no safety net but you're the safety net i don't want to be the safety net because i'm kind of getting old and

[00:09:24] Broken it should be fun though it should if it works out the way the way we've seen other

[00:09:30] Folks do it it should be fun it'll be a couple hours we'll have to pick a time for sure i don't it'll be like six to eight p.m or something like that central standard time because that's where we are but yeah so if you want to be a part of it sign up on patreon rcplanelab.com and all the become a patron thing is all listed there somewhere yep so go click on the website speaking of the website we also have a place on there for listener airplane pictures yeah we we've hit this up

[00:09:57] Before and got a few but yeah we haven't seen anything new in a while so if you have any

[00:10:02] Pictures of airplanes that you would like to have featured on our website send them to me ronaldarcyplanelab.com and i will get those added to the website to be honest we never get tired of

[00:10:13] Looking at airplane pictures i mean really you're right i mean i if i didn't have to work all day that's probably one thing that would occupy quite a bit of my time nice i mean and it's also motivational when i see a really really sharp airplane or a really neat design or whatever it motivates me to go to my basement and work on airplanes it really does well and it also gives

[00:10:37] You ideas on what you like and what you don't like yep because had i not seen a picture of a tab i wouldn't have bought one of those it's still in the box but that's okay well that's okay we'll get to it they're safe in the box that is true you can't crash them if they're in the box that is true you can smash them unfortunately i've not done that i've heard other people i guess you could burn them if they're in the box i'm talking about like accidentally stepping out or something that's in the way i see what you're saying wow you just went all negative wow sorry about that but

[00:11:07] Anyway if you have pictures you want to see on our website send them to me ronaldarcyplanelab.com and give me some sort of little caption to go on it or else i'm not going to know what to put yeah tell

[00:11:16] Us what it is tell us who you are yeah we'll know what it is maybe what it's using for power something like something along those lines doesn't have to be a paragraph but something to let us know what the heck it is okay let's get to the main speaking of building oh you're building something

[00:11:31] Wow you kind of stole my yeah but that's okay no that's all right so let's get to the main topic the topic today however you want to say it ugly sticks big sticks super ugly sticks

[00:11:42] Das ugly sticks they're known by so many low sticks i could go on and on well let's hear a couple more because let's see what's another one i guess that's about it i can go there's a there's a pipe stick design out there i mean they're just wonderful airplanes so you graciously gave me

[00:12:02] A great planes ugly stick or big stick 40 stick 40 sorry that's okay it's all right and i'm in so happy what's it it really doesn't want i'm glad to hear that you're like glowing i am i i mean i i'm

[00:12:19] Just a huge fan of that particular airplane i love that you have one now well it's funny because

[00:12:24] Ever since i've known you that's been like your type of airplane yeah like not the only thing you fly but like you always talk about sticks fly great sticks are perfect sticks are everybody needs one sticks are perfect honestly i've never flown one yet i've not no so this should be fun when i get

[00:12:42] This done if you can if you can picture this i'm rolling my eyes into the back of my head trying to remember a time where i've seen you fly a stick and you're right i don't think i've ever seen you fly one i've never owned one well yeah but i mean i know i've offered you the sticks every time you fly whenever i fly but you have never taken me up on no i don't okay well then now i'm even more excited

[00:13:01] For you but so i'm building it pretty much to plan except it's gonna be electric of course so that's a no-brainer obviously but here's one thing that i've learned that irks me that i learned this the hard way wings come the two-piece wings when you put them together you have to put the fiberglass tape around it and you use the thin ca glue to reinforce the center section yeah the joint

[00:13:34] There yep so we have not made a trip up to brian's for a while and i was i was running extremely low on my good ca on my good thin ca so i figured come on i mean it's thin ca it can't be that different right so i went out to hobby lobby they didn't have any of the name brand stuff the hook was sitting there just completely empty and i'm like darn it what am i gonna do and i look down that little one ounce or one ounce bottles of the hobby lobby brand or whatever it is the pink label

[00:14:04] Whatever it is yeah yeah yeah it was pink you're right so i tried to use that oh i am so i don't

[00:14:12] Know what the difference is but i'm so disappointed but but you're right there there is absolutely a

[00:14:16] Difference it does not dry cure whatever you want to say it doesn't solidify as fast it doesn't

