Roast me! Pattern video critique request

[Dane Martin]

I know the video isn't great. The square 8's had the outside part kinda cut off, but you're not missing much. So, if you got time to watch, let me know what my next step in practicing looks like it should be.

[john e. holliday]

I did not go full screen as it is hard to judge a pattern when the camera is not stationary.  Much better to judge when viewing from a judges point on the circle.   If you your self watch the videos you can see some glaring points being given up.   The level laps and bottom of maneuvers should be he same. Some maneuvers were oversize mainly the overhead eight.   Any way I saw you have this old man beat as far as scoring.  Get a good coach to work with you live.

[Brett Buck]

I know the video isn't great. The square 8's had the outside part kinda cut off, but you're not missing much.

      No roasting required, but I think you are suffering a bit by flying without experienced coaching or assistance. The video was fine, for the most part. There are a lot of good things about the flight (in particular, the lack of 25-foot bottoms that is common in INT and low Advanced) and it's pretty clean. The turn angles are mostly OK, too.

     But coaching is about finding errors.  I think the reason the square 8 was cut off is highly relevant - most of the flight was *huge*. The inside loops should fit in 45 degrees of circle, but are well over 90 degrees. The square 8 was close to 180 degrees, which is why it got cut off at the end. Your "45" is around 60-70 degrees and the squares are much wider than they are high.

    I would highly suggest that you set out cones, surveyed out at 45 degrees apart on the downwind side of the circle. The easiest way to do this is to set out two of them at 180 degrees, split that in half, then split it again. The fly normally, ignore the cones, and watch the video afterwards, using your cones to measure your flights.  I *do not* recommend you try to fly within the cones by watching for them, at least to start with, because they will come up much, much faster than you will expect, and if you try to jam the maneuver half the size, you will certainly push the airplane beyond the limits. A square loop is supposed to fit between two adjacent cones. Yours will be closer to or even exceed the second cone over.

     You also have a prototypical example of what is shown here:

https://stunthanger.com/smf/open-forum/incessant-problems-1-hourglass-2nd-corner/msg494948/#msg494948

  Your hourglass looks just like the first drawing, to the extent we can see it.

    I think as you try to shrink it down, you will run into other problems, particularly with engine setup and trim. The engine sounds like it is coming on very hard at times, which is OK if you make the maneuver large enough to recover from it, but will be a problem if it is still changing when the next corner comes up. That's why flying large is so tempting,  everything smooths itself out before you have to do the next element.

      This is not at all an unusual situation. Guys who fly by themselves or without experienced help tend towards large and smooth maneuvers because it's much easier on the airplane, requiring neither tight corners nor perfect engine or trim. With what you have in hand, it may very well yield the highest score you can possibly get in a contest. If you were flying in a contest tomorrow, I would suggest trying to fix only the hourglass (since it should yield a nearly immediate improvement) and leaving the rest of it alone. But even if you perfected everything else about it, you would get stuck in the low-400s score range. The longer you go this way, the harder it will be to correct it.

    Brett

[Russell]

Level flight both upright and inverted is too high a lot of the time, needs to be same elevation around circle.

[Dane Martin]

Thanks guys.
Brett, what you're saying is the biggest reason I wanted to get up to the stunt clinic. Get someone to fly my plane. See where it's at, and what it needs trim-wise.

[Brett Buck]

Thanks guys.
Brett, what you're saying is the biggest reason I wanted to get up to the stunt clinic. Get someone to fly my plane. See where it's at, and what it needs trim-wise.

   You are always welcome, and as mentioned before, if someone wants to plan something that fits with my schedule, I can do it almost any time.

   But, on the topic of sizes - compare this video to yours:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9u-vpeEyJE&feature=youtu.be

    Brett

[Steve Helmick]

First thing I'd suggest is to buy a tripod and set it at 5'. Also, set it so that the foreground starts just a bit short of the pilot's circle. We see a lot of lawn we don't need to see, and don't see the top of the V8 and Hourglass that we do need to see.

It looks like the grass has a lot of elevation changes? This is not unusual, but you'll need to reference the flat background and ignore the lawn. A bunch of our sites are either tilted (Richmond BC, Roseburg and Salem OR) or have a tilted background (Redmond, OR). Our patch at Centralia/Chehelis Muni actually has a pretty uniform and significant crown to it, which is kinda strange, but way better than a tilt. You need to establish a level flight altitude at the downwind side of the circle and take that as 5', even if you are flying at 2' at the higher side of the circle, or 10' at the lower side...if you see what I mean!

