WRCS - November 2004

Warringah Radio Control

Society Incorporated
(Incorporated under the Association Incorporation Act 1984)

Newsletter - November 2004

Powered by two .60 RCV’s and with two dummy engines, Grant Furzer's TU-95 "Bear" is presented at the Shepparton Mammoth Fly-In.

NEXTMEETINGNEXTMEETINGNEXTMEETING
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, 9th November 2004 at Tennis Cove, Eastern Valley Way, starting at 7.30 pm.
WRCS CHRISTMAS PARTY will be at the field on Saturday, 11 December 2004 starting from 4:00pm, dinner at 6:00pm. Entry by ticket only, and don't forget the Raffle, great prizes!!

FROM THE SECRETARY'S DESK (General Meeting October 2004) This will be a bit shorter than usual as it is now 11.40 pm following the October meeting and I have just finished the minutes. So I suggest you look up the Minutes on the Web Page for all the details. Some important points are:
*the gas BBQ was past it and is to be replaced. 2 buckets will be left at the open BBQ to avoid fire risk and facilitate putting out the cooking fire immediately after use.
*If CASA guidelines are complied with then Insurance is valid wherever a Member flies
*Reg Millsom informed the meeting that The Northern Beach’s Soaring Club submits sites each year to MAS
* Glider day will now have only electrics in the am with the pm electrics and thermal as it was raised that the morning was hopeless for any lift for the bungee launched planes.
* There is the possibility of having a VIP guest judge on the first scale day next year. More later.
* There will be a guest speaker . Ex Vulcan Pilot at Feb or March meeting. More later.
* The club will donate $500 to the B24 Liberator restoration at Werribee,as seen recently on the ‘Australian Story’.
* Warringah Council have been sent a request to fix up their road. No reply yet.
* Time is running out to get your Xmas Party tickets from Stefy.
* Xtreme Hobbies and Hstore have offered gift vouchers for the Xmas party.

WRCS CHRISTMAS PARTY

4 pm on SATURDAY 11th December

(dinner served at 6pm, keep your ticket to hand it in!!)

We again are catered for by McGoo’s Spit Roast with lots of yummy food.

Adults $20;
Children 5-12 $10;
under 5 FREE

Enquiries and Tickets available from Brian Porman and Stefy Grech

Raffle tickets are also available from Brian Porman and Stefy Grech, or by mailing your cheque to:

Brian Porman at 27 Kirkpatrick Street North Turramurra 2074

First prize is a pick of:
ARF Piper Tomahawk (77 inch span) or a PICA Cessna 182 kit (86 inch)
Tickets are $5 each.

MEMORIES OF SCALE DAY, NOVEMBER 2004

(photos courtesy D.Rim; A.Wolf)

	The pits area was quite a busy place, lots of great scale models on display, many of which had not previously been seen at Belrose

Above and left: Grant Furzer with the "Bear", helped out by Dennis Grech. The model won the Perpetual Trophy, but not before Grant had a bit of a scare due to lack of power on take-off. The Trophy is admired by Lauren Grech (whose only attempts to fly have been from arm to arm of adoring and doting Members) while Stefy is trying to hang on.

Above and left: Col Simpson's FW-190D. Col was assisted by Stan Begg and got the model flying after suffering the broken crankshaft last time round.


Above and right: Garry Morris put on a great display with his Extra 330L, smoke and all. The model is beautifully maintained and we had an opportunity to take a peek inside.
Right: Barry Mason's Cessna attracted a lot of attention	Left: Only a static model at this stage but ready to have the engine and servos fitted, this SkyMaster was displayed by Peter Sharpe.

	The variety of models and the degree of excellence in presentation can be seen from other photos on this page

SHEPPARTON SNAPSHOTS

(photos courtesy of T.Sparkes; D.Rim and B.Porman)

WRCS was represented at the September 2004 Shepparton Mammoth Fly-In, by David Foster, Grant Furzer, Tom Sparkes and Garry Welsh, supported by teams made up of Members.

In all 13 members and seven wives had a social week end punctuated by successful flying forays by our pilots.

A taste of some of the pits area and models follows

There was only one trophy and that was “Pilot’s Choice”. This was won by the DC3:

The sheer size of some models can be appreciated in comparison to Ron Clarke standing next to one them (right).

Right: Ron Clarke had his work cut out assisting Garry Welsh who did a lot of flying.
but not all the members managed to stay awake all the time & Bazza Mason is finding it difficult to hear the planes due to the snoring!	David Foster is seen discussing his successful day with Tom Sparkes, Des Rim and Grant Furzer at drinks & nibbles after the first day ...

