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Me and the Better half been out in the Garden today doing a few jobs, most enjoyable, I must say. I got back to the Messerschmitt and planed up the leading edge that I had in fact glued on last night, after I had posted I was doing it today. I also cut the hinge slots in the port wing and planed and sanded the wing tip. I still have the horn slot to construct. Then the covering starts. According to the build instructions, I have to stain some of the woodwork before covering, we will see. D.D. She is starting to look like an aeroplane. I might stick with the Civilian pilot.

Thanks DANNY nice neat work ? Just realised a late diagnosis of OCD, when I am worrying about thou gaps in my builds??

1965 - Veron Mini-Robot, MacGregor single-channel, Elmic Conquest escapement and Cox TeeDee .049. It had one successful flight, crashing on the second! On the second flight, the sequential escapement skipped, going left instead of the anticipated right! I was too slow to realise, and when I released the button, the wings folded! I built a replica from the original plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary back in 2015, and flew it from the original site. This one had a compound escapement (now replaced by a servo) and is still flying today. I also beefed up the wing spars, using spruce instead of balsa! The Mini-Robot had notoriously weak wings...!

I decided to introduce some colour. Two hours later. and it's not perfect. What have I started I ask myself and only three weeks before I can maiden it, hopefully. ? It's good practice and it will get better. No worries. Cheers

Morning all, The new platform seems to be settling down nicely and people seem to be finding their way round. Some users only visit occasionally, so we're receiving a slow but steady stream of queries. Most are of the 'I can't log in' variety. In the vast majority of cases this comes down to passwords and user names remembering that the home page and forum have separate entries. The forum needs your existing user name (case sensitive) and password. If you need a password reset then just drop me an email to [email protected] and I'll sort that out. Thanks, David.

Can't see what winds people up myself, maybe we need a "Hug" option.

It's something "Da Yoof" do John and hence abhorrent to the average forumite. I am acclimatised, having two teenage Daughters in the house, despite being 60. D.D.

Half a day in the workshop today - bit of painting, refixed the nacelles on the Henschel and then set to trying to stiffen up the horizontal stabiliser. I figured that a carbon rod reinforcement as a spar laid into the balsa wasn't going to work - horizontal directional drilling is tricky enough with decent biostratigraphic geosteering and that's with a 12 1/4" borehole in a reservoir 50m thck. Trying to do that in a sheet of 1/8th balsa for a 3mm carbon rod wasn't going to work. So I went with plan B which was to cut back the leading edge by a mm, to give a flat surface. cut a small slot in the fuselage sides at the front of the horizonal stabiliser, threaded a length of carbon fibre strip along the leading edge, from tip to tip and epoxied that in place, securing with tape. That seems to have stiffened up the horizontal stabiliser a lot.

My 1st Radio Controlled plane was a own design, a powered glider as i was still at school i could not afford much on what little pocket money i had. So i design a model around what i had, So a 2 channel 27 Mhz futaba set and a .049 glow engine. I was designing models in my teens mainly rubber power and control line. While sorting my loft out i did come across some of my early designs. They are right at the back of my loft now. Happy sunny days as i remember. Steve ?

The BMFA dont need to approve the RA, the requirement is the club does one and shares it with the members.

OCD ?? Agreed !! I just spent 10 minutes bevelling an aileron down to half a pencil line, why not the whole line, or even just up to the line, I will never know. HELP ME !! Excellent work as usual Danny BTW. D.D.