Doing your tricks too big and keeping the plane flying is better than making them as small as most of us ex-combat guys want to do. The inside & outside rectangles need to be pruned, and the hourglass isn't good, but Brett has already written about that. The engine run seems pretty ragged, for some reason, especially late in the flight. What's that all about?  Steve

[Dane Martin]

   But, on the topic of sizes - compare this video to yours:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9u-vpeEyJE&feature=youtu.be

    Brett

Oh my!

[Dane Martin]

The engine run seems pretty ragged, for some reason, especially late in the flight. What's that all about?  Steve

That's that old rat race motor wanting to wake up! Haha. It's wierd. But it starts easy and is consistent. I think it's more of a tank thing than an engine thing. Inverted and upright are different, so tuning like this is a reasonable compromise. I gotta make an adjustable tank mount.

Yes, the grass is not level. I'll do a tripod and go-pro next time. My friend Mike was holding my phone for this one.

[Steve Helmick]

Yep, a hand-held camera and panning with the plane is almost no help at all. Drives me crazy, which doesn't take a lot! I tend to not watch videos like that. The reference plane keeps changing, makes "being judgemental" very difficult. 

My brother took a video of me flying my SV-11 on "Little Lake" just E. of Hwy. 395, near "Cinder Cone", if you're familiar with E. California. From upwind, even! He didn't have a tripod, but did a good job of locking up and not panning, IIRC. That was about 2011. The stuff you CAN see on a well done video is incredibly informative, but the stuff you can see in a poor video is significantly less.    Steve

[Steve Helmick]

Oh my!

Yes! OMG is appropriate. I'd very much like to see Igor fly in person. I'd be happy to run score sheets, which is THE best job you can get at any stunt contest. Be there & ready to watch the whole flight. Don't say a word, don't utter a sound.  Observe the pilot carefully, as he gets ready to start the engine, signaling, walking to the handle, right through to the end of the landing roll.  Steve

[Brett Buck]

Yes! OMG is appropriate. I'd very much like to see Igor fly in person. I'd be happy to run score sheets, which is THE best job you can get at any stunt contest. Be there & ready to watch the whole flight. Don't say a word, don't utter a sound.  Observe the pilot carefully, as he gets ready to start the engine, signaling, walking to the handle, right through to the end of the landing roll.  Steve

   Not far off normal for this level of flying, Wonder Boy himself at the 2016 WC (and almost certainly just like yesterday morning):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=77&v=2xGtoU0XWYg


    Brett

[Brett Buck]

Oh my!

     I think you can see the difference. Note that as is, you have *no hope* of reliably (or even safely) flying that size maneuvers, hence my caution about trying to fly to the marker cones.

    This is part of why you see so many arguments about engines and props. People who don't realize what it really takes to fly reliably at these sizes simply don't see why you need the kind of performance required. This explains why we have piped 40- 75s in airplane slightly larger than Thunderbirds (or in Jim Aron's case, substantially smaller than Thunderbird).

    It doesn't take expensive equipment to fly these sizes reliably. But you aren't going to do it with vintage-style techniques or approaches.

This is not the greatest flight I ever flew, but it was using a nearly 30-year-old primary stunt trainer and a $47 engine:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=276&v=VS6v8y7F4QA (starting at about 4:20).

      Note wind noise and flags - 15-18 mph. I have flown the same airplane with a Fox 35, in similar conditions, and it is damn near impossible. This was no problem whatsoever, it got away from me in a few spots, but that's because I never practice and it certainly flies *much* differently from my regular airplane. It is also far from the best airplane you could build for this kind of effort - it was put together in about a day and a half and has been crashed about 40 times.

      Brett

[Dane Martin]

I believe I'm starting to get the idea of why some folks would use an LA 46 in a plane that a .25 would fly.
If you could fly my plane, I think you'd understand (and it sounds like you already know) that I don't feel comfortable flying a manuever that tight because I think I'd run out of power. Or, however you describe that feeling.
My best scores have been with my giant ringmaster with a K&B 61. Mostly because it'll pull out of any trouble I could possibly get into. These are some interesting things to ponder.