[00:14:22] Penetrate either no it's just like every time i've used it for for well for anything it's like it just sits on top of the wood it's like it's designed to be put onto a joint and then move the two pieces together and join that way which i mean medium to thick ca yeah you that you can use it that way but i've never had any luck with that with that stuff that you're talking about yeah

[00:14:46] And it's unfortunate because part of the actual tape that i put on is bubbles in it now and there's no way to really get it to glue i've tried to glue it again and there's just no way to get it to glue

[00:14:58] Down right so i don't know what i'm gonna do well luckily there's a dihedral braces built into the wing and you epoxy those right i did so there's a lot of strength in that wing and i'm not entirely sure that the the fiberglass wrap is necessary i've built i've built some without it and i've not had any in fact the stick that i fly now which was an arf but built a very similar fashion as the one you're building there's no there's no wrapping on the center section what is it has it has a piece of

[00:15:34] Plastic that's glued onto the onto the bottom i think there's a piece on the top also surface to act kind of as a anti-crush when you yeah bolt the wing down sure kind of keeps the balsa from crushing but there's no actual fiberglass or anything reinforcement online well i would think

[00:15:53] The reinforcement is more important on the bottom than on the top because you're going to have most of your g's pulling down that way so i guess it's not that big of a deal the bubbles on mine are on top but that's where you're going to see it yeah that's the bad part i don't know if i'm going to have to kind of drill it out maybe to get a hole in it to put some just sand it all off and start over that i know that'd be a lot of sanding but that would be a power tool type of

[00:16:17] Sanding well right i have a mouse sander you can use if you don't have one it works perfect for that yeah okay all right but yeah i mean i honestly i believe you could probably sand it all off and

[00:16:27] Because it probably didn't penetrate very much right like i i'm very disappointed in that glue like we need to make a trip up and get some actual glue that i need because i have you should have

[00:16:37] Said something i because i have a bottle at home yeah i should have said something when you were in

[00:16:40] Hawaii well i wasn't i mean you could have said something before i left well i didn't know i was that low on glue true because that whole airplane goes together with glue like i didn't expect

[00:16:51] Every joint on that to be held together with ca glue yeah it's it's pre like jig tab type

[00:16:59] Construction it's like actually i didn't know that when i started it's actually kind of a cool kit the way it goes together yeah like the front what are they called the leading edge is notched so i mean you don't even have to worry about lining up your spars isn't that cool or your your wing ribs because it's all all notched and it just sets together pretty well yeah it's such a neat and same on the back actually all right the trailing edge is not it had notches in it so it's a cool kit it goes together very fast yeah if i just had the right glue yeah so that's unfortunate i'm sorry

[00:17:30] You experienced that but i know now well now and i know i will not buy that glue is actually it's probably great for gluing plastic models and things like that together which is actually i think where they have it in the store like with the model paints and stuff i think it's

[00:17:48] Actually marketed by them yeah you're not you're not wrong that's exactly what i had it or what they

[00:17:53] Had it by but yeah i've tried using it before too and similar results well so there is now

[00:18:00] There is a build log by the way i've been taking pictures and putting some stuff up on our website so you'll have to go check that out to kind of see what i've what i've hit snag wise and what i've come up with that's rcplane lab.com click on build logs up top or i think that's how i have it because we have that and the do list build logs that we have tabbed at top now because we have multiples we have multiples yeah so yeah go check that out if you want to kind of see what we're talking about and how that goes together should be a fun build shouldn't take too much it'll be even funner to fly

[00:18:36] Especially being and okay i'm gonna hate saying this i'm gonna regret saying it but especially it being electric it's just gonna be so nice smooth nice i mean it just you just throw a battery in it and go fly well and that's gonna be light too so probably i have kind well i don't know because

[00:18:55] There's a whole pound of battery that goes in that i mean like literally the battery that i have for those are a pound that's the same as it goes in a couple of other airplanes i have so that's that has a lot of weight yeah we'll see but there's not a lot to that airplane so it's not like there's gonna be a lot of other stuff going on in it yeah i haven't finished the nose yet i mean like i'm i'm kind of waiting because i i want to be able to get the wing put on get everything laid out the way it's supposed to be get servos in just to figure out where cg needs to be see where i need to put the

[00:19:29] Battery where the motor i mean i guess i can't change the motor mount too much but i can bring it forward a little bit if i need to back a little bit if i need to now back might be more difficult

