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Speed,Combat,Scale,Racing => Combat => Topic started by: Steve Kientz on November 06, 2006, 05:34:02 AM
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Has anyone built the Demon releasedby blackhawk models?
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Maybe I can help. What do you want to know?
Larry
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Just looking for any updates or changes. The plane is my father's,retired combat flyer.Am thinking a .25 would be plenty of engine for sport flying.
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I am in the process of building and evaluating one right now for the New Products column of CLW mag.
I think that a good 25 will pull that plane just fine. The plans show a suction metal tank fuel system, but also show a bladder pressure system if the builder so desires.
I am going to set this one up for metal tank but use crank case pressure. I will probably make the tank so I can use EITHER open vent OR case pressure.
Bigiron
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I'll probably use a bladder since this was the setup my father used when he stopped flying competively. Will update when it's finished.
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Bladder is definitely simpler, lighter, and more trouble free tham crankcase pressure.
I may clone this one to permit trying bladder and a few other mods.
Bigiron
PS I had two quite long phone conversations with Riley Wooten on the subject of the Demon and diamond airfoils.
B
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My father remembers flying against Riley several times at the nats(late 50's early 60's?),he managed several cuts but it was like a cat toying with a mouse.
There wasa diamond airfoil designed by Dan Patten called the "Exterminator".Plane was tough as nails. Barry Baxter has the plans on his website
Would like to see someone able to kit the Voodoo or Nemisis(Howard Rush's version.
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I flew Demons for one contest season back in '67--yeah, I know--makes me an old fart. Used needle bearing Fox Rockets on them, with doubled pen bladders.
I found the Demon flew--well--differently as compared to either the Sneaker or the Voodoo. The Demon would snap very sharply into a turn, either direction, then skid badly if the turn was held. It wouldn't stall, as in an over-controlled situation--just skid until you changed directions. In my opinion this was due to the diamond airfoil. Dan Pattons' Eliminator displayed the same characteristics.
I think todays Demon with a .25 would make a fun sport plane to have some fun with, but think a Sneaker would be a better plane.
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I too would go for the Sneaker rather than the Demon. It was a more honest plane for me anyway. Fox Combat Special on medal tank. Later, DOC Holliday
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Thanks for the input guys,will update on progress building and first flight by my retired pilot.
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The changes that we made in the kit are:
1- the wing is made in two pieces allowing a smaller box and more sales to stores.
2- Parts are laser cut
3- Ribs have snap off tabs that allows you to build on a flat surface.
4- The bass wood spacer between the motor mounts is now balsa
Larry
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I built a Flite Line Demon in 1973.
Quite a story. I had just returned from SEA and was living in an apratment with zero building faciliites. I had won the kit at contest a few years earlier.
My new flyng buddies told me the airplane was obsolete, undersize, and didn't have a chance against a Motivator or a Nemisis. I said, "maybe so, but it't the only kit I've got right now."
At the contest, the Tangerine in Jacksonville, I won the first round and lost the second. The "Motivator guy" won both rounds but used up all his toys.
I loaned him the Demon and he went on to take second place and wreck the model.
Despite freak success, lesson-learned. I never built a plane that small again.
In retrospect, it was a short, sweet modeling experience. A lot of planes don't take a second place in a much longer life.
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In the late 60'S I designed a hi-aspect ratio wing with a diamond airfoil. very similar in size to Gordon Delaney's EEk. I still have the template around some where. I even made a jig out of a board and finishing nails. I used a spruce leading edge and spars so it wouldn't snap in half like the Winder and would hold up in WAM (only 1 airplane per contest allowed). I called it the Searcher. I was just moving up in WAM when I headed to Viet Nam. I did get to fly against Phil Granderson in the early 70'S at Wittier Narrows. My new wife Teena loved to launch and watch us go at it. I'll have to dig up some old photos so I can duplicate it for fun.
I know from recent experience with a Voodoo that I would need a lot of practice to even get close to competing. My reflexes are not as fast as they use to be.
Bruce
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No-one's are. I was flying a combat wing this fall and actually lost it in the air...it turned so fast out of my field of vision I wasn't sure where it went; had to resort to flying by feel until I could locate it again. Made me feel pretty foolish, looking wildly around at the sky trying to find my own plane.
I built a Demon off scaled-up magazine plans in the 60s. It flew OK, I used it in a few fights but wasn't that impressed with it. No better than an early short-tail Voodoo; not as good as my Vampire (until it folded up in midflight as all good Vampires do). Several designs of the era were better fliers; the Demon's strongest point was its ease of--and speed of--construction. Pretty hard to build a warp into it with those flat ribs. It did slide some in hard corners.
--Ray
P.S. I don't mean to knock Blackhawk Models kitting the Demon; very nice for nostalgia. I wish they'd re-kit the early Voodoo too. These were classic designs, even though other designs could fly circles around them. Rush's Nemesis was probably the acme of that particular design era.
All the above IMO of course.
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The reason that we picked the Demon over the other designs was as a good, simple, easy to build wing. At NO POINT did we consider competion. it is meant to be just plain FUN!
Larry
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I understand and concur wholeheartedly. Carry on!
--Ray