[Ken Culbertson]

Brett covered most of what I was going to say in his last post.  The importance of a coach cannot be overstated.  I flew with Bob Gieseke before my 35 years in the wilderness. I could do an hourglass with the best of them.  When I came back this year and started flying a slightly larger ship with a 46LA, I was all over the sky with it.  Doug Moon was there to tell me what I was doing wrong and in two flights I was back to doing very nice hourglasses.  With out that advice, I would still be doing them like I had a 38oz plane and a Fox 35. 

I have a couple of tips - #1 Watch Igor in those videos.  Notice how he plants his feet, stops rotating and flies the maneuver directly in front of him.  Bret does the same thing only less defined and not as early as Igor.  That is harder to master than you might think but it makes a huge difference in intersections and shapes.  Once set the only thing that should be moving is your arm, even in the overhead 8.  #2 is more of what worked for me than a universal truth.  Ever do lazy eights to kill a tank?  Well the hourglass is really nothing more than a horizontal lazy 8 with flats.  You can get the feel for the slope of the sides and the intersection position doing lazy vertical 8's.  We have some top fliers that like to do outside triangles to unwrap their lines.  I decided to give it a try.  They look hard but they are really easy and (drum roll)  they are the top half of the hourglass.

Ken

One other thing in using the outside triangle is that the hourglass is the only shaped maneuver where you can't see where your next corner needs to be with even your peripheral vision.  Using the triangle for practice helps build the muscle memory to make that 3rd corner correct just as the inside helps with the 1st.  It also helps you mentally find that point in the sky directly in front of you at 45 that is the hourglass intersection.   Another thing to keep in mind when watching the video in slow motion is something you probably don't notice at full speed.  The base and top flat of the hourglass are smaller (by approximately the radius of your turns) than the triangles.  You notice the top but you probably don't notice the bottom. This is because there is no turn at the 45 intersection - but the angles are the same.  Congrats on picking this maneuver as your "test case"  Master it and your confidence goes up - everything gets better.  Expecially the overhead 8 but that is a different story.

[Dane Martin]

     You also have a prototypical example of what is shown here:

https://stunthanger.com/smf/open-forum/incessant-problems-1-hourglass-2nd-corner/msg494948/#msg494948

  Your hourglass looks just like the first drawing, to the extent we can see it.

    I think as you try to shrink it down, you will run into other problems, particularly with engine setup and trim. The engine sounds like it is coming on very hard at times, which is OK if you make the maneuver large enough to recover from it, but will be a problem if it is still changing when the next corner comes up. That's why flying large is so tempting,  everything smooths itself out before you have to do the next element.

    Brett

Ok, I've been thinking about this particular part of this thread. Let's start with the fact that the hour glass needs to go as high as the wing over. Reading the rule book, I understand that, but I don't know how "capable" my plane is of that at this point. Hearing what you're saying and reading through the other thread, what happens to me, when flying this plane is that I feel like I would loose tension up there because of the quick turns. I'll try to get over there after work and just practice hourglass after hourglass and see if I can get it to climb all the way up and still make turn 2.
Thanks a bunch!

"Capable" - in quotes because I really don't know if it is or not.

[Brett Buck]

Ok, I've been thinking about this particular part of this thread. Let's start with the fact that the hour glass needs to go as high as the wing over. Reading the rule book, I understand that, but I don't know how "capable" my plane is of that at this point. Hearing what you're saying and reading through the other thread, what happens to me, when flying this plane is that I feel like I would loose tension up there because of the quick turns. I'll try to get over there after work and just practice hourglass after hourglass and see if I can get it to climb all the way up and still make turn 2.
Thanks a bunch!

"Capable" - in quotes because I really don't know if it is or not.

   It should be easier, rather than harder, if you do it right.  If it won't make it, make the corners less sharp (first and second  - first too sharp and you lose speed for the climb). As you are doing it, you might make it through the second corner, but you are completely losing the entire descending leg.

         Brett

[Ken Culbertson]

Ok, I've been thinking about this particular part of this thread. Let's start with the fact that the hour glass needs to go as high as the wing over. Reading the rule book, I understand that, but I don't know how "capable" my plane is of that at this point. Hearing what you're saying and reading through the other thread, what happens to me, when flying this plane is that I feel like I would loose tension up there because of the quick turns. I'll try to get over there after work and just practice hourglass after hourglass and see if I can get it to climb all the way up and still make turn 2.
Thanks a bunch!

"Capable" - in quotes because I really don't know if it is or not.