[00:19:39] Than forward but yeah because the firewall you have the firewall glued in right no i don't have anything

[00:19:44] In the front yet yeah perfect i purposefully left that out just in case that's perfect so and that's

[00:19:49] Really i mean that's really why the stick is designed the way it is it's i mean it's square it's

[00:19:57] So simple i mean like really you can't and they fly so nice i love how they fly i'm hoping it flies

[00:20:02] As good if not better than my cavalier oh i bet it'll i bet it'll be easier you think unless i don't want to say stressful but less worry yeah to fly i mean they just man they just fly so good and i'm

[00:20:18] Doing this as a tricycle oh no i lied i was gonna say that's really shocking wow that messed with me i'm doing this as a tail dragger okay yeah because i looked at the tricycle and i really i thought about going that way first i like i really did because i like tricycles too but heavier then i kind of got looking with the mount and everything for the motor is built into the steerable nose gear yeah i'm not going to use that right so i figured it's going to be a lot easier just you don't

[00:20:48] Have to use the mount for gear i know i don't have to you can make or you can either make or they make straps essentially that have holes in the middle of them for the gear yeah i've i've

[00:20:59] Seen that but then i also kind of figured that simplicity is better and why not just not have

[00:21:06] To worry about all the extra work yeah and it'd be it'd be extra weight too so yeah and you want

[00:21:11] To keep it light because the lighter they are the better they fly better they fly that's right to a certain extent sometimes a little heavier makes it better in the wind true but anyway so ugly sticks sticks whatever you want to call them have been around forever like when would this kit have been

[00:21:27] Produced so this kit was produced in the early 80s okay great plains so was i by the way

[00:21:35] So yeah early 80s i think 82 is when the when the stick kit came out i think from great plains but the stick design predates that by pretty far when or what was your first stick how many have you built first off oh gosh if i had to guess well actually i don't have to guess i have built from kits four of them oh yeah okay i've built two great plains kits a 40 and a 60 size and i've built

[00:22:10] Two of the midwest kits the sweet and low stick which is a low wing sounds like i think it was almost like a super sportster design then well it's a stick flipped upside down i mean that's it's the stick wing basically mounted to the bottom of the fuselage the fuselage and then a pipe stick pipeline oh you did do one of those many years ago and so where are they now over the years well so the first the biplane stick i let a friend fly that this is now this is in high school

[00:22:46] Days okay let a friend fly it that had no experience and it crashed and the other ones i i think trading swapping over the years maybe maybe swap meets i i don't know i can't honestly tell you what happened to them but i know i've built four of them from kits and i've built i can't tell you how many four other people either from kits or arvs i know i think i've put two of them

[00:23:14] Together just for bob so what like what what kit did you like the best out of all of them what has been your favorite great planes yeah which one the 40 size the one you have is probably my favorite yeah

[00:23:28] You like it better in the 60 size yeah it's it's obviously smaller so it's easier because it's a one-piece wing right yeah it's so it's easier to transport yeah and it just it's i don't know it just something about the way it flies compared to the heavier bigger ones still can't get it to snap they don't they will not snap roll if you build them as they're designed but the 40 size seems like it's a little more spry what i mean like sports car

[00:24:01] Yeah exactly as opposed to yeah no you understand what i'm saying i do the 60 size things happen a little slower which as i get older is fine but when i was younger i wanted something that was a little snappier yeah and by snappier i don't mean it would snap roll because they don't by the way but yeah that's that's i would have to say that the 40 size great planes kit is my favorite

[00:24:24] Nice so i also the what okay how many do you have now just the one right now i just ready to go i just have the one and then you is that another stick that you got from i got that one from excuse me from bob in we did some trading or whatever no no i'm talking about the one that you got from the guy i got the the adjusto jig from oh is that a stick too or that is a stick that's a that's actually so

[00:24:51] It's a stick in design but it's not so it's a midwest kit so for a time midwest produced kits that were they were sweet sticks that's what the midwest they put their spin on them they changed the airfoil a little bit made them more symmetrical and a little more streamlined but it was still a stick kind of ish design and then something happened and i i don't know exactly what but in the early 90s they stopped making sticks and started making aero like aero and then

[00:25:24] Either a sport or a star so there was an aero star and an aerosport they took away the scalloped edges they redesigned the tail a little bit but it was still the same airplane the same box fuselage and stuff and the aerosport was the more stickish and the aerostar was a trainer essentially but they were both they had were both borrowed designs from their sweet sticks oh okay so and what was the one you

