I know with the winter season here and the wind blowing hard often somebody is putting together a project on the days they cant fly. I was just wondering is anyone scratch building any new planes. I have got several plans and i dont know which one i am going to start. but here in the next few days i am going to get it started :dance:

Nothing yet, but I need to pick up something like a Cub to work on. Frits told me just yesterday if I built a Cub he'd build one too. I'll let y'all know when I start.

Whoah, Mike! I don't recal ever saying I'd build a Cub. A CUB? Those are for OLD people on medication! :rolleyes:

I must have said Shrike :crying: or perhaps even Tiger Shark ('cause I like that new plane of yours!)

NOT Cub.... <_<

yeah i can just picture fritz flying a slow bus at the field :hyper: he would be in the old tymer club with walker and oxygen on hand

I have a written and binding contract with Henry Waltman that says he is to provide me with at least two No-Doze tablets before I agree to fly his Cub... :D

Be sure you get to fly it before its Al's turn!!!!!

i can just picture fritz putting the remote down and going to get a coke eating a hot dog and meandering back to make a down wind turn as his students sing " the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round" :hysterical: . But as i know the flying dutchman he is probably trying to get some more speed out of that pylon racer.

Pylon Racer??????????????????????????

No need for a Pylon Racer :no:

There ain't no Pylon Racing to need a Pylon Racer for :no:

Ditto Don !!! "Show me the racing" and I'll get me one. :yes:

Come to think about it I havent seen any pylon races i have seen the guys every now and then tuning their planes but no actual races i guess they gave up on those ideas. I just got a kit from hobbytown and have started putting it together so i would say by the new year I will have a rv-4 (If my wife doesnt put an end to my my free time you all know how women hate to see us men with free time on or hands or doing something we want to do!)

Nice choice, I love the looks of those RV-4s. My grandfather had a homebuilt called a Thorp T-18 that people used to confuse for an RV-4 pretty often, but it had several differences. Unfortunately there are no kits or good plans for that one. I bought some plans and a construction article, but it's not quite as scale as I was looking for. Maybe one day I'll get into it and come up with something on my own.

I'm actually considering this for a winter project:



89" span, would take a G-38 or some other 35-40cc gas engine pretty well, easy build. I've been wanting to add a gasser to the hanger, I think this would be a cool first addition.

Might not be the best kit out there, but the reviews are good, and at about $150 it's hard to go wrong.* I know Frits will hate it, but that's okay. B)



*Then the fabric alone to cover it would be another $100, plus 5 high torque servos, and so on and so forth. :lol:

Well I have found out that there is no cheap way to get a plane unless someone is getting out of the hobby. When you look at the overall cost of getting a new plane the cost is great and then add more money to it but we all have to have something to spend money on or it would get boaring quick

First I thought: Mike, you are getting old at an alarmingly exponential rate! :D

But then, I went and Googled that T-18 Thorp, and I am almost mildly impressed. :rolleyes:

The T-18 is a two-place, all-metal homebuilt aircraft designed in 1963 by John Thorp. Intended to be easily constructed from sheets of aluminum, the T-18 is both durable and capable of high performance, cruising at up to 180 mph.

The T-18 was the first homebuilt to make use of a stabilator or "flying tail", an invention of John Thorp used on most low-wing Piper aircraft, beginning with the Cherokee. Notable aircraft of this type include N455DT, built by Donald Taylor of California and flown around the world from Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1976, the first successful circumnavigation of the world by a homebuilt aircraft. Clive Canning flew another T-18 from Australia to England earlier the same year.

Here's my suggestion, Mike: Strap a rocket motor under that thing and make it really go... :yickes:

Oh yeah, that was a sweet ride. When I'd fly with him every now and then he would get his airspeed up using the full length of the runway, shoot up to about 1000', do a wingover and pull back under for a nice 200 mph pass back down the airstrip. That always gave me chills. :D

I figure something like that Decathlon can still fly like a Cub, but will also have room for a few tricks here and there as well. You know how I love those Cubs. :thumbup:

Me too... :rolleyes:

construction on the rv-4 is coming along well but dem darn blag instructions are killing me :pirate: . I have had to buy a whole lot of stuff i needed to build this plane. I see why the invention of arf's made the sport better. I thought i had everything i needed but i needed some smaller tools and some razors and i know rob is loving me at hobbytown. Does anyone or has anyone heard of a rewards program that hobbytown was going to start I know that they need to put that into motion quick :paci:

construction is almost complete on the rv-4 project it has been harder than i thought and the plastic wing tips have given me the blues so i am going to have to use some light weight filler to make them come out right and the cowl is a whole nother story :spin: a two piece plastic cowl that has to be cut out and formed !YiKES! but here are a coulple of pics

Looking good! I never have been a fan of plastic wingtips, to me it'd be worth the trouble to cut some from balsa blocks. How long til you think it'll be ready to go?


I really need to order up and start my winter project.

