The last paragraph above comes very close to nailing this hole discussion
down.
Some of the things that we have valued in the past are no longer true
indicators of quality in a practical sense. If an engine fulfills your
needs, but lacks traditional indicators of qualities (hardened crankshafts),
is it truly inferior in a technical sense?
I am not saying that Alan is wrong, by the way. We are approaching the
limits of reason and are encroaching into areas of art, where there can be
no right or wrong.
We might all agree that the "best" engine, though cheaply made, would have
to sell for more if the importer/manufacturer had to pay for a large service
facility and a huge inventory of parts. True? Especially, if this
importer/manufacturer made parts available to hobbyshops throughout a large
country. It costs money to provide services to customers. This would
certainly add cost to our engines.
Walk into most hobbyshops and try to buy OS parts. Chances are, your dealer
will have them or can order them. Do the same thing with some other brands.
Webra, yeah, well maybe. Enya? Forget about it, in spite of their high
price. Magnum? Thunder Tiger? While the pattern is not linear, I think you
can see that OS, in spite of their high prices, is supported quite well in
the USA.
Part of what we pay for is marketing hype. But we all knew that.
Ed Cregger
Who care's? I never go to the only hobby shop left, Hobby Town.
Besides the price plus shipping is cheaper than their prices. The
other local hobby shop was National, and they closed in 2002. They had
parts for TT as well as OS. OS parts are tooo expensive! You can buy
all of the major brand parts on the web.
I agree with you, since I buy virtually everything hobby
related from the web. But there are still lots of folks,
probably the majority of R/C enthusiasts, that are still
married to their local hobbshop. Why? I haven't a clue,
since they never stock anything I want at a price that I am
willing to pay. I don't even bother going to the hobbyshop
most of the time.
I was in a hobbshop a few weeks ago. I asked the owner to
order me a Hitec stock charger for one of their radios. He
said he would. I stopped back in a while later and asked if
the charger had arrived. I could tell by the look on his
face that he hadn't ordered the charger. He pretended to
shuffle through some screens on the computer as though he
was really checking something. Didn't fool me. He never
ordered it. That was it. He had his chance.
I'm not saying that I won't buy from him again, but it is
easier for me to just order stuff via computer than to go
out of my way to stop by a hobbshop and hope that they order
what I told them I needed. I haven't lost a thing by not
going back. He has lost several thousand dollars a year in
sales, just from me.
I used to work "outside" sales. If you didn't sell, you
didn't eat. You generated all of your own leads and you did
your own follow ups, contacts, proposal write-ups, etc. I
have no sympathy for someone that is given an order, placed
right in their lap, and then doesn't act upon it. Then some
of these poor souls come on the net and whine in the
newsgroups about no one supporting them. The poor folks
actually think that I am in their store to satisfy their
needs. And we wonder why America is crumbling...
Ed Cregger
The additional 2K of performance is precisely why the GMS is
louder than the OS. You can't make more power without
generating more pressure. More pressure being generated,
with all else being equal, means more noise.
Ed Cregger
Absolutely - you hit the nail on the head. CNC equipment is a cheap deal
today, anyone can afford it, especially a larger company - add a programmer
to the list, and anyone can turn out a competitive, high quality product.
If you copy a major competitors design, you drop the R&D costs.
There is an element of truth in what you say, Vance.
For most people, there would be no discernable difference between the TT and
the Webra, other than possibly the weight of the two. Frankly, I don't have
a scale and a sample of each handy, so I can't even be sure of that.
The Webra used to sport a true ABC piston/liner combo. Ditto the TT.46 Pro.
Both are now running less expensive ABN piston/liners. So, no advantage
there for the Webra.
Does anyone know if TT hardens their crankshafts? ASP, and, conceivably
Magnum, were not hardening their crankshafts some years ago. I do not know
what they are doing today. Webra does, I'd bet.
The porting/timing of the Webra reflects a certain philosophy. I pay extra
for the Webra to obtain this philosophy of design. However, it appears that
the Magnum .52 has adopted a similar philosophy in its porting/timing and at
less cost. Some folks are not happy with it. It is aggressively tuned and
oriented toward high rpm running.
If anyone has noticed, I have been preaching the benefits of cheaper Chinese
engines for quite a while. I have been saying that for most uses, they are
"good enough".
Good enough to leave on a model that is seldom flown. Good enough to fly
your trainer and to sacrifice in the dirt diving ritual. Good enough for a
club fun-fly model that will most likely suffer an early demise. Good enough
for having fun in a casual manner on any given day.
Then why do I still buy OS and Webra on occasion. Once in a while I like to
touch base with flying the best.
Ed Cregger
I bow to your superior engine knowledge, Paul.
Okay, here's the deal. The early ASP engines had crankshafts that would bend
at the mildest prop strikes. Other, more traditional engines, shook off
these minor prop strikes without a problem, but the ASP cranks had to be
pulled and hammered back straight.
What is the correct terminology to describe this phenomenon. I've seen it
with my own eyes, so I know that it exists.
Ed Cregger
Ok, maybe I should have been more specific. All CURRENT major engines use
hardened cranks. I am well aware of the early ASP cranks! I had one on my
Quickie Sport as they were the fastest engine allowed by the rules at the
time.
There is no performance difference between OS and TT except that TT never
had peeling liners!
The Webra is a different animal, though. It is a lot more powerful then
most other sport engines.
