SMALLnet post428

JW's comment about what model competition does was very well done. Since rules are always made to accommodate losers, and there are no losers in the SMALL movement, we have no use for competition -- because that would require rules, and we have no one to write them. Q.E.D. Randy

I strongly agree that turning a recreational pastime into competition RUINS it for all but the few. Witness Bass fishing, R/C combat, whatever. Rules, hurt feelings, cost...

Regarding the MDS engines, I know no one with experience using the .18, but originally high praises from several acquaintances who purchased the larger sizes have turned to disgust after bent rods, seized wrist pins, air leaks, on and on. Usually they run great for about 20 flights out of the box, then go South.

Even a guy who was a "dealer" of these engines doesn't talk about them much any more. Seems the reliability is pretty horrible as I know no one with the larger ones who are still flying with them.

...Curt, that sounds to me like a result of the recent trend to marginal oil content on glow fuel. The model fuel business is the most competitive area in the hobby industry, with the lowest profit margin. Fuel makers can most easily cut costs by skimping on oil -- especially castor. And they DO JUST THAT.

I make it a rule to add 4 to 5 fluid ounces of castor oil to each quart of "commercial glow fuel" I use. Yes, that makes for messy airplanes -- and also for engines that last forever.

Inasmuch as paper towels are inexpensive and good-running model engines are NOT, I'll continue using my extra-oily fuel.

As I've stated in my Model Aviation column more than once: Castor oil does MUCH MORE inside a model engine than merely keeping the moving parts slippery. [JW]

I was recently given an ASP .12 engine. My question is this: why do engine makers seem to want to make it hard to set up the throttle so that it will close all the way? Full open on this engine is with the little arm for the cable right straight down, so that it is parallel to the carb -- lots of servo travel left.

Full off is straight back towards the tail -- farther than a standard servo can pull. I admit that I am a rookie with model engines, but the same problem occurred with my O.S. 10.

On the ASP I can't see a way to adjust the arm so that more of the servo travel will be useful. The instructions don't mention it, except to say, "Don't adjust the idle screw" -- (too late; the guy that gave the ASP to me admitted that he messed with it and never could get it right again.)

Any ideas out there? And by the way, has anyone owned one of these ASP .12s ? Thanks for your help, Mark

I loved the picture of Steve Morris's beautiful Jetco Thermic 50. It reminds me of a Dynaflite Skeeter I once built with PeeWee power. My Skeeter weighed 12 ounces ready to fly (I'm sure that's a lot more than Steve's Thermic 50!) -- yet it flew quite nicely with the .020. I've found the APC 5.7x3 really helps the PeeWee lug around big airplanes.

Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone knows where I could find a piston/ball joint reset tool for the PeeWee .020.

...Bill, the best source I know for Brown CO2 repairs and parts is my friend Otto Kuhni, 13253 Valley Heart Drive, Sherman Oaks, California 91423 --- (818) 788-4282. [JW]

The Mission Wings Model Flying Club has just finished hosting its second SMALL fly-in. We had 2 days of beautiful weather with about 30 guests, 10 flyers, and plenty of planes.

Does anyone have pictures of the Fairey-Tipsy Junior they can email me? I am building a 26" span model for electrics. The plan is a blowup of a KielKraft plan, but I want to know if the fuselage deck (in the full-size airplane) was stringers, fabric-covered -- or solid plywood.

Have a Cox "Spook" 1/2A U-Control plane from the 1950's. Does anyone remember this plane? Does it have any collector value? Where can I get information about this kit, as I have lost all the instructions etc. ?

...I remember the Spook all right! It was so-called because its transparent wing covering made it rather ghostly-looking in flight. Cox had issued two previous ready-to-fly control-line planes; the first (called TD-1) around Christmastime 1953. It had hollow, symmetrical-airfoiled wings formed from thin sheet aluminum, which couldn't take much in the way of punishment.

A few months later the TD-1 was replaced by the TD-3 -- a similar-sized control-liner but with a formed-from-plastic wing.

It flew OK, I suppose, but was really too heavy for the reed-valve .049 on its nose. (That was the first Cox engine with a molded plastic fuel tank: the Space Bug Junior. It cost $3.95 retail: Roy sold that engine wholesale for $1.78 apiece...)

(The TD-3, complete with engine, cost $11.95.)

At that time -- Fall of 1954 -- I was taking over the management of Kenhi Model Products; and even though the new Kenhi factory in Anaheim was only about 20 miles from Roy Cox's place, I was too busy to keep in close touch with Roy any more. But I did get to see prototypes of the Spook in action in 1955. Mighty impressive -- but I just didn't feel right about accepting a prototype "kit" from Roy to evaluate.

Therefore I can't provide any "technical data" on that model. Probably Dale Kirn can -- if he's lurking on this forum... [JW]

Dereck Woodward < > starts off by quoting from the previous Posting: "SMALL is utterly non- competitive, and will remain so as long as Randy and I can keep it that way. That's why SMALLnet rarely posts notices about competition events.

"Yes, some SMALLsters DO fly in contests. But the whole idea behind SMALL-style model flying is just having FUN. Who needs a trophy, anyway??? [JW]"

Ah-People to that (Amen having been declared non-politically correct due to implied gender bias by the PC Police :-^)

Peter Miller (SMA None-Member 000000001) started the Small Model Association as an "April" Fool thing in his column in RCMW. I hopped on it (as Non-Member 000000002) and pushed it some more with the old Argus House gang, to the point where a Small Model Association Day replaced the Large Model Day in the Old Warden Calendar -- not a bad trick for an "Association" that didn't actually exist.

