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I knew Alex very well, well he certainly knew me! Strange to think when I spoke to him last, know what we talked about, the day (at Shuttleworth), what he was doing(Having tea in his command module) before going away to another venue the next day. Also his voice, what he sounded like, but that is no more, all the past events and meetings that Alex and I had, are now living in my memory, with me until I depart this world. Makes you think about mortality - do this whilst you can, you never know when i might end. Alex did, always busy, till the last...

The news of Alex's passing filtered through to BMFA Buckminster on Saturday morning during our centenary weekend and the WarBirds Fly In. We had anticipated Alex would be with us on Friday so the news was received with shock and universal sadness. Later in the morning Ian Pallister, Chair of the BMFA, gave a warm tribute and we held a minutes silence to remember Alex, his family and close friends. Alex has made an enormous contribution to model flying through his photography, journalistic skills and warmth of character. His great report in RCM&E, which arrived this morning, on the Indoor Free Flight Scale Nationals reminded me of the last time we spoke and laughed together. He will be greatly missed for so many reasons. Very sad. Paul Hoey Chair of the BMFA Centenary Planning Group

Open most days from July 18th to August 31st 2022 from 10am to 4pm (last entry 3pm) you will be able to visit the largest gathering of UK model aircraft from the historic to the ultra-modern you’re ever likely to witness. The National Centre at Buckminster is the venue and the exhibition is one of the focal points of the BMFA’s 2022 centenary celebrations. Please check opening before travel Tel 0116 2441091 or [email protected] The exhibition traces the fascinating progress of model flying from compressed air and rubber-powered models flown at the time Bleriot crossed the Channel to today’s gas turbine models and multi-rotors/drones with more computer power in the palm of your hand than Apollo 11 used to get model flyer Neil Armstrong to the Moon. You’ll see original models by pioneers of the aviation industry like Sir Richard Fairey, whose Great West Aerodrome was a centre for pre-War model flying and is now London’s Heathrow Airport. Then there are World Championship winners, like Peter Watson’s F1C free-flight model that climbs faster than the Space Shuttle or Ken Morrissey’s extraordinary-looking World Record holding 214 mph control-line speed model. Another eye-opener is a Perspex-cased indoor duration model; the air in the box is 150 times heavier than the model! How about a radio-controlled pylon racer that pulls over 50G as it rounds the pylons? Scale models? There are plenty of them to admire too, and models that were icons of their era. The exhibition spotlights the innovators as well as those who work in the background to keep the BMFA running efficiently to protect your model flying. We hope you will recognise some of those names and faces. Some of the models will re-kindle memories of your own early model flying as they take you back to the magical smell of balsa cement and clear dope or of your first nervous stick-twitching. Whatever you fly, the Centenary Exhibition will be both a fascinating journey through time and an eye-opener as it spotlights the hundred year development of model flying. Be there; it’s your sport’s history. https://100.bmfa.org

On the way out? no, but changing very much. My experience is that the life long modeller is a thing of the past. Since i was 10 years old i have been the youngest regular flyer at every club i have ever flown at. All the others that have come in younger than me fade away within a few years at most. Its not just youngsters, adults join, fly for a few years, and then move on to something else. Society as a whole is more throwaway and transient than it was and so people seem to dabble in this and that for a while and then move on to something else. Some may disagree, and thats fine, but this has been my experience.

I had another practice taxi test today at the field. The wind was moderate to gusty and the direction was from the south which meant using the short er runway but at least the wind was right down the runway. I had earlier checked that the model ran straight on a tarmac area. The rudder travel was adjusted as Richard suggested. Putting on half rudder for the first taxi run made it much easier to control. On the second run I managed to keep it down the middle and made the decision to continue the take-off. She flew off perfectly with only some right aileron trim needed. The gear retracted ok and soon it was time to think about the landing. I dialled in some flap expecting a trim change in pitch but none needed and in fact there seemed to none needed with full flap which was a pleasant surprise. Landing was affected a bit by the gusts but helped by Paul’s advice to keep some power on. Absolutely delighted to find such good flying qualities and to have finally completed the first flight! Thanks to all on the forum for the sharing of tips and advice and to Richard for such a fine design. Gordon P.S. the sheep were trespassing on the other runway. 😀😀

I was under the impression that firing an explosive projectile from an unmanned (or manned) flying vehicle is illegal in this country. At the very least each flier should have had a firearms license. Just look at the rules and regulations professional firework display companies have to follow. I think it might be an idea for the pilots to get some legal advice. They are likely to need it.

