New Mexico fun flying

Connecting rod. Lasted 61 yrs. Parts on the way to fix it though.

Sorry to hear about the Fox. Will a new piston and wrist pin fix it back like it was?
That was a good clown flight. I've lost track of your engines, which one is on that plane?
And what happened to the Bean, how hard did it hit? Not too bad I hope. Thanks for the videos.

Hey Rusty welcome back!!!

The strange thing is the bottom half of the connecting rod big end is gone. Like no longer inside the engine gone. Where did it go? I ditched it at the last minute as it was so windy and I didn't want to lose the plane. The engine was running right up until I hit the weeds

A new piston/liner set will fix it. The baffle chipped on the piston when the rod let go.

The Bean was a figure 9 casualty, was doing a consecutive loop. It lost altitude  really fast. I wonder if higher elevations have different air density as I can do consecutives all day on the Bean usually. Only broke the tail off.

Edit: That is a Medallion on the Clown. Beautiful running engine. That one totally changed my opinion on Medallions. However, I am thinking a TD is in store in the near future. More power= wind tolerance and in OK we have plenty of it.

Sorry to hear about Bean. Also, that was some really nice flying on the Baby Clown and I'm glad to hear you'll be able to repair your Fox .35  I had a Moki 2.10 burn up in flight. But it was my fault it burned up though.

Shawn

Thanks, went back out today. It was windy, too windy.......

Ron,

glad you found parts for the fox. yes, we have a lot of wind. Most of us fly in the mornings first thing before the winds come up. We can usually fly till about 11.00 am some Saturdays. I'm curious what prop you had on the Ringmaster. With the altitude we have here you need a less pitch prop. 10x5 or a 10x4. I personally use a 10x5 on my ringmaster. We are flying both Sat. and Sun. this weekend. To bad you can't come down. We actually have proper circles and also a grass soccer field that we fly combat planes on. I guess I wouldn't know how to handle flying at sea level. I've only flown up here in the high desert. When are you gonna fly the new clown???

Jim Hayes

Hey Jim,

Got some real nice flying in this evening, winds were 5-10 mph. I am using a 9.5x6 and it semed to pull it just fine. However, I was told to go higher so I may try a 10x6. When are you flying this weekend? I may be able to break away.

Ron

Ron, glad to see the Ringmaster is back in the air, switch to a 10 x 5 for the Ringmaster while your here in NM. I use to use a 9" prop, it wasn't as efficient here. You don't want a 10 x 6 pitch because of our altitude. We will be flying around nine o'clock both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's flying site will be Gibson elementary's soccer field off of Gibson by the Air Force base. One of our club members that is a good friend will be flying some combat planes. He's quite good and fun to watch. I do believe he is bring a full sized Voodoo. Sunday we will be flying out at Maloof field at our regular flying circles (aslphalt) on the west mesa. You can go the the New Mexico Coalition of Control Line Addicts website and get directions. They are both easy to find. I'm planning on bringing 3 planes ,both days, my S-1 Ringmaster, my S-2 Mustang, and I have a baby ringmaster with a BW on it. Let me know if you do decide to come and we can make some more arrangements. There should be 4 or 5 guy's flying this weekend. One club member is gonna maiden a electric he just finished. Tell George he is welcome also. Type at ya later.

Jim Hayes

Hey Ron,

the gentlemen that gave you that fox will be flying with us this weekend. His name is Bill Jacklin. type to ya later....

Jim

Hey Ron, looks like you landed in a hotbed of CL enthusiasts out there in the desert. Makes me itch to get practicing so I can stay on the learning curve, but it's been wall to wall rain here since vacation. Moisture from the gulf. I keep expecting to see mud minnows plopping on the ground every time I look outside.

Looks like it, going to have to take a 4 hr drive west to to meet Jim this weekend. It's worth it though as I learn a ton when I meet up with the big guns. Are you a memeber of BOTR? there is some video of us flying on there.

cribbs74 wrote:...Are you a memeber of BOTR? there is some video of us flying on there.

