Putting RC on hold for a more "rewarding" project
 

I've decided to put my RC dreams and wants on a hold for a more rewarding project. I finally have the time a money to put into something to define myself and to set myself apart from the crowd. I've seen my college friends drop enormous amount of money on things from dedicated wake boarding boats to sports sedans such as the most recent Lancer EVO. But how many actually get that 3rd degree of freedom?

I'm starting my Zodiac 601XL, Starting kit minus motor: ~$24,000.

http://www.zenithair.com/zodiac/pic03/xl-tradimpex1.jpg

Good candidate for a Spektrum DX6. :smile:

Good luck man, and make sure you can walk away from every landing.

the wings are on the bottom, you'll have to fly upside down to see anything:lol:

seriously though, thats pretty cool. guarunteed to seal the deal if you take a date for a flight on your plane. :yes:

Wow talk about expensive hobby! I have grown up around aircraft all my life, my Dad has his AI/A&P. When the oil bust hit in the 80's my Dad took me along when he would do work on peoples private planes mostly Cessna 150s and 172s, Beechcraft Bonanzas, Piper cubs and the like.

We used to go flying all the time and I loved it even in the dead heat of summer down here. I remember doing touch and gos and we would get beat up pretty good. He even let me fly all the way from Montgomery County airport to just over the boarder in Louisiana (he took off and landed of course).

One day my Dad brought home a Bell 47J (think MASH for the rest), we had that thing sitting in the driveway parked like it was a car. The tail boom was removed and engine and trans were removed. My friends and I even would play in it. Then he got a Cessna 150 that a guy landed in a muddy field and folded the nose gear and smashed up the firewall and underbelly. I remember he got a second 150 that was just the fuselage (a 150 will fit in a 2 car garage diagonally without the wings and tail section FWIW). He basically mated the belly skins and firewall from the donor to the wrecked one. I remember it had so many Clecos it looked like a porcupine. I never want to buck another rivet as long as I live. I felt like Bugs Bunny with the jackhammer. Now he is on to the next project It’s a UH-? I only know it by Bell 206 (think it’s the Jetranger not the LongRanger). And there is another in the garage. Let the you might be a Redneck jokes fly.



So what powerplant are you going to go with? You going to stick with the traditional Continental or Lycoming, or go the Subaru or Rotax route?

Jeff

Did you see that guy on the news who took his kid up and threw candy to people then smashed into them yesterday LOL. I went up with a buddy then once we are in the air cessna single engine tells me this is his 1st solo flight. I never felt so free or so close to deaths door. Good luck with that man. I'll co pilot, made it through 1 listening to the tower guy

Wow I didn't hear about that.

I feel so much safer in a small aircraft than I do in an airliner. I fly all the time now (actually supposed to go to Tampa in the morn but lost my wallet). What makes matters worse is that the last 3 years in a row I miss getting Elite by about 2 points, and last year I actually went over by 6 points but they wouldn't count them because they were over 6 months old(didn't notice my 1 pass number didn't get entered). A few weeks ago I went to IAH my home airport and they are trying out the new mm wave machine (think X-ray, but it only penetrates clothes.) I refused to go through. They may have "dumbed it down", but still, they push and push next thing I know I'm going to be singing "Moon River". I love he small planes but hate the cattle cars. If someone told me you have to fly and crash a plane I would pick the small one anyday.

Now the Media has started targeting small airports saying that "you can just walk in and steal a plane and do who knows what with it". Now my private waterway/drainage ditch fishing hole is closed up at Hooks. I gotta get my dad to let me in now then radio up to the tower and ask if it's alright to cross when i used to just be able to get to the side of the airport I wanted to and fish without crossing the runway.

Anyway sorry for the Jack

Jeff

A couple weekends ago I went up in a small Cessna. It was my first time in ANY airplane!! Talk about freedom! I loved the feeling in the air! Then I got the bright idea to jump out the plane! Damn glad my chute opened!!! I'm happy to say that I'm not addicted to Skydiving...

are you retarded ? I saw that jump its like flying in a car and looking 5000ft down. You have some balls. Couldnt pry me out of that plane, bet there are still grip marks on the dash board


whats really scary is being co-pilot, the towers yelling at you 500 feet to your left is Jayz's jetliner and you have to dive. friggin LA, Why no radar in those planes

The standard used to be the Rotax 912, but they're using a Jabiru 3300 now as part of the standard platform. I imagine that is what I'll go with. But the cost of an engine sets itself way off from the purchase date of the airframe kit. I'll worry about that when I have the wings built and avionics installed.

I willingly jumped... I'll become solo-jump certified within a year or 2...:party:

Flying.
 

