Leaderboard

Just finished my new design. A modified Taylorcraft call "tumbling T-Cart" If you want to google the full size search for N6685C. The model is 47" span, for electric power. Weight 48 oz. wing loading 17 oz per sq.ft.

That might just be acceptable on a laptop but would be disastrous on a smartphone. I really struggle to see - other than as a matter of principle to some - how these occasional adverts, which can be skimmed past in an instant, are causing such angst.

We visited Kitty Hawk about 20 years ago and the museum is well worth a visit. I was expecting a MAGA hype attitude but I couldn't have been more wrong. It was more like Shuttleworth collection with a load of enthusiastic volunteers only too pleased to help with any queries. Kill Devil Hill, where a lot of the hang glider experiments were carried out, is a huge sand dune which once was prone to natural movement because of the effects of wind but has been stabilised and there's a monument to the Wrights on the top. We cycled up the track on a borrowed tandem just for the hell of it - I wonder if we're the only ones? No-one said anything about it. The route of that famous photographed first flight is marked, of course, and takes very little time to walk. Apparently, the Wrights set up the camera and an assistant operated the shutter. It was the first (and only?) photograph he ever took. There must be millions of copies reproduced in magazines etc. In fact I bought a copy there and it's on my workshop wall now.

We still going ? I'm easy myself, try not to get worked up about nowt, add may have helped up sales, I like the mag/forum what's best for that works for me, as always opinions may vary.

The concern was not about one advert between a couple of posts, but the possibility of (or more) adverts appearing between every post. Eventually people could get so fed up with them that they would leave the forum. I have had an off forum conversation with Darren and can see where his concerns are. The following is my considered opinion and not that of the publishers. The RCME forum is provided (at no cost to us) as a place where like minded modellers can exchange views and information on a myriad of subjects. This is good and I whole heartedly approve of it. However, how many of us know that less than 5% of forum members are subscribers to the magazine ? I didn't. That means that the rest of the members either buy the magazine regularly from their local supplier, buy the magazine when they see something that interests them in it, or don't purchase the magazine at all. I think I know where a large proportion of them come from. If this was a completely free website / forum then I would have no complaints, but as a subscriber to the magazine part of my subscription is paying for the website / forum. I get the impression that the main reason for these adverts was to try and persuade people to subscribe and that there was no intention to increase third party advertising within the forum. Unless we, as hobbyists support the magazine by purchasing it then ultimately our hobby will suffer. I buy the magazine by subscription, not just because it is cheaper that way, but as a way of letting the publishers know that I am willing to support our hobby long term. I also let them know if I am not happy, or concerned with any aspect of the magazine. It is called "positive feedback". "Negative feedback" is something we seem to see a lot of on the forum and I now wonder how much of that is coming from outside of the subscribers. We may not own the company, but at the end of the day it is our magazine and is just about the last one that caters for our interests in this country. This was not a rant, but a carefully considered reply to my original posting and the response it produced.

Yes. The Wright brothers looked extensively as to the best place to conduct their flight trials. They settled on Kitty Hawk, some 530 miles from Dayton as the crow flies. They made annual trips there from their home in Dayton Ohio from 1901, travelling by train via Norfolk, Virginia to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. They then hired a boat for the 30 mile crossing of Albermarle Sound to Kitty Hawk. Each trip took up to a week's travel. Their aircraft was sent in kit form, created up and assembled on site. The first two years when they made gliding trials they lived on site in tents for 3 months but for 1903 they assembled two large wooden camp buildings. The flying almost seems to have been the easiest part of the exercise!

I suppose I’m just lucky to be so thick skinned.

Royal Mail tracking is a farce. It doesn't track your parcel at all, it only tells you they have received it then again when it's been delivered and that's it.

Now talk about "Soap Boxes", the BMFA News has one of the biggest. Not all is poor, though not a commercially viable format. To keep the RCM&E going, for however long, and the Forum. They have become to a degree complimentary, almost symbiotic (what doe it mean?). Without the 3d thread, my printer could already be in the bin, I would not have known about Autosketch tutorial book, the videos and most importantly feed back from forum members. The world keeps on turning, the mag and us really, really old uns, have to change and adapt to how "it is" and not what we think the environment should be that we live in.

To build a bifurcated duct in 2mm Depron planks the design would have to be somewhat simplified with straight arms but the Skyray fuselage is also a constant size back from the intakes so the arms could significantly longer than the printed one which was kept short to limit the weight. To build each arm required a jig with a printed ring of the correct profile at each end. Each ring had a 2mm wide slot to hold each plank. Once the arm was fully planked it could be cut free from the jig. The rings are for construction only so are remove and replaced by lighter single sided 'joining' rings. The completed bifurcated section in 2mm Depron. Even with the joining rings at 18g it is only 1/3 the weight of the fully printed equivalent. Once the duct is fully assembled construction of the fuselage can start.

Just completed a couple of test flights all seems well , just a couple of trim tweeks. I enjoyed the build, covering was a challenge

Getting down to the last jobs on the Hein now, i didn`t go with the Polyspan in the end, the airframe got several coats of thinned dope and sanding sealer rubbed down in between and was then painted with Tamiya acrylics, all the gear is now fitted. Tomorrow the tail will get painted red and the finishing trim colours and meat balls will go on. Next stop test flight! Once the trim colours are on i will post some pictures. I still have to make a plug to mould a canopy but that will wait till after it has flown.