In my late teens and with sufficient disposable income to contemplate radio control model flying, I spent weeks building a Sterling Cessna 180 and fitted it with a "Wee" McGregor single channel receiver and "servo" for the rudder - no fancy proportional radio for me...although it did have a quick blip facility to give the option of full throttle or idle to the mighty Enya .09 engine. Thinking about it, I know some modern flyers who wouldn't find this any handicap... The day dawned when I arrived at Nomansland Common with a bottle of glow fuel and the able assistance of my friend Brian (still a very active modeller and sometime contributor to this forum) who was just getting back into RC flying after a short break. I recalled the advice on the plan to test glide over long grass but couldn't see any so decided that nothing could possibly go wrong and started the engine. After declining the offer from him to do the maiden (what could possibly go wrong - it only goes left and right) a friend gave the model a good chuck and it reared up, stalled and plummeted from 15 feet into the unforgiving turf. The result was total carnage back to the cabin. After some outward laughing and inward crying, I scooped up the wreckage, watched Brian fly his model and returned home. I couldn't face the prospect of rebuilding the fuselage but then invested in a sheet of 1/2" balsa and "crafted" a simple frame to hold the engine in an approximation of its correct placement. Brian had rejoined the Watford Wayfarers club by this time so I followed his lead and presented myself at Croxley Moor with Frankenstein's second creation. Some approximation at flight ensued but the wise heads at the club, notably the chairman Tony Rose and regular forumite Pete Christy (IIRC) advised me that I was wasting my time with the (no longer) scale Cessna and to build myself a Lumpers. A what? Send off to MAP for the plan and you'll find out... Lumpers_oz2469_article.pdf I duly sent off the required 50p or whatever and received the plan of a traditional cabin trainer, designed for hard use on East African terrain. Once built and covered (nylon and dope) I returned to Croxley with the model complete with a 2 channel digital proportional radio (a week's wages) plus a new to me second hand Enya .15 - throttle control sacrificed for the sophistication of having an elevator to control pitch. After some setting up and correction of some rather odd incidences (did the plan move?) it was flown and worked well. A few months of tuition from Brian and many repairs later (in those days before buddy boxes Brian often won the wrestling match with the transmitter just as the model was meeting the ground) and I was getting several flights a session and occasionally taking it home without more running repairs to do. That nylon covering and strong design meant that although the wings rattled like a pair of maracas, the model had never required any major rebuilding and was only finished off when I rolled my car* onto its side and my tool box landed on it! In the course of checking my facts, I looked up the Sterling Cessna 180 and discovered that Outerzone has downloadable plans and even cutting templates for the ribs and formers. Cessna_180_45in_oz4984.pdf I also still have the pressed steel nose cowling somewhere in my loft that I never got around to fitting...which might go a long way to explaining that glorious 2 second maiden flight! I have unfinished business with that Cessna - I never managed to complete a flight with it - so in the spirit of many a Spitfire "restoration" perhaps I should rebuild my first model from the cowl piece backwards! Maybe create an additional single channel/blip throttle flight mode to give me the best of both worlds with modern radio? *When I say car, I should admit that it was a Reliant Regal 3 wheeler which I'd bought so that I could transport my models on my motorbike licence. This replaced the "Del Boy" Reliant Supervan III which I'd written off when a Mini pulled out in front of me and pre-dated the Bond Bug which replaced it. My Mick Reeves 1/6 scale kit box wouldn't fit in that when I tried to collect it!

Really struggled getting the BangGood film to go round all the double curvature of the nose. I'm not really happy with the result and may well strip and use glass-cloth and paint later. But I'm going to leave it as is until after the test flight, not least because I have no paint the right colour to match the film. I've still got the cockpit glazing to do, but pilots can wait. As the whole nose comes off it will be easy to add them later. I don't have any 1/12th scale 30's US commercial pilots so I will need to make some from foam I guess.

Snap. In 1965, my brother and I built and modified this Mercury Matador for single channel. It flew really well, including one uncontrolled 11 mile flight! It did many flights over a two year period and never crashed. I gave it to a younger relative when I left home for university. I think it was powered by an AM 10 (1 cc).

A single channel home design all balsa glider using a kit built MacGregor Tx and Rx with a home built (by my Dad!) rubber driven escapement working a V tail rudder. It glided well enough but any form of steering control was virtually non existent. I still have it stored 55 years on.

Veron Sky Scooter for me, back in the early 1970's. Macgregor 2 channel on rudder and elevator and a DC Sabre to make it go. Due to my dubious building skills it needed a large chunk of nose weight to make it balance, which I achieved by fixing a convenient stone in place with araldite! Despite 'strengthening' the wings with button thread bracing to the bottom of the fuselage, it met it's end in an ever enthusiastic spiral dive, when one wing decided it was time to get off. I remember the engine ran well all the way to the ground though...

