New Years fly in with Cox TD-1

Today in Philly we had a very nice get together. To my surprise some of the old heads made it out into the cold. It was cold not windy but cold. We've had less people show on nice weather days. My fellow club member Dan Banjock flew his TD-1 today. After a 33 year state of dormancy the TD-1 lifted off. Dan paid $1 for this beauty at a swap meet . Over the past 33 years he's managed to find the needed parts to make it airworthy. Dan made the gear for the TD-1 and also the aluminum elevator.  My son Shawn launced for him and it was just a really cool thing to witness. The Space Bug was singing away on this chilly day and off it went. First flight resulted in a near crash due to the tail heavy plane. I wonder how many never returned to fly again. We taped 1/2oz inside the cowling and off it went. Dan amazingly stunted the TD-1 in a series of loops. He also had with him his recently restored Rivets. Although Rivets didn't fly today it will soon.

I had recently finished a .15 powered F2D plane which Shawn is holding. Power is  a Billygoat.15. A bit on the outdated side but fun nonetheless. This is a 400 sq of my own design. It flew remarkably well for the first flight not showing any signs of funny business. I hope to get some combat action with it in the months to come. I was able to shave 3 oz's off of this version compared to my last build using the same wing cores. I think I can even do better without sacrificing strength. Dennis Moritz the Philly Fliers club president is holding his Brodak Galaxy and his Foxberg Shoestring with wings that were just covered after a mild mishap. Flying today however was most problematic. I will say from the forum I heard of placing yarn around the cylinder head. The Russian engines have a tough time holding in the needed heat in this cold and I truly believe the yarn was working for me.

My 1/2A's on bladder just wouldn't work regardless of engine type. The fuel was becoming too viscous and the bladders were delivering funky pressure which caused rich runs initially and going overlean midflight. I had switched to all synthetic fuel which did help but I couldn't launch the bird rich enough. No matter what, the engine would go overlean after 15-20 laps. It was just too cold and my engines are not tuned for this weather. Ken