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So been head scratching over the inner doors....made a couple but wasn't happy with them.....not sure why it took so long to figure out one of the scissor link positions was out.....the lower one is correct but the upper one needs replacing. Cut the old ones off the oleo (if it needs putting back this could be easily done) made up some new ali fixing blocks and glued them into place.......the scissor links are not functional just cosmetic so as long as the new ones work which they do everything should be ok.... Made some new scissors.....once the hysol is dry tomorrow i'll try and fit the new door inners, things should fit much better now.

Returned from flying this morning to find this beauty. Enjoy.

Topic makes me smile to myself at times, seems to be lots of contradictions and linking of "facts/statistics" 68 years have inclined me to take advertisers/sellers bumf with a large pinch of salt, don't start me on the very recent diesel/petrol shenanigans and tax incentive given to boot. Plan is to go another route to power yer vehicle, it'll happen, time lines given ? Large pinch of salt required, statistics/sellers speak with forked tongues, we swallow it coz it conforms with what we want and gives a nice warm glow to our sense of right. Pollution cost to change to new power source ? Of course there is how could it be otherwise, but doesn't mean it's wrong to do it, plan is for the long term is it not. Why change a perfectly good vehicle ? Status, lease, coz I can and I want. Rivers canals beaches, were open sewers when I wor a lad, cost plenty to clean em up, money well spent, seems we're going backwards now though. Environment my backside. Infrastructure ? Oh we're gonna build X amount of charge points a year, aye heard that guff all my life, costs soar n completion dates never delivered, then we have your modern flexible/mobile workforce, how these people who deliver your goodies on a daily basis, many many on low wages gonna deal with this change ? Picture is painted as simple, they'll buy the used lecky stuff ? Back to that pinch of salt methinks. It's cheaper per mile ? Aye for now, loads of revenue/tax would be lost, that'll get addressed without a doubt, tax by mileage/road usage, you do it YOU pay for it. Sons a high earner, good man works hard and done well for himself, solar panels on his house, large screen tv in every room except the loo, did more mileage on his first car than I have done in my life, delivery van driver on first name terms, save the planet ? Yer avin a larf. Cynic Moi ? Absolutely.

Have to say that I'm not really seeing the thing about prices being high and harking back to the good old days. In those good old days the vast majority of folks would have some serious saving up to do, in order to buy just one proportional four channel set of radio. Typically you would have a single receiver, one set of servos, a very small number of engines and maybe one or two models at at time. Those things were expensive in real terms. Npbody would have dreamed of having a complete set of radio in multiple models. Yes, as GG said, compared to half-a-dozen years ago prices have gone up, but in real terms and compared to many other hobbies, this is a cheap hobby. I do agree with regards to the sort of models that are paraded at shows these days, which are all about the most spectacular models - but bear in mind those shows aren't aimed 100% at the modelling public, they are also aimed at providing an entertainment for the general public. So not so much about providing a showcase for the models that you might buy on the day from the trade tents. Back in the noughties I used to really enjoy the various electric fly-ins, which were marvellously low key affairs, catering to modellers of all sorts and where you went along to fly and chat and watch other peoples models. Never gave any thought to what folks were flying at the big shows at the time as being anything that might directly reflect what the average club modeller was up to.

Hi all ! After a fabuless pss weekend at the Orme , i'm back at work on the fouga. With the nose retract support ready to glue in i want to make the gear door first. The nose gear door mould is free from the fuse and after a clean-up i waxed it six times and gave it a coat of pva mould release agent , followed by 50gr cloth , and 6 layers 100 gr cloth. In between i laminated some strings of carbon for strenght Everything is hardened out and ready to fit on the fuse. First i opened up the opening in the fuse to the correct mesures so that the retract can move freely. The new retract door fitted in the right position , i can see through to mark the door outlines I have to wait a day to cut out the door with the grinder because the epoxy would still melt with to much heat (not hard enough) I gave it a shot to make the right door hinges from a aluminium T profile scrap Because of the round shape of the gear door , the hinges must bring the door a little ''out'' of the fuse so the strut and wheel does not tuch the door when opened. It's just a try-out so the shape can change during fitting. More tomorrow !!

Putin receives a new dining table from the people of Crimea......

