3/26/2015
The Rest of the Story (well, so far...)
Wow, has it been a long time since an update! Like years…
For those of you still checking, yes, the SR-71 is still doing great. To be honest, I've been so busy out flying with it, I've not had a ton of time in the shop. Ok, so that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it…
What I have here, is a collection of things that have slowly been added to the plane, plus a summary of some publicity the plane has gotten since going public with the project.
First off, items added to the plane since the last update....
I've added a great set of afterburner rings, from Dan Gill at Details 4 Scale. After about a year of flying it I realized I was having trouble gauging a good speed and throttle setting for the landing circuit. The plane is so large, plus I fly it further out than most other planes, and when combined with a faster flight speed of other birds, at times it could feel like I was way too slow, so I'd up the throttle. Then the next thing I know, I'm way too high and hot for the actual landing. So, I've developed a little trick, when using the afterburners…. I've programmed them to come on, at a throttle setting that is the perfect setting for gear down, safe airspeed for the landing circuit. So now, I'll drop gear, lower the throttle, to about half, and do my gear pass. Then as the bird is flying away, I'll inch the throttle up, to when I just see the burner rings come on and then stop, knowing that I've got the perfect notch of throttle, to hold the big plane at around 100 mph, which for it, is a the perfect landing pattern speed.
Secondly, you've already seen photos of the drag chute mechanisms. To be fair, I didn't really start fooling with the drag chute, until late in the first year flying it, which was 2011. The first 15 or so flights, I was still getting used to it, so working with the chute was the last thing on my mind. After tweaking the way the chute is packed, I've now achieved really good success with it and it's an awesome finishing touch to the flights. I have success with its deployment on 9 out of 10 flights. Getting the chute to be thrown up and out, and not have a bit of the ribbon catch on a hinge is a bit more of a challenge than pushing it backwards out of most normal chute containers.
Next goodie to be added was a set of rotating beacon lights, mounted top and bottom, midway along the fuse. They are actually a series of 8 leds each that illuminate in sequence. They look awesome on the ground and in the air.
Still left on the 'to-do' list is a proper cockpit, which I'm working on now. Plus, I'd like to get the nose gear detailing done. It still needs the scissor links and landing and taxi lights added to it.
Lastly, I'll leave you with a few items learned, maintenance wise over the last few years. The landing gear have held up great, however I had to modify the original main gear scissor links to add a few more bolts to their mounting bases. They were working the bolts loose as vibration worked on them, but that's now resolved. Next I came to learn that I needed more airflow through the entire gear system, so after year one, I refitted the entire pneumatic system with some great items from Tom Cook, at JMP. This refit, removed ALL airline 'T's from the gear side, and solved any problems. While doing this refit, I ended up having to change to a better grade of airline. Although I did the layup with a high temp resin, and the black plane does just fine in the hot summer, it turns out that the skin can reach 150 degrees which is fine for the fuse, but if an airline is touching the skin from the inside, it could soften it enough to blow out the side of it when under pressure. So, better airline was installed and rerouted, so it cannot touch the upper skin surface.
Before you dive into the pictures below, here are a couple YouTube videos that others have shot of the plane, over the last few years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUMCSK0o20I
(Awesome video by friend, Rich Tiller)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DQR5xrblVo
(Cell phone video shot at the Jet World Masters, 2011…. 6,000,000+ views ?!?!?!! wow)
Also, in 2012, I authored a 4 part series on the entire build in RCJI. Take a look for the back issues, if you'd like to see the publication. Doing these articles kind of provided a nice 'book-end' to the project, and I enjoyed working with them to publish the story.
See the below pics for a few shots of the new additions in action, plus some other great shots of the plane over the last few years. (Photo credits for a few of them go to Calvin Mitchel, RCKen, and Barry Atkinson… all great photographers for catching quite difficult to shoot jets)
The next 3 photo's show the afterburner rings:
3 Good photo's of the drag chute in action:
The next photo is not that good, but it's a shot of where the rotating beacons are on the fuse (They show up red, but in this photo they look white for some reason):
This photo is showing the redo of the pnumatic system, with the great products from JMP. Shown here is his Air Manifold, eliminating a ton of 'T's, and his simple high flow airvalves. I've mounted them on a frame I machined, to utilize the small space.
The remaining photos are just good shots over the years. A few of them highlight the highly detailed landing gear.
The next update which will hopefully be this year, will focus on the cockpit work. Thanks for following along!
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