Grant Furzer’s, (1000 hour to build), 12ft span TU 95 "Bear" seen in three poses (plus the one at the front), was an absolute eye catcher with a lot of interest from pilots and spectators alike. The aircraft flew scale like and was handled with ease by Grant with excellent landings. Other than the brief certification flight several weeks ago this was the aircraft’s first series of serious flights. Thanks to Des & Sandra Rim for transporting the model.

	The Vampire was one of the best detailed models and flown very scale like.
The 35lbs thrust F-15 Eagle, was a spectacular show stopper.

	Left and below: 4 engines and it flew as beautifully as the real British Empire Airways plane
	Left: The camouflaged OS-2 (the military version of the SkyMaster) was beautifully presented
	Above and left: The "Black Widow"

	All the bi-planes were flown beatifully and as may be seen were very detailed and lots of other classic aircraft were represented. There were quite a number of multi engined models and the Grumman Tigercat (below) was an eye catcher.

This month's gossip is with a little difference; it also serves as a lesson.
One interesting incident at Shepparton could have turned very nasty when one of the modeller/pilots called “interference” as his model reacted to intermittent signal interruptions. With the engine stopped the model was landed safely and spectrum scanners were brought into play to no avail.
With some degree of certainty one official stated that without a doubt it was a faulty receiver. The modeller also could not identify any other likely source, so he purchased a new receiver from Col Taylor, who had a large shop at the field and probably saw the modeller coming. The new receiver was duly installed and then to the horror of said modeller there was absolutely no compression.
The fully cowled Zenoah had to be uncowled and voila!!! The plug was hanging out of the head on its lead!!! The very experienced owner/builder/pilot realised that for whatever reason the plug had worked loose and the interference was the lead sparking to the head, the engine had freakily stopped on top dead centre and with electronic ignition was putting out electrical bursts causing continuing interference even after the dead stick.
Luckily the model was undamaged and the only damage was to the wallet. Unfortunately just prior to the time of solving the lack of the compression mystery the modeller's wife dared to wish to speak to him and it was the sparke needed to commence the reaction of the pilot, which could be likened to Potassium and water coming into contact with all the colour and volatility of an exploding water melon but it is believed that the modeller is now again eating and sleeping at their abode in some semblance of normality!
(BTW the clue to the identity of the modeller is contained within the article)

Greetings from the sunny UK. I've seen Zagis and reports on Zagis from time to time but it was only recently I saw two “up close and personal”. They were being flown by a father and son duo after the official flying at the “Top Gun” show. They were very impressive! They chucked them around the sky and the son was doing touch and gos. “T&Gs?!” I hear you say, “with an electric glider with no U/C?!” Yep! What he did was cut the motor, glide in fast, bounce on the ground and start up the motor again – neat!
As you know I am travelling at present in a motor home in the UK. It’s a nice MH, clean and tidy, not exactly spacious but very comfortable. It was only after I bought a couple of IC powered planes at a club “bring and buy” that I realised how impractical they were – there’s fuel to carry and they would inevitably become oily and messy and smelly (you know, the state we all get in and love!) and make my nice van the same. But electric powered planes …….. so I sold them at the “Top Gun” show.
I bought a Zagi kit from a model shop in Norwich and some extra coloured tape. The “kit” comes with motor, prop and one roll of blue tape so I had to get some white glue to stick on the squishy leading edge and some epoxy to put the two wings together. It didn’t take long to assemble, there’s only 8 bits though the connection of the motor, speed control and batteries took a little longer as I had to visit a friend with a soldering iron and a workshop. The hardest part was feeding the aerial down one of the channels in the correx ailerons – neat though.

I’ve seen Zagis covered in tape and most of them are wrinkly. I was determined mine would be super smooth (like all my other models!) with not a wrinkle in sight! So I settled down in the van one evening and proceeded to stick tape. About 2 hours later it looked like this, with a blue and white LE to TE stripe pattern on the bottom – not a wrinkle to be seen, really smooth ……..unless you get close and then there’s a bunch of them – that tape is a bastard to get on flat! Ah well, so it goes.
The CG turned out to be in about the right position but when I tried a test glide it seemed nose heavy so I moved the battery back a bit on it’s velcro strip and it seemed better. Time to fire up the motor!
I had bought a decent battery and a cheapie. I loaded the former, held it by the triling edge at the motor, chucked it and hit the throttle up as soon as it was launched – it went into the ground! I repeated the attempt but this time with a quicker flick to power and some up elevator – off it went! It flies pretty well, nearly as good as the ones I had seen, not quite as well but I suspect that is because they are more used to theirs (OK, they may be better fliers) and they have fitted a non-kit prop which I shall try soon. I also suspect I may have got carried away on the tape as it feels pretty heavy and certainly ain’t no floater! It seems a bit twitchy on the ailerons and wants to tighten up and dive if you let it but has already shown it’s strength as a result of one of those that ended in the ground. I think I have probably got too much throw on the controls but until I can borrow a drill to open up the holes on the horns I can’t reduce them.
The cheapie battery is obviously made from cells that do not discharge at a high enough rate as they make the motor run but don’t have the grunt to get the plane to fly, I must look around for some others.
Well, at least I am airborne again and all clean and quiet too.

