Well life has kicked in again. The basement and shop are destroyed due to a sewer pipe failure. Nothing was damaged but the sewer line runs the full length and width of the basement. EVERYTHING had to be moved to gain access to be able to do the repairs. I am not even sure where my workbench is right now....... It will be a while before I can get back to this. BUT I will return.......

Well this ended up on hold for a while again with more health junk. But I am back at it again. The construction phase is pretty much done, and I just splashed on the first coat of primer. The first coat is just a light dusting of black primer. al other coats of primer will be bright white. The black is just so I can tell when almost all of the white primer has been sanded off. This is an aircraft where weight matters, so each coat of the white has to be sanded off almost entirely just leaving what is needed to fill imperfections. Right now it really looks like a stealth missile in all flat black primer. It is nearly invisible in the pics I tried to take.

I still have not decided on a paint scheme other than it will be very bright colors for visibility.

I have finally decided on a color scheme for this beast. The computer does not do the colors justice.

The yellow will be the very bright Corvette Yellow, The red is a very bright GM Fire Red (same as my truck) and the darker red along the leading edges will be a bright Metal Flake Red. In the top view the gold area in the center will be a gold heat reflective material. The same gold stuff that NASA uses to protect spacecraft from heat. On the bottom it is just a very bright white and black stripes with the same Metal Flake Red wrapping around from the top. All of the priming is now done. it is in white primer so that the colors will be brighter. I am now in the process of accumulating all of the painting supplies that I will need to get the whole thing done.

How fast is this plane supposed to go?

This plane is supposed to have a level cruise speed of around 250 MPH. It will be the fastest thing I have ever flown. My fastest turbine was radared at 174 MPH.

Well I been masking and paintin like crazy. I never realized just how much masking this paint scheme required. A painter I am not, and never will be. I just squirted on the final coat of color, Now I just need to cut and apply the vinyl graphics then clear the whole thing, then apply the final heat shields and trim tape and the finish will be done.
It does not look anywhere near as good as what most of you do. There are a lot more bumps and divots than there should be, but at 250MPH, no one will notice.

I just put the last color down a few minutes ago and will unmask it to see for the very first time tomorrow. Hoping to get to the clear coat this weekend.

I did order some Titanium bars to remake the engine mounts. I was concerned that the aluminum will be to close to some very hot parts and did not want to risk it softening while near red hot stainless steel. The other option was to make the parts out of steel but they are mounted right at the trailing edge of the wing and weight added to the tail has to be avoided, I an anticipating having to add a ton of nose weight. The TI will save some weight over the steel and be more than adequate to handle the temperatures. Hopefully I will soon have some pics out in the sun (IF the sun EVER comes out here again)

What radio and servos are you going to use? I would want servos that center very well, hold good and have some torque, at that speed you want good servos.

It will all be Futaba, with high end digital servos.

And now for the drum roll please................,...,


The pics of the paint job you have been waiting for......................

This was the first time the sun came out since I painted it.

It looks good as long as you don't look closely at it anywhere.
The camera did not capture the metal flake in the red very well, that part looks better in person.

OK it has been a while since I posted.
Not much happening with COVID doing its thing.
But I did get all of the TI parts made. It was a learning experience.

The only parts that are not TI are the sheet metal band (321 Stainless) and the black screw that is mounting the band (Steel).
All of the small parts came out of that initial bar of 16mm, Grade 2, I bought. The washer and the flat strap are out of a small piece of 2mm thick sheet, grade 5. I did a lot of cleaning up swarf along the way, putting small batches in separate bags so as to not risk anything exciting. It is now all safely at the dump and buried.

First 2 pics are the rear PJ mount.

Third pic is the washer and catapult release that will mount with the rear mount on the trailing edge of the wing.

Last pic is Front PJ mount.

I am now deep into building the test stand, With some luck It will be done by the end of next week and I can see if I can actually get this monster to light up. I will try to get some video of this. It may be exciting, I have never set up or run any kind of pulse jet before, I am betting I will start some fires before I get it working right and figure out the correct fuel flow rate.

Well I did get it out to try to light it up today. I got a bunch of pops a few farts and a couple of really loud BANGS. The longest it ran was about 2 seconds. It was like it was just burning off the prime, I can tell it was getting fuel by watching the level in the tank go down.

I have no clue as to just what flow rate I should be using, so this is all trial and a lot of error. All of the batteries are charging now so I may give it another try tomorrow with a different fuel mix and see what happens.

Can you take pictures of your tank setup and how you made it and how it works.

My test stand is just a Du-Bro 12oz tank with the gas stopper in it
That is plumbed to the fuel pump and the pump to the engine. Nothing fancy.
When it goes in the plane it will have a bubble trap, filter and shut off valve added.

The tanks in the aircraft are two 1 liter plastic tanks connected in parallel, They are built in so I have never actually seen them and can not take a pic.