Really enjoying making the diagonal joints on the fuselage, my OCD dictates that each joint should be better than the last, alas I do not achieve such perfection, but sadly it gives me great satisfaction when a diagonal slots into place. I really should get out more......

It looks fine. Don't get too obsessed with perfection. Just remember it will look fantastic at 50 feet I will be putting some pictures of my O-Four9ier E up soon. Another looking good at 50 feet

,Funny how when you start to think about things like this topic, how memories start to flood back after so many years. Going back to my Fairlop club days as I mentioned, although I found gliding fascinating, power models and scale always attracted me but as Fairlop was silent flight only, that was going to be a non-starter. Eventually, electric power began to be a practical option in the early 1980s and a lot of us got into that side of the gliding hobby. With nothing in the club rules other than to say that IC motors were not allowed, I think I can claim to be the first in that club to build an electric powered model that was not a powered glider type but a scale model of a power 'plane. The model was a Piper Cub (Jack Headley design IIRC) about 50" span and with a cheap 540 brush motor, electronic on/off switch of DIY construction and what seemed to be a ton of Nicad batteries. The 'mini' Futaba RX and small coreless Futaba servos cost me a fortune back then (around £100, I still have them). Unbelievably, the model would ROG and fly fairly well and quietly for several minutes and really looked the part floating around in calm conditions and for such a heavy model would land back on its wheels nicely. I had quite a few positive comments from members about how nice the model looked in the air, but I got the impression that the few glider purists weren't over impressed with it - nothing was said though but I'd only fly it when things were quiet just in case. Eventually, the efficiency of the batteries began to fall away and ROGs began to become a bit dicey, eventually hand launching being the only way to get her away. After a load of flights, falling power, and a bad hand launch, she flick rolled to her doom into the deck and that was that. Might be nice to build another but with modern gear.

On the old Fairlop field in Hainault (not the original one on the airfield) there was a small area of concrete among the acres of grass football pitches and it's amazing how so many models were attracted to that little spot of hard stuff and were damaged.

My first R/C model was an Outlaw as well, powered by an OS Pet. Radio was an ABC Mini-Sonic super regen - it never really worked. My Outlaw's first and only flight was also a matter of seconds, from launch to heap of wreckage in Lyme Park. I also 'progressed' onto a Gem 1+1 - special offer of £25 from Roland Scotts. It worked well enough for me to get some successful flights with a 6ft glider I built (it was never designed, I just made it up as I went along). The radio often stopped working, but as I lived about 5 miles from Stockport, I was a frequent visitor to the 'factory' that made the radios. Nearly 50 years years later, I reckon I could still find my way to Hallam street, in the dark, blindfolded - and I haven't been to Stockport since the late 70s!

My first was a Graupner Dandy glider and power pod built just after I had some money of my own after starting work at age 16 in the mid 1970s. Cox engine and Futaba two channel radio hence mode 1 ever since. I remember the colossal cost of it all and it easily took several weeks' wages to get all the kit. Joined a local club and found them stand offish and self absorbed, offering absolutely no help despite being quickly relieved of quite a bit in the way of subs out of my meager earnings at the time. Eventually, after several uncomfortable visits, a couple of chaps offered to test fly the model for me, and just being a kid and knowing no better, I trusted the model to them. Unfortunately, they turned out to be the club clowns who proceeded to start and launch the model for me, but with the receiver switched off! After years of dreaming of R/C I was now back into the realms of free flight. I must have made a good job of the build because the model flew off nicely on its maiden, albeit a little out of elevator trim, but survived after a couple of minutes circling around until the motor stopped and it landed unscathed. I left that particular club shortly afterwards, disappointed and frustrated at the experience, but luckily came across the Fairlop club who had a display at the RAF museum when I was visiting, and one particular chap who taught me the ropes of R/C via gliding and I never looked back from then on, moving on to IC power and clubman scale types as finances permitted. I never forgot the bitter experience of that first club, and after a while I found myself drawn to helping and getting others into R/C as easily and enjoyably as I knew how until I stepped back from it a few years ago.

