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With a 16oz tank and the throttle setting for the Auster scale flight you may need a food parcel sending to the pilot box?

ell,think it's time to resurrect one of my old threads ! The reason for the build stalling was that old bugbear of mine the dreaded fuel proofing ?now it just so happens that I recently (as in last year!) needed to respray a motorcycle l built,so l got a spray gun and paint and set to it.Which turned out o.k and now ment l had 1.the equipment for spraying 2.the 2k clear fuel proofer I also had to strip the godawful Solafilm polyester off the tailplane and replaced it with Hobbyking film rebuilt webra 61F on custom backplate mounting ,and now to deal with the other thing that l had been avoiding, the cowling! Again this was as a result of making a couple of custom side panels for the bike that ment l had the materials and (a bit) of experience to make it foam blank all g/f up and waiting to cure ?

Well it's about time I posted an update. I took my Whippish out for a fly a couple of weeks ago and a wheel fell off on the take off run? Back to the workshop. Nothing serious it was just where I failed to solder on the brass tube wheel axle on properly. That sorted it was a nice calm morning if a little dull. Once again failed to take off from the ground as there was virtually no wind at ground level, so hand launch it was, the blades spun up nicely holding the model behind me, a few paces, power on and and a gentle throw. Away she went. When my nerves calmed down I realised that she was in trim and flying nicely. I had a couple of landings and re-launches just to prove it wasn't a fluke. I really enjoyed the flight and I think I'm getting the hang of this autogyro business now, it's not difficult just different. I did make some longer blades but also built another Rich Harris design, the Mantis to fit them on! The Mantis has not been flown yet I just want to get more stick time on the Whippish first.

As the Channel 4 coverage should have finished by now, here are out league results from today; Pos League Rank Team Manager Pts 1 1 0 Essex Racing Tony Clark 163 2 2 0 Igoronic racing iqon 160 3 7 7 LetsGoTotoLetsGo GrumpyGnome 157 4 3 0 GASTON Formula Chris McG 152 5 5 0 Oyster f1 Glenn Philbrick 146 6 6 0 Pitts Specials john stones 144 7 11 1 Team Charles Picd Charles Pic 127 8 4 0 Revers Racing Pete B 126 9 10 0 teewrex John Tee 120 10 8 0 Hans Brake Zoonie 117 11 14 1 Norfolk Flyers Kevin Fairgrieve 111 12 12 1 Torque of the devil Stu 111 13 15 0 The JP Specials johnpflyrc 99 14 9 2 DMFC Racing Team Simon Webb 87 15 13 4 PSS Power Flyer 79 Tops place today is taken by Tony with 163 points. Just 3 points back on 160, it's Iqon who takes second place. And a further 3 points back on 157, 'Grumpygnome' takes our final podium place today. Well done to today's top three. At the other end of the scale, 3 of us managed to only score in double-digits... Looking at the overall league positions after today, we have; Pos League Rank Team Manager Pts 1 1 0 Essex Racing Tony Clark 1016 2 2 0 Igoronic racing iqon 995 3 3 0 GASTON Formula Chris McG 953 4 4 0 Revers Racing Pete B 883 5 5 0 Oyster f1 Glenn Philbrick 881 6 6 0 Pitts Specials john stones 877 7 7 7 LetsGoTotoLetsGo GrumpyGnome 821 8 8 0 Hans Brake Zoonie 818 9 9 2 DMFC Racing Team Simon Webb 815 10 10 0 teewrex John Tee 812 11 11 1 Team Charles Picd Charles Pic 807 12 12 1 Torque of the devil Stu 799 13 13 4 PSS Power Flyer 780 14 14 1 Norfolk Flyers Kevin Fairgrieve 775 15 15 0 The JP Specials johnpflyrc 731 No change n the top 6 places, but Grumpygnome leaps 7 places up to 7th. Simon slips back 2 places to 9th, and Charles and Stu swap places taking 11th and 12th respectively. Ade drops 4 places today, down to 13th and Kev drops one place, down to 14th. Next up is Azerbaijan in 2 weeks time. I will be in France that weekend, so I won't see the qualifying as I'm at a wedding on the Saturday. I'm unlikely to be able to see the race, but should be able to post the results while waiting for my (doubtless delayed) flight back from Bordeaux on Sunday evening.

Thanks for all the suggestions, the motor dismantling proved a no go, i undid all the grub screws and took off the circlip but the shaft would no budge and the motor would not come apart. In the end i thought about it over a cuppa and i just rotated the ally prop adapter to another position, drilled 3 new holes and tapped them, simple solution when you think about it! The Stampe will be back in the air this week now.

