The Engine Shop - 2010/02
Magical maintenance methods
A PERSISTENT PROBLEMwith our
model airplane engines is keeping them clean,
rust-free, and not sticky internally. That’s
often more troublesome than we might
expect, because the best lubricant for these
power plants—castor oil—congeals with time
and especially with heat.
The Engine Shop - 2007/08
THIS BEGINS my 11th year with this column and my seventh decade
of foozling about with model engines. In all that time I’ve owned,
operated, and flown with more than a thousand of them.
In doing all that I’ve probably made almost every mistake possible.
That’s how I’ve become so experienced! (It’s well known that
experience is what you receive soon after the urgent need for it occurs.)
One thing I’ve learned above all else is to beware of lean needle
settings! They cause more model-engine problems than almost
anything else. Patrick LeRay (Shreveport, Louisiana) recently Emailed
me about his troubles with a four-stroker.
The Engine Shop - 2010/12
For two decades Brodak
Manufacturing has been the mainspring of
US CL model building and flying activity.
The Engine Shop - 2007/10
Has the 1/2A golden era come to an end?
RECENT E-MAIL from a reader alerted me that a major era in
aeromodeling may be coming to an end. In the past several years 1/2A
glow engines have gradually but relentlessly become less popular.
The Engine Shop - 2004/07
I’LL START THIS month’s column with a clarification. In
discussing the Rotary Sleeve Valve (RCV) four-stroke model
engines recently in this magazine, I mentioned some full-scale
aircraft engines that also used rotary sleeves instead of poppet
valves for their intake and exhaust functions.
