Ross Jahnke on 9/19/99 writes:

ROSSHEATHER.JAHNKE@prodigy.net (Ross Jahnke)

Gents,

I flew my Baby Bee 40 on Saturday, 9/19/99. Power was an old style head/case/cylinder/piston with a newer plastic mount/needle valve assembly. Prop was a black plastic 6-3. I have no rpm data on the engine. Model weight was right around 200g.

It took four flights to trim it out which was encouraging since my experience with gas models is very limited. It took 1/32 down thrust and 1/16 right thrust to get the power pattern to be a fairly open steep right circle. Climb is better than I expected very much like a cross between a glow powered old timer and a TD powered 1/2A. Glide is to the left with stab tilt and less than 1/64 deflection of left on the rudder tab. The glide is good in spite of the flat bottom airfoil. I have a Tornado 6-4 that should make it climb a bit faster.

For me this will be a fun model, whether or not the baby bee event is a success. Model performance was very good and I think it could handle a TD. I had flown my Pee Wee 30 the week before and found that starting, tuning and getting the bigger model out of my hands was easier. The .049 engine also didn't need tweaking between flights. Comments from other fliers (all old timers and almost all rubber modelers) was positive, though most thought it was a regular 1/2A and none of the rubber guys were any more enticed to fly gas by the prospects of a new event. I still think that the limitations that differentiate these models from pee wee 30, SLOP, and 1/2 A are key to its accessibility for freshman modelers.

Lets get word out to the masses so that a few more are built and flown.

Ross Jahnke

This page last updated October 1, 1999. Send Comments to: joemek@aol.com