Finally went for 2x Saito 40's for the Grumpy Tiger Cub because that's what I had, and tweaked the appearance to somewhat resemble a Mosquito. Had its maiden flight yesterday, flown by Jeff who has experience of flying twins. Very easy to fly and docile, fantastic job Peter on another great design. Image and link to maiden flight... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZCvNWVhozk

After today's rain cleared, it left a lovely evening with not a breath of wind - ideal conditions for doing some test glides. I attached the wings and tailplane to the fuselage, picked up a few scraps of 1/32" plywood and some cardboard and nipped out to the park next door. As mentioned earlier, Smoke Trail balances about 1/2" ahead of the plan position (nose-heavy, that must be a first) so, on the 1st test glide, she headed rapidly towards the ground. I progressively added 2 pieces of plywood and thin card at the tailplane LE but still failed to get a reasonable glide. Back to the house, I picked up some Blu-tac and added a noggin to the tailskid. This brought the cg back about 1/4" and improved the glide, but still not enough, so another piece was added to get closer to the plan. Further glides showed slightly "stally" behaviour so I was able to remove some of the packing and get a reasonable(ish) glide. Back home again, I removed the Blu-tac and weighed it: 7g. The plan now is to glue some lead into the back of the fuselage to get the cg to the plan position and to trim a bit of the tailplane seat to decrease the tailplane incidence. Once that's done I'll probably have to wait another few weeks for a calm evening for the next attempt...

I should take a torch Danny, you'll be up a while in a scale like manner, looking very good. ?

It’s a shame the EF16 is not still available. It made an ideal first EDF, relatively fast when you want it to be, but comes in to land quite slowly because it’s so light. I’m on my second one, which is one of my regular all weather hacks. I don’t keep count, but it must have had hundreds of flights by now. Several people in our club still have them, and sometimes we’ve managed to get 4 or 5 of them all whizzing around together ?.

That 16 once tank is sure going to give a long flight time Danny! Hopefully long enough to fully enjoy the sound of a sweet four stroke glow engine and encourage further forays away from Lipo power. Looking forward to your reports on living with wet fuel again.

Just a slight warning. Whilst black overall does indeed make it easy to see, particularly against the usual UK grey overcast, it does make it harder to detect the planes orientation. yellow top and black underneath is good. At any distance if you can see any yellow it is banked towards you but just black and it is banked away!

not sue if it's been on here before but enjoy Top Gun: Maverick - Official Trailer IN LEGO - YouTube

A film that MUST bee seen in a cinema !, NOT on a tv or computer screen, but if you can't hers a taste of it,,,? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1iZtBM23bY

Danny your sport scale is so good you are giving me an inferiority complex. Not so many rivets as normal but still rather good. Well done BTW 12oz tank on a 62 2t gave 15min at full throttle for the friend that maidened my Typhoon when throttle stuck at full chat.

Been looking at the tank, and the largest that will fit is a 16 oz DuBro. I had bought a 20 oz, but that's too long and too wide. The 16oz should be perfect. Question for you petrol heads, what sort of duration can I expect from the 16oz size tank with a Saito 82? Added the 3D venturi that I drew in Fusion 360, and friend Eric Strefford resin printed for me. It's actually scale for the type, just too big and the wrong colour for Uniform-Juliet, which uses a smaller one. Hey-ho don't tell anybody ? Cheers Danny

A bit chilly outside today so I pottered in the kitchen. Ailerons and elevators fixed, radio set up with some initial travels. A few more graphics added. Looks like I will be able to set the balance point just by moving the battery, at the moment a four-cell NiMh pack under the cockpit is working. 1. Quite an awkward thing to balance, pencils taped to tins works, 300 mm along the leading edge from the wing glove for the glider version, 230 mm for the power version. 2. Battery under the pilot should be about right.

Sea fishing tackle shops are a good source of wire and crimps, at good prices. I like the nylon coated trace wire. Always crimp with side cutters, middle crimp perpendicular to the other two, then cyano for good measure. I also heatshrink usually, keeps the tail end a bit cleaner at our grass strip. If it’s a large plane I usually incorporate a swivel to stop the wire kinking when being adjusted at the clevis end. BTC

Graham, I have added the battery extension but it might have to extend it again to move it back.