Flamingo 3.5 metre Scale Glider from the Chris Williams Sarik Plan and short kit which includes the canopy. This appeared as a Free Plan in RCM&E. Chris has been very helpful answering my queries throughout the build. Also of use, however, are a selection of photos he supplies free of charge, and the article which appeared in the magazine. I have a scanned in copy in case anyone wants it. This is a true scratch build balsa bash. It uses eliptical formers which are overlaid with .8mm ply for the fuselage, which was something I had never attempted before and employed a lot of kettle steam. Looking forward to maidening next week hopefully.

Glue a dummy ribe to one face and sand to the correct angle. Possibly less hassle thathan ungluing one of the end ribs.

I read the DC Article in the most recent RCME - I've been a life long fan of Davies Charlton Diesel Engines. I cut some serious modelling hours on a DC Spitfire 1cc. The engine was in my KK Phantom and also my Picador , such a sexy looking control line model to a 10 year old. Later in life I started building a Sir Jasper but strayed from the design and made a two channel RC model coloured in HW Model Span Yellow tissue and flew it for hours and hours on the same 1cc Spifire. I should have worn the engine out many times and in the end it did start to suffer. I had gone to D3000 in order to ring a little more power out of it and the engine had a habbit of going lean and no throttle it stayed lean. I think that's what killed the engine in the end. But it went far past what it was intended to do. Many hours. I had a Merlin, but bent the rod on that. A Sabre in a Mercury Models Cobra , that was a good engine. The DC Dart in the Phantom Mite. Terrible aircraft, more power might have cured it. The Dart was not enough. The Dart also spent a few hours in a Cardinal. Free Flight. Burbling away slightly under compressed flying around and around the field while I sat in the grass watching it go around and around. I can almost smell the day. DC were my introduction to diesel engines and my first ever model engines. I've been smitten ever since. My introduction to glows were the Baby Bee engines I would pick up from discarded Plastic Cox Models. The first proper RC glow was an Enya 09 and many years later became the UK dealer... LOL. I was 15 when I purchased my 09. A pal broke it with an electric starter and my first ever contact with the wonderful John D Haytree was to get that fixed. Back to DC , I've said it many times and I still believe it. If it were not for DC Aeromodelling might have not been as popular in the 60's and 70's leading to the RC Boom of the 80's and very much the RC hobby / Aeromodelling Hobbies we all enjoy today. The Dc engine range was affordable and it worked. I know the range had its moments. Later engines production suffered and quality control and was hit and miss. The same could be said about later Dav Cal engines. But perhaps those problems have been made bigger than they really were? Dav Cal Darts suffered brittle shafts. They were not hardened and a few broke I'm sure of it, but I have some Dav Cal Darts that run just fine. The 50's Allbon /Dc engines were magnificent. But there was issues with the Bambi. It came out as a .11, then became a .12 and then a .14 and I'm told one I have is a .15 . I was told that Bambi's were impossible to start. First one I ever got was off eBay and it started 3rd or 4th flick. I have another that needs to be sworn at more, but that also goes 'eventually'. The Bambi was of a different time. A small prop was not available and so they gave you a metal blank to sand and shape and twist into a prop for the Bambi. Yes a Metal prop.? I'd love to see the DC range immortalized with a 1/2 size reproduction of the range. The Dart would be a .25 like Rustler did with the 1/2cc Frog. The .25 (1/4cc) Tadpole made in the Ukraine is a fantastic little engine. If anyone has a nice one, I'd be interested. The Spitfire would be a .5 1/2cc and the Sabre a .75. I'm sure that a super little set could be made. There's probably not enough people to buy it , for it to work commercially , but I can dream! I think someone like Alex at Red Fin could pull such a thing off. I have his ED 246 Mini's - The 040 and 060 . The O60 I have is in John Player Special Black and Gold Livery. It looks awesome. I think the original Red cylinder Mini ED 246 040 version would be just the thing for a 30 inch span Junior 60. The Original was marketed with the ED 2.46 cc Original. We are so lucky to have someone like Alex putting the effort in an creating new Diesel Engines for us. DC Engines Today Up until the Lock down I was saying they were possibly the most undervalued treasure on eBay. I picked up a DC Sabre that was cosmetically challenged , some one had reworked the anodized head with pliers and drilled out the mounting holes. I honestly can not understand why people drill out mounting holes. If its an 8ba.. get some 8 ba bolts. So sad to drill out the lugs as in a crash the enlarged holes break off easier. Anyway £12 I picked up a Super Sabre enlarged holes, badly mangled head. It still needed running in! The abuser owner while trying hard to kill it had probably failed to get it going. It ran amazingly well. Imagine that a Diesel Engine swinging a 8 x 4 prop around without missing a beat for £12! I've paid £15 for second hand NVA before now. I got to buying cheap DC's to get hold of a tank or a NVA and some of the very badly mangled ones ran great. Proof they were off the people and for the people. They were and are robust. My store ( SWM ) has never sold DC. It was all before the time of SWM. We did sell PAW ( Super British Engines) at one time, but the classics like DC and ME and ED / Mills were all before my time in the trade. Oh... we had the Irvine Mills and AE Mill's in the 90's. I think they sparked off my interest in diesels again. I had sold off all my old engines when first starting out and so I've had great fun buying a few back. eBay, private sales. There's plenty of places DC hand out and others. Having said that. You may have missed the rock bottom prices. Currently some eBay prices are very OTT. An indication of people locked in, bidding I guess. My own theory is that Gildings Auction was cancelled for a second time this last couple of weeks and that money is bidding on eBay. Still there are bargains. If you have never tried a Diesel, you have to try one. I can guarantee one thing, if its a runner and it starts up, you will smile from ear to ear and carry on smiling and probably buy a lot more of them. One Spitfire I won on eBay came with a modified tank. I think it would have run for over an hour... LOL... See Pic. I picked up a Black Sabre and it came in a White Box - Dav Cal on it. But on a typed label. No image. Anyway I used the box to make a Nice Dart Box with a printed label. It was sort of a reproduction box label on an original box. Then I won a PK Sabre and to my surprise it came in the same box. I realized the one I re labelled just spoiled a very rare Dav Cal box. Damn. Even rarer now thanks to me. I picked up a Bambi in a model on eBay. Because it was a model for sale there were not many bids. I did Ok. I sold the model off and kept the engine and a Pal of mine has tidied it up for me as the head had a scratch on it. The Bambi runs fine. Tricky to start this one, but I think because its run a lot. The other I have starts in a few flicks. That's it for now. A few pics. During the lock down, build a radio assist diesel powered plane... go on Steve