Just watched the video. Fools, foolish fools... Is my polite take.

Shame about that, Ron, I didn't think I saw the famous hat on the flightline when I visited on Saturday. I thought it was a good day out and enjoyed wandering around looking at the models and chatting with various people (good to see you, John). If the dates fall right then I think a weekend away in the caravan is in order next year.

All, Managed to escape childcare and got to maiden, Queen Jean. I got 2 flights. She flew on rails one click of down and one click of left was all that was needed rates felt good.... Only one issue she was really lacking in power. I had to use 75%+ power and still would not have been Been able to loop. A climb to altitude was was tricky. 3 min flight had 70% battery left and 4min had 65% left so its not using full power I think? Any ideas

This weekend's maiden flights - my venerable Vmar Ju52, which has been wrapped in bubble wrap for at least twelve years, but finally took to the skies on Sunday. She flew like a big trainer - loads of wing area and easy ROG - really nice to fly. Picture credits Derek Robertson = thanks Derek!

I am not a great builder nor more than an indifferent pilot. Oh I have passed some certificates and can fly some aerobatic manouevres but if I have any claim to skill in the world of r/c flight it is in teaching elderly beginners how to fly to A Certificate standard, something which I've done over the last thirty years or so. I have always impressed upon my charges the importance of checking that the ailerons, elevator and rudder are moving in the correct direction and that the rates are in the appropriate position just before you advance that throttle and take off. One Sunday, a couple of weeks ago I had been busy teaching two beginners how to fly at my local club. I had also spent some time in my workshop teaching one of them how to build. I'd taken my ARTF Laser 70 powered Acrowot with me to the field as well as the club's trainer. I had been having some problems with the throttle control on the Acrowot. Basically if I pulled the throttle lever below half way the engine would stop and all of the travel of the throttle arm seemed to happen only after the halfway position was reached on the transmitter, a Spektrum DX9. I concluded that I'd accidentally done something to the throttle channel programming and being hopeless with computers, on the Saturday night I put the model onto a new memory and sure enough the throttle control worked normally. Having taken up the beginners on the buddy box I decided to fly the Acrowot. I set the throttle cut and started the engine which ticked over like the proverbial Swiss watch. I waggled the sticks about and carried the model to the runway. One more stir on the sticks and I pushed the throttle forward. It veered to the left, I put in right rudder and it spun round in a left-hand circle before hitting the grass alongside the runway. This stopped the engine. I retrieved the model and found out that the rudder was reversed. Not only the rudder, the elevator was reversed too! I sorted those out but wait there's more... I started the engine, walked down to the runway, gave all of the controls a proper check this time and took off. The model dropped its right-hand wing slightly. I fed in left aileron. The model twitched violently to the left then to the right as I over-corrected. With my heart pounding I gained altitude and I spent the rest of the flight just breathing on the aileron stick to get the model to turn. I had set neither rates nor differential! Unfortunately for me there were three other pilots in the air at that time. Two were flying electric models and were soon down but the third was the best pilot in the club putting one of his old patternships through the schedule. I parked my model at a good altitude waiting for him to land, then I manged to land successfully. Subsequently, diffential and rates have been programmed in! Now what was the expression? Prior planning and preparation prevent poor performance? 🙄

My last meeting with Alex Was April this year at Rochdale Indoor flying meeting. He will be missed by so many.

Not sure i follow. Had they been using the type of firework i thought they were and it just left a trail of sparks then going ahead with the firework show is completely understandable. Doing it with the type they had however was not. This is one issue in itself that needs to be investigated and there is in my view no excuse for using projectile type fireworks. But as a separate issue, their fire coverage was clearly insufficient to deal with any fire caused by a firework or model accident. If a turbine model had gone in and exploded, or an electric model lipo caught fire after a crash, there is no way the coverage they had on hand would have been able to deal with that either. The issues are separate even if they conspired together to cause the problem. Its the swiss cheese model they talk about in full size aviation accidents. But i think we are saying the same thing in that a handful of buckets is not enough fire protection for a model show and some sort of appliance should be on hand. This is what i meant by adequate fire protection.

