How to avoid the mess oil leaves on the plane.

[Paul Taylor]

So I was looking thru my new SN and I see a piped plane with the little rubber duck sticking out the bottom. It must be nice to be able to fly a plane like that because one paper towel and a little 409 will clean the fuel off the plane. Our Flite Streak with the K&B on the other hand takes a half of roll of paper towels and lots of 409 to clean up.

But seeing the rubber duck just sticking out the bottom of the fuse made me wonder..... anyone ever just run a rubber tube right out the back of the fuse so no oil gets on the plane?

Might have to taper it some but I bet it could be done.
I know you could go electric, but that is not the point.

Me thinking outside the box

[Doug Moon]

Yeah it overheats the plane!!

[Louis Rankin]

Paul,

It would create too much back pressure and drastically reduce power and over heat your engine.  Unless, you convert to diesel.  Diesels love back pressure and don't seem to be bothered by long exhaust tubes.

Another solution is to use modern engines that are designed to use less lube.  All castor 29% lube fuel is pretty messy.  Using 20 or 22% half and half lube in modern engines is still messy, but much easier to clean.

[peabody]

Dave Cook ran ST-60's with a 1/2" brass (later aluminum) tube running from a side-to-rear header on his Lightening.....of course, he flies backwards, but the tube ran to the tail of the airplane. Seemed to work okay. I am of the opinion, too, that several of Windy's tuna-piped planes were pretty much just looooong muffled.

[Tom Niebuhr]

In the early pipe days, Windy and I both had the pipes exit the tail using an arrow shaft. We had terribly inconsistant and unpredictable engine runs. That is how we learned that the exit diameter was too small, and the engine heat build up caused horrible problems.

The exit must be large to consider the aft fuselage exhaust exit.

[Leo Mehl]

I know some people that never clean thier plane, yuk.

[Will Hinton]

On my Ephesian twin boom ship I formed the bottom of the center fuse' as a balsa tube and the rest of the ship is basically above the exit of that tube - stayed wonderfully clean.
Funny this should come up at this time as I just sprayed the final coat of regular butyrate on the open bay areas of the new Ephesian now under construction for my PA75 and will start spraying the non-tautening dope on the whole ship on Monday!
Weight at this time, including the power train but not the flaps, cowl, and elevator is at 46 ounces with 715 squares of wing area.
As soon as I get the blocking coat on I'll start a new thread with it.
But for now, that ship, as well as my two Crosswind stunters stayed really clean with the "out-the-back" exhaust.  No extra tube, you understand, just a large jet like tube for the lower fuse' section.
If I'm successful in attaching a picture of my two Crosswinds you'll see what I mean.  (I haven't tried the picture sending thing on SH yet, but here goes.  I was too lazy to remove them from the rack so they are as you see them upside down.)
Blessings,
Will

[bruce malm]

Most of my RC planes have pies to pick up a little power and save clean up. I dug out some of my old headers and have been experimenting with the Brodak 40. They pick up some power and sound like they will work well. I have an ARF Smoothie, Pathfinder and a Vector set up with pipes. One has a Randy Smith Carbon pipe and the others are old aluminum. The one on the Vector I made up out of a of angled header and a couple of (90 degree bends and hangs under the fuselage. Dave over at Mac's is making some other units with different angles that should look better for the side to rear conversion. I also want to see how one of his short pipes work. Will let you know how they work once I get them in the air. I know if I can get the headers into production someone will figure out the best combination.

Bruce

Merry Christmas to all!!!!