Engine options for PFM Giant Zlin

[andrew fletcher]

I had one of these wonderful planes in the early eighties when I was 12 to 13 years old and loved flying it on an old 60. Now I have managed to get a used and cartwheeled one from a club mate in need of some repairs and an engine.
This could be my first opertunity to use a petrol engine instead of glow so I am looking for advise on size of engine. For those who don't know the plane, it has a wingspan of 86 inches and weighs about 11 to 12 lbs. I don't want unlimited vertical, just nice scale like flying.

[Paul Savage 1568]

At this wingspan and A.U.W weight then you might just get away with either a Zenoah G26 or a CCRC GF26i but I would suspect that you would be making them work quite hard in a model of this size and aerobatic nature. The ever popular and very reliable Zenoah G38 would be a good choice but they are quite a bit heavier than their modern counterparts and would need a stronger firewall to mount them on safetly. Remember that you can always throttle them back and it's generally better to have a little extra power than just enough.

You might even want to consider the DLE30 or even the CRRC GF45. Given the compactness of the DLE30 and the CRRC GF45i then you should have power to spare and be able to amble around in a scale like manner on quite low throttle settings thus reducing the noise whilst also having plenty of power on tap for those more enthusiastic moments. In addition to this, both engines should just about squeeze into that fairly narrow cowl. One more small detail worth mentioning is that the O.E silencers that come with the CRRC engine range are quite noisy
and require either a bit of reworking to make them more acceptable or completely replacing with a more effective silencer.

Hope this helps and good luck with with the Zlin.

Paul.

[Simon Willey]

Andrew, A DLE 30 would be spot on in it. I have one in a Chipmunk of a similar size.
Make sure its the rear carb one you get not the early side mount one.

Simon

[andrew fletcher]

Thanks for the advise Paul.
Also Thanks Simon, I was hoping to talk to you and Terry about this over the holidays up the airfield. I'll keep my eyes open for DLE 30 over the next few months ready for spring. Now to start the repairs!

[Alan Cantwell 1131]

HELL FIRE GUYS!! we used to fly one of these, tissued, doped, and painted, on a webra 91 two stroke, and it went upward at a rate of knots, a 30cc would be more than ample, its just not of the construction to keep a 38 zenoah or a 45 of anything on the front,

[John Townsend 389]

I had two of these models when they were first introduced by Pat French and both flew really well on an OS 60, I even think the 30cc is too large.

[Bob Thompson1894]

Mate had one, Super Tigre 2000, was perfect on that.

[Alan Cantwell 1131]

funny story about this Zlin, my mates was stunning, but, it met its end one day, shattered the wing, and the cowl, fuzz was untouched, it languished in his shed for months on end, one weekend, i picked up at a swapmeet, the remnants of a guys hobby--quite a car load, on getting home, i found 2 sets of veneered cores, and 2 cowls, exitied, i phone said mate, only to be told he had cut it up and landfilled it that very weekend!!!!!!!! sods law, innit? YOU WATCHING ALAN!!! he is still at it, and is the owner of the B25, in the build thread on here

[Dave Lowe]

Back in the old days me and a mate bought one each at Sywell both flew really well on a OS 60 but could never get them to knife edge despite seeing Pat Frenches do all sorts of aerobatics during his slot at the shows. At one of the shows we managed to have a chat with him about this and discovered his demo model was powered by a 90 and also had 2" shaved off each wing, In conclusion a 120 should be more than adequate with the wing left as it is.

[andrew fletcher]

I didn't know there was such a following for this plane! Dave, who I aquired it from had a Saito 180 up front and still had to put a pile of lead in the nose. I can't remember doing this with mine. Maybe a miscalculation with the CG. He actually tip stalled it on the last flight but all I can remember is my original just kept gliding on and on. I did used to knife edge mine but with the old 60 up front it would slowly loose height. I will keep my options open on the engine until spring.