I do the same on my classic aerobatic models to stop pushrods from flexing.. Very reassuring for very little additional weight. A bit of progress on the elevator. The joiner reinforced with 2mm diameter piano wire.! Glass Fibre Horn built (90 degrees) and locked with a sandwich of a 4mm internal diameter aluminium tube all held at 90 degrees with short lengths of dowelling. The tricky bit was marking and drilling the holes. Fortunately the fus has a flat base and the sides are upright so carefully marked and drilled wth a 2mm drill the main pivot. Put a length of wire through and checked it was horizontal, it wasn't so adjusted the hole with a needle file, opened out to 3mm, try again and tweaked again, then opened out to 4mm. It seems ok. With the main pivot in place, marked the rear joiner position and carefully cut the slots to allow the tailplane to go up and down. It still needs a bit more down but there is about 5 degrees up at the moment. It looks about right. With those bits done, i glued an m4 washer to each side of the fus to act as a bearing and a spacer to stop the tailplane from binding. It now looks like this. A bit of a faff but i think it was worthwhile. More to come

A little bit of history first, when i was in my early teens my brother and i would get packed off to our grandparents in Hadleigh, Essex for two weeks during the school summer hols, i was building the usual Keilkraft rubber models and gliders back then. My brother and i were both interested in aviation and our days were spent either over at the modelling strip on One tree island (someone correct me if the name is incorrect) or at Southend airport, the main carrier there being British Air Ferries. The main aircraft in and out were Viscounts and Heralds but the aircraft that we most looked forward to seeing were the BAF ATL Carvairs, what`s not to like, 4 noisy radial engines, an interesting lumpy front end (years before the 747) and most of them had interesting names, Porky Pete, Plain Jane, Big Bill and Big John are a few that i remember. You could hear them coming anywhere in the Southend area and we would lay awake at night listening to them growling in on a low approach to the airport. Since getting into r/c about 25 years ago i have always wanted to have one to fly, no chance of a manufacturer producing one and no plans around to build from, besides a lot of drag and probably marginal on weight using wood unless it was built VERY big. About 10 years ago i was lucky enough to purchase a 100" control line Carvair that was built in the early 60`s by two guys who ran a model shop in Leigh on Sea just outside Southend, this was flown at a number of Country shows before being retired and hung up in their shop `Wings & Wheels.`It was eventually bought by a full size Carvair Captain and hung up in his dining room, i purchased it from his daughter who was selling stuff for her mum following his passing, getting it home was a challenge as it is one piece! Again thoughts turned to building a flyer but the practicalities and lack of plans put it on the back burner again. My flying buddy John who sadly passed away last year knew how much i hankered after one of these and having seen the control line model a number of times set about drawing up some plans for a depron version scaled down, he had scratch built several much smaller depron models which at that time i had not attempted. He was at the time of his passing working on a revised set of plans as he thought the originals he had done may not build up correctly but he was gone before he could complete them so i will have to work from his originals. So here we are, my new foamboard project, 55" span, he had drawn them for retracts and flaps but using the lessons learnt from the ME109 i hope to build it light enough to not need the extra weight and complications of flaps and it will be a hand launch, again to save weight. If this model proves to be successful i will scale it up and add the retracts and flaps, if it proves unsuccessful it will be repaired as necessary and hung up in my house. So, first question is at that size, four engines or two with wind milling outers? Again, thinking weight here, two extra motors and ESC`s, it will probably be on a 3 or 4s pack. Any recommendations or thoughts appreciated, a lot of drag so it certainly won`t glide well! The picture here is of the Control line one hung above our stairs.

Autumn wheather today, so quite a bit of progress! I always let the spars extend over the last ribs top reinforce the tip. This give quite a bit of strenght for no weight. The supports for a the aileron servo's are done..... twice. I manage to mount one side to rib bays more to the center, even though I had taped the location.... I like rib capping! The center sheeting is glued together and can be put on the wing tomorrow. The weather will be miserable, so plenty of workshop time! Cheers, Lucas

Elementkey!

