Belle Isle Flying

[KEITH McCRARY]

 Met my buddy Joseph Lijoi this morning for a session on Belle Isle. We are both beginer pilots, me for far too long and Joey just coming back to the hobby. Our efforts today concentrated on trying to fly with a unbiased handle. My problem was that I was flying palm up. After trimming at the plane, making new super even lines and setting the handle ( a Fancher ) exactly vertical with a level I was ready to go. After a couple of flights I think that flying with the handle vertical is possible for me. I did some lazy eights, each time extending the inverted portion and keeping it high. Kind of scary at first, but more flying will help.
 Unfortunatly Joey had an incident. Had his PT 19 flying well but lost it while doing the overhead eight.

[Clint Ormosen]

Poor little Evolution......

[Garf]

I have my evolution well broken in and is running really well.

[Paul Taylor]

Keith
That looks like a nice flying site and sounds like a warm place too. Just where is it?
And it looks like you guys are having too much fun. Sorry to see the PT bite the dust.

[KEITH McCRARY]

Paul,
 We are in sunny Detroit Michigan. You can see the Renaissance Center over my left shoulder and Scott Fountain to my right. The flying site is ten acres of concrete that was laid for the Grand Prix when it was on the island. I was upset that they did that but since it is there we fly off it. Belle Isle is a city park in the Detroit River just east of downtown.

http://www.detroitmi.gov/DepartmentsandAgencies/RecreationDepartment/BelleIsle.aspx

Not many days like this left so get out there and fly.

Keith Mccrary

[Joseph Lijoi]

Keith
That looks like a nice flying site and sounds like a warm place too. Just where is it?
And it looks like you guys are having too much fun. Sorry to see the PT bite the dust.

  Thanks for posting the photos of my wreck, Keith.  A picture of you and your smiling mug, pretty airplane, and the Detroit skyline and a picture of my wreck!  I am calling your co-workers to see if I can get some pictures of you at last year’s Christmas party.

  Where we fly is on Belle Isle Park which is on an island in the middle of the Detroit River, about five minutes from downtown.  It was designed by the same guy who designed Central Park in New York, and has several buildings designed by Alfred Kahn.  A really nice park: built when the city had money, and was known as the Paris of the Midwest.  The bridge to the park is named after Arthur MacArthur, Douglas’s dad, so that tells you how long ago the city had money!  Just go on Google and Wikipedia Belle Isle Park.


  The area we fly in is the Paddock area for the Detroit Grand Prix, which is a huge area with a perfectly flat concrete surface, no tress, clean air, and a four foot high fence around the perimeter.  Absolutely perfect for us or scale or anything really, like it was built for us.  It was a well kept secret until my main man Keith wanted to publicize it so that he could post a picture of his smiling face!
 
  Detroit used to be a modelers city.  There were about four paved circles in town, the only one that remains is Rouge Park, which was the home of the famous Strathmoor club, inventors of the I beam wing.  Legend has it that the Adamissins would go out there with snow shovels and fly there in the winter.  Tough Detroit boys, those Adamissins.  I think they get this from Big.

  There was an article in MAN about Detroit public parks and Model Airplanes in I think 1957.


  That place is a perfect place to fly control line.  Keith and I have been sounding the control line guys in the RC club about doing something there but they are hesitant because we have a high crime rate here and there is some urban blight fairly close to the island.  My city has seen better days.  But that island is really an Oasis and I think we have the makings of a world class place to fly.

  But pavement has its drawbacks, one of which is demonstrated by Keith’s lovingly inspired photo.

  Things were going really well.  The unbiased handle thing was really working out.  I was getting much better with the things I already knew, like the reverse wingover, and I was having loads of fun, starting to get the feel of things and I felt real powerful.  I can do this…..piece of cake.  So I did an overhead eight.  No problem, kind of lazy but the plane stayed out there and I was happy.  My brain said “Joey, you are really great!”  Take two.  Well I got completely disorientated in a totally cloudless blue sky and that Evo reliably chugged my cute toy into that pristine pavement ending up about twenty feet from the wreck.


  I got that Evo running really well.  This engine sometimes gets a bad rap.  My support group calls it the “Evil 36”.  I think part of this is due to use in ARFs with weak noses.


  I took off the stock remote NVA assembly, got a venturi from Jim Lee .280 I think, anyway it’s the small one, a Brodak needle valve, 2 head gaskets, an Enya #3 plug, Green Cool Power 10% all synthetic, A Brodak metal uniflow 3 ½ oz tank on pressure, the tube muffler and an APC 10-5.  I set this at 10,000 RPM on the ground.  The tank is about 3/16 above the engine centerline.
 

  With this set up (much of which I stole from this site) I get 1 flip starts, a four cycle in level flight and a 2 cycle in maneuvers.  6 ½ minutes on 3 ½ ounces of fuel.
The engine actually growls in level flight.  A nice rumble.  I was actually always trying to run it in a clean four cycle but I got the break (no pun intended) by accident (no pun intended).  I will take it.
 

