In the grocery checking out couple weeks ago. Wife wants a Sunday paper which is past the register. I grab the paper, hold it up for the cashier. “Got a paper.” he acknowledges. I stick it in a bag, he says, “Wait, I need to scan that.” I remark “you mean this thing has a bar code?” He reply’s “yes”. I said “I am shocked something as primitive as a printed newspaper could have a Barcode.?.?” “I would be nearly as surprised if I looked under the hood of a restored model T and found one of Henry Fords’s inventory Barcode stickers on the valve cover.” The youth appeared completely confounded as to my meaning. Reading his body language to ferret out his thoughts “….WTF is this dude talking about and why the hell is he talking to me?…cigarette….whats a model T?……..”
Keith Shaw’s Radical RC 1905 Wright Flyer Part 5

At the field. Note the “cross-country fuel tanks”. Each tank contains two A123 cells inline, housing made of 1/64 ply and card stock. The 4 cells and holders weigh about the same as a 4 amp-hr 3s LiPo pack, but produce a little higher voltage. I pull 32 amp at full throttle, but the two flights so have been a half throttle. 6-7 minutes consumes about 1 amp-hr out of the 2.2 amp-hr available.>


Keith, an astounding amount of detail. I love the fantasy tanks. You mention flying it. I’m going through the emails one at a time as I’m posting them in the schedule.
I have noticed that although this model should be very energy hungry, when cruising around at slow speeds, it seems almost magical how little energy is used. Think about all that weight, you have to be around 60 ounces, all those struts, two props, two motors and two no-load currents (something worth a whole blog post to explore), both those wings and your only using about 150mah a minute.
I’ve never seen a mah per minute chart based on weight or style or anything else for that mater. However it seems if there were such a guideline out there, something is wrong. This model in my mind should not fly as long as it does on so little energy and so little battery mass relative to machine weight.
A little quick math shows cruise current should be about 9 amps (150ma per minute x 60 minutes). However, when you deduct the no load current (not sure what it is for those motors) we’re talking maybe only 7 amps at cruise for the pair of motors. Figuring a at load depressed voltage of 3.3v x 7 amps _ only 23.1 watts. Further, it would imply that two 14 watt brushed IPS gearbox’s would be able to keep this machine aloft and still have an excess 4.9 watts for climb. It seems impossible, yet, I know it is true.
Dave
Is Capiltolism Humane?
Another great talk given my Milton Friedman. What are the results of various systems of government? This talk was given before socialism/communism in the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) had failed. 45 minutes.
Although not mentioned in the talk, it is also interesting to mention another failed socialist government. The NAZI party (NAZI translated from German is National Socialism) Socialism is used to gain control, complete central control of peoples, it seems so sweet at the onset, however it eliminates liberty and forces participation. To the hopeful central controllers, more important than what your day to day decisions are is who gets to decide. We are suffering from intrusions into every step of American life, how much water your toilet uses, which shower head you choose, and on and on, all for the “greater good”. Certainly, I am not saying Americans in favor of Socialism are Communists or Nazis, what I am saying is the peoples of Russia, Germany, Greece, Cambodia (Pol Pot) were entrapped by socialist ideals and all ended in failure. Literate Americans have the benefit of history in order to determine what is at the end of the socialists anti-capitalist path. We have the option of rejecting these failed ideals and avoiding the poverty and despair of Cuba, Russia, Germany and so many others. Some Americans make the argument that we can ignore history, that we never tried it fully and that’s why it will work for us, we are American’s after all. It seems a little aloof to consider oneself above history doesn’t it? One thing leads to another and so on, it is historic and undisputable, where it happens, it fails with sad results for everyone (except the ruling class).
Listen to Milton Friedman, he saw this in his own time. I wonder if he could have imagined we would have slipped so far by now? I think the answer is yes, he did imagine it, that is why he was giving these talks and warnings, trying to stem the tide of poverty and failure in socialist systems where the equality is sought and always achieved to an equal level of poverty for all of us.
We Remember
Evil Finds a Way
Although I wrote the following comments over approximately a 10 day period, I chose not to publish them prior to the last funeral out of respect for the families.
A horrible tragedy unfolds in a school, a wacko kills 26 persons, 20 of which were children. Before the bodies are removed, it is seized upon by many including the mayors of New York and Boston as an opportunity to further curtail Liberties.