You did a respectable wingover carrying a full load of fuel.  The plane should do the same or better near the end of the tank.  There are tricks you can use to make those corners from "the old days" but learning them may be a waste of time unless you plan to fly Classic and really do want to use a Fox 35 just for old time sake.  You won't need it if you get more horsepower but we did use a bit more engine offset, rudder offset, in some cases shorter lines and short prayers just to survive the reverse WO, hourglass and overhead 8.  Have faith, if there is any wind at all it will not come in on you in the 2nd and 3rd turns if you have made the turning point and you don't stall it.

Have fun.  You may have started something here - an On Line Clinic.

[Ted Fancher]

Some fresh thoughts on Where/How to look while flying

There was recently a thread on Stunthangar with the above title in quotes. I found one post in particular that triggered some thoughts of my own which I felt might be of value for Uncle Jimby’s Stunt Clinic. Dan McEntee wrote the following text which caused me to realize that, my gosh, that’s the way I’ve flown stunt my whole life! I’ll then amplify on why what he says may be valuable to others. Further, why its importance may lead students of stunt to better understand why so much advice you hear from the world’s best stunt pilots has to do with pilot posture and aircraft/powertrain trim!  I thought that making it available via this thread might be of interest to some.  Be aware, the total is about six pages of Ted "streaming".  The first page or so is included below and the entire document will (hopefully) be attached.

Here’s what Dan had to say:

“When you drive a nail in with a hammer, do you look at the hammer head or the nail you are hitting with it? When you drive a car…do you look at the hood of the car…or do you look where you want to drive and steer the vehicle where you need to go?
 
…A well-trimmed model and confidence in its performance helps

…When I am flying at my best, I can "see" the shape I need to fly as I approach the maneuver, then I just trace the shape with the airplane

...More than one airplane has been written off [due to] looking at the model and trying to time the pull out…”   

To Dan’s mental images of nails and vehicles I’d like to add another task we’ve likely all performed at some point in our lives without a lot of thought; one we might need to think about to realize.  A task I feel is very much a template for what excellent fliers do--maybe without ever thinking about it--when they fly those flights that make us all wonder…”how the heck does he do that!”

We’re going to Visualize drawing pictures with chalk on a blackboard!

Ted

[Dane Martin]

While having some trouble today, I realized it felt like I have more up than down. So, I am fixing my rudder and removing the offset, and pulled the LO's. Here's all the up and all the down. I really shot myself in the foot on the controls I guess.
I think there's enough adjustability in the push rods to correct this.

[Brett Buck]

(P.S. I've no idea why all the "strikethroughs" showed up in the preamble to this document.  The document download appears to be as originally formatted)

   There's a "leftbracket S rightbracket" at the end of the word "helps". Edit the post and remove that, strikethrough will go away. The problem is that things inside  brackets are interpreted as "tags", which are intended to create the formatting you see. "bracket s closebracket" is the tag to start a section of strikethrough text formatting ("leftbracket /s rightbracket" would end it, ending the section). I can't type it directly, because it will do the same thing to me.

     These "HTML tags" are essentially a language for formatting web pages, and it's the fundamental way your computer knows how to make things look the way they do. Actually, real HTML tags use triangular brackets (like "less than symbol s greater than symbol") Sparky's board uses square brackets but mostly the same tags, and most HTML tags will work here (like "leftbracket quote rightbracket" that you use all the time).

    Brett

[Ken Culbertson]

While having some trouble today, I realized it felt like I have more up than down. So, I am fixing my rudder and removing the offset, and pulled the LO's. Here's all the up and all the down. I really shot myself in the foot on the controls I guess.
I think there's enough adjustability in the push rods to correct this.

I am curious how you noticed you had more up than down.  Was it while flying or simply visual?  You should not be using full control to make any corners.  This is a subject that is far from settled but I like a bit more control movement than it takes to hit the pressure wall.  For me this usually comes out to a bit under 45 degrees on the elevator and around 30 on the flaps.  If you take Ted's advice you will never come even close to even being tempted to use it but it will be there in an emergency.   One other side note.  The only way to truly know if your plane turns the same inside and out is to let someone experienced in flying other peoples planes fly it.  It is really hard to tell the difference between the plane turning and your turning it.

Good luck!

Ken

[Dane Martin]

I am curious how you noticed you had more up than down.  Was it while flying or simply visual?  You should not be using full control to make any corners.  This is a subject that is far from settled but I like a bit more control movement as it takes to hit the pressure wall.  For me this usually comes out to a bit under 45 degrees on the elevator and around 30 on the flaps.  If you take Ted's advice you will never come even close to even being tempted to use it but it will be there in an emergency.   One other side note.  The only way to truly know if your plane turns the same inside and out is to let someone experienced in flying other peoples planes fly it.  It is really hard to tell the difference between the plane turning and your turning it.