  The Brodak 40 that was on Keith’s plane sounded really nice but I think the Evo may be making more HP.
 

  The engine runs cool on the cool power.  I was never a big fan of the smell of the Castor Oil on my Converse Chuck Taylor high-tops and now that I have a cutaway drawing of the Evo I can see that there is absolutely no carbon in there.  I will take that too.


  The other thing is that I think this engine needs is a lot of break in time, at least for our purposes.  I think a gallon and a half and the thing is coming into its own and the fuel consumption goes way down.  Parts are really cheap too and I’m gonna need ‘em.


  The PT-19 ARF is a pretty good product too.  It is quirky though.  The lines are too long in the kit.  I ended up on 58’.  A decent Hot Rock Copy handle is included, which I threw away or lost before I knew better.  The thing was well built.  Metal horns, a bushed bellcrank, CF pushrod, and  Ultracoat covering. The airfoil is nice, and the tail is big.
 

  They come out real tail heavy.  I had a huge slug of lead in the backplate to get it to balance per specs.  After a fuel foaming issue I glued some 1/8 ply doublers on the outside and it balanced without the nose weight.
 

  Unfortunately I failed to do finite element analysis on the new nose, failed to compute an adequate crumple zone and it broke at the weakest link, which turned out to be the crankcase of my beloved Evo  ($15.15).     


  I am actually Ok with the wreck.  I had a lot of fun and learned a lot.  It’s the price you pay for the life you lead. 


  See you at the hobby shop.

[bob branch]

Yup. Time to visit The Prop Shop.

bob branch
Harsens Island, MI

[john e. holliday]

Now I read your full story.   Don't let the city know you want that site or even the use of it.   Save it for the race cars, they draw more money.   As far as getting to it, is it really that dangerous?   Also does it have a locked gate?  Also thanks for the report on your EVO.  I am still getting mine broke in.  Too many engines and planes.   

[KEITH McCRARY]

John,

 The city knows we fly there. Police cars routinely stop and watch. I work for the City of Detroit. I have spoken to a friend of mine in the recreation dept.. I explained to him what cl models are. He was even open to having a contest there. It does not have a locked gate that is how we get to it. Danger ? No there is no danger. Do you get along with people ? On several occasions we have had folks stop by and ask what we are doing. They,ve never seen cl airplanes. I take the opportunity to spread the word , Giving them all the web sites and inviting them to come join us. The city is a little dog eared. I am sure you all know this. But it is just as nice. If you come here call me I am in the Pampa index. Would be honored to fly with you.

[Joseph Lijoi]

Now I read your full story.   Don't let the city know you want that site or even the use of it.   Save it for the race cars, they draw more money.   As far as getting to it, is it really that dangerous?   Also does it have a locked gate?  Also thanks for the report on your EVO.  I am still getting mine broke in.  Too many engines and planes.   

John

Currently the Indy Cars no longer run there.  The race has not been run since the economic crisis in 2009 because the Detroit three nearly became the Detroit one and a lot of the corporate sponsorships were up in the air.  Also a lot of the suppliers nearly went belly up so things were looking pretty bad.  There are plans to revive the race but I haven't heard when.  Some sports car clubs run a pylon race on the weekends.

The park is one of the most beautiful urban parks in the country.  It is crawling with police, the coast guard and the border patrol.  The police watch us all the time.  There is police cruiser there every five minutes.  It is totally save.  Some of the things that were once run by the city have been maintained by private citizens, since the city is short on cash.  The Dossin Great Lakes Museum is still there with an absolutely gorgeous Miss Pepsi Hydroplane.

Keith is a city employee so he knows whats going on.  The city mows Rouge Park for the combat team trials at his request.

The fence is generally locked for car access but there are two pedestrian entrances that remain unlocked.  This is perfect for us because we just have to monitor the one entrance to make sure no body walks into the circle.  The other entrance is like two city blocks away.

I like the Evo, especially for the price.  I didn't have success with the remote needle valve but to be fair, this may have been due to an ARF with a floppy nose.  I also had some success with the OS 1A,15 NVA (part #21181902) screwed into the smallest venturi with some Hi Temp gasket sealer.  The thread is a perfect fit.  I ended up putting a 7/32 aluminum tube sleeve into the smallest venturi but this may have not been neccesary.

With the setup that I was using it would probably turn the APC 11 1/4-4 that Keith was using on the LA 46 at the same RPM.  The engines weigh about the same.  The Evo is much more compact.  Based on some casual research I think will fit the hole pattern for a 25FP (it is about 1/2 inch longer though) and the muffler bolt pattern is the same as the LA 46.

The Evo plug worked well too.  I have used them as well as the Enya 3.