No but i saw you flying the Ring with the new Fox in a video posted by George over at Stuka. Looks like you're still working on getting the engine tuned to break 4-2. Different engine, new environment.

After settling on the right prop for my SS to get a nice Rich-Lean break, I had my LHS order some MA 9x5s. I went to pick them up yesterday and they're wooden. Even after I gave him the product #. Oh well, I'll try one and see. They look cool anyway, with yellow tips. I'm looking forward to the Fox on the Yak doing a traditional 4-2-4.

Tis' A sweet thing that 4-2. however, this thing is doing a rich -lean run like a Cox. That is what my Ringmaster is doing at this elevation. Everything works better at sea level apparently.

Wood Props seems to load the engine much less........my experience anyway, yellow tips might look cool

Ron

I made the mistake of adding to much castor to some Omega fuel that I planned on running in my foxes. If the oil content gets to high the engine won't 4-2 like it should. I now have a proper bottle of fox fuel and my fox powered ringmaster will needle like it should. I put the Omega away and will run it through my OS engines later. Lesson learned. The fuel is fine for a wet 2 stroke in a FP or a LA engine.

Jim Hayes

Ron, what length lines are you flying the baby clown on?

Jim

Jim,

35ft. You could easily go out further.

Ron

Jim, I think your Clown is lighter than my Streak. When I fly that one on 35' lines, I use an APC 6x2. It lets the engine properly scream, which keeps it from bogging in tight loops, but allows a manageable speed. Way too fast for a lesser pilot, but certainly within your ability. When I go to the big field I use an MA 5.25x3 on 45' lines.  Or if I fly on 40' I use an MA 5.5x3, but you still get a slight bog if you really punish the loops. Any of these combinations will stand on the end of the lines straight overhead and do multiple loops like there's no gravity.

RknRusty wrote:Jim, I think your Clown is lighter than my Streak. When I fly that one on 35' lines, I use an APC 6x2. It lets the engine properly scream, which keeps it from bogging in tight loops, but allows a manageable speed. Way too fast for a lesser pilot, but certainly within your ability. When I go to the big field I use an MA 5.25x3 on 45' lines.  Or if I fly on 40' I use an MA 5.5x3, but you still get a slight bog if you really punish the loops. Any of these combinations will stand on the end of the lines straight overhead and do multiple loops like there's no gravity.

Awesome, I was hoping to fly 45' lines, if not a little longer.

Jim

45ft shouldn't be a problem with a TD. You can always adjust from there. Mine gives superb tension with 35ft and a medallion with 1/4oz tip weight.

Hi Ron, I just received some pretty cool news. My friend Dan returned from the NATS last evening. He won 1st place flying old time stunt and this was done using the Fox .35. In addition, he placed 7th in classic. Dan's plane is a Galloping Comedian the entire plane being silkspan and dope and all the checkers were hand inked. http://www.gscb.us/019.JPG    which he scratch built. Dan spun the aluminum cowling and hand formed and welded the aluminum wheel pants. He flew a 7th place in Classic which wasn't an easy task. The Fox was on song for certain. The modern classic designs typically fly far superior to a unflapped old time model. Dan did a wonderful job and he certainly has some of the finest running Fox's I ever witnessed. Ken

 Ken,

Dan Banjock I presume? He did a great job on that model. Very impressive. Is that Fox modified? You should post this in the Fox bashing topic on Stuka Stunt.

Ron, you won't stop the Fox bashers. Most of those guys do know Dan and his Fox isn't quite stock. Dan is quite fanatical in terms of the fits. That Fox has a Randy Smith crank and Dan installed his own crank bearing. Somewhat of a funny story as one of our mutual friends was replacing the valve guides in his Ferrari. He gave the bronze guides to Dan in which he's fitted and bored the bushings into several of our Fox's. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. Dan makes his own stuffer backplates from Delrin with a o-ring groove so he has no gaskets to contend with. Dan has also made the crankshafts for his other Fox's that he flies. He's been working on a way to bush the lower end of the conrod. He just likes the Fox. His efforts have paid off and I'm really happy for him. Ken