[00:25:51] Just picked up at the decatur show that's actually a rapier it's a pipe it's a pika it kind

[00:25:57] Of looks like the same thing it does but the the airfoil is way different than it than a stick airfoil and the fuselage is built a little bit differently too more rounded so what makes a stick a stick so basically it's the shape of the airfoil and the fuselage the tail people have played with the shape of the the vertical stab and the and horizontal stab and they've added scallops or taken away the scallops but basically it's the airfoil and i forget what there's a there's a number

[00:26:30] Clark y or whatever it's called assigned to that particular airfoil shape so that shape and sort of the the box type construction with the tapering under surface or over surface if you're building it upside down for a low wing that's sort of what makes a stick a stick if that makes sense okay lots of companies have produced various like hundreds probably by this time different versions of that design and called it their own but it's a stick a stick is a stick

[00:27:05] So when did it start like what what made so i was so like the research on this digging into this because i was curious myself we decided we were going to do like a kind of a stick episode so when i was reading i actually learned quite a bit about the history of the stick and not just the stick but the history of of kind of like a really pivotal point in rc so the the original design phil craft is credited with with designing the stick and that was in 1966

[00:27:41] But preceding but yeah preceding that he actually borrowed well this is some speculation i couldn't confirm by any of the sources that i read but he sort of borrowed the design from don mathis a don mathis airplane design called the digester and what that airplane was it was a well it was a great at that time in the late 60s digital proportional didn't really exist it was it was either reads which were you push a button once and the surface goes one way you push

[00:28:16] The button twice and it goes a different direction you push it like three times and that was for each channel right so we didn't have gimbals with sticks that you could move proportionally your control surfaces that didn't come about until about the time the stick was designed in 1966 so phil craft borrowed the digester design and the digester by the way the word digester is a it's like a conjugation of of the design that don mathis designed that for he was a digital radio tester so if you

[00:28:49] Shorten that up it's digester so that was the name of the airplane you can actually get that plan and i believe on outer zone and arrow fred probably has it too but it's a three-channel design no ailerons but it's it's a the boxy stick type fuselage with the tapering bottom surface of the fuselage and the the airfoil was well i don't think phil changed the airfoil at all except to just add ailerons to the wing and make it four channels but he played with the tail design

[00:29:19] That's where he got the rounded vertical and then he scalloped the trailing edges

[00:29:24] So those are both like original to the original plan then yes like that roundedness the scallops

[00:29:30] The scallops and the rounded tail those are the original phil craft das ugly stick design so

[00:29:38] The first one was the das ugly stick then yeah that's the original okay and that's the one

[00:29:43] That all others came from so in 1966 phil designed this thing and he was so phil was phil and a few others a handful of other folks in in california at the time were instrumental in like designing radios with proportional gimbals with like this was all brand new at the time like what we're used to now yeah like we take it for granted that we can move the stick just a little bit and get just a little bit of deflection right we don't even we don't think twice about it

[00:30:15] Well imagine a time where that didn't exist where you had to push a button like no kidding the transmitter was like huge and it had like 18 10 to 18 buttons on it that you would push for different channels to do to move different thing yeah so yeah so this isn't like a really pivotal time where there's a lot of experimentation a lot of development of these radio systems so phil wanted something simple to build something he could repair if things didn't

[00:30:49] Work out yeah and something that was that that flew well that would had some self-writing characteristics but not too much because phil was a a really accomplished pattern flyer if you can imagine flying precision pattern with these buttons that it existed at that time that's how they did it at that time and before that it was it was something entirely different which we can talk about some other time but anyway phil wanted this simple design to to test his own radio

[00:31:21] Equipment don mathis was doing his own thing with the digester and having some success or whatever and so phil's like okay well yeah i'm not gonna test my brand new radio systems on these high dollar pattern planes that i've spent all these time all this time smoothing and making beautiful i'll just build this ugly airplane just out of sticks make it square make it easy to build that way if it crashes because radios weren't terribly reliable at the time either yeah so that's that's

[00:31:52] The that's the inception of the das ugly stick and all the ones that followed do where or why the maltese crosses are on them i have no idea i couldn't find any kind of reference why that is my guess is probably makes it easy to spot in the air because they don't exist on the bottom of the airplane right so speculation they're testing radios at the time they need to be able to visually confirm the position of the airplane which way is up exactly so yeah that's my

