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Well here in the countryside we have finally got decent broadband, but is 'fibre to cabinet'. The last few hundred yards from the cabinet at the village crossroads is good old copper and we have an old fashioned BT wall plate with a microfilter connecting router and landline phone. For a mobile signal we have to drive for over a mile by car, or walk a few hundred yards up the hill. Banks and increasingly many other online services cannot understand this, insisting that they send 'secondary authentication codes' by SMS to my mobile. It is intensely irritating. All these systems have been developed by city-dwelling twenty year olds who were born with a mobile phone attached and they cannot comprehend what it's like outside urban connurbations.

I'm more than willing to wait. The end result will definitely be worth it. For the time being I still have my good old HK B-17. Never crashed even once...

Not sure what this has to do with having a poor mobile reception. The OP link is talking about removing the old fashioned telephone exchange and using the internet for the phone instead through the land line, be it copper or fibre. The aim is to convert all copper lines to fibre. Our "land line" phone simply plugs into the internet router. As for nuisance calls, we have phones which block all those automatically. If anyone else dials us, they are first asked to leave their name. We then pick up their message, and have the option to reject the call, accept it just once, or accept them as friends in which case they don't need to leave a message next time they phone us. Works well.

Id guess six weeks .

Slowly moving on with the wings. Although basically incredibly simple structures with just 4 pieces each side but holding the thick skin over a shear web relies entirely on the glue which really needs 24 hours to reach full strength. The trail edge joint is easy enough, apart from all the very messy sanding required to achieve a fine edge, it only needs a few eights to hold it down but no further progress can be made for 24 hours! Puling the skin over the shear webs down to create a leading edge requires many clamps and metal strips top and bottom to prevent the clamps marking the soft foam. To make matters worse I only have enough clamps and suitable strisp to do one leading edge at a time so its 48 hours before the second one is done. This is stage of progress above. Then the ailerons have to be cut out and the aileron servo installed with its extended lead running through the hollow wing. Only then can the wing be glued onto the fuselage which again requires 24 hours to harden before the other side can be glued on. From cutting out 8 simple pieces of sheet foam (4 identical and two pairs) to having wings fixed on the fuselage at least a week has to pass!

Check the tank and pipes for pressure Paul It does sound like a pressure leak

Wth the OHmen (parallel chord wing) One plywood template and zip round with a scalpel and the job is done in 10 minutes

Dont worry about the 3x area thing, its not true. Many of my models, sea fury included, have either 1:1 area or a smaller exit than inlet. If you have a lip on it as the fury will have you end up with a suction at the air exit and this pressure differential keeps the air flowing. As you say though, the baffle will help considerably and they are easy to build up with the cowl and engine in situ. I have some photos here on my Hurricane thread

You don't have to live on the "edge of the world" to find out what a rubbish mobile signal is like. In North kent, I won't give exact location, we have rubbish mobile signal so a land line is essential for reliable contact. Even after repeated requests to the companies nothing changes. Like many I would probably get rid of land line if mobile was reliable. Doctors, hospitals or any organisation seem to rely heavily on texting or contact via a mobile number even when specifically asked to use our landline. Recently our landlines started to play up and became almost unusable due to loud crackling noise. Our providers engineer turned up and said he could divert our landlines via the optic fiber network via our Internet connection as the land line wires were all starting to need replacing due to age and lack of maintenance. Fixing the wires would be labour intensive so wasn't an option. Our landlines now works fine but the drawback is that any loss of Internet or power failure results in our landlines going down ! So should you ever need a solid reliable connection via land line with its own power supply, its no longer available! That's progress folks.

I'm with Jon all the way here. Early synthetics did not have a good reputation, I'll grant you, but modern fuels, using modern synthetics, are a whole different ball-game. 1) All that castor does is varnish things up - inside and out. It belongs in a museum, not in an engine - regardless of the age or design of said engine. In extreme cases, I've seen it turn into lumps of coke inside the silencer (yes, really)! 2) The only reason we use the amount of oil that we do is because some manufacturers refused to warranty engines run on lesser amounts. I was peripherally involved in the development of Bekra heli fuel many years ago (I was used as a test bed!). Initially, this used 15% oil, and we never had a problem with it - in any engine, even under the most extreme conditions. The oil only got increased to 18% as OS warranty was apparently only valid if this (or more) was used. All that increasing the oil content did was make the model messier! I use it in everything from Cox .049s, through old middle sized OS/HB/Super-Tigres up to vintage Webra, modern Super-Tigre and OSs, and even 4-strokes. Frequently these are in helicopters, which on hot, summer days (when we get them!) is probably the harshest environment you could wish on an engine (marginal cooling). Before electric took over the contest scene, the Japanese heli team used to use a fuel that had 30% nitro and 5% synthetic oil! I never saw any of them suffer an engine failure. In recent years (decades?) I have never had an engine issue caused by lubrication failure. Indeed, the only thing I've noticed is that engines that are "tight" initially can take longer to bed in, due to the improved lubrication of modern synthetics. Nothing would persuade me to put castor oil in any of my glow engines. The only reason I use it in diesels is the absence of a readily available alternative. -- Pete

