Everyone,
I went down to Toledo today to visit the show and see what new things might be out there. John Brodak was there with his crew and they had a nice selection of items to choose from (as usual) and a new wing jig that I had not seen before. I did not ask too much about it, but it looked like it was fairly adaptable to different rod locations, but there was only one size of rods included in the kit. Hopefully someone will chime in with a little more detail than I have on this one. The new Spitfire and Barnstormer kits were there as well. Nothing new in the ARF/ARC stacks that I could see.
Fox Manufacturing had some of the 35 Stunts (60 anniversary cases) with the ceramic P&Ls available. As tempted as I was, I opted to purchase a standard one as I wanted to have a 60th anniversary model. My son Michael appeared to want it more than me, so I traded him the 60th for a 50th that he had that was NIB. Charlie Thacker also showed me a new NVA for the 35 Stunt that is a bit different than the current model. If nobody posts a pic of it before tomorrow, I will post one. This new unit initially appears to be a spray bar assembly for a remote needle valve set up. The needle is actually more like a knob on the end of the assembly and is reported to be of a fairly fine thread. A nice feature is that there is an o-ring that seals the needle from the atmosphere (OD of the spray bar assembly to the ID of the needle/knob). This one has a single hole in the spray bar. Some potential drawbacks that may come up for this new assembly it that the fuel line connects on the same side as the needle/knob which could cause a problem for the profile airplanes if you must have your fuel line come in on the bottom side of the airplane. Additionally with the shortness of the needle/knob, a cowled in engine would be difficult to adjust. It did appear that a 3/32 allen key might be able to fit into the needle/knob, so perhaps something could be made to extend the length a bit.
Fox also had a stunt ready 40 on display. I don't recall if this one was ball bearing or bushing, but think that it was bushing. In any case, it is in the C-case and the one that he had on display was using this new needle valve assembly and had a tall venturi. Charlie said that the sleeve had been retimed for stunt and would run similar to the SilverFoxx models. The P&L on these were steel. Since I did not purchase one of these, I hope that someone can post a shot of it.
Horizon Hobbies had both of their PT-19s on display as well as their line of Saito and Evolution engines. I heard that the heavy oil fuel used for CL purposes had sold out over at Ritches Brew from a fellow flyer. There were a few vendors that had some CL parts like bellcranks and horns and others that had a great selection of tools for the fliteline and the shop. It seemed like there was a lot of selection in the electric motor area and for batteries as well. I did not see as many charger suppliers as for batteries and motors, but I was not looking that hard. It was good to see Sig there and I had a chance to talk to Mike Gretz, but I don't remember seeing any CL items hanging in their booth. Up in the swap shop, Art Johnson had quite the selection of 1/2a engines, but he admitted that he is getting low on some of his inventory. There were other CL engines available from different people, but I did not see a whole lot of CL airplanes or kits out on the tables for sale.
For those that might be heading over or are just interested, the Fox products were show priced as: Stock 35 Stunt-$55, Ceramic 35 Stunt $125, Fox 40 Stunt-$125 and the new NVA-$15. These all seemed quite reasonable to me.
FWIW,
John
Topic: Toledo Report: Newer items of interest. (Read 1262 times)