[00:32:28] My assumption but like i said that's a that's purely a guess your educated guess right well with the scalloped edges it kind of looks like the red baron focus of of world war

[00:32:39] One so why not put a maltese cross on it well i was curious about that with das ugly stick i mean that's german all right so i didn't know if there was a play on any of that kind of stuff that he was

[00:32:50] Into or there probably is i couldn't find any reference to any of that like in any of the stuff i've read but if anyone out there knows or has can point us in the right direction i would love to to further to read about it it's it's a fascinating to me it's fascinating because all of this stuff even predates me and i'm old right so learning about how because i remember craft radios because i had one as a as a kid i had a a craft it

[00:33:22] Wasn't the the the original gold series it was a craft i think sport or whatever but it was it was a radio with some really crude looking gimbals and they wasn't particularly smooth and you had these really weird kind of thumb lever trim things which at the time was state-of-the-art today we have rocker switches for trims and all these other things that and the gimbals are like ball bearing support and smooth yeah none of that existed back then so having had a craft radio it was really fascinating to me to to read about the development

[00:33:58] Of that and how instrumental phil craft was not just in the design of the big stick which by the way is arguably one of the most successful designs ever rc airplanes but how instrumental he was in the development of the radios that we take for granted today it's just really fascinating how it all kind of goes together i mean and apparently there's a museum and hall of fame for devoted specifically to model aviation radio equipment that i had no idea even existed that

[00:34:32] Much now i do i want to kind of go see it i think it's in ohio it's it's actually not far yeah it's actually not far from not far from us i mean it's about a five hour drive maybe which to me

[00:34:43] That's not far no it's could be a day trip but where i don't mean where it is in there

[00:34:49] I not off the top of my head but i could find it i remember after reading i was like oh well that's not that far away at all it's not like it's in california where i would have expected it because that's where so much of the development that and on the east coast there's really doing it too but

[00:35:03] Okay yeah i don't know why i just kind of assume maybe all this was more of like a midwest kind of thing no there's there's something i think about having having habico having spectrum so local to us that makes me think that it's not now it's yeah i mean it is now there's a

[00:35:21] Lot of development that happens in in champagne and all that but back then a lot of it was on the coasts where the money was so actually a lot of the development i mean we have the jet propulsion laboratories in pasadena california to probably thank for the development because they were some of the stuff they were doing at the time sort of trickled down to the hobbyists who actually worked at jpl at the time too oh okay some of the names that come out of there

[00:35:48] Were were pretty interesting to me too i can't remember any of them don mathis actually was one of

[00:35:52] Them but yeah it was really really it was it was fun it was i spent probably too much time at work reading and and researching that but it was really a lot of fun and enlightening and

[00:36:04] Like now i want to i really want to go to that museum that is cool so you've built a lot of them what is your favorite color scheme on a stick and i say that because i think i know what i want to do

[00:36:18] On mine but we'll see what you say first well i really really like my yellow one i mean it shows up really well in the air and i think it has something to do with the the combination of the yellow and white on top and then i have the the sort of transparent which you hate orange is such a strong word which you dislike strongly yeah on the bottom which i think that contrast really works for me and because i don't see as well as i used to so any kind of contrast i can get the better works well but i would have to say my favorite of all time is the classic red

[00:36:51] And white really yeah the red the red airframe with the white bars and the black crosses

[00:36:56] That's to me that's just classic yeah yeah so i'm thinking about copying a little bit off of you because i really like the sticks are cool but i really really am taken for some reason by the yellow one you have yeah like it looks really good i watched you recover it i saw what it looked like before and the yellow just really pops and it was really ugly before i mean no offense hanger nine but

[00:37:19] That was really ugly the white with the what was that green and purple yeah it wasn't shoes or whatever

[00:37:26] It was really kind of ugly it was not the most looks much better pleasing to the eye before you recovered it but then that's okay i mean that's hey you recover to make them yours yeah but i have yellow which i like i said think i might do it but where the white is on the wings and on the tail and a little bit on the fuselage i think i'm going to use up i don't have a lot of it which is i'm not going to use a bunch of it but i have a little bit of the carbon fiber looking stuff left oh yeah i think that would look good with white accents yeah i think mostly yellow with the the black carbon