Should we expect to ever again see a 300/360 v in stock please?

Vic , I never tire of seeing that little film clip . For a relatively small model , you manage to fly it (and film it) so smoothly , that it actually looks much bigger . Paul is right of course in his summary . But in this instance I do already have all of the moulds thanks to Vic . I will be doing one for myself and Vic , when I find a permanent house to live in with a workshop again . So if everything else remains the same , then I can make more than two . But that will be a while off yet .

A likely source of reasonably priced drilling machines are companies that buy up old machines. Many will be from schools that have decided that design technology no longer fits the image they wish to portray. Bowerhill which are in the Swindon area are worth investigating. The good thing is that most pillar drills used in schools are single phase. If I was buying again I would go for a floor mounted pillar drill rather than a bench drill. The reason being that eventually you will need to drill a hole in a part that won'r fit on a bench drill! You can guess how I know!

I use a relatively cheap Clarke mill/drill for smaller work but I have a rather old Kerry pillar drill for anything heavier/larger. I was lucky enough to pick it up for a token amount as scrap from work (condemned due to an obsolete broken return spring which was a 2 minute job to bend a new tang on) and luckily I had a single phase motor that I could fit to it.

Where are you based? If Yorkshire is not out of range I have bought from D B Keighley, of Stanningley near Leeds/Bradford. You have to contact them for prices. Plummet

I’ve used a few, various locations. You get what you pay for. But the machine I got 20 years ago is a Nu Tool Group 12 speed 16mm chuck. Mass produced. It’s heavy, has no run out, and it does not slop as it goes down. I recall it cost £40! Must have saved that in broken bits, as you can be precise in use. As good as a top make unit, no, but I find it good enough for my needs.At the time it cost a bit less than a new small basic unit, and it’s streets better than them. I changed the chuck. Cost a bit more but the new one is nice, good for .7 mm to 16mm, saving using a pin chuck for small stuff

Thanks Don - that was pretty much plan A anyway - just wanted to get some recommendations from other buyers' experiences. Apparently not a lot of people own drill presses! OTOH, it could be that people had nothing worthwhile to say on the subject - but that rarely prevents them from posting on other threads... ?

I know these PlayStation comparisons are popular, but I have to say as a relatively young starter (mid-30s) the pull of this hobby isn't in an alternative to the PlayStation. I've never dreamt of 'my own spitfire' because that's an unlikely prospect and as the war fades even further into the distance I think people will become less interested in them. I also can't ascribe to the collective illusion that we all own our own warbirds. What I can get onboard with however, is the enjoyment of flight, which I think transcends generations. With H&S spoiling the practical demonstrations of physical theories from school through university, hobbies like this provide an avenue for parents to show how things learnt at school apply in the real world (battling the 'I'm never going to use this' mentality). Someone else mentioned landing vertically in wind. A few weeks ago I bought and flew my first model with flaps. Watching something with such a size and weight move through the air at slower than walking pace gave me a satisfaction that comes along rarely. Mustn't forget the social aspect too - for those of us still working, and I imagine we're the minority, the hobby is a reason to leave the house. When your existence consists of work/shop/cook/sleep/TV, the hobby can gain members if it can reach those frustrated minds.

Heres my latest creation, not a build, but make over of a Chris Foss Acro-wot foam e

As with every plane I build it always takes me longer to make than I anticipate but I am pretty pleased with the end results. I haven't flown it yet, thought I should snap a couple of pics before the test flight in case it doesn't go as planned. I elected to put a large NACA vent on the bottom so the sides look clean for the decals, hopefully there is enough airflow. I also changed the hand grip to make it look more like a fuel tank from the side view. I used the FMS 4S EDF with a 1400mAh battery giving it an all up weight of 525g.