We shouldn’t be surprised, their brother Rom Emanuel is famous for confessing an underlying philosophy.
My prayers go out to the families and victims of this depraved insanity. I feel ashamed there are those Americans among us whose crassness allows them to confiscate their immeasurable loss for further attacks on our Liberties and freedoms. As if you and your freedom were to blame for this wacko’s actions.
During the memorial service, a high government official was vowing to use all the power of his office. The speech mentioned 4 shootings during this administration. However, he omitted one, there were five. Left out was Fort Hood where a Muslim terrorist Maj. Hasan assisted by an on-base gun-free zone attacked Americans. A place where our soldiers, sworn to fight to the death for our freedoms were forced to be disarmed. (should I say not trusted, to be armed?) 13 people died in that self defense free zone. Do you remember? They side tracked the real reason these people died by defining it as “workplace violence”. A military base, you can’t have more command and control than a military base. Maj. Hasan walked right into the so called “Soldier Readiness Processing Center” and killed 13 soldiers who’s readiness was not respected. Why did he fail to mention this 5th failure of gun control? They controlled soldiers on a base, disallowing our most trusted defenders of freedom to be armed and 13 of them were killed. Yes, I blame the controllers that SO MANY died. I empathize with you in wishing we could, yet I know we cannot really trust this government or any other government to protect us. Sure they’ll be on the scene to take the reports and investigate and blame the inanimate objects. It’s our first responsibility to keep our own selves and families safe. To protect ourselves from a government official investigating why we died.
Those who wish us to be weaker are planning to use the actions of this madman to argue that you have too much Liberty. As if it is your fault American, you and your ilk are to blame. While they are protected up to the eyeballs in Washington with firearms, barriers, missiles and technology, they desire you and I should have no choice. Somehow the problem is our Liberties, not the evil mental case that did the deed. Of course, it suits the needs of those seeking to take bites out of our constitution to blame you and me and our freedoms rather than a determined individual that committed the crime or the people who organize the zones where self defense is prohibited.
Do I think every teacher and school administrator should be carrying a weapon? Shouldn’t it be up to them, up to each American if they choose to do so? That’s Liberty! What if Liberty were not obstructed with opposing regulations? If Liberty where not hindered by it’s opponents, who’s to say there would not have been some small number of school employees able to provide lethal resistance to this killer? No, rather than allowing free people to defend themselves and those they love, we forced those teachers into charging the gunman unarmed, shielding their pupils with their bodies (unarmed) or running (unarmed) from harms way. Limiting citizens to these frightening choices is held up as the high moral ground by some. I am aghast with shock and horror at the ignorance of many. We trust our teachers with our children. If they wished to do them harm, there is nothing stopping them. There is nothing stopping a knife, a gun, poison, physical abuse, if they wanted to do them harm they could. They have them all to themselves, even alone in classrooms all day long. Yet to satisfy some sick political cause against the Liberties of Americans, we prevent them from exercising the power to protect our children. We create an environment that favors evil, an environment that favors the sick wacko. A free fire zone where there are none whom are “free” to resist evil with equal force. The wacko knows how to avoid a fair fight and where to find preferential treatment. Time and time again they go to the anti-self-defense zone and they enter that zone with the full knowledge it’s been designed with a philosophy, with misguided intentions, not effective defense. Our Anti-Self-Defense zones are most effective at creating space for madmen to do whatever they want. To be in charge.
Wacko’s don’t seem to have any difficulty arriving at such simple logical conclusions. They understand where the way is easy and where it is difficult. It’s not complicated. Are you smarter than a wacko?
My name is Dave Thacker and I’m doing something about it.
Excellent Use of Z Rack N Stack
Dave Baer Writes:
Hey Dave,
Thanks again for your great customer service I really appreciate it. Take a look at how I used your hangers to get a bunch of planes in a spot that wasn’t being used at all. Thanks for designing such a great product!
Feel free to share with others.
Dave

This is a photo of the finished setup hanging in un-used space over a stairwell. View from 2nd floor, the models are over the treads at the bottom of the stairway. what is the rope thingie in that photo?

Fastened to the header above the second floor stairwell entrance is a pulley and 2 common rope cleats. A simple way to raise and lower his fleet!