[00:37:59] Fiber a little bit little pieces on that and then white accents to bring it out i know it's

[00:38:06] Probably redneck of me but i really like that carbon fiber stuff i do too it looks like i don't

[00:38:11] Know why i like it but i don't either but it does look cool i bought it just to see what it would look like and i use it a lot on the duelist and and it looks good with that blue i think it looks fantastic in the silver yeah i like it a lot yeah i think it turned out good but i've got to figure out what to do on the bottom of this one like it needs to be different and i don't know what i might just do plain white i don't know like i have blue but i don't want to put blue on the bottom because then it disappears in the sky white's probably not the best either honestly well i think white shows up

[00:38:41] Pretty well but generally speaking i try to go with a darker color on the bottom because it usually ends up looking like a shadow anyway no matter what color it is yeah because it's the bottom and the sun's usually hitting the top of it unless you're banking and when you're banking hopefully you're looking

[00:38:59] At the top of it so i don't know well maybe i'll do red on the bottom that's not transparent and it'll just almost look exactly like yours yours is orange but still it's close

[00:39:09] Enough man well i think something else i like about mine is so i don't have two layers of opacity what i mean like the top the top surfaces are opaque oh yeah and the bottom is translucent so in certain positions in the sky light sort of goes through it and and that actually helps with orientation also me anyway what i mean i can see that makes sense but we'll see i mean we'll see what it turns out i kind of dig being able to see the the internal structure

[00:39:39] Through the covering i think that looks neat i didn't do it and i'm not going to do it but i really thought about throwing leds in the wings before i cover oh you still can i know but i don't

[00:39:50] Think i'm going to i mean i don't know i think that would look cool you think so at least put some

[00:39:54] Like nav lights on or something that'd be kind of neat no see i don't want to get too far away like i really want to try and build this with the exception of electric the way it was designed

[00:40:04] To be built it's my first one so yeah you're right it's your first one you should build it per

[00:40:10] You gave me heck for putting dihedral in it oh i was just teasing and i didn't even think like so i got this other little stick off of you what is that one the hanger nine small something another i think here of electric micro mini i don't know which but like after i put the wing together on on the 40 size one and had it all glued up and stuff i i walked into the other side of the basement and saw the small one i was like there's no dihedral that is a straight wing and that was the first thing out of your mouth well that's a lot of dihedral on that it's like it's

[00:40:40] Per per the plan well i mean the way we build airplanes these days and the types of airplanes we fly hardly ever do we see much if any dihedral so walking down and seeing it on the on the board is like wow there's a lot of dihedral well it doesn't help the way i have it sitting

[00:40:56] Right now one end is all the way up yeah so it looks even worse and actually i think the one side's off of the foam so that even makes it look a little taller but i don't it'll still fly awesome i guarantee it yeah it should be good yeah i thought about doing the doll rods in the front to hold the wing on like i talked about before instead of using the four screws going in using an actual dowel rod in the front as the the front point i decided against that once again i just want to go with the way the plans are no i i think that's a good decision i thought about

[00:41:28] Putting two aileron servos in one preach aileron and i decided against that mostly because i've never set up a wing with the the torsion bars or whatever they call them torque rods so i figured it's a good learning experience on that too yeah it doesn't look hard now that i look into it it's

[00:41:46] Not it's not hard it makes setup super simple does it it almost looks like that would be more difficult like once you get them installed and as long as they move freely and you have the aileron secured into the glued in yeah securely setting it up is a piece of cake you just have one servo to set up yeah there's two push rods but they they're going to essentially the same place it's really really easy yeah i guess that would be true and then everything

[00:42:14] Just gets centered when you put the the clevices on and then if you want to you can play with

[00:42:19] Differential throw by using a wheel instead of an arm and do go all old school on it i don't think

[00:42:27] I'll do that oh maybe i mean i don't know i don't know if i need any build up a friend build a sliding

[00:42:32] Tray and put two servos in line and then you could have your flapper ons mechanically instead

[00:42:38] Of electronically how fun would that be not very actually in in my opinion so yeah is that everything you want to talk about on i just want to say like if it's not obvious from

[00:42:51] Listening to me talk about them i really love the stick design i really do i've had a stick in my repertoire arsenal hanger collection collection whatever you want to call it i have had one continuously since i had my first one i've always had a stick and when you get your first one it was probably the when great planes first produced the 40 size kit probably 82 83 somewhere around in there that's a long time yeah that's how good they are that's how that's how