Ever since, and before that for SMALL, the 'rules' (not Randy's !) have been No Officialdom (unless it's a spoof, like non-membership) and No Comps. I agree entirely with George Aldrich's wisdom on how to ruin things; let's leave competition out of SMA / SMALL non-business!

Chuck Swiger mentions working on the old .010 Cox TD-powered "Littlest Stick", originally published in RCM around 1975.

We had an outbreak of the Littlest Stick in England, just before I left in 1994. Durn things were all over the SMA scene. I used to take mine down to my local club and terrify folk who couldn't figure out how a model did two or three loops or rolls while being devoid of a normal complement of controls.

Ours all came off a fuzzy plan that I suspect originated in the original "plastic bagged" ACE R/C kit -- or maybe the RCM kit. I'm guessing that it had the shorter wing -- 18" strikes a chord.

Mine had a PeeWee .020 up front, a 250-ish nicad, 27 meg car radio with a Hitec "Shredder" Rx and a single Futaba 133 'micro servo'. No switch -- we all went out to the flightline, plugged the nicad into the Rx, slapped the wing on, and went into a frenzy of "start, launch, hang on, and fly; land when it went quiet; repeat". This would go on until someone demanded the peg, your nerve went, or you suspected your bitty little nicad was about to quit. Some of us cobbled up even smaller packs from dubious sources, as we didn't have the cells we take for granted now.

My PeeWee was an ancient swapshop escapee, but ran anyway -- usually on whatever I was burning in the .25 or .10 that day! Prop was black -- "flexible" was more of an asset than optimised pitch/diameter nonsense. TeeDee .010s mostly collected dust in collections around then in England, but they probably did much the same as my PeeWee version, but with a higher-pitched whine.

I haven't a clue as to weight, trim, or what it was covered in. No-one else seemed to either! But they were a trip to fly. Funnily enough, I blew the plan up to a guesstimate large scale version for a Baby Bee. Its brief life mostly involved looping into the ground behind me soon after launch -- it was no fun and soon got tossed out!

We didn't bother to use 'proportional' -- most were flown off the horizontal stick on a twin-stick "car" radio as I used, and we just slapped the stick to full deflection one way or t'other. To do otherwise would have incurred cries of derision from the "goofers gallery" at SMA meets anyway! While we might not have had judges, anyone heading for the line with a Littlest Stik was followed by a far more critical bunch.

Don't read too much into the model -- just go fly it! You can have a ball in ways the rest of "Regular R/C" can't begin to imagine.

If you ever get bored, there's always the glider version! Dubbed the "Hawker Headbutt", this adaptation of the L-S even ran to a pseudo-history of the (fictional) Hawker single-seat troop- carrying glider of WW2, designed to deliver a pilot-trained special ops trooper behind enemy lines! To get the full story, "Gray", author of the "Sports Channel" column in RCMW, is the world's leading historian on the "HeadButt" saga.

HeadButts have been hauled aloft atop all sizes of model in "piglet-back" operations. It was designed with a cradle release off the rudder servo, so it could let itself off the lifter model at the command of the glider pilot.

... Hey, that's only about 3 weeks away!!!!! [JW]

I would like to thank all who contributed to my question on the MDS .18: THANKS! I also want to thank all who helped in finding the O.S. mufflers.

Now I have yet another request for help. A while back, maybe a few years already, there was an article in one of the model magazines on how to make the Herr "Super Cub" floatplane fly off water better. I think it was in a Flying Models issue, but it could have been Model Aviation.

Does anyone know the magazine and issue the article appeared in? Has anyone ever enlarged the Herr Rubber kits for 1/2A -.10 size flying? I plan on building the Herr Super Cub stock size and use electric power, but I want to make a bigger one also and use glow power R/C. Thanks to all!

I have two Webra 1.8 cc R/C engines. They are great little powerhouses, but I have no muffler, or original tuned pipe or whatever Webra supplied with these engines. Anybody out there have any to sell, or know of a source? Webra has already said that nothing is now available from them. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks, Otto Loorents

Tonight I am forwarding a special request. Christina Del Gatto is Paul Del Gatto's youngest daughter. She is seeking information from those who knew her father personally, and also from those who knew her father's aeromodeling work.

I have been directed to your group in the hope that some of you might be familiar with my father's work. I am the youngest daughter of aeromodeller/designer Paul Del Gatto. My father was a talented draftsman who worked for numerous kit manufac- turers such as Jetco, Scientific, Berkeley, and American Telasco in the 1950-60's until his untimely death. He was also a frequent contributor to Flying Models, Air Trails, and other model airplane magazines.

Last summer I came across a few pictures, some people selling his plans, and a few on-line discussions about my father's designs. My effort to understand why interest in his work remains, nearly 40 years later, has subsequently turned into an attempt to learn about his contributions to aeromodelling, and to preserve them for the family and his fans.

I am trying to piece together my father's work history and locate any of his kits, plans, photos, correspondence, etc. If successful, I plan to make my findings accessible via a PDG website.

Are any of you familiar with my father's work and did any of you personally know him? If so, I would be greatly appreciate the opportunity to correspond with you via email, phone or snail mail.

SMALLnet Posting post428