Its one of the grey areas. I have had a number of emails on this today. If only your members can fly there then its not a public outdoor space where anyone can fly without paying the club fee and should remain closed. If anyone can turn up and fly without having interaction with the club its very much a grey area. Personally I would sit it out until 29th March.

Hi All, I have had a liking for the Sunderland ever since I was a boy when I built a lot of Airfix kits and the Sunderland was one of them. Well 5 decades later I am about to embark on building another but a bit bigger, Tony's 72" (1.8m) wingspan. Having looked back through the forum there are a couple of threads on the TN Sunderland that started but never went to completion. I aim to carry this through to the finish with lots of photos as we go. Last September, I was sent to work in Pembroke Dock for three months. This was cruel/temptation as I saw pictures of Sunderland's on the wall of the building I was working in, driving past the maritime museum which had a wing float in the grounds and of course the aircraft hangers in the dock every day. So this has given me the push to start building. There are nine Sunderland's in this picture can you spot them Back in 2016, I purchased the CNC plan & wood pack pack along with the cowls, turrets and canopy with the intention of building it one day, and it has sat on the bench ever since with the odd sheet of balsa "borrowed" and later replaced. The box of balsa and ply, the magazine article and I just had to have another Airfix kit too There is a lot of balsawood there and a lot of lovely CNC machined parts. CNC wing ribs and nacelle parts Cowls, turrets and canopy You can't have too many pictures of a flying boat. Yesterday, I ordered the motors & speed controllers from 4 Max so they should arrive later this week. Today, I have made a start on marking up all of the CNC parts and finishing a Mustang off to make way to start building later in the week. That's all for now. Regards Robert

Here is a video of my Mk2 Autogyro i made from a Lidl foam glider. Still waiting for a chance to get out and test fly / crash it. Will it work or not. Steve.

