Sukhoi SU-26 from Nitro Planes, Giant Scale 3D ARF

Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
Pictured below is a giant-scale SU-26 as sold by Nitro Planes until a few years ago, when it was discontinued. Wingspan is 101", and it's designed for an 85-100cc engine. I may or may not end up with this plane, but am thinking hard about trying to make this happen. It would be another project on the shelf for a while, but it's a lot of plane for $300, and I may be able to horse-trade that cost down a bit. I guess a trailer to haul planes is in my future... :)

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rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
Yeah, I think you need to get a pretty good sized trailer too - not one of those little 4x6 jobbies. :D
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
I been here a few years now. Im pretty sure its more of a general intervention needed for you not just large scale. 😁

Wonder if you could aquire a house mortgage using your fleet as collateral.....🤔 hrrrrrmmmm
 

Headbang

Master member
I run a lightening aluminum 5x8. It has 118" deck to the v up front. Super light, tows behind my jeep and fits in my garage. I have 2 deep cycles for charging. Everything always ready to go. I just start some batteries charging, hookup and head to the field. I have 2 60cc birds on the bottom, and a bunch of others on a second deck up top. That being said, my big stuff is a horrible pita compared to my seaduck.
 

Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
Looks like my intervention has been postponed. :) I couldn't pass up the deal. In the foreground is a Tower Trainer .60 that I built for my friend, after it lost a battle with a tree. It was powered by a 4 stroke glow engine, and way overpowered. Heck, I think it was able to take off in less than 3 feet! He loved flying that plane and wants it back, so the trade was for a re-build of the Tower Trainer, using a new in box Tower Trainer 60 I have in my stash. I'll re-build it as it was, but with a bolt-on wing to better handle the power. He's also getting some labor from me to fix some other planes up which evens out the trade. The Sukhoi fuselage is a BEAST! :)

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Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
I don't think this giant Sukhoi will be started soon, although I did just end up with an engine big enough for it. :) Against my better judgment I troll around on eBay for deals occasionally, and stumbled upon this Quadra Aerrow for sale. The size wasn't listed and the seller knew nothing about it. My Google-fu was weak and came up with very little info about the Aerrow twins - I could only find enough to suggest it MIGHT be a 198cc twin... HUGE! I have absolutely no need for an engine that big, but with no other bidders I won the auction for a very reasonable amount and I figured it'd be a fun project.

Today it arrived from Canada, with some pretty poor packaging, and it's NOT the 198cc engine. The jugs on it are almost the same as a standard Quadra 50cc uses, so my assumption is that this is really a 100-ish cc engine, perfect for the Sukhoi! One spark plug was broken in transit, but otherwise it appears to have survived. It's got TONS of compression, rotates smoothly, and the ignition appears to be in good shape. The mufflers are kind of funky looking, but as long as they work I'm happy. It's got a mechanical ignition advance, the carb moves freely, etc. I'll replace the spark plugs and set it up on my test bench to see if it runs.

I called a guy who specializes in older Zenoah and Quadra engines who was helpful, but he said he had no idea what Quadra was making "back in the day". He suggested sticking with 5V for the ignition, doing a carb rebuild, and seeing what happens. He also gave me the name of another guy who does electronic ignitions for these engines, which would get rid of the mechanical advance and give stronger & more consistent sparks, so if it runs I may get a price on that. I'm guessing that'll cost far more than the winning auction price. :eek:

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speedbirdted

Legendary member
There's no such thing as too much engine :p There's a guy local to me that has one of these except with a massive motor running off I think 12S lipo. Has an irresponsible amount of power.

I need to get something with a twin or otherwise multi-cylinder. Though maybe a little smaller than 100cc...
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Been over a year since I threw my thoughts out on this.

I am thinking its time you abandon the house leaving all the planes in tact and accessible. BUT..... Leave a taser next to each one, the house unlocked and the last man standing wins all the toys and takes over the house. You start over with plenty of room in a new place, someone else gets to re-purpose or continue your efforts here.. Its win win for everyone!!
 

Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
Been over a year since I threw my thoughts out on this.

I am thinking its time you abandon the house leaving all the planes in tact and accessible. BUT..... Leave a taser next to each one, the house unlocked and the last man standing wins all the toys and takes over the house. You start over with plenty of room in a new place, someone else gets to re-purpose or continue your efforts here.. Its win win for everyone!!

The house payments stay with the house.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
For that many cool toys AND a pre set up shop... DEAL!!! Id rent the back room or basement out to college gamer trolls for the payments anyway. Probably never leave the shop only to fly.
 

Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
I decided to replace both plugs, even though neither is carboned up and the gaps look good. Besides, I just didn't feel that the one on the right was making good contact with the plug wire, so better safe than sorry. :)

With new plugs attached to the wires I put 5 volts to the ignition module and did some testing. Both fired properly, but the mechanical advance wheel feels very sloppy and I'm concerned that it could cause mis-fires. Bench testing will confirm the problem soon. Also, the carb rebuild kit arrived today so I swapped out the gaskets and diaphragms on both sides of the carb, along with the filter screen. It was very clean inside and the old gaskets *MIGHT* have worked, but gaskets are cheap and I want to eliminate problems ahead of time. For now, I'm not taking the carb or mufflers off the engine as I don't have replacement gaskets and everything looks reasonably good, at least for testing. Hopefully today or tomorrow I can get the engine mounted to the stand and try firing it up! :D

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Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
A little free time to play today, and it was too hot to go out and fly. :cry: I just can't handle the heat & humidity like I used to, so I set up a couple projects in the garage and wheeled the test stand outside when it was time to start an engine.

First up is the Quadra Aerrow 100cc twin. I had a problem removing one of the four muffler mounting bolts, so that'll need some work in the future. It's by far the biggest engine I've tried running, so we were plenty nervous. Getting it to prime took a little effort as the carb intake is a weird shape that doesn't allow simply putting a thumb over it. Once that was figured out it primed pretty easily and I got plenty of gas into the carb. Since the carb is hanging below the cylinders I wasn't worried about flooding the cylinders. Choke on, and time to start hand-propping (even my biggest starter is nowhere near powerful enough for this much compression, so I use a nice big paint roller as my "chicken stick"). 3 or 4 flips and it pops. Choke off, and a half-dozen more flips and it's running!

It actually ran far better than expected, although the 20" prop I had to test it with is probably way too small. Once it was running I ran 8 or so ounces of gas through it and am very impressed with how well it runs. Low throttle just bobbles along smoothly and the transitions to higher speeds were crisp. I was thinking about getting new mufflers for it, but it's fairly quiet as-is and I should be able to tap the current mufflers for smoke oil ports. Not bad for a $112 engine! :cool:

 

Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
My Xoar 27x10 prop showed up today, and I couldn't resist putting it on the engine and trying it out. WOW, this thing pushes a lot of air!! With a big-a$$ prop on it acting like a flywheel the engine also idles very slowly.

However, a problem I was kind of expecting also popped up. The engine has a mechanical advance to adjust the timing of the spark based on how much throttle I'm giving it, which is the old-school way. It works by changing the position of the the ignition pickup which is mounted to a ring around the prop shaft. Well, that ring is kinda worn out and under high throttle occasionally moves far enough away from the magnet on the prop shaft that the engine misfires. Good luck finding a replacement, everything for this engine is made from unobtanium.

So I contacted a guy who does electronic ignition conversions and he said he can replace the existing ignition setup with a new electronic ignition for $75 plus the cost of a dual electronic ignition ($80). That should make the whole system much more reliable, and removes the whole mechanical advance system. I'm 98% sold on having him do the work so this engine is done and ready to go when the Sukhoi makes it's way to the bench to get built - maybe this winter??
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Oh if yer going electronic ignition then you MUST go with a turbo kit! #BoostedLife.

If you cant get it to run properly on such a big prop at least you could re-purpose it as a machete. :devilish: