Ep 35: Warped Wings, Retracts, and Listener Mail

[00:00:10] RC Plane Lab, a podcast for anyone interested in RC airplane. We’ll share tips and tricks on how to build models and talk about successful flights, epic crashes and everything in between. Visit us at rcplanelab.com to sign up for our email list and to ask us questions. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please help us out by rating and reviewing us in your favorite podcast app. Thanks for spending time with us today. Now here are your hosts: Ron and Tom hello.

[00:00:38] Everyone and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron and I’m Tom, so I want to start off this episode by getting right into an anonymous email that I received from a listener. An anonymous email, yeah, yeah, it’s anonymous. And since it’s anonymous, we have no clue whatsoever where it came from or who wrote it. Remember that it was. It was important, and it was only sent to me, not to Tom, so that’s why he doesn’t know anything about it. So, anyway, I’ll get into. It says: hi guys, love the.

[00:01:09] Podcast. It’s the best podcast I’ve ever heard. Tom, so far, so good. Yeah, it says Tom, you are so lucky to have a friend like Ron, since he sounds so awesome, he’s smart, funny and amazing pilot and fun to be around. He’s also a great husband and dad like. Really. He makes the podcast it’s and the. The message goes on and on praising me and then kind of berating you about certain things, sure, so I’ll just skip to the question. He says: I assume it’s a he might be a she, I don’t know.

[00:01:40] But it says: my question is this: how do I straighten a warped wing when the trailing edge has a bow? I would like Tom to answer this question, because I’m sure Ron already knows the answer, since he is so smart. Signed anonymous, right, Ron, Tom, you wrote this email, didn’t you me? Yeah, no, I, yes, I think you, yes, okay, yes, I did. My doula swing is warped, oh dear. I pulled off the wing jig and it is not straight. It has a little bit of a bow in it. It does, it’s bowing, it’s -huh, it’s like a 737.

[00:02:16] Sorry, bowing. Yeah, I get it. So what do I do? Yeah, there’s a couple of ways you can do it. Thank goodness it’s not sheeted yet. Right, it would be much more difficult to fix if it had already been sheeted, because it’s still in the bones. I think that’s proper. It’s in the raw. It’s in the raw and then the bones, I believe there’s. You can still fix it, especially since, like you said, you wanted to.

[00:02:42] Use the, the vacuum bag. You still want to? If I can, I’d like to, I mean, but I don’t know if it’s still a possibility with it being so bowed. Yeah, you can, I think, okay. So what I would do is:

[00:02:55] Use a piece of like an aluminum extrusion, like an aluminum angle, or maybe a small piece of angle iron- okay, like the, the l-shaped stuff- and clamp that along the trailing edge- top and bottom ideally, but even if you can only do one side or the other, that’s fine. That would make the trailing edge straight and then, as you apply vacuum, it should, as the glue cures, it should sort of stay that way. Yeah, you’ll want to use a little bit of padding maybe.

[00:03:28] To protect the bag from the angle. Iron like that bleeder cloth or the gauze or whatever that, that.

[00:03:33] Stuff, yeah, that stuff it’s. It’s it kind of compresses, but air can still get through it.

[00:03:37] Exactly, yeah, yeah. So use that. Vacuum it down and with that piece of extrusion in there, that should hold it straight while the glue cures and then, after it’s cured, I should be able to take it off and it should be okay straightened. Yep, should be straight. Is there anything I can do before?

[00:03:52] I glue it like it would be nice to not have to try and do all that in the bag. Is there anything like? Can you spray it with water? Can you put weights on it and let it sit? Can you do a little bit of a?

[00:04:02] Ammonia like windex, the old style windex with ammonia in it. Spray it down, maybe not soak it, but take that and get that trailing edge stick kind of wet and then clamp it and then let that dry overnight. That maybe that might be the only thing you need to do. My guess is that’s going to get it really close and then you can finish it off by doing the same process by putting it in a bag with the angle iron clamp to the trailing edge.

[00:04:29] So, with the sheeting glue in place, when I have that on there, like if I, if I do that, do I need to try and go past straight, so it goes what I’m trying to say, yeah, kind of bow it.

[00:04:39] The opposite way. No, I know what you’re saying. I would try not to go the other direction. I would clamp it as straight as you possibly can, because that’s the position you want it to cure in. Okay, you don’t want it to cure in a bow, the other direction. What I mean? Yeah, so it’s possible to over fix it.

[00:04:57] And then right, exacerbate the problem on the other side, right, and then trying to remember you’re.

[00:05:03] Not sheeting it all the way back right, I don’t want to. Is that going to be a problem? Yeah, I think I think you better. Okay, because you need that. You need that sheeting to lock it in it’ll.

[00:05:14] Still have most of it. I mean, I’m going like three quarters of the way back. So is that you don’t think?

[00:05:19] That’s gonna be enough to kind of well. You don’t have any sheeting on the part where it’s actually bowed, so the bow is the trailing edge stick. You don’t have any sheeting on top of that stick.

[00:05:28] Correct? No, I don’t, but I think it’s the. I don’t think it’s just the stick, I think it’s the actual, like the whole wing is kind of warping, because I so when I don’t disagree, because if you look down,

[00:05:40] The leading edge. It’s perfectly straight. Yeah, I agree. And so from leading edge to trailing edge, I don’t think that the warp is happening there. I think the warp is happening solely based on the position of that trailing edge stick. But I maybe we need to go check and look really quick.

[00:05:59] Because I don’t think the trailing well, like I, I think the ribs are kind of off a little bit and the reason I say that is because when I put the spars in it didn’t line up exactly perfectly with the balsa that I put in there. Yeah, because, like the, we found so many real problems, like issues with this plan plans. Yeah, so I, I cut them based on the plan and they don’t like the, the, the, the place where the spar is supposed to go, the spar receiver- what do you call that? The spar cut out bar notch.

[00:06:32] The spar notch. It’s not in a perfect line from wing tip to the center of the wing, so it’s got a little bit of a tip from root to tip. Yeah, thanks for correcting me. I don’t want to sound stupid- although I do most of the time- because I don’t know a rib from a root. Well, my wing is straight. Oh, that’s that’s. Well. I mean, that’s terrible. Sorry, but it is.

[00:07:01] So when I glued it in I had to kind of finagle and it kind of has like a little s curve to it and it’s not a perfectly straight piece of balsa that’s that’s in the, I think last week when I was

[00:07:14] Looking at it, I may have made a comment about. I wasn’t going to bring that up because, yes, you.

[00:07:18] Called this. Before I took it off, you said it might have a bow because of the way I did that and I was like no, it’s going to be fine and apparently I was wrong and you don’t have to say that’s okay.

[00:07:29] That’s all I was going to say. No, I wasn’t going to go all the way, but in this case I would go ahead and sheet it all the way back. You’re going to need, you’re going to need that strength to hold it straight. Okay, because it’s going to be stressed even after it’s cured, because you’re taking it from its position that it wants to be in and forcing it into a position that it doesn’t want to be in, and

[00:07:47] You’re going to cure it that way, so maybe I’ll go back to my original wing. That I mean, it’s straight as an arrow. There’s not a single bow in that whatsoever. Well, it’s like I think I may.

[00:07:59] Have mentioned before, like when I was doing my, when I was laying out my wing, I noticed the same thing: that the spar notches didn’t. If you look down them, the trough didn’t line up what I’m saying, like the trough was not in a line right. So what I did was I laid the stick that I was going to use for the spar right on top of the notches and wherever it laid, I would mark it on the rib and if it didn’t line up with the notch, I would trim the notch a little bit so that I didn’t have to put that stick in a bind just to get it down into the notch. I did just the opposite: I put

[00:08:32] That stick in a bind and put it right down, as you did. I mean, like I went from each one and just kind of bent it in to make it fit. So I can tell by the look on your face. That’s not the appropriate way to.

[00:08:43] Do it well and I have now learned so: brute force and ball, so they, they don’t go hand in hand.

[00:08:49] Bolsa bends apparently, actually, which I thought was a good thing, which made it line up okay, but

[00:08:55] Yeah, no, not at all. Yeah, introduced a warp I yeah. Well, now you’ve learned. So now you get to learn how.

[00:09:02] To straighten one, hopefully. I think I think you’ll be okay, I really do you. I mean, you don’t think I?

[00:09:08] Should go back to the original wing. I don’t think so. I think this wing, I think it’s not extreme in my opinion, I don’t think the wing is warped to a point where it can’t be fixed. So and if so, and this wing is prettier than the first one, but nobody’s gonna see it with the cutouts, I know, I agree, no, it’s in.

[00:09:27] There, I know, that’s why I redid it. Actually, yeah, I mean I was. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have, because I’d have been a heck of a lot longer along now than I am. But if I okay, so let’s just. Let’s just say there’s a look. I guess it depends on how much time I have for stuff, but anyway, exactly. So let’s say: there is a little bit of a bow that is going to live in that panel forever, forever. What should I?

[00:09:51] Expect during flight with that. So the way, the way your wing is bowed or warped or whatever on one side on. Well, it’s warped on both sides, one side more than the other. I thought the other side looked pretty good. No, the other side has a little bit of a arc to it also. Okay, so because they’re uneven, worst case scenario: you have a, a trim that changes with airspeed and honestly, I believe that’s worst case because if you look at the, if you look at the cord line at the tip and

[00:10:23] Compare that to the root. If anything, you may have introduced a little bit of wash out as opposed to wash in, which is not a bad thing actually, because it changes the angle of attack at the tip and it and it actually makes it less than at the root. So imagine if the airplane is at a high angle of attack, the root of the wing is going to stall first because the tip is not at that same angle of attack, it’s at a lower angle of attack, so its stall speed would be technically lower. So, if anything,

[00:10:53] You’re adding stability. Stability, excuse me- to the wing by adding wash out. But because it’s uneven from left to right side, I would expect to some degree you may have some trim change with airspeed, like, for instance, at half throttle or at the at half of the airplane’s top speed. You trim it for level flight and then you accelerate to a new speed. Your trim. You may have to add a little bit of trim or fly it with the stick or whatever, because they’re uneven. If they were, even I honestly

[00:11:26] Don’t think you would even know they were warped. So should I fix that one or warp the other one more? I would try to fix them both, honestly, okay. Well, I wouldn’t plan on touching the one side at all.

[00:11:35] But I would try to make them match at least okay, because, like I said, the one side that looks bad, there’s, there’s a, not an equal amount on the other side, but there is a, an amount on the other side that matches it okay. So well, I don’t try to fix it. I mean, I think, I really think you can, and I would actually try to maybe, like we discussed, do a little bit beforehand, just clamp a, a straight edge, or not a straight edge, but a, a piece of angle on angle iron.

[00:12:04] Excuse me, or it could even clamp to the side of a, like the countertop exactly. Yeah, anything that’s.

[00:12:09] Nice and nice and straight a little bit of windex, clamp it in place, let it dry over and look at it and then if, if that makes it closer, then maybe because you haven’t glued the sheeting on yet. Maybe, maybe try to go a little bit the other direction before you sheet it. See how straight you can get it. I, I think you can get it fixed, though really it’s not, it’s not so bad that.

[00:12:29] I don’t think you can’t fix it okay, and so, like with the balsa that’s kind of got a little bit of a bow to it like the wing spars. If I spray that, would that take some of the pressure out of?

[00:12:40] That too, like if I use windex on. Yeah, I know what you’re, I know what you’re asking. So a piece of balsa that’s already glued into a spar notch and you want to take some of this relieve?

[00:12:51] Some of the stress that, yeah, that’s not going to happen. Okay, yeah, it’s permanent. Okay, that’s nice. Yeah, well, you live and learn. That’s part of building. I mean, you don’t know until you try it. So

[00:13:02] And every, every time, every time you do something like this and you fix it, then next time, hey, I’m gonna. I didn’t have so much fun fixing this last time, so I think I’m gonna try to build this, so I don’t have to fix it. I’ll be a little more careful next time, but I still build, I still.

[00:13:17] Build warped wings too. That’s what I was gonna ask. You’ve done it before then. Oh yeah, it’s not just.

[00:13:21] It’s not just a me thing. No, I mean rookies and experts alike. We all, we all- are capable of building.

[00:13:27] Warped wings, and we’re all capable of building straight wings also. That’s true. Yes, we’ll see. Yeah.

[00:13:34] Mine’s straight. Did I mention that? No, I hadn’t heard. Yeah it’s. It looks pretty doggone good, I’m sure.

[00:13:41] It does. I’ll have to get some pictures, yeah, and post them on the website. Yes, I’ll do that on your.

[00:13:45] Own, oh, okay. Well, at least I know what my next step is. So, yeah, I don’t think all is lost. I don’t think you need to start over. I don’t think you need to go back to the first one. I think this one is fine. I think you can fix it good, because this one is nicer. It is pretty, it’s. I love the holes in the, in the cutouts and the ribs and it’s laser cutter. Did you notice that? No, I didn’t. If you pick up that one in the first one, really noticeable difference. I should actually weigh them now that they’re both in the exact same state. Yes, I mean like they’re. I mean I noticed it just picking them up. So I think

[00:14:20] If you put them on a scale, you’ll see a difference. Everybody hold on. Are you gonna go weigh them? I am.

[00:14:26] Hold on, okay and we’re back. Yeah, I don’t. I don’t think you noticed that. There’s no way. So the old wing was 8.82 Ounces. The new wing is 8.68 Ounces. 0.68 Is less than 0.82. I told you so. Oh, you’re full of it, I come on. I told you that’s like less than lighter, like less than five grams. There’s no way. The difference that’s 0.1 Something to doing this a long time. I know what’s.

[00:15:03] Light and what’s heavy. Okay, maybe it’s because it looks lighter, because all the lightning holes

[00:15:12] Digging yourself a deeper hole. It definitely does give the appearance of being more airy, but here’s the

[00:15:19] Thing. So the second wing, the ribs, are cut out of the falcata, which we know is a little bit heavier than balsa. Yeah, but they are lightened, so in the end it’s probably a wash. I don’t think we’d notice the difference, but except for strength, they might be stronger. I bet they are stronger. Should we go?

[00:15:36] Break them. And let’s go break some. No, let’s go break some. Oh, all right. Well, are you ready to get?

[00:15:44] To what we were going to talk about in this episode. Yeah, why don’t we? Retracts, retract, retractable.

[00:15:50] Landing gear, gear that go in, gear that disappear, gear that you don’t see. Yeah, very cool.

[00:15:59] And that’s all I know. So all right, well, I’ll, I’ll get to it then. So yeah, retractable landing gear. That’s the landing gear that disappears into the fuselage when you click the cool button, the retract button on the transmitter, which we may want to get into at some later point- talk about transmitters and things like that again- but anyway, it’s a good idea. So there’s, yeah. So over the years there’s been several different types of retracts, three that I know of. There I’m, I’ve been in the hobby a long time, but I haven’t been in the hobby forever.

[00:16:31] Since it was started. Yeah right, so thanks, I know, yep, got it, and so there may have been retract types before I came along, but when I got into the hobby, mechanical retracts were really almost the only game in town if you wanted to have retractable landing gear in your airplane. And then pneumatic retractable landing gear came on shortly after, and then now we have electric. So there’s the three basic types of retractable landing gear.

[00:17:02] There’s tricycle gear, there’s tail dragger type. There’s helicopters- I think have some. There’s retractable gear on some full-bodied helicopters. Yeah, this is not a helicopter podcast, right, but I’m just covering retracts in general in the hobby and those are the types that I know of.

[00:17:19] Oh, okay, I didn’t know what we were doing. Yeah, so there are also different- lost my train of thought- ways to actuate them. So, with the different ways to make them open and close, right, you said there’s mechanical, which is powered by what? A servo, and then there’s the electric, which is powered by what? An electric motor. So what’s driving like? What’s the difference between those two? Yeah, so a

[00:17:49] Mechanical, old school retractable landing gear is basically. I got one right here in my hot little hands. It’s basically a, an aluminum frame with a, a mechanism in there that pivots by pulling a servo rod, and it’s usually actuated by a retract servo. It was a specific servo designed for this that went 180 degrees of travel, as opposed to the 120 ish that we normally have. So a mechanical retract is done, as the name indicates: mechanically, it’s pulled via a rod from the servo and it

[00:18:25] The servo pulls it up and also pushes it down. So what happens if you don’t use like I don’t know in when you’re building SIG cavalier and you decide to put retracts on it? What happens if you don’t use the correct servo and you use just a regular servo? Not that I know anybody that’s done that, but if that was the case, what would I be looking for? I feel like there’s another anonymous email coming. Fine, it was me again. Okay. So what happens? Like I didn’t know there was a difference.

[00:18:56] In servos? Yeah, for retracts. So I used a regular one. That powers- yeah, I don’t remember if it’s a single one or double. That powers the, the mechanical retracts. Right, what am I going to?

[00:19:10] Have a problem with you. You may have a problem with you may not get full retraction or full extension. So if you, depending on how you have it set up, if you only, and- and I’ll caveat this by saying if you’re- if your installation, so there’s 85 degree and 90 degree and there’s rotating and there’s all these different types of retracts, most of them require 180 degrees of- with mechanical anyway, 180 degrees of travel. So if you stick a 120 degree like a standard servo on there, you’re short.

[00:19:44] 60 Degrees of travel, so you may not get full retraction. So your gear may hang out of the airframe a little bit, and that might. That may not be, because you can change the amount of throw by moving the horn out on the servo right, and that’s what I did. The problem, well, and that’s fine as long as, as long as everything in your installation is, is perfect, and you don’t have any binding or anything like that. So servos operate off of mechanical leverage right. So the closer the rod,

[00:20:17] Is into this- to the output shaft. The stronger, the more torque you get out of it. Yeah, the farther away you move it from the shaft, the less torque you get. You get more travel, but less torque. So if everything in your installation is fine, you don’t have any binding and you don’t need a lot of torque to operate it, then you can probably overcome your lack of travel, yeah, by moving the horn out. Okay, so it’s something you’ll have to experiment with. The retract servos were designed to be high torque at their outermost limit of where you would mount the horn, outermost limit of

[00:20:56] Travel like the furthest point away from the. The rotation exactly gotcha probably in your.

[00:21:02] Situation since you’re, since you’re powering the two mains with one servo and then you’re going to do the nose gear with a different servo. I’m assuming I did. Yes, probably you’re going to be fine. Okay, because you’re, you’ll take care in the installation and there won’t be any binding and all your linkages will be nice and in line. And why are you smiling about that? Just making sure what I do? You understand that everything needs to be perfect I? It’s been a while since that was put.

[00:21:27] Together. I still haven’t flown it, but it’s. I mean that’s done so anyway. Yeah, that’s why mechanical.

[00:21:32] Retracts are not as popular today because the setup is so important and everything has to be just right and it is kind of a pain, especially when you have a retract buried in a wing. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out a way to get that push rod to make a straighter run as it can to the retract unit from the servo. Yeah, I found that out- the hard way, sure, but I have, I have. I have a couple of airplanes that have mechanical retracts and the nice thing about mechanical retracts is once everything is all set up and you don’t have any binding and you’re not causing undue stress on the servo, causing wear on.

[00:22:06] The servo, once it’s set up, you’ll- I mean, it’ll- work great every single time and you have an unlimited number of cycles up and down, right until you blow a servo or something. But yeah, right, sure, right. But so that’s one advantage to the mechanical ones over especially the pneumatic ones, but also the electric retracts which, as we’ve come to find out over the years, that some quality or some

[00:22:33] Electric retracts are better quality than others. Yeah, what? Okay, so with the mechanical ones that I put on that, is there any kind of things I need to look for, like over the long run? Do I need to service it? Do I need to lubricate them? Do I need to do anything special with them? Well, there are pivot

[00:22:51] Points on the mechanical ones that could probably benefit from some kind of grease- or maybe there’s no such thing as a grease that doesn’t attract gunk dirt. Yeah, but more often than not, like I said, once they’re set up and aside from wear on the mechanism itself, there’s really not much to do to service them. There is- on this one trying to be quieter- there is a set screw right.

[00:23:21] Here. So as the, as the plastic block wears, you can adjust that little set screw to take out this sort of play. And it’s just a set screw that bears against the bearing surface and tightens that up. But over time you can make that little adjustment. But that’s really all there is to a mechanical retract.

[00:23:39] So, like I am like seeing you play with it and I still don’t quite understand what you’re what you’re talking about. So could you explain that a little bit better? Yeah, it’s hard to hard to do, but

[00:23:49] You can see the. So there’s a cam right, this little rod. There’s a, there’s a cam at the end of the rod that pulls into a channel of this plastic block right, and that’s what actually does the movement of the of the retract right. And then, so when it gets to, in this case, the extended position, there’s a set screw in this block, here in the front, which is the front of the retract right, that you can move in to bear against the block that contains the, the trough for the cam. And then, if you look,

[00:24:25] In there’s a little metal place for that screw to bear down on, and that’s how you adjust that.

[00:24:30] Slop out of it, okay. So if you have a retract and you’re trying to figure out what he’s talking about, it makes sense now that I kind of see it, but I understand not everybody can see it obviously. So in the very front of this retract is a allen wrench type set screw, exactly, and what that does is it pushes back along around the front of the of the wire that the wheel is attached to so that it can’t move forward and backwards. It kind of locks that in place when it’s fully extended. Yep, I hope.

[00:25:00] That makes sense. Yeah, I mean we might be able to take a picture. I wouldn’t put on the on the website maybe, but anyway, that’s really the only service item on a mechanical setup. Yeah, that’s.

[00:25:11] A good idea. By the way, we’ll take a picture of that and that will be in the on the website.

[00:25:15] Underneath this show, okay, but an electric retract with the, with the, the varying quality of stuff that we get from where we get most of our electronics, which is china. We’ve discovered that over the past few years there’s varying degrees of good. Yeah, the quality is definitely different. Yeah, but they are super, super convenient. There’s no, there’s no real setup involved. You don’t have to line up a servo. You don’t have to buy an additional servo, even though

[00:25:48] The retracts themselves are a little more expensive- okay, a lot more expensive than mechanical, but they don’t require hardly any setup. You bolt the thing in there, plug it into a either one of your empty channels on the on the receiver, and flip the switch and they work. So the nice thing about that too, though.

[00:26:06] Like thinking through, if I have anything that happens to that airplane, like the cavalier that has it on it, it’s going to be fairly major surgery to get in to changing out the retract if it breaks, or the servo if it goes out, whereas if it was a simple bolt-in servo list, is that what they’re called servo list retract? I think that’s one word for them. Yeah, then it’s just the normal four screws that hold it on and then a wire, right? Yeah? So if anything, a servo lead, basically, yeah, right, so if anything happens.

[00:26:40] It’s so much easier to replace that, am I correct? It’s easier? Yes, it would seem like it would be.

[00:26:47] Very much easier. Yeah, usually when, like in the case of the dualist, if I was using mechanical retracts I would, I would have the setup done as I’m building the wing. The sticky part is the actual push rod, that actuates the servo itself coming off the servo. That’s the part that really kind of gets buried in the wing. But generally speaking it’s a straight rod. Because you want that as straight as possible, you don’t want any kind of weird flexing going on, especially on your gear. So usually that’s a fairly straight rod wherever it’s going. So it’s. It’s usually not a big

[00:27:21] Deal to disconnect it at the servo or at the retract and pull the rod out if you need to. But rarely would you have to do that anyway, because if you have a problem with the retract, it’s going to be the retract unit itself, not usually the push rod or the servo. And if it’s a servo, the servo is usually mounted in a bay somewhere where you can four screws remove it. Yeah, well, like on mine.

[00:27:43] Like I know, I had to run the, the wire or the push rod through the wing, obviously in some holes, and there was a little bit of a bend to it that I had to put in order for it to line up the way I was doing it. But like the thing with that, so I’m not necessarily worried about landing with that, because with those servos, when you have that on full extension, they actually lock out. Yeah, so that servo is not doing anything to hold any pressure. Nope, there’s an actual block inside of the retract.

[00:28:15] It’s just holding the cam in the lock right. There’s. No, there’s no landing forces being transferred to.

[00:28:20] Your servo or there shouldn’t be? Yeah, so if it’s set up correctly and it’s actually at full pull, which is how I did set that up, even though I didn’t have the right servo, which I didn’t even know existed- yep, but anyway, so that one actually pulls it and locks it in place. So you’re right, when you land, all that stress that’s going to be on the landing gear is not going to be pushed back to that servo. No, whereas if you don’t have it set up correctly, it will be. Yeah, so you got to make sure it locks both up and down. Yeah, and- and the down locks are more pronounced.

[00:28:52] Than the up locks like on this one here. You can’t even really tell that it’s up and locked by looking at it, even though at full travel, in the up position, it does ride on that flat. It’s hard to see, but anyway, definitely if you have it set up such that at full travel it’s in both lock, you will.

[00:29:13] Save your servo a lot of headaches. Yeah, that’s a good way to set it up. Yeah, now, so that’s kind of the servoless and then the servo driven retracks- I’m familiar enough with both of those, having seen them and kind of realize or kind of understand how they work. Pneumatics, yeah. So then

[00:29:31] Before we move on- I don’t want to cut you off, but before we move on to pneumatic, one more thing is on the servoless, or the electric retracts. They operate on the same principle. It’s basically just a tiny electric motor driving that same, essentially the same rod. You would be actuating with a servo, so it still has an up lock and a down lock, and the same thing is you’re not transferring those landing loads to the electric motor. Then the thing about the electric ones is it: it does it all automatically. You don’t have to do any setup so, but it does operate the same way. So it’s everything built into.

[00:30:03] One case, exactly so your servo has pretty much been moved into the actual gear itself, exactly right, which is nice because it is easier to set up, yep. Now the other nice thing, because they’re expensive. Well, yeah, which same with everything. Really well, that’s true. But the other nice thing about those- and I don’t know how it works with pneumatics, but you can control with our transmitters and I’m sure most transmitters- you can control the speed at which that servo moves to position yep. So I think, on

[00:30:33] Mind I have it set up for like five second for up and down. That gives it a more scale look and it also so it does change center of gravity just a little bit when you bring that front wheel forward or back when you, when you retract it, so that makes it not such a pronounced change very quickly. So having that extra time looks better and then you can kind of adjust for anything that happens due to center of gravity changing a little bit right with pneumatics. Can you control?

[00:31:05] The speed at up and down, sort of sort of yeah, so sorry. Before we get into that, just explain how pneumatics work, because to me it sounds or it sounds antiquated and not the best way to go with things, and I’m sure that’s going to get people upset with me that love them but I don’t know them enough to know the difference. So right, explain it to me and make me a convert. So well, I’m not going to try.

[00:31:32] To convert anybody make me want to buy some. So I mean, each, each one of these types has its, has its advantage and has its disadvantage, right. So pneumatic retracts: the advantage of those is number one: you don’t have to set up- well, you do have to set up- a servo, but you’re not driving the retracts with the servo, you’re driving them with air pressure via an air cylinder that operates on positive, negative pressure, so or pressure on one side of the piston or the other.

[00:32:02] They’re fairly simple they’re. They’re probably as simple the retract itself to set up as an electric one. It’s just you have plumbing and a tank and a valve and then you have to actuate the valve somehow with a servo. So they are a little bit more complicated to set up because of the plumbing but they’re not as difficult, in my opinion, to set up as a mechanical servo driven retract because you don’t have, like I said, you don’t have to worry about a push rod or any of that stuff and

[00:32:35] Make sure the run is straight or whatever. As long as you can get the airlines to the retract unit, you.

[00:32:41] You’ll get operation. So with those you said there’s a valve and stuff, is it okay? So the cylinder is it like spring, loaded one way and then the air valve works the other way? Or is it literally positive pressure to one side to put them up and then switches positive pressure to another side to

[00:32:59] Put them down right. So there’s actually two types of pneumatic retracts. Let me guess right. So there’s spring airs, okay, which is used to be a brand name- I think they’re actually owned by robart now I think. Correct me if I’m wrong, everybody who’s listening. But they, like you said, they would spring down, down and air up. So if you lost air pressure, the idea was that they would spring down for safety so you could land. They were for some reason. They were a little more expensive back in the day. I’m not sure why, because maybe the spring costs a little more to make than the piston. I don’t know.

[00:33:32] But anyway, I can see that. Yeah, and then the air up, air down are just exactly like you described. It’s a, a piston at the end of a rod. That’s the actuator, and on one side of the piston you push it, it moves the gear one direction, and then with the valve you change the direction of the airflow, put that positive pressure on the other side of the piston and it moves it up. So you have

[00:33:53] Two lines that go to each one, exactly, okay, yep, and what kind are you putting in the do list? So I’m actually putting robart pneumatics, which is the spring-loaded one. These are air up and air down. What?

[00:34:07] Like, what kind of tubing does that use? It’s a very, very small diameter. It’s about a 16th inch diameter, very, very. It’s a. Honestly, I don’t know what it’s made of because it’s really tough, like it’s even difficult to cut, but it’s very rubbery. No doubt it’s very thick. The wall thickness is very thick to prevent because we pump these things up to 100 psi or whatever. I was wondering what they were going to run at. Yeah, depending on the, on the system and the size of

[00:34:39] Your tank or whatever. But yeah, I don’t know what that tubing is made of, but it’s very tough. Like I said, the outside diameter is about an eighth of an inch. It has about a 16th inch or so inside diameter and tough as nails, difficult to get on the nipples. Sorry, but it’s a very tough. It’s a very tough rubbery line that it’s resistant to rupture because of the high

[00:35:07] Pressures we use, and so is that like a barbed fitting, and then is there something that goes on.

[00:35:11] The outside to hold it on. Then or there is, do you grip it? So the fittings are barbed to hold the line on under those high pressures and then I’ve never actually put anything on the outside of them to hold them onto the barbs, because I’ve never had a problem with them pulling off. But they do make- robart makes these cool little aluminum knurled things that thread on there.