I just use the pre-rolled kits from SLEC. https://www.slecuk.com/closed-loop-set-3-mtr-wire-6-ferrules-4-m2-adaptors?search=closed loop&category_id=0

The above pictures are of Chris Williams version of this fabulous glider as I haven't even started mine yet!. I have been building and organising my new workshop illustrated elsewhere in these pages so have not been able to make a start on this until now. I have already built a Flamingo which flies elegantly, but cannot cope with winds less than 8mph in reality, which is when I tend to get these old timers out, whereas the Petrel was described in RCM&E to be just such a glider. The construction of the 2 gliders follows a similar path favoured by Chris, so, apart from the shape of the fine and the All Moving Tailplane, this should go together in a familiar way, though it is about 2 years ago when I built the Flamingo. First thing I did was examine the plan. Sure enough it is the same as the cut down version which appeared in RCM&E. I wanted a full size plan which I could put down without cutting and taping together. I also always have an extra plan printed for reference whilst the plan is pinned to the building board. The magazine version is on A3 so handier to look things up. I have the magazine article which recommends starting with the wing, which is what I did. I also considered what finish I should go for. Whilst I like Chris's red finish, I think a bit more white together with the Hobby King Matt see through film would be my favoured look. I love the matt semi transparent film, which one has to order from the Far East. I found a finish I like on the Old Gliders website. They produce a 5 metre version in a kit. This is their logo which I am going to use. There were very few of these gliders actually built so, one can arguably produce whatever colourway one desires.

@Piers BowlanI’ve used both the SLEC or similar or fishing trace wire which comes with ferrules.

frank Pi r2 is all you need although technically two ducts of the same area as one bigger one will have slightly higher losses due to the boundary layer being the same thickness regardless of the duct diameter. Keeping a constant area during the transition from one to two ducts does require rather more complex maths! My bifurcated inlet and exhaust used on my Hawker P1052. Inlet area is 1.2 the FSA of the 55 mm EDF. The exhausts taper down to give a combined area that is 85% of the FSA. Remember that extra vanes adds to the duct surface area and thus to the losses in the duct. It then becomes a question as to whether the extra thrust gained from flow straightening more than compensates from the extra losses the vanes create. Flow straightening vanes are definitely used in high pressure low volume fans but I doubt it applies in a high volume very low pressure EDF duct.

Well done Tony, pipped at the post......... Safety cars 2 or 3 makes no difference, ?? seemed like 5 or 6....

Rebuilt webra 61R & 61F with all its screws! And I've actually attached one to an aeroplane!!

So @Alan Hintongave me the idea, so I went out to the workshop and found an old pair of blunt side cutters. 5 minutes later with the cutting edges filed to form blunt edges, probably not that clear in the photo. But using them on my smallest pull pull wire and ferrule Well that was a success, thanks Alan.

The weather was ok today to do more spraying in the garden, I finished off the grey and added some silver near the jet pipes. A lot of masking, my main worry was over spraying the graphics on the fin and paint lifting with the masking tape, luckily neither happened. Jobs left to do now are: Hinge the ailerons and elevators. Make and fit Plasticard covers over elevator servos. Fit the cockpit parts and find a pilot. Fit the canopy. Add tabs to the upper wing glove strips Paint the jet pipes. Add the remaining graphics. Add receiver and battery, set balance point. Range test, fly. Photos: 1. I used the wing and top hatch to mask off the insides of the fuselage and carefully masked the fins. 2. Sprayed and dried quite quickly. 3. Flipped upside down to paint the bottom. 4. Going well so far, just a few greenflies decided to visit and get stuck. 5. There are bare metal sections of the fuselage for the hot zones of the engines, I found some alloy wheel silver that I use to paint the final drive of my motorbike. I read the label and it said it contained acetone so I tried it on a bare piece of plastic first in case there was any reaction, no problem. 6. The problem with masking is that you don't find out that you've missed a bit until you take it off! 7. Came out better than I expected! 8. Same deal with the top hatch. I have Tamiya masking tape but standard DIY tape worked well. 9. All good. 10. Very happy that the graphics didn't get over sprayed and there is no hard line where it was masked. 11. Light at the end of the tunnel!

Nooooo don't chat to him...... that's how Glynn and I started. Now he sends the boys round twice a week to check up on us... Just stay with explaining to the Mrs.... it's so less violent.....

Something I have found, with nice instrument panels is that once the canopy is on they can hardy be seen! Therefore fixing them at a slight angle gives a better view and the angle is hardly noticeable.