Following a helpful conversation with Danny and considering all options, I decided to contact Phil at Fighter Aces to discuss the possibility of using KlassKote for this project. It’s not cheap, but at the rate I’ve been building this project, it’s an acceptable cost per annum! Hawker Spanish Fury 2 Colours.pdfUsing this excellent plastic kit leaflet, he’s been able to accurately identify all of the colour matches. Unfortunately, he hasn’t got everything in stock and it’s going to be late August. however, we’re away for a couple of weeks in early August and when we get back the house will be in a state of chaos with alterations being done, so that’s probably ok. In the meantime, I can get on with the rest of the finishing detail. Phil sent me photos of a 1/4 scale Fiat Cr42 they have built that has a Regia Aeronautica scheme similar to the Fury. This is one of my favourites, one day - - -! couldn’t resist including it here.

Sorry John, still wrong. Can’t accept an obvious risk, and then mitigate it with a few blokes with buckets and hoses. If the organizers had shipped in the resources wasted on sorting the fire out, on standby, perhaps. And modern fire training says, fires that don’t risk injury do not warrant risk of injury putting them out. Ditto, this week, MOD doing live fire exercises onto cut hay fields.

You will start to wonder how old you are when strolling down the lines of museum exhibits and stopping regularly to say, "I used to have one of those...." 🥴 😍 . . Lol.

They also made a cheaper version the FL 70. I have one in a 1/6 scale BE2e. It seems fine to me but I don't fly the BE2 every day.

I just watched the videos for the first time and i am changing my stance. If this was caused by the sort of fireworks that leave a trail of sparks behind the model (as i expected to see) then it would have been a very different situation and my initial comments reflected this. As it was, they are using projectile type fireworks that clearly have enough range to hit members of the crowd and are obviously shooting fire into the ground. Not impressive. Especially as the show seemed to go on even though it was clear several fires had already started. While my earlier points about fire control are still valid, they really should be taken to task regarding the type of firework they were using.

Yes like Amazon,,,,😆

This thread appears on a fairly regular basis. My attitude, I will keep flying as long as i| can and hopefully with others who also enjoy it. When I stop so be it, if it continues great if not well thats evolution.

We are all wise after an event. Whilst it was very unfortunate too allow it bolster the anti's to model flying it is in the wider view ridiculous. I think by the end of the next 72 hours we will hear of other such fires and few if any will be connected to model flying. Indeed in previous years we have seen fires being started deliberately. But if it does make us think before flying that is no bad thing

The fuel of choice for Cox engines back in the day was Nitrex 15. They seemed quite happy on this mixture, I'm not sure about the lubricant, it had 15% nitro which seemed enough. Fuel with 30% nitro needs an explosives licence in the UK and they are thinking of lowering it to 16%. I met a guy in the states who was using 45% nitro in his but this was excessive and unnecessary.

My Cox TD 051 runs very well [ scary well ] on 15% Model Technics " copta fuel" As above contact MSL for similar. Engine is in a Midget Mustang C/L racer.

Checked out the bushes Ron and price wise about the same as ball bearings but still the same problem of size I could get a 4.1mm reamer to open them up. At least that's a possibility.

It sure was hot. The number and range of models superb from foamies to the big Moki powered beasts. It’s a superb site and the 100 years of aero modelling exhibition in the hanger an added bonus. a well as a chance for some respite from the sun. As a relatively low airtime powered flier and newbie warbird pilot it was brilliant to watch a whole day of routines and imbed in my mind the best flying to have something to come away with and aspire to. My last flight with the Sea Fury was a real struggle as hours in the hot sun had put the model seriously out of trim. I had to use most of my down trim to achieve a modicum of level flight. I would not have expected a carbon pushrod to extend in length like that.

Jonathan ! I thought that foam board Mossie would be well on the way by now, they are ARTF. Great job on the P51.

Bo model flying isn't on the way out. Also the regulations have hardly changed for us as BMFA members.

Jonathan maybe a Spitfire next? 😉

I dont think we can underestimate Jonathans achievement here . For us "old timers" it is hard to go right back to the beginning of our balsa bashing journey , and even then , if we are honest , the final result was nowhere near as scale or realistic as the models shown here. We also saw David on the Spitfire thread , building and test flying (well , he wisely got the club expert to do that ) . Newbies are as rare as hens teeth and it shows how nice our little group is that we can all chip in and keep those with less experience on the right track . Im not sure where we go from here given the current financial climate and this probably isn't the right place to discuss it . But perhaps when the autumn comes , we can all have a little conflab about doing something together . Maybe going backwards to a cheaper and simpler model ?