[00:35:31] To help hold them on. Okay, yep, well, yeah, I guess 100 psi when you’re down at the 16th inch inside diameter of a circle is going to be very low pressure. So it’s not going to be trying to push.

[00:35:45] Itself off very hard. Right, and you asked how you slow them down. So the new, the newer style robart systems, the valve itself has bleeder screws- for lack of a better word- that you can use to raise and lower the pressure in the open position. So it essentially will slow them down just by lowering the pressure, actuating pressure, yeah, and they also make restrictors that you can cut and put in line too, so you can make them go faster up than down, or up, down than up, or whatever.

[00:36:19] Are you going to do anything like that with yours or just let it go straight like full-fledged power?

[00:36:24] Well, I’m not going to buy the inline restrictors because I don’t need them. I have the newer style valve with mine, so I will probably slow them down a little bit, because if you’ve ever seen a pneumatic retract go up at full pressure, it’s you don’t want to get a finger in the way. Is it violent? It’s quick, is it? Yeah, it happens very fast. That would be bad then I can imagine that would like.

[00:36:48] Shake the whole plane and be problematic. Even well, if your mounting is secure, it shouldn’t be too big a deal. But like not even moving around, like when you’re flying at all, you don’t notice that. Okay, so

[00:36:59] How many times can you put this up and down depends on the size of the tank. So if you have a, a medium sized robart tank, you can probably get 10 cycles on a on a full tank, which is plenty, usually, because you’ll top it off between each, or you should top it off between each flight. How do you top it off? You connect a pump and pump it up to 100 psi by hand. Well, yeah, or if you have the fancy,

[00:37:26] Electric pump from robart. You can use that. Oh yeah, no thanks, that’s. That’s too much work, especially when you can go electric right and not have to do anything. Well, like I said, there’s advantages to each. Yeah what? So like how big of a tank does this hold? Is it like the size of a fuel tank, like in a?

[00:37:42] Nitro plane or something. Well, the tanks are. Do you remember like? You may not remember because you’re young, but back in the 80s the hair mousse was like this big thing and they came in these little pressurized cans, sure, very similar size. My sister had those all the time and I think those were six ounces, I think roughly six ounces of volume that we pump up to 100 psi or so. Wow, so you got to find a place for that. Yep, yep, that gets in the airframe. Yep, along with the valve and all the plumbing.

[00:38:12] And so, weight wise, is that going to be the heaviest of the options? Yeah, because, yeah, because that tank’s.

[00:38:18] Going to have to be fairly thick, right? I don’t know, it depends on. It depends on the setup. So, like on a on a mechanical servo driven gear set, like if you’re using two servos, you’re gonna have to have maybe a little bit heavier battery, a little bit heavier duty battery maybe, or maybe even a battery just for the retracts. I’m not sure I mean, you may, you may, it may be a wash, but certainly heavier. Both of them are going to be heavier than electric retracts. For sure both of what, like the pneumatic and the mechanical, are going to be heavier than, see you say, mechanical and

[00:38:53] I, I still think of those as like, there you go, sorry because they’re still electric, true, but I got you, you’re right. Well, that’s interesting. So, like I said, I’ve never done it. I don’t even know if I’ve ever. I don’t think I’ve ever messed with any of the- yeah, pneumatic stuff either. So and

[00:39:08] Here’s: although the, the servo-less retracts have come a long way and they’re they’re getting better every year, the real advantage to pneumatic was their power. Like if you had a scale airplane with really big, heavy wheels, you needed the, the, the oomph that air pressure could provide. It was hard to find a servo strong enough to lift those big, heavy wheels up into the, up into the landing gear base, so I can see. So the real advantage was

[00:39:42] Was heft they. They were capable of moving heavier things nowadays with gear reductions and high power brushless motors. Thank you, yeah, I was trying to. The word has escaped me for some reason. But yeah, they’re. They’re certainly catching up and you can. You can see that, and you go and look at the robart catalog, they sell electric reach or servo-less retracts now.

[00:40:08] Electric servo-less. Yeah for big, as opposed to electric servo, right, yeah, well, that, yeah, that’s.

[00:40:16] Cool, I mean, yeah, I. So one other thing: we didn’t talk about the nose gear and how that all works with steering, so there’s a couple different ways to do that. So, on more modern ones, when the hard to describe without a picture, but usually a pull cable on the ones that work really, really well, I’m just going to say it that way. They will have a pull cable kind of like what you would have on a rudder, such that when the gear retracts, the servos kind of go slack and there’s

[00:40:50] Usually a little centering spring on the servo so that when there’s no, no pressure on it, the spring sort of centers the nose gear when there’s no, no tension on the cables that do the actual steering. And that’s on the servo. It’s no, it’s on the on the retract itself. You said servo, so that’s what confused. Oh, I’m sorry, I meant on the retract unit. Okay, so like, as it’s retracting, that little spring on the retract unit centers the, the nose gear so that it can tuck up into the, into your opening. But when it’s that way it doesn’t steer when you’re removing the rudder, while you’re trying.

[00:41:21] To put it away, yep, okay. And then when it’s extended it, it pulls the gear up and tightens up the cables for the steering and then the steering now overcomes that tiny little spring on the retract unit and that’s how you get your steering. That’s that’s on the more modern ones, the ones that work really, really well and those are the ones I like. On mechanical servo driven ones, they have a. They have this weird rod with a sliding arm. Yeah, I know what you’re talking.

[00:41:52] About and I don’t even know such that as it moves up, the arm is in one position and then when it retracts, the arm is allowed to move, slide up and down to account for rudder movement. I don’t like those. I’ve never really had very good luck getting those set up correctly, even quality ones. I just prefer the, the cool cable ones. Yeah, so that’s what I have on that cavalier.

[00:42:15] And I think pull, pull, no, the weird little, I don’t even know how to describe it as much as it’s just a weird setup- yeah, that when it’s down, the servo is able to push and pull on it, but when it goes in the retract mode, it, instead of being vertical, it’s parallel to the, to the airplane. Yeah, so the rod can slide. So right, so that piece, yeah, will slide up and down on the rod when you change the rudder. And, yeah, it’s a weird setup, yeah, and I just I don’t like, I’m not fully comfortable.

[00:42:48] I think using that whole setup on that airplane, yeah, and that’s definitely why I haven’t flown it.

[00:42:52] Yeah, there’s. There’s definitely a trick to getting that right, if there, and if anybody out there knows what the trick is, because I’ve tried making sure that the push rod is perfectly parallel to the plane right of the rotation and I’ve had varying degrees of success with that.

[00:43:11] To the point where I just usually give up. What I’ve done in the past is I take a, a dual-sided nose wheel steering arm, okay, mount that as high up as I can on the wire and then I just attach, pull cables to that and then I figure out a way to keep it centered when, when the pressure’s off.

[00:43:29] That’s not a bad idea. Yeah, it’s easy to do. Yeah, so my, like I said, it’s been a pain getting that one set up on mine and I think that’s kind of why I shelved it right. I mean, like I said it’s, it’s finished, it just needs a battery and it needs to have the CG checked and needs to be flown right. But I’m not comfortable enough getting that all set up to deal with it and I’ve moved on. So yeah,

[00:43:49] It’ll probably just be a shelf queen for a while. No, it’s not going anywhere, that’s correct. But anyway, that’s that’s kind of a quick and dirty rundown of the different types of retracts that you’ll.