I am not a fan either of those plastic wing tips and i may end up carving some wing tip out of balsa also I have hear a lot of bad things about those types of tips. first, they are hard to cover and second they tend to warp so i am seriously considering doing the carving thing. I figure it will take me about two weeks with my schedule . the tail feathers are complete the fuse needs to have a little more sheeting and the hard thing will be the wingtips then all i need to do is cover and paint the thing but i havent come up with a trim scheme as of yet i am leaning toward purple gold and red but i'd better get the tank in and the push rod tubes in as well. I have a good question i need to ask that is the cowl and fueling the plane. i know i can run a third line to feul but what about the exaust vent( the run over that lets you know when it is full)can you have a separate lin or any tips on how to work that

I know there are other ways via T-fittings and things like that, but with my Ultimate I have a fueler valve to fill the tank through and I can see the vent tube by looking through the cutout for the cylinder head. So I just watch that tube while I'm fueling it up until I see the excess start running through it. Some people will just run the pump until fuel starts dripping out of the bottom of the muffler. That works for them, this works for me.

A Decathalon is "NOT" a Cub. The Super Decathalon will do every aerobatic maneuver in the book. A good pilot can wring one of those planes out and look great doing it. It looks awesome with smoke.

Well i apperciate that bit of info. Between classes i sheeted the rest of the fuse and ran the tubes for my controls butthe tanks is going to be tricky. I think the tanks i have are going to be too big to fit in the opening and on top of that the instructions wants me to mount the battery and the reciver under the feul tank and tha whats holds the rear of the tank i dunno if tha is a good way to put my radio equipment if i spring a leak then my reciever and battery will be soaked in feul so i am going to have to figure out a new way to fix that. then i will be on my way but by rearranging it i may have a new cg what do you think?

oh yeah i forgot i got in my ducted fan jet and i am going to start tha one as soon as i finish the rv-4. How is your project going?

I didn't mean to insinuate that it was, just that it looks big and slow like a Cub, but I know it very much isn't. I was already thinking about smoke as well. I need to go talk to Andy about ordering this thing so I can get started on this project. :thumbup:

3:02 update: ordered. B)

I need to have a 60-90 sized airrplane in my hanger or a 25cc gasser. I would love to have a plane with some smoke. but before i can do that i need tro buy a trailer or a van to haul those big planes around. I would like to have an unlimited scale plane one of those they race in the nrcaa. I am going to the coast this weekend and if i win enough :hmm: I might get me one but it will have to be an arf my planes are already getting a bad case of hangar rash :banghead: but good luck and keep us posted.

oh well i am done with all of the construction. No more glued fingers :D now for the dreadful part! covering the thing. this will be interesting so wish me luck

Good Luck and I know you will do a masterfull job. :yes:

My winter project is to replace the regular fuel tubeing on my chopper with some new neon colored stuff. What colors do yall recomend. :unsure:

Burpel :P

PINK :hysterical: :hysterical:

What's wrong with pink, Tony... :angry:

Pink is good Frits. :wub:

Alvin,

I told you about what women think about pink..... listen to Tony!!! :)

Amber

Pink is a mice color if you put some butterflies and flowers on the cowl :roflmao:

Get back on topic! :angry:

I began construction of the Decathlon last night. Fin and rudder have been framed up. Will be working on the horizontal stab and elevators this evening.

I have never seen a pink Mouse, with or without butterflys and flowers on his cowl. Come to think of it I never saw a mouse with a cowel!

ok ok ok you caught my typo but i think al's is man enough to paint some pretty flowers on his bird or attact a lot of female attention and compliments. B) But back to the topic, I have started covering the rv-4 and it is coming along fine i had to putty and sand the devil out of it to get the dinks out of it but it should be ready by the end of the week.

Well i got the entire thing covered time to run to htown and get aome more servos and i will be finished. Mike where have ya disappeared to post some pic of the project for us to see B)

It's coming along, bit by bit. Thinking about investing in a bandsaw tomorrow or early next week to cut down on annoying carving sections during this and future builds. Still thinking it over though. Also need to make a final decision on an engine and get it ordered, I'll need it as soon as I finish the wing to start building up the fuselage.

Here's the progress as it stands right now.

Something tells me this one won't fit in the Miata when it's finished.




Billy, how is the Zero coming along?

Looking very good mike I knew you had it in ya. Nope dont think that it will fit in the Miata but I am quite sure that they will take it in trade for a cargo van :lol: I am have a hard time deciding on a trim scheme and i thought that two rolls of Monokote would be enough :( !not! I am going to have to get some more to finish covering this thing along with 3 more servos and a reciever. I had to use some lightweight filler to fix those plastic wing tips and i will probably have to inves in some lead from the fishing tackle box to correct the balance of this model. but what colors are you contemplating the standard yellow and white or will you go with a custom scheme?

I haven't really come to a decision yet. I have about 100 pictures of 20 or so different Decathlons on my PC at work that I've been browsing through trying to pick something. Currently I'm thinking either yellow and white like the Dynaflite box photo, black and white (replacing the yellow with black), or green and white. Whatever it is I'm sure it'll be the standard Decathlon stars and stripes theme.