As there doesn't seem to be much on this RCME free plan project I thought I might cover it here. I was looking for a smallish aerobatic model that would fit in the boot of my MX5, using the motor/esc etc from my very old and very well flown HK Kinetic which I retired as it was starting to become more glue than foam. This seemed a pretty little plane that would fit the big, and with the slightly more powerful motor from the Kinetic be quite interesting to fly. I will be making a few modifications to the design to suit my own needs but also because I think they might work a bit better. I will note these as I go along.

Hi Danny, It's pure friction holding them on. I'm told a wipe of Pritt Stik on the rods is also an added insurance for those of a worrying nature, as recommended by Martin and Gordon. I can certainly confirm that mine are tight, due to a slight misalignment of the rods (woops!), so that the rods on one side need spreading slightly to line up with the tubes, thus putting the other side under tension against their tubes. Time will tell, but I'm assured it will be fine. Thanks for your comment.

See Andy's previous post. I'm not at all confused - there's a world of difference if a dozen random people meet up but there is full traceability in a correctly run club scenario.

There was an interesting statement this morning by one of the scientist's who has been monitoring the pandemic and the subsequent vaccination program. There is tentative data to suggest that those vaccinated do not pass on the virus. More data is required to support this early proposition but is certainly sounded positive.

I agree. It feels kind of tacky to me.

Forgot to post this picture of the maiden of my Sabre - in the sunny autumn of 2020. Its only flight so far as I took it out a couple of times before the lock down but it was never windy enough. That's the plane's designer helping out with an excellent throw. I have since modified the elevator to give it more throw, mine was lacking in the up department. That's all it needed though. Flew on rails and the flaps are really effective - so effective that when I deployed them it just landed! I will know to feed them in next time. There is a minute of video here too - its a bit of a dot as it was from a phone and sorry about the wind noise, I think it was about 40kn. 237405113_Sabremaiden.mov

That looks good DD What colour bulb in the cockpit ?

Well, my best excuse for not carrying this exercise through has gone - I just found the remains of my first RC (in the loosest sense of the term) model fresh from 45 years or so of "just in case it ever comes in handy" storage!

Re Martin's Reliant Regal - my dad had one of the pre-fibreglass reliants with a soft top, probably from the early 1950s. I remember many happy hours as a very young kid with chuck gliders over our local park to which dad had taken me in the old 3 wheeler. One night, it got nicked from outside the house but the thieves must have been so disappointed with it that they dumped it unscathed just around the corner! Not aeromodelling exactly, but one of my firework aeroplanes flew over the house from the back garden and landed on the soft top - no fire though. I have in my mind's eye a picture of dad repairing the hole with some iron-on black fabric. Three wheelers could be driven on a motorbike licence, but you had to have a blanking plate fitted to the gear stick to stop you using reverse until you passed your car test. I think that was changed later on as being a bit daft and although I remember dad fitting one, I don't think too many were bothered. Reverse is standard on many big motorbikes now of course.

Let the build commence. Normally I would start with the wings but I’ve decided to forge ahead with the fuselage. There are no written instructions with the kit but Dane RC have got some build photos and vids on their website. Once I got my head around what goes where I made a start with the joining of the nose cheeks. I’m planning on using Gorilla Glue white for most of this build. The balsa nose block laminations And whilst they were drying I put together the ply laminations for the fuselage joining box. At this stage I ran out of clamps and wished that I had converted my large building board to a magnetic one (got to wait for lockdown to end before I can go to my local steel stockist). Whist that little lot is drying, I’m off to take our dog for a walk in the lovely sunshine.