[00:43:25] I mean they're just such a great airplane well that is your go-to plane yeah i mean that is the

[00:43:30] One that i mean it's not super super aerobatic i mean it's not going to go out there and and do 3d which i if you modify it you could probably get it to do that but it just i don't know it's just it's forgiving the flight envelope is is very wide you can fly them slow you can fly them kind of fast they're they don't seem to be very particular about the cg if you get it anywhere within that range it seems to fly the same like i i've experimented with

[00:44:04] Not the one i have now but the previous one i think it was was trying to cg at the very forward limit and the very aft limit and i could tell pretty much no difference in the way it it flew or

[00:44:16] Landed or or took off well that's good to know because that's that's one thing that i always get concerned about is battery as you should and cg with that yeah you should be concerned about cg but

[00:44:28] Not with the stick it's very very forgiving and it just it just it just flies awesome no surprises it never surprises me how do they stall do they stall well well it's really more of a mush as it it doesn't like this kind of now i will say if you move the cg really really to the extremes back like at the very aft limit you you will get kind of a kind of a snap and when i say snap i don't mean a snap roll it what i mean is it kind of stalls and then drops the nose and then

[00:45:01] Resumes flying but most of the time if you hold the stick back at idle it will just sort of mush

[00:45:09] It's they're just such good airplanes a couple things i'm thinking about it tricycle

[00:45:14] Or tail dragger what's your favorite setup on them so i've had obviously both i prefer tail draggers just because they're lighter simpler you don't have to worry about a push rod actuating the nose gear so i i prefer i and i i think the tail draggers are just cleaner looking

[00:45:33] Yeah what i mean i didn't know if there was any like sentimental it was designed to be a

[00:45:38] I built my first one as a tail dragger and okay but maybe that's maybe that's why i'm maybe that there is some sentiment to it but i like tail draggers better which just in general i think

[00:45:49] I like tail draggers better yeah i do too i like the looks of them in the air even though my very

[00:45:54] First airplane was a tricycle i i still prefer tail draggers and that yeah that's the other thing

[00:46:01] I've got to find or conventional gear conventional is that okay see i get confused because like i said earlier tricycle i mean it's still three three wheels on a tail dragger setup so that's what was going through my mind when i first said it so yeah that's true i'm stupid sometimes it's okay that's when you're supposed to say no you're not stupid there we go wow that took way too long well

[00:46:23] I was i was thinking about the whole tricycle thing i was like oh wait a minute all the tricycles i've seen have one wheel in front and two wheels in back so tricycle right oh i said you're you're talking

[00:46:39] About the actual tricycle like tricycle bicycle but yeah like the right like the tricycle like a bicycle

[00:46:45] But with three wheels and usually there's one wheel up front and that you pedal and then two wheels in the back even a big wheel was a tricycle remember the big wheels were fun i love

[00:46:56] Things sorry we're getting off topic here one of the last things i wanted to ask you on the the wing on that so the very end i don't know what you call the wing tips that come out at an angle

[00:47:07] Yeah what's that about just design i think that was just flare added by by mr craft just to make them i mean otherwise without the with without the scalloped trailing edges and without the weird angular wing tips it is pretty ugly airplane it's not very visually appealing so i think that may have been just an effort by by phil to make it look a little bit better and maybe gain a few square inches of of wing area too maybe and have you ever put a cowl on one never

[00:47:42] I have never put a cowl on sacrilege to do it oh i don't think it's a sacrilege it's just i don't know it's it gets it gets away from the the essence of a stick okay yeah so no i've

[00:47:54] Never i've never put a cowl on one so there you go well that's the ugly stick das ugly stick the

[00:48:02] Whatever you want yeah they're they're called so the the naming there's no real convention for the naming as long as the word stick and that's stick with a k right not ck yeah i think like the sweet stick that that's a midwest the the big stick that's great plains so each company sort of maybe adopt put their own spin on their own name in front of it right or word in front of but yeah they all refer to the same basic design yeah cool well anything else you want to

[00:48:35] Talk about or should we get out of here for today no that's that's all i had okay well until next time i am ron i'm tom thanks for listening we'll see you later all right good night bye

[00:48:47] I hope you enjoyed 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 you