Aha! Trying to talk behind my back again, are we?
As mentioned on SSW I have recently added a cheek cowl to the Wimpact. This stiffened the front end quite a lot, although it did not appear to need it. However, it looks a bit better with the cheek cowl, in large part due to eliminating all those through-holes I had in the nose of the model, this the better to try 4 different tanks, 3 of which could be mounted either to the left or right side of the fuselage.
Alan Resinger has helped a lot in this regard as I have been utilizing a part-time service he offers in laying out templates for hard tanks. I give him guidelines on the dimensions, specify the amount of fuel the tank is expected to hold and very quickly indeed I am supplied CAD-generated templates. A shot of 3M 77 Spray Adhesive on the tin sheet, another on the back of the template(s), snip-snip-snip, a few bends made and I am good to go with the soldering iron.
Thanks to Alan's help I am fabricating my best tanks ever. He even offers the option of normal end caps or inserts, the latter making a much neater tank.
So I have converted back to hard tanks, have probably built 6 or 7 of the things, all destined to be mounted on the right side of the fuselage.
But no cut-off loop, which is the sole reason I began fiddling with hard tanks again...
Incidentally--and I know this will sound weird--but the very best of the plastic tanks used on the Wimpact was the Hayes 4-ounce Slimline tank, mounted to the left. There was a quite mild inconvenience in filling the tank; but it really worked quite well.
Since the Fall Follies I have assembled and fitted a fresh-parts O.S. 25FP. While this engine has been flown, I am still fiddling with venturi sizes and props. To date this has been a little funny as APC 10-3s, both stock and pitched up slightly, APC 10-4s stock and pitched down a bit work pretty well. But that clunky ol' APC 9-4 more than holds its own--and may even prove to be the best.
All of that aside, once I finished The World's Best Flite Streak (Classic entry as well a back-up for Profile Stunt) I considered building another Wimpact, albeit a larger piece and with a Magnum 28 for power. I even bought a 28, that's how close I was to calling up the cutter (Bob Mellen) and getting wing cores.
In an amazing coincidence I decided to instead build another Impact and a week later Derek called with the same intentions. So he has done some of the heavy lifting--Impact airfoil plotted and to the cutter--while I do minor stuff like tanks (expect an e-mail soon, Alan) and other things.
Actually, the only real important thing we have done is to each convince the other not to "improve" the design. And so far we are sticking to it.
Sorry, went off on a tangent. I am pretty interested in what Randy is doing and would certainly like to hear some of the specifications as I have some thoughts on this sort of project.
Dan
Topic: Dirty Dan is a bad example (Read 3229 times)