I flew my new Pipsqueak this evening. I built it from RCM plans and powered it with an 020 that came from a Cox Sky Copter. I built my first Pipsqueak a couple of years ago with a Pee Wee 020, which was the perfect engine for it, but it gave me only a couple of minutes of flying time. Just when I started having fun it was time to land. So I sold it to somebody who probably thought "micro electric" when they saw it.
The Sky Copter engine has a considerable hunk of plastic for a backplate with the needle and reed built in, and a nipple for a remote fuel supply. I trimmed the plastic down to turn it into a reasonably sized mount, drilled four holes in it, and screwed it to the firewall. The fuel comes from a tank made of brass sheet, about 2/3 ounce, inside the fuselage. As it turned out, this tank lasted well over 5 minutes and it wasn't completely full. That's over 5 minutes of flat out screaming hold-the-stick-down flying. Flying a 25 inch airplane this way for any more than a minute is a little bit too exciting. If I had let it go it would have climbed out of sight in about 30 seconds.
I'm planning to add landing gear to this plane as shown on the plans, to improve the elevator trim and tame the speed just a tad. I set it up with the exact same incidences and CG as shown on the plans, but I omitted the landing gear. Prior experience tells me that adding some drag on the bottom of a high wing flat bottom airfoil plane helps the elevator trim a lot. Not only that, landing gear will make this plane look a little bit better, too.
The Pipsqueak is a really neat little plane. Without the landing gear it weighs only 7.5 ounces. I had considered putting a TeeDee 020 on it, but I'm glad I didn't.