Here is a shot of the rack lowered to the first floor, ready to for another mission into enemy territory!
Thanks Dave for the photo’s of your setup. 7 Planes all stored in unused space and wherever they were is free’d up. Perfect.
Find the parts to build this project here at: Radical RC
Little help please.
Keith Shaw’s Radical RC 1905 Wright Flyer Part 4

Tail and bottom details. Rudder casing sewed to boom with thread. Z-bend at servo end, I am going to permanently glue the aileron cable in place this winter and get rid to the extension plug bump. Also will get rid of all ty-wraps as soon as i am happy with the thrust line and CG position. Will just sew the wiring to the structure with some lacing chord I have. Not having the head on made the wiring and tail installation a breeze.
Keith>

Keith, I’ve noticed a very soft rudder flutter at certain speeds. It’s so slight that I can only see it when conditions are just perfect and in certain positions where I can catch the light glinting off the side of a rudder. It’s so soft as not to be alarming as flutter would normally be. I haven’t been able to determine if it’s from a source of slop in the push rod and connections. It could be related to the unsupported nature of the struts in that they have a little springy play side to side and perhaps some harmonic gets set up?
Core Values of Freedom
Let me recommend a documentary; Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged
My wife and I recently watched it on Netflix using our Roku. This is a modern documentary covering a powerful philosophy. Learn what the “Right to the pursuit of happiness” really means. Here is the trailer:
I would classify this documentary high on my list of must watch films. You’ll find enlightening coverage of why we are in the financial crisis we are in and why we’re going where we’re headed. Our system trains us to forget, this will help you to remember and perhaps avoid an unpleasant future. Perhaps you’ve heard of Atlas Shrugged or Ayn Rand and wish to know a little more about it. The documentary is a quick cliff notes version of here philosophy. I would definitely recommend taking in this film, it will help you understand the recent movie Atlas Shrugged better to have this foundation. Look it up and Enjoy!
Scratch Building: Transfer A Drawing To Wood

We’re converting a Hobby Lobby Telemaster into a 1928 Fairchild FC-2W2 for a National Parks Service program. This aircraft was the first ever owned by NASA and later the first owned by the National Parks Service. Information link at bottom.
While making a complex former, I felt the method was simple, interesting and important to share. Having arrived at the shape, I used the following method to copy it onto the material I wished to cut it from. The simple technique could help you build any aircraft from your own or purchased drawings.

1. First we need a drawing. If your making “one off” parts as I am in this example, simply draw the part on standard 20 lb copier paper using pencil. I make lots of changes and mistakes as I go, so it’s important to have an eraser equipped pencil.

1B. Here is the front of the modified fuse where our soon to be made former will be installed.

1C. Holding up our drawing to imagine what it’s going to look like. Does it look correct?
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Albert Einstein

2. If your using an obtained drawing or you wish to preserve your drawing, use a copier or all in one printer to make a copy of the area containing the part you want to make. In this case, I made a copy of my pencil drawing just in case I discovered and error and wanted to alter the drawing before I finished.

3. Heavily pencil over the lines we wish to transfer to the wood. I used a standard #2 pencil.

3B. There are multiple uses for Formula 560.

4. Place the drawing, heavy pencil down against your material. You will notice the grain is running the wrong way in this former. However, it’s just a jig for building the nose, it’s not intended to provide any structure. The nose of this model has many facets of 1/4″ thick balsa. Although I’ll leave the former in the model, it could be removed if I wanted too. As this model has a short nose needing weight up front, I’ll be leaving it in.

5. Place two pins through the paper into the wood to prevent the drawing from moving. I choose top and bottom locations. Notice you can see the drawing through the paper. Makes me feel like Superman, you?

6. Find something curved and smooth like a coin, I choose a nickle to rub the pencil into the wood.

7. Because we created a way to register the drawing to the wood, we can lift the paper up and look at our results as we progress. No danger of losing our alignment.

8. Ahhh, thats what I’m talking about! The drawing has new been transferred to our material. It will be easy to cut it out now.

9. Doing what the band saw does best.

10. Drilling for the Scroll Saw

11. Installing on the Scroll Saw

12. Doing the inside, what the scroll saw does best.

13. How does it look against the print?

14. The former goes in about this position.

15. Former positioned and ready for addition of next nose sheeting segments. Since we are working with a model that is already built, we elected to jig the next two formers to the front of the fuse. when the 1/4″ thick balsa segments are added from the front of the fuse to this former, many facets will be formed representing the nose of this model. Using this method, we only need to make the 3 sides of each sheet accurate, they can be allowed to extend past the former. We can cut them off and sand them down against the former as we go. After all plates in position, we’ll snap out all the scrap sticks used to hold the former in place. The sanding bars are banded tightly to the fuse sides so I could measure and put the former in the center. They make a great straight edge.
I thought solving the problems of making and installing this former would be interesting to readers and hope you made it this far into a very long post.
Story of the National Parks Service first aircraft in the National Parks Traveler
Stars And Strips, a Fairchild FC 2W2 at the target=”_blank”>The Virginia Aviation Museum.
Admiral Byrd used the Fairchild FC 2W2 as a Aerial Photography Platform including in the South Pole.