Good luck!

Ken

While flying, it took more handle movement to do outsides than insides. Especially noticeable in the figure 8. It's always felt like that so I ignored it.
There's far less down than up, so the entire modulation of the elevator feels softer, not just at the extremes. If I'm explaining that right.

[Ken Culbertson]

While flying, it took more handle movement to do outsides than insides. Especially noticeable in the figure 8. It's always felt like that so I ignored it.
There's far less down than up, so the entire modulation of the elevator feels softer, not just at the extremes. If I'm explaining that right.

If you have eliminated handle bias then that definitely is one way to tell.   If your flaps and elevator both hit -0- at the same time the cause is is probably the design, the bellcrank, or the handle.  The handle can be the cause or the cure but if you are going to take Ted's advice it would be better if it was neither.  It appears from your pictures that you have more than enough control movement to do a decent corner if you are not too nose heavy.  The amount of total up vs down is only an issue if you are pegging the controls or have a flexing pushrod but it is a symptom of a misaligned bellcrank.  Since the weak pushrod has the opposite symptom we can rule that out.  Two things happen when the bellcrank is not aligned properly.  First the amount of up vs down is different and second which is worse, the rate that the surfaces move for a given input is different.  Before I did anything else to the plane I would get this right.  Fortunately you have a profile so it is really easy fix.   I sincerely hope you have adjustable connections.   Since you can't see the bellcrank you have to keep adjusting the flap linkage till equal movement of the leadouts produces equal flap movement. That should pull the bellcrank into alignment.  This may be your whole problem so I would fly it again.  The next step is to lock the flaps at zero and adjust the elevator up a little bit at a time till it turns the same.  You may need to tweak your handle a bit when you are done since your natural level setting will change.

Hope some of this is of value - Ken

As I was re-reading this it hit me that we have overlooked upthrust in the engine.  The symptoms would be similar to the misalligned bellcrank.  It would feel like it takes more control to turn outside than inside.  I am not that familiar with the Twister since I have never owned one so I am not sure if the design specifies up or down thrust or if there is stab incidence.

Ken

[Ted Fancher]

  snip
     These "HTML tags" are essentially a language for formatting web pages, and it's the fundamental way your computer knows how to make things look the way they do. Actually, real HTML tags use triangular brackets (like "less than symbol s greater than symbol") Sparky's board uses square brackets but mostly the same tags, and most HTML tags will work here (like "leftbracket quote rightbracket" that you use all the time).

    Brett

Thanks Brett...not that I fully understand it!

[Joe Ed Pederson]

 Brett,


You wrote: "This is not the greatest flight I ever flew, but it was using a nearly 30-year-old primary stunt trainer and a $47 engine:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=276&v=VS6v8y7F4QA (starting at about 4:20). "

 

What was the $47.00 engine?

Joe Ed

[Dane Martin]

Ken,
There's no handle bias, it's a hard point handle.
The elevator and flaps are 0-0 together when the lead out's are held together (zeroed on the bench).
Everything that connects to the flaps and elevator are adjustable.

I'm thinking I get how to fix it, but then my lead out's won't be centered? Like measure up and down in degrees, split the difference and then re-neutralize. Then I'd have to cut and redo one lead out. Does that sounds reasonable?

[Tim Wescott]

The elevator and flaps are 0-0 together when the lead out's are held together (zeroed on the bench).

What I'm mostly sure of: Unless the motor, wing, and stab are all on the same line, flaps & elevator at 0-0 may not be the best setup.  The usual setup with the motor in the middle, wings lower, and tail higher, makes the flaps 'want' to trail down a bit.  Also, (and I'm even less sure of this part!) the gyroscopic forces on the prop when it's spinning its way and the plane is forcing it to precess in a circle tend to affect that "ideal" flap trail.

What I'm way more sure of: The specifics of how to trim for equal turn on insides and outsides are in Paul Walker's trim article.  I usually start by comparing level to inverted flight and proceeding to tweak flaps.  If you haven't at least gone through the first chapter (that's the link I posted), then stop now, and devote some time to trimming.  Read that trim article carefully, as if it were a book titled "How to Succeed at Control Line Stunt".  Re-read the parts you don't get.  Then go trim your plane.  Then re-read, re-trim, etc.