These sort of jokes help the forum members bond with one another 🙄

Nice shots Neil 🙂 Latest successful maiden flight in a series for me this morning of my Flightline FW190, which zoomed around quite nicely in the increasingly breezy conditions.

A timely warning and one that should be heeded by all. I’m sorry but I can’t think of a worse place to store lipos, whatever the weather.

I was deeply saddened to hear that we have lost one of the stalwarts of aeromodelling and an all round great bloke. I will never forget Alex and crash Parry dragging me into the command module (caravan) and forcing me to eat soup, god I was cold, but it was the Nationals after all. Alex probably saved me from pneumonia that day. Alex showed me the ropes as I shared the hallowed cross at Barkston Heath, clicking my Nikon next to your machine gun of a Cannon. I am eternally grateful for Alex's help and friendship over the years. An amazing engineer, great photographer, and the only guy I know that could write 500 words on masking tape, and still leave you entertained. Hats off sir, plain sailing and blue skies. Thoughts to Freda and the family RIP Alex

Hello all ! First ,with a heavy heart , i need to express my condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Alex whitacker who sudden past away just now ...Even though we weren't friends for years i will miss this man.Whenever i was in the UK for flying or a show , he always came to me to say hi ! Once , i was driving to The Orme with no place to stay for the night , he offered me one .I'm very sorry now i didn't take that offer...It would have been a chance to get to now better ''our'' fotographer ALEX'' AL'' WHITACKER !! Bleu skies , calm waters and the perfect light would be the perfect reward for him. RIP Alex , I'll never forget you. Life goes on as they say so here's the report of glueing the first two wingshells together: I cleaned up the mould halves and the wingshells, gave them a coat of wax and a thin coat of pva to prevent the exess glue sticking to them. Pushed the shells back into their mould and blowed everything dustfree with compressed air ,ready to glue ! I made up 80 gr epoxy resin mixed with 40 gr hardener and a lot of cotton flakes and microballoons to get a non dripping glue and spreaded it with a tipless candy bag over the ribs and every touching point. Nothing left to do then closing the moulds and bolt them together. There is nothing more you can do now ,not even check the fit ,hate it !! After a night curing i opened the coffin again to find a perfect half fouga wing !After a good clean up i'm pleased with the result ! It weighed in at 1286 gr where i expected round 1500gr. clean seams too ! enjoy ! See you later for the second wing !

Maidened yesterday - sport scale Morane Saulinier type "N" from Radio Modeller plan. This is the second one as I built the first one sometime in the late seventies. Using the very same engine ,Enya 35, from 40 years ago. 3 channel, all moving elevator as per original.

It will also have struts and rigging as well 😂

A bit of progress on the Fury It was originally going to be silver and i have used scale like litho panels all the way down the fus. Until i got to the nose. I just could not get those compound curves to look right. In fact, they were horrible. So after numerous attempts, i abandoned that scheme and went for 217/M of the SAAF which was stationed in Ethiopia between 1940 until 1944 when it was eventually destroyed. This aircraft saw action against the Italians, one of only a handful of Furys that saw action in WW2 in RAF colours. Lots more to come but some real progress after a very prolonged house move.. PS I know the camo scheme isnt correct but I can blame that on duff info on the Internet ...

Well nearly finished the starboard wing. I haven't posted anything because it is the same as the port wing, but this time without errors or course. I made a slight error with the port aileron when building it up. I did not rest a straight edge against it when gluing in the ribs. The result was a bit of a banana, but it is no matter because the hinges will pull it into shape, only a few millimetre out. So this time I made sure I rested a straight edge - piece of angle iron against it. The trailing edge goes down first. It is longer than a standard 36 inch length so has to be joined. I found the spruce almost impossible to cut straight as the knife tends to follow the grain which weaves. One is not given already cut pieces of 12mm x 1.5mm strips but a sheet of 1.5mm spruce from which to cut ones own. On top of that goes a piece of 6mm x 3mm balsa which is later sanded down t nothing to form the trailing edge. Clever - laminated and light but strong. Then the tip and root ribs are glued in followed by the leading edge made straight with the straight edge and the ribs in between added. One can see that the leading edge attaches at an angle. This means that the bottom has to be sanded at the same angle so it rests flat on the plan. This is also clever in that the gap at the bottom of the top hinged aileron is automatically formed without a lot of sanding back.

Took these just before she was sold.

Found them and I still have the can of paint

Forgot the pic.....