Long journey of the Turning Point
About 17 years ago I started to develop a CL Stunt twin motor design. Since I was a youngster I have loved the looks of twins, but early on I didn’t even consider building one for glow engine power. Trying to get one engine to run consistently was a chore for me; two would have been a nightmare.
With the emergence of electric power, I began to think again about the possibility of a CL Stunt twin. It’s not like it hasn’t been done successfully with glow engines; there have been several very successful twins in Stunt history. One that stands out to me is Mark Fecnor’s Two Much twin, which once graced the front cover of Flying Models magazine being held by our own Gordan Delaney. Gordan went on to produce several very high performance twins of his own, and I believe he should be given the crown as the “King of the Twins.” Bob Whitely also had a very successful glow twin design with which he placed in the Top-5 at the 1988 Tidewater Nats in Virginia. He called that one the LA Heat, and it was eventually kitted by RSM.
I flew two of Gordan’s glow twins at early VSCs, and each time I had to return home and nurse some stretched and swollen tendons and ligaments in my right arm. Those things pulled hard! A few year after that, and after the official flying at VSC, Gordan let a bunch of people take a ride on his Pathfinder Profile Twin. By that time I had already started building my first competition twin, the Second Wind, but it was an on again/off again project that was eventually to take seven years to complete. I was in one of those “off again” periods with the Second Wind when I got the chance to fly Gordan’s PPT. It was an epiphany for me. That plane was so effortless to fly, and it could be flown small or large equally well. It had a good corner, and it was so consistent and predictable. And, it didn’t pull my arm out of its socket… I loved it, and as soon as I returned home from VSC that year I put the Second Wind back on the front burner.
Around that time (2013/2014) Buddy Wieder got very interested in twins. He had been watching me make progress on the construction of the Second Wind and loved the thought of flying a twin at the Nats. And so we decided to design a somewhat larger twin for him. The Second Wind was a very minimal airplane and really not practical. I had decided to stuff the nose with not only a fairly large battery to power up both motors, but also a retractable nose gear unit. There was about 1/32-inch clearance from the hatch to the battery! Not something I wanted to saddle Buddy with. We drew out what was to become his Ryan’s Evil Twin ship, and we each began building the new design twin. Mine had more jet-like aesthetics; Buddy’s was more traditional. If you are counting, that’s two twins I now had on the board…
We decided in the midst of all this to build a test-bed twin to prove out the on-board systems. All of our twins were to be fitted with retracts, and neither of us had ever attempted a twin electric motor setup. The test bed was a good idea… So, now that’s three twins being constructed by me, and one by Buddy. Buddy did help a bit with the test bed model, but I spent a lot of time on it to get it ready quickly. The test bed flew great and it served to prove out our power and retract systems for our upcoming 2015 Nats ships.
Okay, now the really crazy part… I started yet another twin before any of the other serious twins were finished (the test bed was finished and was flying at this point). I reasoned that the Second Wind might just be too compact, and the big twins Buddy and I were building just might be too large (Billy Werwage once said, “If you build an airplane that’s bigger than you are, sooner or later it’s gonna’ whup you”). It was one of those three bears things; “This one is too small, and this one is too big, but this one is juuusssst right!”
I did get the Second Wind done just in time for the 2015 Nats despite a lot of very serious back and leg problems, and Buddy had his ready to go for that Nats as well. We did pretty good considering how late we both were in getting them done. The Second Wind had two patterns on it before leaving for the Nats that year, and after the last round (I made it into the Top 20, but finished 11th…) it had a total of seventeen flights on it. I felt as if I’d won the Worlds. Buddy did okay too; he placed 18th.
Upon return home from that Nats I was pretty sure that my competition days were over due to my back and leg issues, and so I sold a lot of stuff, including the Second Wind that I’d just flown at the Nats, the big twin I was building, and even all the finished parts for the third twin that I’d started. That one was to be called Turning Point.
Well, the back and leg problems did not go away entirely, but with a lot of physical therapy and a few strategically placed Cortisone shots they did get a bit better and I continued my competition career on an abbreviated basis. Then I really regretted selling of all those planes and parts.
The good news is that I was able to get all the parts for the Turning Point back from the gentleman I sold them to, and it became a long term project to finish. Recently I was also able to purchase back the big twin I was building in 2015, so now I have quite a stable of twins. In the interim I built and finished another twin that I named Wildfire (Crossfire/Wildfire, get it...) and then designed and started building two additional twins. I know, I need professional help…
The other good news is that I have finished the Turning Point twin and it flies better than any of my previous twins (which all flew pretty darn well…), and it has an amazing corner. I attribute that to the twin rudders that tend to minimize or even eliminate span-wise flow off the elevators.
My thanks go out to Rick and Sarah Marie Huff for all the technical help and moral support over the past month or so to allow me to finish up this project. As Robert Hunter (lyricist for the Grateful Dead) once wrote, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
Later - Bob Hunt
Topic: Long journey of the Turning Point (Read 1818 times)