ChopperMike

I'm building one from plans, what do you think, ailerons or rudder. Also, I have 3 engine options as I have a TD .010, a TD .020 and several Pee Wee .020's. What do you think?


Thanks




Mike

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

I have a wee stick that fireman built (just got saturday), beautiful job ele/rud,,I have plans for a quik stick/littlest stick both ele/rud, and I have an old plane that is .020 size rud/ele/ail///old! the kind of wheels you blow up from a tube and tie the tube off...for only being in the air 90 seconds or so, I dont think ailerons are worth it myself.....Rog
Deadstick Dan had a purple stick, not sure, I think Fireman may have built it too, but he stuck a golden bee on it for a reedie race once and man did that thing scream, first time I saw a glow head burn out in flight...I think BobHH said it flys like a sack of potatoes but, a really fast sack of potatoes!!..

Jaspur_x

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I have 2 littlest sticks ,
One is from over 20 years ago. Yes , it if a frankenstein these days , battle scars everywhere. I have made up about a dozen wings over the years , and tried it every which way EXCEPT ailerons , I just never tried that .....................yet.

I started out peewee 020 , but as a kid I only had standard radio gear. I had to cut out the bellypan for the servo to drop through it. Since there wasn`t even room for one servo , I had to cut out the belly pan for the servo to drop through.( I used a kick-up for my elevator which I added later) and ended up needing enough power to get it to fly...........black widow .049 time!
Ummmmmm well it would fly then , all the way to an empty fuel tank , then aplucked chicken landing

with micro radio gear , any of your three engine choices will do fine.

Enjoy , and keep us posted onyour progress with picsif you can.

A flying buddy of mine used to have one with a teedee010 and the original recomended radio equipment , escapement Ithink it was called?
that was an impressive flyer in his hands.

Will Sgarlat

I still have my Littlest Stick airframe in great condition! It ws great fun using a tee dee .020 with the integral tank, mini servos & receiver and a 110mAh Nicad or NiMH.
I used no ailerons and built according to the plans, but without landing gear. The plane flew fast, but with excellent control using rudder and elevator. Turn it upside-down to starve the engine of fuel, spiral down and land it on the grass on its belly. Check for dirt in the carb after landings.
It was so much fun: you can point it up and barrel roll it easily using the rudder only. It's very good for relatively close-in barnstorming in minature. With this model I began to understand the importance of having enough rubber bands to hold the wing to the fuse. The wing actually stretched apart from the fuselage (let's call manuver that "The YoYo") and it still kept on flying! With today's sub micro electronics, it will be lighter than they were in the '80s. They can even be made electric. A very fun plane!
Have fun
Will

Will Sgarlat

Here is my plane, called the Cherry Bomb, that is based on the Littlest Stick, where there is zero dihedral, zero incidence with ailerons and also has a forward-swept wing for added interest. Definitely more acrobatic and is pleasantly wierd looking in the air!
It has the same 19" wingspan and 4" chord and it needed a tall vertical fin. There is an internal u-control tank inside for longer flights.
It does the wildest thing due to its forward-swept wings: Take it up high, shut the engine off and when gliding, pull up into a deep stall. Hold the elevator up and the model will drop down vertically, in a flat attitude, with the nose pitching up and down like a leaf! Let go of the elevator and it will glide again for the landing.

ChopperMike

I'm thinking no ailerons, it'll definitely simplify construction. I too was thinking of leaving the gear off, my only concern was the engine getting dirty on landing.

I'm thinking the Pee Wee might be a better choice in that regard because of the location of the intake. But I can decide that later in the build.

Actually I just had a thought. What about putting a curved music wire skid on the nose just to keep the nose up and out of the dirt.

It should fly pretty good with the lightweight gear today. I have plenty of nano servos and I fly a Spektrum DX7. I fly primarily electric, having only one other engine powered model, a 1/3 scale Spacewalker with a DL-50. I might build another with a tiny brushless.

I'll try to post some pix as the build goes on.




Mike

soarrich

My Feedback: (98)

Yea, and the Space Shuttle is based on the Wright Flyer![sm=bananahead.gif] Great looking plane!

build light

Mike, I think you have the right idea. I think the wire skid on the nose is a good idea but not really required.

Will, Love the Cherry Bomb! You should do a seperate thread on this jewel!!!

I love so many things about this plane. from the forward swept wings ao the googly eyes to the toon bomb graphics !!! And I'm not sure if anyone else noticed the Ace Pacer style wing tips.
What is the angle of the forward sweep and where did you establish the center of gravity?

Robert

Tee Bee

Mike, I built mine without ailerons and have no regrets. It's been flying for 2.5 yrs with a TD .010 that I bought well used and was manufactured in the 60s! Loops, rudder rolls, whifferdiddles, and heart palpitations are a regular part of the mix. Was fortunate enough to fly it at SMALL last year. I love the way it flies with the .010 but I confess to having a huge fascination with those tiny little engines. The project was inspired when I saw a video that ProBroJoe posted several years ago of his.

Will Sgarlat

Mike,
My buddy called that curved wire skid a "cat whisker" and it is excellent to use. I have tried it using music wire (really hard steel wire) and the first thickness I chose was too thin and collapsed too easily. I think a 1/16" diameter wire will be reliable. How are you gonna attach it to the firewall? Maybe sew and glue the "L" shape end to the inside face of the firewall so the engine has a flat mounting surface?
The pee wee will fly it for sure. If you have mostly electric, you'll like the teeny, high-pitched, feisty energy of those little Cox engines. Please get good at starting them by hand and not use a starter as a rule, but feel free to cheat with the starter if you have to.
Regards, Will

davidgeorge212

I built one with a td .020, it was full house with rudder ailerons and elevator and no landing gear. Dont ask me why I dont know what I was thinking. With ailerons its definately controlable but you would probably be just fine with rudder only. I am still trying to get my td to run a little better. I pulled it off another plane and it hadnt been run for nearly 30 years. When I fill it full of gas I somehow only get a short minute and a half run on it before it quits.

Will Sgarlat

Hey Robert,
Thanks for the interest! I definitely borrowed the wingtip plates from the Ace planes, good eye! Dig the sewn elevator hinges! The CG range for the Cherry Bomb is along the width of the red balsa strip, just aft of the nose hatch screw. The sweep angle is 35 degrees each wing, from the horizontal.

The method of determining the CG for a forward swept wing (FSW) was published in RCM Magazine for a plane called the FSW .40 some time in the late 80's. That plane was very cool looking.

I hope I remember it right: I found the mean aerodynamic center (MAC) of each swept wing and set the CG at 30% of the average cord on each wing, then drew a horizontal line between the dots! Then fine tune it to get it flying best.

There is a very detailed CG finder out there: http://adamone.rchomepage.com/cg_calc.htm
But it doesn't have a specific formula for a FSW.

Aint we having fun?

Will

BMatthews

The LS rolls like it's on a wire with just the rudder. No need for ailerons on this one. Mine is rudder only. If I were to set one up for R-E controls I'd reduce the wing incidence by about 2 or 3 degrees to kill the built in climb. It would be possible and desireable to reduce the downthrust to about 1/2 the amount at the same time. Tuned up well with a PeeWee or TeeDee .020 on it and R-E controls you could just treat the rudder stick as though it was ailerons. With the .010 performance is spirited but hardly a holy terror. It's mostly about climbing slow and sedate for altitude and then turn the height into speed and keep it going. With the .020's you wouldn't need to worry about that.

Will Sgarlat

Hi Mike,
Sorry to digress from your thread with my little plane...
Next is how you might dress your Littlest Stick up! Are you going to diverge from the pervasive German markings and do something different?
Since the plane is so small, the top of the wing should be very different than the bottom so it will be real easy to know which side is up from far away.
We want to see what you do with it. Post your all-up weight and let us know if it flies to your liking.
Will

davidgeorge212

What kind of run times are you guys getting with td .020's?

ChopperMike

What else but the classic German markings on it. And I always make sure to differentiate top and bottom. Especially on small, quick airplanes. I'm not a young kid anymore.

I'll definitely keep the group posted as I continue to work on it. I could conceivably have it ready to fly by early next week but it's really cold right now. The high for today is a mere 4 F. I suspect it will turn out to be very light, especially compared to years ago. Can't weight to find out.



Mike

coriolan

Is that the ones you're talking about?
http://my.pclink.com/~dfritzke/lastick.pdf

Jaspur_x

My Feedback: (1)

I finally got my littlest stick ready to fly again ( I had to put me teedee 020back on it since I sent myG-mark 03 out for a head work-up)

I`m hoping to get her up tomorrow afternoon if the weather cooperates for once.

I think I will prep up the littlet stick bipe I made and throw my G-mark 061 on it as soon as I get a couple more servos.


Jared

Will Sgarlat

One thing worth mentioning is that in the cold weather, the little Cox engines run much more consistantly with lower compression. I don't know if they made the "high compression" heads for the .020. The .049s have hi-comp heads, which are good for Summer, but a lo-comp head works better in the cold.

Can anybody else comment on this: are there high and low compression heads for the Cox .020 & .010 engines?

ChopperMike

Yes, that is the plan I'm working off of.


I never thought of that but it makes sense. The air is denser in the cold so, yeah.


Yes there are, assuming the knurl marks on the head indicate high compression as they do on the larger heads. Funny thing all but one of my .020's has a low compression head. I have a total of 5 .020's including one mint TD.020, 2 NIB/NIP Pee Wee's and 2 used Pee Wee's. Only the NIP (blister packed) PW has a high compression head. I have no intention of running the NIP PW since it I consider it too valuable, just like my blister packed Babe Bee with a price tag on it of $3.98!




Mike

ChopperMike

I too would like to know this and how it compares to the PW. I haven't yet decided which engine I'm going to use, run time ma be the determining factor.



Mike

build light

Though I've never owned one I believe I can say that all .010 Cox heads are knurled and are all high compression.

As for the .020 heads I have several which have the knurled marking on top but are NOT high compression heads. This has been mentioned elswhere. You need to visually check them inside to determine this.

Robert

ChopperMike

That's interesting. So is it also the case that they could be high compression and not be knurled? I checked all of my .020's except fort the one I can't check, the NIP Pee Wee, none had the knurling and none of them are HC. The NIP does have the knurling but as I said I can't check it.



Mike

ChopperMike

Here's what I ended up with. Just need to install pushrods and RC gear. I opted for no LG to save weight and went with the TD .020 I had. AUW should be around 5.5 oz, hopefully I'll find out soon how it flies.

Yuu

How are you going to install the servos? Screws? Hot Glue? How will you avoid the vibration?