I fly alot on airliners these days. Flying is flying. When you hit the ground it wont matter one little bit if it is an airliner or a single engine job. Dead is dead. I went up with a friend of mine a few years back and he was a terrible pilot. I was scared to death watching him trying to figure out how to fly that thing. Never again. Good luck with that dream.

Thats awesome william, ill have my private very soon, and those were my plans upon finishing school was to start my plane, i really like the Rv8s with the larger subaru engines, a guy in eldorado has one and its a total hotrod... very fun.

speaking of which i have a check ride today at 4 so i hope the weather stays nice....

Best of luck to you in your new hobby

Good luck man! I have beem around flying a lot in the last few years since my dad got into general aviation. I don't know if I ever want my license but I enjoy the exposure.

He started with a 1998 Cessna 182, then on to a 2007 Beechcraft Bonanza, and no has a 1979 Cessna 414A with RAM engine conversions, all new interior, all new paint, and updated garmin avionics. This thing is bad with the twin turbo charged engines. I went up with him and his instructor the other day and the power is immense. His instructor is a senior pilot with continental and has flown almost everything large and small. He is a constant teacher and I always learn more about aviation every time I am around him.

After some further investigation I might end up finishing an already started CH-601 HDS, rather than the XL model. Wings are already finished minus installment of leading edge fuel tanks, the elevator/ horizontal stab. is finished, the rudder/vertical stab. is also finished. What's left? Mounting the leading edge fuel tanks and adding on a nav/strobe kit would finish the wings. The fuselage kit needs to be purchased, as well as the systems kit (landing gear, control cables and arms....) and assembly. Out of pocket I'm looking at only $6000 for a finished air frame. Engine will run me about $16,500 but that's much further down the road and if I want I could prob finance it by the time I get the frame built.
This afternoon I cleaned out my garage for working space to build the work table. Tomorrow I go shopping at my local hardware stores for some basic tools and table building supplies!

You know you could get a 383 crate motor for about 1/3 of that, buckets o power. If it was nose heavy you could just put another gas tank in the tail.

But where to put the radiator?

Good luck man, I can't even handle the RC version...

what kind of tools are you looking into william?

Because I'm building this from a kit and not a scratch build, minimal tools are required. My dad who is handing his potion of the kit over to me has everything and then some to complete the entire build. I will pick up my own set of clamps, levels, squares, and measuring devices but the rest of the things like rivet puller (manual or peunmatic), bur files, smooth edge tin snips, clecos....I can borrow it all from him as he isn't going to use them and he bought them specifically to build the plane with. As soon as I can finish the work table I'll go and pick up what he has and start working on the fuel tank install, and getting price quotes for the fuselage kit and options I want. Most likely I will have the plane close to complete before I have my sport pilot cert.

Planes don't work that way and a crate 383 is not approved by the FAA for airplane use. You can't put land vehicle logic into an airplane. You also have total airframe weight capacity to worry about and using a fuel tank to balance weight is bad because fuel is not a constant.

The rotary engines are THE motor for light sport aircraft like that and for a reason.

The plane he has will also have to be inspected and FAA approved before flight. The flying world is just a whole different animal than the way ground transportation works.

your gonna use cherry max rivets? a GOOD peunmatic will be around 900-1k and well the manual ones are a PAIN in the rear...... get ya a rivet gun an assortment of bucking bars and rent you a little mexican kid and have some fun!

Actually you can put a car engine in an airplane I have seen it done on.

http://www.sccoa.com/forums/showthre...light=airplane

I have even seen Wankle engines in homebuilts. The Lycoming and Contential engines are glorified VW engines (except the heads do not come off, you slide the entire "Jug" off).

I was that little Mexican kid...

Jeff

well a little american kid wouldnt have the drive or focus to concetrate and learn how to properly buck rivets and tell him when to stop....

I didn't seem to have any trouble.:wink:

Jeff Garza

Awesome new hobby dude, Looks like a great way to spend the spare time and reap the rewards when it's done. Enjoy and be safe.

I myself have never flown in a plane, However I've ben in a Heli a couple dozens of times.

The rivets for the kit are a particular brand of blind rivets, which my dad already has the gun for and a decent manual rivet puller for. I'll pick those up from him with the rest of the stuff.

I'm thinking of putting my training off till I get the ane finished. That way I can train and solo in my own light-sport to get my certificate.

Are you going for the light sport license only? My father-in-law just got his last year. He has a teknam(sp?) light sport plane that's from Italy.

My point was more to illustrate that it's not a simple drop in where as buying the proper setup will be the better and less expensive route in the long run. Not too mention that you really need to stick with the type engine the plane was designed around.