[00:44:01] Encounter today. So there’s another kind of retracts too, like on that, that p40, you can’t just use ones that come right in. There’s the type that what’s it like 80 or 90 degree or 120 degree twist? Oh they.

[00:44:16] Rotate. Rotating retracts: yeah, that’s another type that’s out there and that’s done usually mechanically on the retract unit itself, with either a, a rod that pushes as on the on the gear leg that’s allowed to twist in the block, or there’s a few different ways to accomplish it. But yeah, they- there’s different- like a corsair may not require the same number of degrees of rotation that a p40 requires, so you’ll have to make sure that whatever retract you get matches the application.

[00:44:50] But all of those rotating retracts are available in all these different types as well. So, adding to the complexity, there’s a lot to retracts. I mean it really is, there is and, and not to mention, you want to make sure they’re mounted solidly. I’ve- I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve either myself pulled a retract out of a wing on a rough landing or seen it many times at the field, and it’s all a function of landing technique in addition to the mounting of actually the structure.

[00:45:21] That you’re mounting that retract to there’s. There’s lots of ways to accomplish that. There’s when you’re like in. In the case of the dualist, I’m making sure that my ramp mounting blocks are tied to the ribs that they are adjacent to. So instead of just mounting the blocks to the notches in the ribs, I’m going to go ahead and add a block underneath and epoxy that to the side of the rib and also the bottom of the block, and then, for added security, I’m going to drill a small hole and add a 16th inch dowel with epoxy in there to tie all those pieces together, and that will

[00:45:56] Maybe not guarantee that I’ll never pull the retracts out, but it’s certainly going to be stronger than.

[00:46:01] How most arvs are constructed for retracts. So a little, I’m sorry, go back a little bit more. I know, like because I know the dualist, I know that where the gear is supposed to go, that the ribs are doubled up just in that area, right. So between that you’re talking about going from rib to rib, you’re putting.

[00:46:21] In a block to hold it. Yeah, there’s a. There’s a block, just like a servo rail. Right that the retract.

[00:46:28] Will bolt to yes. And then what are you talking about? You do extra. And then where do you pin it? So

[00:46:33] On the underside of those blocks, in line with the block right up against the rib perpendicular to the block, will be. It will be glued to both the block and the face of that rib. So, okay. So to give it more together? Yep, okay. And then to tie all those pieces together, I’ll drill a hole straight down the mounting rail into my reinforcing block underneath it and then I will tie those together with either 16th inch or 18th or eighth inch dowel with epoxy. Okay, pinning it, it’s, it’s what’s what’s called pinning to keep it from moving. Yep, just to tie all that structure together and tie it to the rib make.

[00:47:08] Sure, it’s transferring as much of the load as evenly over the that area of the wing as possible. So I’m not just counting on the blocks to rip out of the rip out of the wing ribs to hold my

[00:47:22] Gear. But the best thing is just land carefully, flare correctly technique and land the right way, right. And that comes with practice. Yeah, well, no, I mean it does. But even the best pilots still have a hard landing every now and then. Oh yeah, I get it wrong all the time. So well, I said the best pilots, well you.

[00:47:40] Did say the best, but it’s certainly not the best, that’s for sure. So mediocre at best. Yeah, you get the job done. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, one. One final thing. I was looking at the retracts around the table and reminded me: match, match the gear wire size to the airplane, so like a 40 size airplane, that’s eight pounds or less, and really six pounds or less 532 wire. They’re going to be just fine. Anything over that, do yourself a favor and go up to the 3, 16th wire. That’s really okay. That’s really all I want to.

[00:48:13] Say stronger that way I mean. Or okay, yeah, it’s less flex and heavier airplanes. You don’t want to look at all wonky on the runway bouncing side to side moving, springing on the gear. That looks funny. It looks wonky. That’s the word of the day. Yeah, all right, yeah, that’s that’s kind of all I had about retracts. If you guys have questions, as always, email us: Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at

[00:48:39] rcplanelab.com. Speaking of email us, we do have a couple emails I want to read. Nice, we can get into it, okay. So the first message is from dean. He says: hi guys, another happy listener from down under.

[00:48:53] West australia. Why are you shaking your head? I’m sorry. Okay, what’s wrong with that? Nothing, go ahead.

[00:49:00] I love, love the australian accent. Like I can’t do it, obviously, but oh my god, like talking to somebody with that accent I don’t care what you’re saying, I can just listen to you like all afternoon. Yeah, I, I absolutely just yeah. So anyway, sorry, dean, didn’t mean to offend you if I did so. It says: hi guys, another happy listener from down under west australia, just listen to your podcast on storing.

[00:49:27] Planes what you can. Cut my laughs out. You can just keep going. Sorry, okay, super sky bolt.

[00:49:41] I’m leaving that in. Just listen to your podcast on storing planes. I might have missed it. Hold on, you got me all messed up. Just listen to your podcast on storing planes. I might have missed it. But storing fueled powered airplanes, hanging them by the tail, is the best to reduce the oils shaping through the fuselage. Gravity can be your friend. Keep up the good work, dean. What do you think?

[00:50:03] About hanging airplanes from the tail. I personally don’t like it and I understand that there’s a time or a place where that might be necessary and depending on how you accomplish that, more often than not the way I’ve seen it done is somebody ties a rope around the tail, ties it, hangs it on a hook on the side of the wall and that’s it. There’s certainly more secure ways to do that, but I don’t like doing it that way because- number one- you’re putting a lot.

[00:50:33] Of strain on the, on the empennage or the horizontal stabilizer over time. I don’t like what that could potentially do to an airplane- pull it out of alignment or put rope marks in the leading edge of the thing. I’ve done that myself. I’m guilty, yeah. So that’s reason number one. I don’t like to hang them from the tail or hang them nose down. I suppose you could probably figure out a way to hang them from the gear nose down, but you’d still have to figure out a way to.

[00:51:08] Keep the tail against the wall. Yeah, I just I don’t particularly care for putting undue stress on the airframe. And number two: yeah, gravity is your friend and it does pull all the fuel and all the gunk and stuff out of the fuselage, which is fine, but it also pulls that, that any residual fuel and oil that’s in the in the crate case, and it makes and it gets it to collect on that front bearing of the motor. And I’m not confident that I get all of the fuel out of my engine. I mean I do.

[00:51:41] The best I can and I put after run oil in it, which should be enough, but oil tends to, especially if it’s going to sit for a long time. It tends to get gummy and varnishy. If that’s a word varnishy, it works. I know what you meant. You knew what I meant. So I don’t want that sitting on my front bearing potentially causing corrosion or certainly making it sticky for the difficult to turn for the next start. And the last thing I want to happen is the is the crankshaft to spin inside the bearing. That’s bad. That’s the same thing as a spun bearing, if you’re familiar with.

[00:52:14] What the term means a spun bearing is essentially running a, a crankshaft dry inside a bearing and then the bearings show almost like you’re running it in a bushing, exactly. But in this case you’re taking the crankshaft kind of welds itself to the bearing and then now you’re spinning the bearing inside the bore, which causes damage to the bore, and now you’ve messed up the whole crankcase. What I’m saying, I got you now, yeah, so I don’t particularly want that to happen to any of my engines, so I prefer the, the gunk, if you will, for lack of a.

[00:52:47] Better word. I would prefer that to collect in the bottom of the crankcase, where it’s designed to collect away, away from my bearings. Okay, so that’s I mean. But I certainly understand, maybe space, maybe you have a limited amount of space and that’s the only way you can do it, but I still kind of prefer to store them as level or as horizontal as possible off the gear.