See ya sometime,
Mike

PS. I plan to be back in Australia at the end of October for the summer and some proper flying! See you all sometime,

Mike

ACCOMMODATION IN TEMORA??
Your Editor received kind hospitality in Temora when he attended the Museum and display there, in contrast to the experiences of other Members at other accommodation places.
I stayed at the Aromet Motor Inn, 132 Victoria Street, Temora, mine hosts Ian and Judy Nicholas took great care of me and my family and offered most helpful visitor's advice about the Region.
Tel: 6977 1877; Fax 6977 1181; email: booking@aromet.com

NITRO - how much do you really need?

from David Foster

A couple of weekends ago I was in the shed listening-in to a few guys discussing the percentage of nitromethane they use in their fuels. The conversation went like this:
“I use 5%”.
“Is that all - I use 15%”.
“That’s too much - I reckon 10% is about right”
It seems to me there’s a lot of misinformation out there about nitro. Let me see if I can clear some of it up.
Yes, NITRO = POWER - but it doesn’t add power because it is a “hot” chemical. In fact the methanol in fuel (methyl alcohol) is by far the most flammable ingredient - nearly twice as flammable as nitromethane. If you put a flaming match into nitro the match would go out.
Well, how does nitro add power? Every internal combustion engine burns a mixture of air and fuel of some sort - in our case a liquid glow fuel. The purpose of the carburettor is to meter these two ingredients in just the right proportions, and every engine requires a specific proportion of liquid fuel and air to perform at its optimum. If we try to push more liquid in without enough air, it won’t run.
However there is a way of running more fuel through our engines without increasing the air supply - by adding nitromethane to the methanol/oil mix. An engine can burn almost 3 times as much nitro to a given volume of air than it can methanol. Voila! More power! That’s all there is to it.
However there are a few practical aspects to consider. Not the least of these is fuel cost .
Nitro costs around $20.00 a litre and ready-mixed 10% nitro fuel costs about 30% more than “straight” fuel.
I know some flyers who don’t use any nitro at all. Pylon racing engines designed for international FAI competition run on no nitro at all, due to their rules. Yet they go much harder then engines running on high nitro fuels. This is because these engines have compression ratios, intake and exhaust timings etc designed especially for FAI fuel (4:1 methanol and oil). Even then they won’t idle at all and can be a serious bitch to tune and run - just ask Ranjit!
A popular misconception is that nitro gives you an immediate power jump. In the 5% - 25% nitro range you will probably see an rpm increase of about 100 rpm static (sitting on the ground or in a test stand) for each 5% nitro increase. However in the air the engine will unload and achieve a greater increase, and it will idle better too.
At the other end of the scale it’s possible to use too much. When I was running powerful racing engines in Old Timer competition, where optimum power is important to get maximum climb from a short motor run, I found virtually no incremental improvement in performance with nitro contents above 30%.
Most of our popular 2-stroke sport engines are designed to run on 5% to 10% nitro, 4-strokes 10% to 15%. Most European engines will run successfully on less, because they are built to do so. In the UK, nitro costs between $200 and $300 a gallon! Reason enough?
Conversely engines made in Asia, as most of those we run are, are designed to run on nitro-containing fuels. The vast majority of model engines manufactured in Asia end up in USA, and nitro is very cheap there. This is because the only manufacturer of nitromethane in the Western Hemisphere happens to be in the USA. ‘Nuff said.
Going back to the beginning, how much nitro do you really need? From a practical standpoint, virtually all our everyday sport flying can be done on fuels containing from 5% to 20%. If you’re flying something like a trainer or a Cub with a 2-stroke engine, there’s no reason why 5% won’t work perfectly well.
Need a little extra power? Move up to 10% or 15%. Four strokes need a little more - 10% to 20%. OS 4-strokes are adjusted at the factory for fuel containing 10% nitro.
I wouldn't recommend going higher than those percentages. It won’t do you much good and it’s a waste of money.
I have found 5% in 2-stroke fuels and 10% in 4-stroke fuels is about right for me, giving easy starting, good top-end performance, reliable idle and instant pick-up. If I could afford it I’d up these percentages by 5%. However I use about 50 litres of fuel a year, so adding more nitro would add substantially to my fuel costs.

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