I was joking Tex.. whole 'nother set of standards, reliability issues I know. But I would like to see a giant outrunner in that thing!

Lipos would set him back a bit I reckon....

there are bigger RC planes than this :)

Like the Boeing 747 models? Betcha did not know they had 6 of them before 9/11. 4 had "unfortunate" crashes that day... But don't worry we have the patriot act now!

^ ;)

You are right, but the statment that a car engine cannot be placed in a plane is incorrect. There are lots of car engines that make into experimental homebuilt planes, including small block Chevy V8's. I don't know what rotary engine you are talking about, did you mean Rotax? The guy that put the 3.8L supercharged V6 engine out of a Supercoupe in his plane (don't remember what it was) came to our board to ask some questions, I told him that I wouldn't recomend it because it's not a reliable engine (or engine managment system for that matter). I don't remember what happened with the project.

Willy,

What type of time frame do you think it will take you to get it finished? I remember one of my Dad's friends had a Long EZ when I was about 12 or so and I thought that was the cats pajamas. I really like the "new" kits they have out now for the sport flying segment. I know it's probably going to be a few years before you get done but that's what hobbies are for. Have fun with it, a lot of it is going to be a PITA and frustrating, but the fun of flying will make up for it.

Jeff

Cool deal, I missed it, went over my head. I have been to busy trying to take a "crash course" on a bunch of plane terminology lately and have been overexposed to general aviation lately so my meter must be off.....:intello:

I have also had to catch up on airplane engine breathing at different altitudes manifold pressure, and all that kind of junk. Couple that with some quick avionics lessons as well as wait and balance calculations my brain is on overload.

As far as the rotary I meant rotax and I am sorry. My father-in-law spent about a year researching light sport aircraft before he bought and rotax engines were the standard across the board.

Zenith Aircraft Co. has organized workshops in Florida that really push a builder to building this plane in a minimal amount of time. From beginning to finish they had one put together and flying in less than 7 days. That's a really accelerated program with experienced aircraft builders guilding 1 individual on the build. A normal person can have the kit done in about 250 to 300 hours total build time. That being said, I'm not building the plane for a hobby, I'm building it because I wanna fly it! If things go well I'll have it finished in less than a year, be even better if I can have the frame put together by sometime this coming spring. I'm not going put in a few hours on weekends, I'm going to put in a few hours every day I can manage to focus after work, and longer build times on weekends.
I'm not a person to cut corners or say something is "good enough" when it will be holding my butt up more than 2000ft off the ground. If I can understand a step in the build, I'll stop and call Zenith for help. That might be one of the first things I end up doing because I'm a little confused on installing the leading edge fuel tanks (exact place where my dad stopped on the build).
I'll post pics when I pick up parts of the kit and finish build steps along the way. Today I managed to build my work table that I'll be using, only took a few hours.

how often are diesels used in aeroplanes? You should put a diesel in yours. :intello:

They're more efficient, more powerful, they have a simpler design, and they last forever. :yes:

I'm just going to stick with the magneto driven reciprocating engines. The Jabiru should do fine and there is plenty of documentation on it.:wink:

I don't know if you read in the other thread link I posted but my Dad always said "you can't pull it over on the side of a cloud to fix it". So ya, it's gotta work. I was always scared of working on aircraft because of the responsibility. If I screw up in my job I don't have to worry about dealing with a mistake that could kill people.

I remember one time my Dad came home from work and was so pissed, he had spent 4 hours searching for a 9/16" wrench, on a heli he was working on that I had borrowed from his tool bag and didn't return in time. I guess thats why he's the cheif inspector for customs air interdiction branch here.

So do you have a T hanger or a big garage you are going to do the final assembly? Can't wait to see the updates.

Amen to that!!

Jeff

Yeah my mother actually soloed when I was in HS, I remember all the time and study she put in. And then she just lost interest. I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid, like most probably. Not so much anymore I guess, but still trying to fly the little ones.

Wish you luck man!

That's why I could never work in fast food:lol:

The plane is being built is parts, like most kits. Many people build the parts in a 1 car garage, so my 2 car garage should be more than enough space. After doing some step retracing, I think I found a bit of missing documentation that my dad miss on the leading edge fuel tanks. It appears that the wing tanks are held in place by layered pieces of cork surrounding the aluminum tank. Keeps it from chaffing with the leading edge. There doesn't appear to be any hard mounting for the wing tanks.
I'll ask my dad to get the wings off the wall of his hanger and ready to transport as I should be making another trip to the ranch in a few weeks.