[00:53:11] Or off the wheels, rather okay. Well, dean, thanks for reaching out. If you don’t like Tom’s answer, his email is Tom at rcplanelab.com. Reach out and tell him he’s wrong, because, yes, I enjoy emails like.

[00:53:23] That too. I am always up for being proven wrong, and I am proven wrong frequently so, and I accept it graciously.

[00:53:31] Very nicely put. So let’s let’s move on to a message from fred: hello, fred says hello. I have a dx6I transmitter and looking to upgrade. I want to stay with spectrum. Any suggestions? Thanks, so I let

[00:53:48] Him know: yeah, just go out and buy an ix20 and call a good. That’s not what I tell, I’m just teasing.

[00:53:54] No, so I, I have a, an old school dx8 is what I fly with. I also have one, yeah, but you’ve upgraded, but anyway, so that one does plenty for me for now. I think it holds 30 models in memory. It has eight.

[00:54:08] Channels and I, and it has room for more with an sd card, but I don’t know if the 6I does that. It might.

[00:54:15] I don’t know if it. I don’t think so. I don’t remember what. I don’t remember what six I have, but it doesn’t have an sd card slot. Okay, and it’s an older six, but anyway, on the six that I have you can only store 10 models and that’s it. However, yeah, you cannot like on the dx8, and this is the old one. Well, this is first generation. I’m sure the new ones are a lot better than this, but the ones that you store on that card you can’t access directly off the card. What do you mean? So you have to load them on to the transmitter first. Yes, right, so you can’t just have like a thousand models on that.

[00:54:50] Card and go through all thousand and get to them. You have to load it into a slot right on the 30.

[00:54:56] And then use it right. But the workaround for that is you leave one slot on your dx8 empty, right, and then you plug in your card and then, whichever one you want to fly off that card, you load it into that.

[00:55:07] Empty slot and off you go. But that’s kind of off topic, because if you’re going with a newer, a newer spectrum transmitter, I’m pretty sure they’re past all that. Oh yeah, so you fly with an ix12. I have

[00:55:22] An ix12 and the only reason I upgraded was because I got a smoking hot deal. You don’t have to justify.

[00:55:27] Yourself, it’s okay. I mean, otherwise I would still be flying with the exact same radio you have. Yeah, the.

[00:55:33] And to be honest, I mean, aside from the limitation of the number of channels, it, that radio, did everything.

[00:55:41] I wanted it to do, yeah, and everything I needed. There are times and you would think eight channels is enough, but there are times where it would be nice to have more yep. Well, I like many times yeah.

[00:55:51] I like to run. I like to run on bigger airplanes. I like to run dual servos: one servo for each control surface if I can, and on a biplane or two sometimes. Sometimes if, yeah, if it’s a really big.

[00:56:04] Airplane, which I don’t own a really big airplane like you do. Does your I’m? I wasn’t going for that, but does your like your yak and stuff? It’s not two, oh, it’s just one, one per surface. I didn’t know that.

[00:56:14] They’re 87, 11s, but, yeah, one per surface. Yeah, okay, yep, but on a biplane, on a big biplane- well, even on a smaller biplane like my, my reactor has one servo on each aileron, one servo on each elevator- half, yeah- and then it has a servo on the rudder. So there’s seven servos right there, and I like those to be plugged into separate channels so that I can mix them accordingly. And the nice thing about the dx8 and the dx6I might also do this: you can tell it what type of airframe you’re flying when you do the programming. Yeah, and it’ll have everything all set up for you. I don’t have to do any mixing, I don’t.

[00:56:49] Think my six would do that. Oh no, I don’t think so. Well, certainly it does flapper on. Yeah, you can.

[00:56:55] So you can plug in your sit your aileron servos separately, right, but I don’t think there was a lot of.

[00:56:59] There wasn’t a lot with that one that I remember. So I’ve had a four, a five, a six and an eight. Okay, the four came with the first airplane I had and it was garbage. Like as soon as I got it- and you said something about the range on that one- yeah, so as soon as I got on, flew a couple times like I would lose range, like you would just lose control of the airplane for a few seconds. Yeah, a couple seconds even. That’s not good, but enough to where I. It did not give me, though, the warm fuzzies about knowing I could actually control this thing. So then I upgraded to a five, which

[00:57:33] Whatever that would do one model. It didn’t have any of the computerized stuff on it. Then I got the six. Six did well for quite a while but then you were limited on really on the amount of things you could do with it. And I looked like, after I got this email from him, the dx8s are cheaper now than when I bought him. Yeah, by like 50 bucks. Yeah, I think they’re 329 now and I think I paid 379. I’m pretty sure that’s what I paid for my dx8 also, although that’s been what six seven years ago.

[00:58:04] Something like that, maybe more, but yeah, yeah, so any, I mean really any of the new spectrum radios that you would go with. If you’re wanting to stick with spectrum are going to do fine. You just kind of have to look into what you’re wanting out of it, how many channels you want, how many models you want to.

[00:58:21] Store and that’s, and certainly how much you want to spend. Well, right, do they still make the seven a dx7? Because it was a seven? Yeah, there was. Yeah, there was a seven, there’s a nine, there was a 7s, which was a good radio, which is that which was, I think, programming wise, almost identical to a dx old dx8. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, it was just missing one of the channels. Yeah, but anyway, a dx6I I. I think we’ll do all the basics and I’m pretty sure it does flapper on. It’s been a while I don’t.

[00:58:53] Remember. But yeah, you’re, you’re kind of limited by the, the number of models you can store, because I mean, let’s, let’s be honest, 10 models sounds like a lot, sounds like a lot, but it’s not. But it’s really not. So let’s say, you, you build a few foamies, you pick up a bind and fly a couple of ultra micro bind and flies, and you and you build an airplane and the next thing you’re like: oh, I gotta delete one of these profiles so I can load up the new one, and- and that’s not fun, or I gotta buy another transmitter so I’ve got more memory, or whatever.

[00:59:28] We’ll just: yeah, 10 is not a big number. No, it’s like I said, you’re right, especially if you get really, really into it like Ron. Whatever I’m, I don’t have the new transmitter- that I can just say.

[00:59:41] I want to fly this plane. And it says, yes, Tom, let me get this ready for you. What’s really?

[00:59:46] Cool about the transmitter I have. I can whip out my phone and show my transmitter a picture of the airplane I want to fly and it will bring up that profile for me and I’ll just go fly it. You’re lying, I know I’m lying, but it is pretty slick. I believed you for a second and, like I said, the only reason I have it is because I got a good deal. Would you stop, otherwise I would still be.

[01:00:05] Fine, it’s okay. Money bags, I get it. Okay, I mean all right, yeah, anyway. So yeah, anything really that spectra makes, I think, as long as it fits the needs that you have exactly will do well for you.

[01:00:20] Yep, looking. But looking into the future, 10 model memories is you’re probably going to outgrow that.

[01:00:26] Before you outgrow the programming, wouldn’t you say? I would think so. But if he’s wanting to go away from a six and go up something else, anything new is going to be absolutely above 10. Yep, oh, yeah, for sure, right? Yep, that’s my point. Oh, I got you. Okay, just make sure you match. Match how many channels you think you’re going to need and then check the model memory. But, and like we said, spectra makes.

[01:00:46] Good stuff. Yeah, like we said before, spend as much as you can and then add some so you don’t have to do it again later, right? But I mean spend, spend what you can and get what you need.

[01:01:00] Actually I don’t know if that’s a good or good advice anyway, because, like the dx8 that I bought at that time, there wasn’t- like there’s no way I could afford or have paid whatever was next, like the nine, I think, or maybe what else would have been out at that time, because it jumped, I think, right after the eight or the eight. Wasn’t there like a 10. I don’t think there was a nine out at that time. Well, there was a dx18 between that’s okay, that’s it between. Yeah, that’s the one I’m thinking of. That was.