[Brett Buck]

Thanks Brett...not that I fully understand it!

   You can easily fix the original post, just edit it and remove the brackets you put in on "help(s)"

    Brett

[Brett Buck]

Brett,


You wrote: "This is not the greatest flight I ever flew, but it was using a nearly 30-year-old primary stunt trainer and a $47 engine:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=276&v=VS6v8y7F4QA (starting at about 4:20). "

 

What was the $47.00 engine?

   OS 20FP, purchased new in about 1993 from PECS Hobbies in Mountain View California, and run extensively since then (including a few minutes on a mixture of gasoline, Wesson Oil, and a bit of Ys2020 just to make it fire).  It is superior in run quality to all vintage engines, and most current engines, aside from piped full-stunt systems like the 40VF, PA, Ro-Jett and more effective as a stunt power plant to all vintage engines 35 and below.  The last version of the 25LA is even better.

   Here is the list of the modifications required to make it run so well:

[Brett Buck]

Ken,
There's no handle bias, it's a hard point handle.
The elevator and flaps are 0-0 together when the lead out's are held together (zeroed on the bench).
Everything that connects to the flaps and elevator are adjustable.

I'm thinking I get how to fix it, but then my lead out's won't be centered? Like measure up and down in degrees, split the difference and then re-neutralize. Then I'd have to cut and redo one lead out. Does that sounds reasonable?

   If you end up uneven, then use different-length connectors to square it back up.

   Before that, check that the rate of travel up and down is the same, and bias the position or angle of the elevator horn fore/aft to get the rate the same.   IOW, check that when the flap is 20 degrees up, the elevator is really 20 degrees down and vice-versa. It's possible/likely that the elevator travels up faster than down, in which case , you want to move the elevator horn forward.

     Brett

[Ken Culbertson]

Ken,
There's no handle bias, it's a hard point handle.
The elevator and flaps are 0-0 together when the lead out's are held together (zeroed on the bench).
Everything that connects to the flaps and elevator are adjustable.

I'm thinking I get how to fix it, but then my lead out's won't be centered? Like measure up and down in degrees, split the difference and then re-neutralize. Then I'd have to cut and redo one lead out. Does that sounds reasonable?

I didn't see Brett's post before I posted this so some of it will be redundant...sorry.

You should be able to fix it at the flap horn.  The important thing is to get the pushrod and bellcrank arm to be as close to 90 degrees with each other as possible.  If you can disconnect it at the flap horn you can use the leadouts to find center by pulling on one and marking the other at the wingtip then reversing and marking the first one.  When you put the marks together the bellcrank is as straight as you are going to get it without surgery.  If the flaps are not at zero with the marks alligned then you adjust the flap connector (hopefully it is a ball link) to make the flaps zero at that point.  You are right though, your leadouts are not going to match but that should be an easy handle adjustment.  Lots of folks use different leadout lengths to keep the connectors from hitting each other.

When you say Hard Point does that mean that you cannot adjust even the bias?  If that is the case you may want to hold off till you can get a set of variable length line connectors or a new handle.  You can't cut and wrap just one leadout if you can't adjust the handle,   and if you can adjust the handle you don't need to cut the leadout.  Catch 22

[Brent Williams]

When you say Hard Point does that mean that you cannot adjust even the bias?  If that is the case you may want to hold off till you can get a set of variable length line connectors or a new handle.  You can't cut and wrap just one leadout if you can't adjust the handle,   and if you can adjust the handle you don't need to cut the leadout.  Catch 22

Zero handle bias.  Vertical.   It may take some mental recalibration to become accustomed to a truly vertical handle.  Make the mental recalibrations.

Hard point handles have no cables to adjust neutral.  Lines are directly connected to the handle via clips.  Adjust neutral with different length line clips. 

If you have staggered length leadouts, you make one line correspondingly shorter and fine tune neutral with different length line clips.

With the Derek Moran line clip bender available from Jim Lee, you make clips with 1/16 length increments.  (1/32" increments if you ask for it)

There are several good options for this type of handle on the market.  Paul Walker has developed a very light carbon handle.  Kaz Minato offers a nice aluminum handle.  Tom Morris and Brodak offer hard point handles. The Fancher Handle is probably the most well known and widely used variety of the breed. 