Please no, that was an awful format IMO, with the space to present the actual forum content completely squeezed and restricted. Adverts at top and bottom, or even between posts can easily be scrolled past and the screen is maximised to be used for what people come here for.

It's a positive attribute these days Martin!

I'll have you know its 6'4" old chap.... every inch counts 😜 I use 6mm silicone rubber sheet cut into two strips with clearance holes for the screws. Just nip the screws till they just start to compress the silicone.... works a treat.

Hi Chaps , Just a little tip here . The grass runways are becoming very hard and even if you make a smooth landing ,you can still endure some serious jolts as your model slows down . These impacts can be tolerated by a foam veneered wing , as the foam acts like a giant shock absorber . However , laser cut wooden wings ,as on our P51 and Spitfire ,provide a very rigid mount for the retracts . There is a very simple way to decrease the odds of you wrecking your mounting plates . You simply slacken off the four self tappers and trap a piece of silicon rubber underneath the plastic retract plate and the plywood mounting plate . This , to some degree , dissipates the shock and replicates what happen in a foam wing . Paul has done quite a bit of experimenting , which was necessary because he chose to omit my recommended 8swg coils . We have discussed it ......... He was quite rightly sent to the naughty step. Even at six foot three .

Here's another shot, over the trenches in Northern France !

Be careful what you wish for............My opinion of course but the way I see it is that the hard copy RCM&E either bought by subscription or from a shop etc is done for. Maybe not immediately, but given the ageing demographic and that younger people tend not to do physical magazines these days, it must be getting harder to make anything worthwhile out of some niche publications. Think of the titles that couldn't survive even when the hobby was thriving years ago. We'll wind up with just the super, soaraway BMFA News (yawn!) being forced upon us as a captive audience.

An often forgotten part of the Wright's story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Taylor_(mechanic)

One of those wealthy types Samuel Langley secretary of the Smithsonian contested for many years that the Wrights were first, stating his Aerodrome aircraft which launched from a houseboat on the Potomac river in October 1903 was first despite the fact it went just a very short distance before flopping into the river. The US military had contributed many thousands of dollars to this project. Such was Langley's influence that the Smithsonian did not recognise the Wrights as first in controlled powered flight until 1942!!! Because of this up to that time a composite Flyer one [ made of spare parts ] was displayed at the Science museum London until just after WW2 When it returned to America.

The Wrights saw the development of a powered flying machine as a business venture & the first powered flight as merely a step in that development, which is why they took out a large number of patents on many features of their machines. Most of their would be competitors saw achieving the first powered flight as a means of making their name in history so took a very amateur sporty approach . The Wrights didn't have the wealth or wealthy patrons of most of their predecessors & contemporaries so expected to expand their existing business to building aircraft with military customers & in fact offered to sell them to several governments.

I’ve been industrious. I have bought 4xSC46s. Now call me reckless but I reckon it could work out better. There is one of the local clubs that is a bit tight for take-off space. All the engines have been stripped, cleaned and new parts ordered....bearings, head shims and carb O rings. I’ll stick them all on the engine run bench and set the carb arms using my trusted wire and protractor method. If anyone is interested I will post the pictures and do a quick explanation. The kit has now “landed” at Builder Brian. So hopefully, we can get started in a week or two.

You’ve missed the point! I think that everyone accepts the need for advertising it’s just where those ads are placed, mid thread. If you look at the latest RCM&E mag not one article is ‘broken’ by an advert, they all appear at the front and back of the mag plus in between articles. If the same ads were placed mid article they would break the natural flow of reading, much the same as ads placed mid threads on this forum.

I switched to DDG search engine after being nagged to either sign into Google or agree to their terms every time I went to use it. DDG finds things Google doesn't want to. The Brave browser is good for youtube as it strips all those annoying ads from videos, especially the ones in the middle when you are trying to concentrate on something highly technical and you don't want your thought process interrupted. Brave also does something with cookies that stops them from being useful by the website serving them. Its not perfect and it has it's drawbacks so not useful as a general browser.

You must be using a search engine that tracks you & stores your information (Google?). It's easily solved by switching to DuckDuckGo for your searches. https://duckduckgo.com

Hi all , I decided to do a few more steps before the holidays ,plenty of time to prepair the gliders. I opened up the holes for the wing tube (in the fuselage )and fitted the wings fore some foto's. Its starting to look like a plane !! Sorry for the messy background , my garden plans are on hold due to refused permits , more time for airplanes ! I started the second flap and finished it thesame night , i'm getting swift in this ! Tomorrow i'll do the fitting in the wing , and maybe startup the aileron ?? See you !!

Very succinctly put Brian. The ad adblocker point is interesting: If enough people use one it ultimately renders the adverts pointless anyway! I take the point about income generation etc - I just hate all advertising wherever it is as it's not far removed from dishonesty in many cases. We almost never watch TV programmes on commercial channels live any more, preferring to record them and then simply skip past the advertising. It's interesting to note that a typical hour-long programme on ITV for example is about 45 minutes of actual content!

There is no good thing about adverts between posts, they simply should not be there.

One of my grandchildren. He came to the field to have a go at flying a trainer on the buddy-box, but preferred to fall in love with my Me.110. 😍

And some more.

A few from recent time`s.