Hi Toni, I did consider that but the ribs are very flimsy and once the root rib is cut away from the spar (which it has to be to accommodate the ply dihedral braces) I will pull it to the centre section. I've cheated today and used the centre section and a 50 mm block to set the root rib. It's a mystery but no point dwelling on it. just something to be aware of for future builders (I almost want to build another one!). Today I built the majority of the right panel and checked it matches the left (which it does, yay!), had a tidy up and another inspirational assembly session. There looked to be a problem with prop clearance on the motor nacelles but it should be ok. 1. Dry fit of the right outer panel on the corrected drawing. 2. When it came to gluing the root rib I propped the panel up at the tip and used the centre section to set the angle... 3. ...and separated them quickly before any stray glue set. 4. Both panels back to back for a sanity check. 5 and 6. Time to throw it together, it's a nice size, not too big, not too small. 7, 8 and 9. It looked to me as if the propellers wouldn't clear the nacelles, it's close but I think it will be alright.

You had the script for Mr Bean right there Martin, you could have been a millionaire by now. D.D.

Well if it flies as well as the original it will be great, aerobatics AND thermaling. Just for laughs because people have been bellyaching about where to put their registrations I went for the BIG option

Veron Sky Scooter with an OS10 up front and McGregor 1+1 R/C set. For some reason I used a bit of thin aircraft grade aluminium sheet to fashion a noseleg cum engine mount - worked well. Flew it with the Grimsby club for a couple of years, then moved on to a DB Tinker and a Gem 4 - one of the first low(ish) cost proportional radios.

MFA Yamamoto,enya 40,Futaba challenger....poor thing got me learned eventually....was like triggers broom,new fuz's,wings..... ken anderson...ne...1..happy/ish days dept.

Matty was correct about beginners not being able to transition to a fully unstabilised mode then if it still has wind dampening in experienced mode.

Veron Impala on two channel Macgregor radio. D.D.

Bowman's Super 100, a 2-channel glider, in 1979/80. Tissue covered, so plenty of patches after the first season. I entered a few thermal soaring comps with it... let's just say I didn't come last.

I started aeromodeling with cl. My first RC model was a galaxy minow 2 channel motor glider, pod powered with a Cox 049, which was a tad underpowered. I fitted from memory a DC sabre which was much better. After several "repairs" the DC was replaced with a Cox 09. I flew the socks off the thing and had a few more heavy "arrivals". It's wieght increased and needed a paw 19 on the front. That was great but further repairs made it so heavy that it did not fly very well at all. I got fed up with repairing the now weak "boom" so it was scrapped, with the wings being made into a cl model that flew well. I certainly got my money's worth ( I didn't have much ) from that model and it taught me lots. I had a cruisader glider that was a good slope soarer, and I flew the socks off that as well. Then I got a hiboy which was great, even inverted. I flew the socks off that as well. I still have the hiboy wings. My 4 channel shadow is about 25 years old now and will be flying again when ready and we are allowed out to play ?. Would I recommend a minow now, no, the boom is too weak.

Mine was so long ago - 1968 - there are no pictures but I remember it well. I’d scraped enough pocket money together to buy a well used diesel engined model, basically a free flight design, which had an OS Pixie single channel radio installed. There was one button on the transmitter which cycled left then right with each push. It was test flown on the playing fields of our local school. A small amount of fuel was added, the motor flicked into life and a friend launched it for me. It sailed off smoothly with me clicking away like mad, performed a very wide left hand circuit and the engine cut out as it turned into wind, followed by a smooth landing. I was impressed with my skill until the friend pointed out the the Tx aerial was still collapsed and we realised that it gone out of range almost immediately after launch so the flight had had very little to do with me! Unfortunately I didn’t get many flights out of it before spinning it into a tarmac arrival - no buddy boxes in those days. 53 years later I’m still flying models and I still have the OS Pixie system although only in a box, not a model.

Clamps will eliminate any gap ?

I once ordered a part from Israel at 10am (for work), it had to be made so at least 2hrs work, it arrived on my desk in Derbyshire before 9am the following morning via DHL. Hats off to DHL