AndyW

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With the magic of the Internet, we can now share our flying experiences, good or bad. YouTube is great but has limited run time. Google Video gives you nearly limitless video capacity. I gave it a try and here's the result.

This one needs editing and the quality deteriorates a bit once it runs through the Google process.

This is a dieselized Norvel .074 flying my own design, MiniSport.

Notice that I just whack the starter to it after applying a few drops of prime. This one has the custom made, heavier rod but since this was taken some two years ago, I've found that the stock rod works just fine, as long as you follow procedure. Prime ONLY into the intake with two or three drops.

Again, you find the needle setting on glow. This will get you very close. Then find the compression setting with NO fuel in the tank. After that, the engine starts no different from glow and once you find the final compression setting, you rarely have to re-adjust.

To contradict myself, the diesel guys may detect that I've put in an entire flight a bit overcompressed. This was the first flight of the season and I let the camera distract me from optimizing all the settings. I didn't even touch the main needle.

Prop is an 8 X 4 black Tornado.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...21638&q=norvel

andrew b

This is GOOD, I saw it on the diesel forum, no doubt makes alovely smell when flying.

Now, would a queen bee diesel-ise?

AndyW

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Andrew,

The aroma is to die for, IMO, but most don't agree. Go figure.

After that flight was recorded, I did tweak the compression back a bit and got substantially more power and less noise to boot.

The Queen Bee might make an excellent diesel as long as you have very good compression seal which I haven't seen with Cox in a very long time. The other issue, for me, at least, is power to weight. NOTHING compares to the Norvel .074.

soarrich

My Feedback: (98)

Great looking and flying plane.

How can you tell from watching the video that it's overcompressed? How about tuning one on the video so we can hear the differance? I guess you can tell I've not run a diesel.

andrew b

thats a good idea, I can tell coz it has that "harsh" sound rather than the burblebuzz. of a diesel , you can hear it in the pickup most of all

ebeneezer3

After buying and running my 1st PAW 061 I 'm wondering why more people don't run deisels.
Those things swing an astounding prop diamiter and pitch. They also run forever on one oz of fuel. There is a whole 'nother set of methods to learn in starting and running, but once that's done, they are no different then other engines.

My nose must be broke because I don't think they're that badsmelling.

Ted

AndyW

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Rich and Andrew,

I'll do a bit on YouTube to illustrate over and under and just right compression settings.

The plane has turned out to be a real pleasure to fly. The video and the camera work doesn't do it justice, really. Like most of us, for many years, I would build a plane to the plans and just fly it, trimming it out with balance point, a bit of engine offset and control surface trims. Then I built a very light Suprafly for a .25. This was a scaled down pattern ship duplicating Hanno Prettner's big bird. Not my work, it was a Pilot kit. I didn't build the kit but used the plans and some parts to make mine far lighter than the original. It flew OK but at the time, someone gave me a tip sheet for trimming out pattern aircraft. This had some 12 items and it had you do things like get very high, point the nose straight down, throttle back and let the elevator go. If the aircraft pitched to the canopy, you had too much incidence. If to the gear, not enough etc.

Once you had that sorted out, they had you get way higher and then point the nose down with the engine screaming. Scary stuff. This little stunt told you how much downthrust to put into the engine. I did a number of things to the Suprafly such as carving the back of the wing saddle by an eighth of an inch to reduce the incidence along with less downthrust and more right thrust. The result was a MUCH better airplane that would do stunts that I didn't know I could do. Knife edge became almost easy. The neat thing was doing full bore square loops. All you had to do was whack the elevator in the corners and let it go on the straights. Straight down with the elevator at neutral and the plane would track exactly as if on a rail.

Using these tips, I improved each version of the MiniSport and now have a plane that behaves much like that Suprafly. Predictable, solid, fast, stable and yet it'll do snaps in a flash and even sustained flat spins. On low throttle, you can do figure eight touch and goes till sundown.

Ted,

Boy do I agree. Imagine an .06 slugging an 8 X 4 with gusto like the Norvel in one of my clips. I cringed when I first tried it out of concern for the crank but extensive bench running has shown no problems. I WAS going to give a 9 X 4 a go but,,,,, I think I'd I'd prefer that Sig came up with a special diesel crank with the bore in the crank smaller to give it a bit more meat in this area. Something like a PAW crank, maybe. And a fatter rod too, Justin.

And Ted, I don't think they're all that smadbelling either. Sniff.

Will do up that sound clip in the next day or so.

soarrich

My Feedback: (98)

OK, great.
BTW, your camera man did great following you plane, most guys film empty sky most the time, I think you wore him out though, the last 1/8 he started loosing it.
Rich

AndyW

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Rich,

That was my nephew, 19 at the time, his first time out and yeah, how do you follow when you don't know what's coming next. Studio technique is required where you shoot a couple of hours and then edit in the best clips/shots into an interesting visual narrative.

Something like this. Music helps too. The big ones are catching up to us.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IOWr...n%20aerobatics

flybug

WoW!

AndyW

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Rich,

Latest on YouTube is a run of my dieselized .06 on a 7 X 4 black Tornado. Unfortunately, because of the camera, it doesn't really pick up the harsh tone of overcompression. If you watch and listen, rpm sag with smoke AND a miss is undercompressed. A sag and NO miss is overcompressed. If you venture into diesel some day, you learn pretty quick by the tone and output where you're at. It's best to tweak the needle as well after making any compression changes. I just go back and forth a couple of times till it sounds right.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NkN4ebIK-w

D Bronk

I would like to know more ,about what is involved/needed with the conversion of the the BigMig 0.074".

AndyW

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You can find details on how it was done with the Brodak .049.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_42...tm.htm#4276726

The Norvel .074 device is made exactly the same except that a few relevant dimensions are slightly altered to suit. The Norvel, screw on head, has to be bored out slightly. Pictured is the rig I'm running right now. This was first made up some three years ago and is still working well. No stress cracks or wear on the O-Rings.

On the Brodak device, the .380" dimension is 12mm for the .074 and the Brodak .625" dimension is 15mm for the Norvel and the piston diameter goes to 10mm. Everything else is essentially the same with anodizing optional.

D Bronk

I`ll read that thread this evening .Thanks.. Is there a kit that can be purchased ,that you, or others may know about??Andy,another question,can the engine be converted back to glow(convertible)???That would make an engine, quite versatile,I would think..

AndyW

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Yes, all my aircraft use neoprene tubing which is good for glow OR diesel. I just change the head and prop to switch back and forth.

The diesel heads are my own design, and are made one at a time. Takes me about 3 to 4 hours on my Taig lathe. Most of it is cut, trial and fit and this takes time.

MJD

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Wow, that thing is turning the 8-4 at pretty respectable rpm for an .074. Cool. The only diesel I fly (versus own..) is an Irvine .40, and it swings a 12-6 with authority. I have a Russian or Ukraine made (forget) KMD .15 team race diesel, rear intake, that I have static run only and it is a jewel, very strong. Pondering whether or not to drop an R/C carb on it some day, but muffling would be a chore with the thin wall rectangular exhaust port.