[Joe Ed Pederson]

   OS 20FP, purchased new in about 1993 from PECS Hobbies in Mountain View California, and run extensively since then (including a few minutes on a mixture of gasoline, Wesson Oil, and a bit of Ys2020 just to make it fire).  It is superior in run quality to all vintage engines, and most current engines, aside from piped full-stunt systems like the 40VF, PA, Ro-Jett and more effective as a stunt power plant to all vintage engines 35 and below.  The last version of the 25LA is even better.

   Here is the list of the modifications required to make it run so well:

Brett,

I assume there was supposed to be a website link at the end of the last sentence.   Could you try sending that website link again?  Thanks.

Joe Ed

[Tim Wescott]

I assume there was supposed to be a website link at the end of the last sentence.   Could you try sending that website link again?  Thanks.

There's almost absolutely nothing like the Brett Buck Tune Up for a 20FP.  In fact, the BBTU is -- almost absolutely nothing.  Don't change anything on the engine.  Leave the venturi stock.  Leave the muffler stock.  Leave the whole thing exactly the way it came out of the box.  Don't open it up and adjust anything.  Don't open it up at all.  The one non-nothing thing is to slap an APC 9-4 prop on it.  Lean it to peak, richen until you can hear it slow down a bit (about 500 RPM), and launch.

Brett has a much longer list of things to not do -- just imagine him in a crowd of people suggesting every insane thing that's ever been inflicted on an engine, and him saying "no, don't do that" and you have the essence of the BBTU.

[Brett Buck]

Brett,

I assume there was supposed to be a website link at the end of the last sentence.   Could you try sending that website link again?  Thanks.

Joe Ed

  That was intentional, the modification is to modify the engines position from inside a box to bolted to an airplane. Use everything exactly as it came from the factory in all regards. Only the "OS Engine" decals are optional.

   Brett

[Joe Ed Pederson]

Thanks Brett.

 In addition I remembered after I posted (Senior moment) that I had printed an article you wrote on the OS FP .20 and OS .25 in the Nov/Dec 2014 Stunt News that described just what you learned about these two engines.

Joe Ed

[Ken Culbertson]

Zero handle bias.  Vertical.   It may take some mental recalibration to become accustomed to a truly vertical handle.  Make the mental recalibrations.

Hard point handles have no cables to adjust neutral.  Lines are directly connected to the handle via clips.  Adjust neutral with different length line clips. 

If you have staggered length leadouts, you make one line correspondingly shorter and fine tune neutral with different length line clips.

With the Derek Moran line clip bender available from Jim Lee, you make clips with 1/16 length increments.  (1/32" increments if you ask for it)

There are several good options for this type of handle on the market.  Paul Walker has developed a very light carbon handle.  Kaz Minato offers a nice aluminum handle.  Tom Morris and Brodak offer hard point handles. The Fancher Handle is probably the most well known and widely used variety of the breed.

I don't want to get too off subject but what is the advantage of the hard point vs the fully adjustable handle?

Ken

[Brent Williams]

I don't want to get too off subject but what is the advantage of the hard point vs the fully adjustable handle?

Ken

Immediate response. 
No dullness of feeling.
No induced spring action from the cable. 
No cable to fail.
Less overhang for less effort. (generally)

[Ted Fancher]

Brett,

I assume there was supposed to be a website link at the end of the last sentence.   Could you try sending that website link again?  Thanks.

Joe Ed

Actually Joe Ed, you'd just been victimized by Satellite Scientist humor (of which there are several very large volumes, each composed mostly of signs, symbols and #s or, as in this case, wide open "space").  You've gotta be careful with Brett. Like Jaws, just when you think you're safe he'll reach up and getcha!

Ted

[Joe Ed Pederson]

Ted,

What a fun place to be.   I appreciate dry humor . . . I just don't always catch it the first time around.   

Joe Ed

[Brett Buck]

Thanks Brett.

 In addition I remembered after I posted (Senior moment) that I had printed an article you wrote on the OS FP .20 and OS .25 in the Nov/Dec 2014 Stunt News that described just what you learned about these two engines.

Joe Ed

  Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. I have typed or pasted the same thing in so many times now, I have gotten sick of it, and I know (because they tell me) everyone else is, too.

   It is a frustrating situation because almost *no one* actually believes me. They try a 20FP or similar, come to me saying it doesn't work, then I find that they have "improved it" by modifying or changing something. The solution in all cases is to *put it back the way it came*. When I do that, suddenly, all the problems are solved, and they think I am some sort of super-guru - when all I did was put it back to the way the factory shipped it, which they could have easily done themselves had they *just left the damn thing alone*!