[01:01:31] Out, I think at the same time as the eight when I was looking at it, and I think there’s a dx12 now.

[01:01:35] I think it’s been so long since I’ve looked at right. Isn’t that terrible, yeah, but anyway, yeah, I, I follow what you’re saying. The next step was huge and like, even now, going from like.

[01:01:48] What if you were going to buy a new dx8 to an ix12 like you have? Yeah, I mean, it’s another 350 on top of the dx8 or more, so it’s about twice the price, yeah, but really, if you can swing it, all the extra stuff that comes with it, I think it’s probably worth it. I, I mean, truth be told, I, I will admit.

[01:02:09] That the ix12 is a little bit more than I was prepared for, programming wise, because it’s it’s android based, right? So the menus are very similar, familiar to me with my android phone, so that part of it was good, but the amount of programming you can do with this thing is it’s off the charts. I mean, it took me a while really to sort of get used to it. Well, you can.

[01:02:38] Watch youtube on it, can’t you absolutely? Yeah, I mean that’s, that’s so weird on the actual screen. On the screen I can bring up youtube. The other thing that got me: you don’t like you turn on your transmitter for the day this took on getting used to. Yeah, you don’t turn it off when you’re done.

[01:02:53] Flying nope, like that’s you, just so backwards. You just put it to rest, just like your phone, yeah. And then when you’re ready to fly, you wake it up and you’re ready to go and you just yell at.

[01:03:03] It right. You’re like, hey, wake up, wake up, yeah, ready to fly, ready to fly, yep. And it says: oh, thank you, Tom, you woke me from my nap. What would you like to fly today, exactly? And then I show it the picture.

[01:03:13] Here, here, I want to fly this plane. And then you say yeah, and then while I’m flying, if I want three clicks of right aileron trim, I just say, hey, give me three clicks on right aileron trim.

[01:03:25] And it just does it. No, it doesn’t. Does it really? No, it doesn’t. Okay, see, I fall for some of those things and some I don’t like. That one would be cool if you could do that. That would be awesome. Except then you’re gonna have somebody like me just yelling over your shoulder exactly four clicks right. Trim no crap. Nose down into the ground. Oh shoot, yeah. No, it doesn’t, it’s not, it’s not.

[01:03:46] Voice commanded, but it does. It does give you voice prompts. If you want, like I can, I can program it in my own voice to prompt for whatever like, if like. If I have a timer set and I want an alarm at one minute to go, I can record myself saying: hey, ding dong, you got a minute left. Please let me do that for.

[01:04:03] You and it will play that back for me. Please, oh, please, let me record. No, it doesn’t do that. I’m just, oh, it doesn’t gosh. You’re so easy, I’m so gullible on this. It doesn’t. I thought it did. I don’t think so.

[01:04:15] Oh, if it does? I haven’t figured it out yet, but I will look into that though. Now, I mean, what if it does do that? That’d be awesome, you’re? You disappoint me. It does have different voices, though. Like you, can it? Like it, it does have the voice prompts, like it does. I don’t know if I can believe you anymore. I’m telling the truth now. It does have voice prompts like timer, five minutes or whatever, but- and I think you can change the voice, like to female or male or whatever. But yeah, I don’t think I can record my own, which would be awesome. Spectrum horizon if you’re listening.

[01:04:49] You should definitely put that on there, if it’s not already. Yeah, maybe the ix20 does that well. It’s time for you to upgrade. Yeah, I definitely cannot afford the ix20.

[01:05:00] What is that? 1200 Bucks? Oh gosh, I don’t know. I mean, I think they’re it’s well over a thousand.

[01:05:04] Yeah, I don’t know. Anyway, okay, moving on, we need to do not. Moving on, we need to diversify, like I’ll keep all my spectrum stuff and you need to upgrade to, like Futaba or something, so we will have the experience of each brand and we’d be able to talk about them. That’s really all we know. That really is.

[01:05:23] A good idea, right, because all we know really is spectrum. Let me know what you buy and I’ll just take all your old radio gear right, right, right, okay. No, honestly, like I have thought about, like I know what is it? Turnagy, or hobby king or all those different places, makes fr sky and there’s, yeah, there’s a bunch of other ones. I really don’t know anything about them, except that they’re very inexpensive, yeah, but you can get like decent transmitters for very inexpensive. Maybe, maybe you’re right, maybe we should try something and just see, see what we think, because well, there you.

[01:05:57] Go, we are. We are kind of ignorant when it comes to anything other than spectrum, I would fully admit.

[01:06:02] That, yeah, I admit it too. So like I know old Futaba stuff, but any of their fast, their dsm or whatever their version of it is called, I have zero experience with it. Okay, now can we move on? Yes, I’m sorry.

[01:06:19] Last, moving on, I think right last, yeah, last, message. This is from leroy, and leroy says: I listen to your podcast, episode 30. I heard what you said about the faa number. The site asks for specific planes and with each you get a new number and pay an additional five dollars. I have paid for three. The first was a few years ago, was renewed without me doing anything, so I responded to leroy. We had a little conversation back and forth, so this is kind of important to know when you go in to register.

[01:06:51] Your airplanes, your drones, whatever you want to call them, with the faa. There are two options. Option one is part 107, and then the other option is you can register, or you can register it under the exception for recreational flyers. When you do the registration for recreational flyers, which is what I have done, it’s five dollars for one number. That covers all of your airplanes, right? So I don’t deal at all with any of the part 107 stuff. Now, from what I understand, the 107 is if you’re making money right doing.

[01:07:25] Anything commercial. That’s when you need to register under the part 107. And with that, if I remember right, there’s a training, you have to go through tests, you have to take proficiencies, you have to go through right, which does not apply to the recreational. That’s my understanding as well. Right? So we, we kind of talked back and forth a little bit. He did, unfortunately, register incorrectly under the 107 as opposed to the other, so now he’s going to switch over and register his, his last one under this, the recreational flyers thing. It’s important to know you don’t have to register each and every.

[01:07:58] Drone under the recreational flyers thing. So when you register and go for your number, just make sure you’re under that correct registration, the exemption thing, and then and then you’ll be fine.

[01:08:10] And that’s, and that’s like you said. That’s one number assigned to you to put on you all of your airplanes- yes, every single one of them, and it’s a one-time fee, every three years. It’s supposed to be.

[01:08:22] Every three years. But once again, I, I, I was renewed automatically without being charged. So, yeah, and that might just be because they don’t have everything figured out for what they’re going to be doing to us next, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. So, yeah, all right. Anything else you want to?

[01:08:39] Talk about today. No, I think that I think that about. Does it for me, okay, everybody, thanks for listening.

[01:08:45] Make sure you go to the website and fill out our survey. We got a lot of responses this last week, but we still want more, so if you fill it out, thank you very much. If you haven’t, shame on you, go do it.

[01:08:57] Now- and yes, let us shame you into taking our survey, whatever has to be done. Hey, if you guys want more content, it comes from you. I mean, really, there you go. Well, yeah, I mean, you’re right, a lot of the stuff we talk about are our listener suggestions, so in a way, you’re helping yourselves- good way to look at it. Anyway, yeah, we’ll try to. I’ll try to get Ron to take a picture of this retract so you can kind of see what we were talking about. Okay, on the put it on the show notes on the website. I’m the only.

[01:09:32] One that can do that. So I will do that everybody. Good night, thank you everyone. See you, hope you.

[01:09:38] 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. You can also be gentle, you.