What next?

With the completion - well nearly" - and successful flights of the Cessna I have been thinking what next.

I have a mental note for another scale job, an EDF Canberra PR9 but with the ducts to scale. Given the slim lines of the RR Avon this would be quite a challenge. It is such an elegant airframe.

I also have a single axis giro (actually I have two!) so I am musing over what to do with it and in what airframe.


Finally I have decided to 'retire' my Dads home built petrol 5cc four stroke which incidentally was made some 12 years before OS released their first 4 stroke in 1974.
I had hoped to fly it and although it runs fine with a big coil it is hard to start and ticks over poorly on a miniature one. I could buy a CD system but it would require some modifications to install it.
This coupled with its irrepairable nature (at least by me!) means that flying it is too big a risk so it is returned to its original display stand that my Dad made which is securely located in a custom wooden box.

Never intended for aerobatics it has a float carburettor. The original side float version (below) was replaced by one with a annular float and a bigger venturi.
It runs on straight petrol as it has a dry sump lubrication system.

Thats to be treasured, i am well able to do repairs, re the poor starting whats the compression like? pour something thin, like wd40 in the ports, turn it over, does it bubble past the ring? could be it just needs a better ring, and i have a man for that who makes rings for a semi retired living, but, if you just want to display it, fair does, has he any more engineering wizardry? and do any drawings exist for this engine?

Alan
The problem is really its coil/contact breaker ignition system. As its only 5cc it really can't carry too much dead weight.
On an 12V automotive coil it runs very well and starts with the flick of the finger.

However on a miniature 3V job the spark is weak and that's when starting/slow running becomes the problem and without reliability the risk of crash damage is just too great.
In terms of engine hours there is no real problem as it was designed specifically for long life, hence the positive lubrication system. Indeed you can see from the smoke in the video the lubrication is rather too positive at low revs. It really needs an oil control ring as well.

The only drawing I have is this GA which my dad drew up for a Model Engineer article.

Judging by these drawings, well before computers, and cad, and your posts here, then i would say that you have some brains in your family!! lovely drawings, and so easy to understand the structure and design of the unit, as for the ignition, no idea but unless you go for a re-machine on the prop driver, and you can time the engine, i would showcase it,

Yes there were both advantages and disadvantages to having a dad with such considerable engineering ability.
As a lad specially made toys were never a problem but having decided to go into engineering myself it did seem his footsteps were always there before me.
As an apprentice in Shropshire I bought my first car (a Mini) from the Waverley garage in Wellington (now Telford). The deal was concluded by the senior salesman who must have been getting on for 70. To my surprise he recognised my surname and said he had sold a car to that name many years before.
Indeed he had. A Morris 8 to my Dad in late 1945. He had been stationed there during the war developing AA guns.

I was extremely fortunate to gain my companies sponsorship to study Industrial Engineering and Management at Loughborough University starting the following year.
I couldn't wait to tell my parents on my next trip home to Kent (my Dad worked for the MOD in London).
My dad just smiled on hearing my news and with a gllnt in his eye calmly informed me that in his senior R&D role he had been asked to identify a possible individual to head up a new Design Engineering Department at Loughborough Uni and would you believe it - he had accepted the post himself!
Oh no! My Dad as my teacher!
Fortunately he only taught PhD post graduates so few of my fellow students even knew who he was - but it did mean my Mums home cooking was close by!
It used to flood quite regularly around Quorn where they lived. Happy days, I had hair then. Note the exhaust bubbles!


And so it when on.
Even many years later when I moved into the nuclear industry and went to Sellafield he knew quite a bit about the original plutonium producing reactor 'piles' as he had been involved with the Uranium fuel rod feeding mechanism that in many ways was similar to the automatic shell loading system used on the 4.7" AA gun!

Enough story telling - I still have to decide on what to build next!

That story is so much better than an the usual simple forum post, many thanks for sharing, but you sound as if you aee well cabable of any repair to this engine, why do you say its beyond you in a pst further up? i am a mere machinist, with a small hint of a development engineer, on simple jigs and tools, your dad sounds like a great guy, the sort who could have given a good interesting lecture,

Eric
It was driven very carefully into the water and it did have the benefit of a Marigold rubber glove over the distributor! The approved 'rain fix' until BMC brought out their specially moulded cover.

The black of the Cessna stands out so well that my thinking has moved to the Canberra B2. Nice and simple grey top, black under.

Compared to my recent builds it would be heavy - two EDFs and battery to match - a full Kilogram!?

Started looking at the problems of actually building a true scale Canberra.
If I take a 55mm fan (as I used in the scale V-1) and place it at the front of each engine nacelle to give a scale 55mm diam jet pipe it comes out at a whopping 2m span and just over 2m long. oo-er! and it would have a wing loading of under 5oz/sqft!
I suppose I could go to 40mm EDFs which would give a more manageable 1.45m span but the thrust to weight ratio becomes rather more critical.

To quote Fagin:
"I think I better think it out again"!

I still like the Canberra but there is another possibility and not often modelled - The English Electric P1A.

Virtually identical to the F1 Lightning in overall shape except for the cockpit and the nose intake.
The intake is quite large, at least equal to the area of the double jet pipes.

So a lightweight single fan EDF with a scale inlet and jet pipes looks possible.
With a maximum size duct running nose to tail the challenge will be to find somewhere to put the battery.

When I saw the P1A at Farnborough it did not have the spikes (or they had taken them off).
They are a typical fit for prototype aircraft for accurate speed and angle of attack measurement.

Hi Quorneng if you log on to RCUniverse and click on( new big jet era coming ) there is a F16 made from depron and it must be 3m long, but it flys but very under powered
I would have put it on here but dont know how