Maybe it was just my particular TT .45 Pro, since I only sampled one, but
mine was not as eager to hand start as my various OS engines in the same
size range. I kept reaching for the electric starter. When it did hand
start, it wanted to run backwards. Now, this is after I had owned many wild
timing ST's and Webras, so I was familiar with the drill. It ran great once
running, still does, but it just wasn't a pleasure to hand start as my OS
engines were. I no longer hand start engines. Too old and slow. With an
electric starter, just a bump is needed and it is running. I don't want to
make people think that the TT is a hard starter, because it is not. But it
is not quite in the OS league when it comes to handling. But certainly it is
close enough to be a wonderful value and a great engine choice.
My OS engines have always been easy hand starters, even the versions from
over thirty years ago. Now the latter comment is for the .40 to .60 size
engines. The smaller ones ran the gamut. Some easily hand started within a
flip or two and some others were like the TT .45 Pro and sometimes required
six or seven flips. A niggling point? Most certainly. But that little,
nearly unquantifiable, characteristic makes you feel a certain way about an
engine.
My easiest, most enjoyable, hand starters have been, OS, obviously, ASP 1.08
Redhead, OS .20FP (exception to the smaller OS rule), an HP.49VT
four-stroke, any Webra I have owned and my Saito .50 and .72. All were
superb hand starters.
Oh, I forgot to mention my ringed OS.32F-H heli engine. The best of them
all. Oddly enough, the ABN version of the .32 was like the TT.45Pro. Go
figure.
My Enya .40 - 45CX engines were not good hand starters - for me. I'm sure
others will have had different experiences. But they were terrific once
running. It is probably my technique that is making the difference and
nothing to do with the engines.
With all of that said, the only engine that I could not get started to keep
running was an old STAMCO or RAMCO engine that my brother pulled from
someone's trash can and gave to me. It was intended for spark ignition,
which was absent, so I put a glow plug in it. It was rear piston port
inducted.
That engine proceded to bash my fingers to pieces all summer as I tried to
get it going (long before electric starters). It would fire, move against
compression, fire prematurely and then bounce against compression the other
way. Sometimes it would do this for five minutes without stopping. I never
did get it to make a complete revolution without me pushing it through with
my battered and bleeding fingers. Yes, I don't know when to quit.
Has anyone ever heard of such an engine? I'm almost certain that was the
name. It looked about like a .19 to a .30 with a tremendous stroke to bore
ratio.
Ed Cregger
Maybe you had a bad one, Ed.
My TT.40 Pros and TT.46 Pro are the easiest-starting engines I own (Except
for maybe my O.S. 1.60FX). That's what encouraged me to buy more of them;
the first one started so easily it surprised me. I had always hand-started
my engines -- I never bought an electric starter until immediately after I
purchased a Magnum .52 four-stroke. ;-)
My TTs all ran well out of the box. After a short, by-the-book break-in on
the test stand, they performed very well. After a couple of days of heavy
flying, they started to gradually pick up some RPMs and also required some
leaning of the low-speed needle. They continued gaining some top-end RPM
and requiring some slight leaning of the low end every couple of weekends
until they finally settled into a very smooth, very reliable engine with a
great transition. I love 'em.
I bought them at a great price from National Hobby (?) and then somehow got
hooked on Super Tigre two-strokes for the next couple of years. When I
decided to buy another TT or two, I found that my source had gone out of
business and I never bothered to buy from another supplier. I'm planning to
purchase a TT .91 four-stroke very soon. I have Saito, O.S. and Magnum
four-stroke engines and would like to try a TT out of curiosity.
Good flying,
desmobob
I mentioned earlier in this thread that http://www.thundertiger4u.com has
the TT F-91s Four Stroke for $172 plus shipping. The new issue of Model
Aviation (Jan '06) has a blurb about the upcoming F-75s Four Stroke. No
price or shipping date has been set on the F-75s yet, but a spring launch
seem imminent. I'd be surprised if http://www.thundertiger4u.com doesn't
offer it for somewhere between $146 and $172.
And that's just where I'll get it, Ed. No charge for shipping on orders
over $150. That price, with free shipping, beats Tower's price with the
usual 10 or so percent off and free shipping (I'm a Tower Super Saver
member!). Thanks for the link.
Good flying,
desmobob
Why doesn't thundertirger4u have the new Ace servo's? Oh, not TT?
Well I thought they merged. Also have you checked the radios on the
Ace Hobby's webesite?
The Thunder Tiger Super Combo packages (ARF, engine, and radio) have
included Airtronics radios in the past, I believe. It looks like they may
be bundling them with Hitec Laser 4 radio packages now.
http://www.thundertiger4u.com doesn't have the ACE servos, they also don't
stock any of ACE's kits or ARFs like the Simple 400 either. They don't even
have all of the Thunder Tiger ARFs, for that matter.
They aren't currently offering the Tiger Bipe, the Tiger Stick, the Lazy
Tiger P-51, the Seamaster, or the Super Decathalon. They're also $40 more
expensive than Tower Hobbies on the Tiger Trainer .60, which seems pretty
odd to me.
Hopefully they will add more products as the site grows. The Tiger Bipe is
on my shopping list and I'm doubtful I'll get my best price by having to
special order one through my local HobbyTown USA.
Don't let me give anyone the wrong impression, I am an ardent Thunder Tiger
two-stroke fan. I have never owned/operated a TT four-stroke, so I can't
comment on them.
I am on my third TT 1.20 (used) and I just bought two of their .15's, so no
one should get the impression that I am dissing TT in any way. I was just
flapping the jaws about those intangible/unquantifiable things that we all
notice about our engines.
Ed Paasche was talking about TT ARFs. I apologize for dragging the thread
off topic. Lord knows I never do that, you know. <G>
Getting back on topic, I would love to have another TT Super Decathlon ARF.
Nice flyer and not snappy in the least. Just pretend that the wing is on the
bottom and fly accordingly.
Ed Cregger
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