     Engines and stunt powerplants have been a solved issue at any level for about 25 years now, to the point that there engines/motors are no longer much of a distinguishing or determining factor in success. That's *wildly* different than the way it was before -  I know, I did it then, too. I would say it is to the point that most of the randomness has been taken out of the results - leading to the sort of "lost energy" Ted was referring to in the other thread. The vast, vast majority of common knowledge and "hop-up" tips are ridiculously wrong and counterproductive. There is no reason to struggle with 50's-style approaches, but that's what I see almost continually.

    Brett

[Tim Wescott]

   It is a frustrating situation because almost *no one* actually believes me. They try a 20FP or similar, come to me saying it doesn't work...

Those are the ones who didn't listen.  The ones who did are too busy having fun to come complain to you.

[Dane Martin]

Crisis averted. Sorry guys. I can't believe I've never noticed this.

[Brett Buck]

Crisis averted. Sorry guys. I can't believe I've never noticed this.

  D'OH!

    Brett

p.s. If you move the pushrod to the other side of the horn, you might miss the inner edge completely, no more cut-outs.

[Brett Buck]

I don't want to get too off subject but what is the advantage of the hard point vs the fully adjustable handle?

    Those two are not mutually exclusive, but hard point handles have much less compliance than cable-based handles, particularly the Baron-style cable handles. Meaning the response is much more immediate, you move your hand, the controls move right then, not after the compliance has been taken up.

     Brett

[Ted Fancher]

   There's a "leftbracket S rightbracket" at the end of the word "helps". Edit the post and remove that, strikethrough will go away. The problem is that things inside  brackets are interpreted as "tags", which are intended to create the formatting you see. "bracket s closebracket" is the tag to start a section of strikethrough text formatting ("leftbracket /s rightbracket" would end it, ending the section). I can't type it directly, because it will do the same thing to me.

     These "HTML tags" are essentially a language for formatting web pages, and it's the fundamental way your computer knows how to make things look the way they do. Actually, real HTML tags use triangular brackets (like "less than symbol s greater than symbol") Sparky's board uses square brackets but mostly the same tags, and most HTML tags will work here (like "leftbracket quote rightbracket" that you use all the time).

    Brett

I'll be.  Finally figured out what you were talking about and now my satellite comments are no longer germane and have been eradicated; as have the unwanted lines.  Rokit Science is magic! 

[Ken Culbertson]

    Those two are not mutually exclusive, but hard point handles have much less compliance than cable-based handles, particularly the Baron-style cable handles. Meaning the response is much more immediate, you move your hand, the controls move right then, not after the compliance has been taken up.

     Brett

I am going to have to try one.  I used to fly using the large red EZ-Just.  Everybody told me I needed one of those fancy new fully adjustable ones.   Not sure I don't like the EZ-Just better.  Fancher's handle seems to have enough adjustment to allow for minor line length differences and I assume somebody makes the different size clips. I think I will give that a try before I get too used to the wire ones.

Thanks - Ken

[Brett Buck]

\ Rokit Science is magic! 

    This is about as far from science as it gets - it's computer science, which is a science in the same sense that a refrigerator is a species of dinosaur.

   Below is a snip of the code it takes to generate your post, everything you see in between the <> brackets is a "tag". They are instructions to the computer to make the things appear. There seems to be a lot of it, but the entire thing (thousands of lines) is very compact in internet terms, so easy to download. Your web browser knows how to read the instructions, and does most of the work of making it show as it does. This approach minimizes the amount of data that has to be transmitted. The language itself is called HyperText Markup Language, or HTML.

     Essentially, you are downloading not a "web page" as you see it, but a relatively compact computer script/program that your browser knows how to execute that generates the web page locally on your machine.

   Sparky's software knows how to generate new source code based on your inputs (note that only a tiny fraction of it is things you type), and creates links and updates the page source. When you click a link, the page source text file is downloaded, your browser "renders" it as you see using your processing power.

     The problem was that when you posted your response, you inadvertently used one of the tags (the strikethrough tag) as part of your text. Being a computer, it was stupid and just did what you (accidentally) told it to do.

      Brett

[Dane Martin]

  D'OH!

    Brett

p.s. If you move the pushrod to the other side of the horn, you might miss the inner edge completely, no more cut-outs.

Information received and action executed.