But it’s not just CO2 is it? You would never work on your landy with the engine running in an enclosed space, it would be just too dangerous. Fundamentally burning stuff is bad for all of us: Asthma Link Dementia link Cancer Link We didn’t know the half of this 30 odd years ago, but we do now. It’s time to move on and do things better IMHO for everyone’s sake. idd

Wings and Wheels that's where I bought my russian 2.5cc diesel and later my Futaba 'M' in the early 70's before moving to France, the shop owner looked like David Essex, I spent the first 8 years of my life living in Rochford near the entrance of the Airport where my Parents both worked. I have a Lancaster around the same size, 4 brushless motors two of each running on 2 x 3S 2200mah lipos, all the props running the same way !.

Hi MattyB. I'm sure that your research is very valid, but I think you have also missed Don's point. He is not comparing the environmental impact of a new petrol car against a new electric car. He is comparing the impact of a new electric car (or any other form of new car) against hanging onto whatever car you currently own until it is life expired. I have always believed that the most environmentally friendly car available is the one you already drive. The amount of damage caused by burning fuel in a car is insignificant compared with the cost of manufacturing / transporting / sourcing materials etc of ANY new car.

Sorry to hear about all of your losses, I went through the same 10 years ago, now 'settled' and at 70 realising you can't live forever I am finally buying stuff regardless of it's price ( within reason ) last one a Kwik Fly kit and it's new engine,,,

Thanks Dirk thats great, yes probably three sections of 250mm I think the florist plastic is Cellophane, i have some funnily enough for laminating depron, makes it shiny 🙂 Cheers Danny

Looking good Martyn, one of my favourite aircraft. Very good build, I do like the all moving tailplane and the fact you're sticking to I.c.

That's sad. Some stuff has certainly gone up hugely in the last 18 months or so........... but prices do seem to be stabilizing a little. A few months ago, I totted up what I'd spent in the previous year, and it was scary. But when I compare this to what some if my flying buddies spend, I'm rather frugal! I think I'm at the point now where I'll stick to my limited monthly 'odds n sods' budget and only get airframes on birthday and xmas. Any broken planes will need to be repaired, or a replacement sought from all my decommissioned stuff........

Trevor, you miss a point. Yes, electric cars are more efficient, just as my current box is more efficient than a Model T Ford. You fail to mention the carbon cost of producing a car, as against using an existing one. But just swapping out an electric motor is not an answer. A smaller electric motor is perhaps. While agreeing with John Stones, I don’t don’t expect to win this argument, but all I ask is an acknowledgement that the owner of the energy burner enjoys it, does not care what happens after that, and is self honest enough to say so. I drove a Tesla last week. Don’t know the model, it’s a mid range one, company car of a neibour. I’ve driven more powerful cars, but never one with sheer low end grunt like the Tesla. Nice car, fun, big fat tyres to absorb all that grunt, fancy electrics trying to keep then from spinning when I grunted it. Lots of rubber dust (see science papers, effects on kids lungs). Not the answer. His view, the electric car is a no brainer. It’s cheaper to run, the tax position from taking electric over petrol is huge. OK. But that means my taxes are being used to encourage this folly.

You can have it ... if you are anywhere near Sunderland 😀 Yep, fools errand most likely. cheers mike

A bit of progress. Not been too well over the past few weeks but i started painting the fus. I used klass kote from fighteraces sprayed on using an automotive touch up air gun. It really is very nice to use. Lettering was traced from a side view, it is very slightly slanted. Needs a little more work as i managed to mark the white slightly when i removed the lettering mask. Made a start on the wing. The wing tips and ailerons are supposed to be built on a jig. This is to build in some washout due to the extreme taper on the tips. Unfortunately, the jig pieces were missing so i had to guessimate and make my own. One of the problem is that the chunky wing trailing edge and aileron leading edge need a fair amount of twist which loads up the structure. The left tip went ok. As soon as the sheeting was on, i removed the tip and planed off the bevels to allow aileron movement which removed some of the stress Lots of clamps to hold that twist... The right tip and aileron was a little more problematic and the aileron bowed. A bit of dampness and splitting the join at the TE and then clamping flat for 48 hours seemed to sort that. And I have just made a start on the centre section panels. The instructions are rather lacking and the plan isn't much help especially regarding servo mounting for the ailerons and flaps but I am sure I'll get it sorted. More to come.

Many comments resonate here. Have simply been priced out of the hobby to a point that I rarely fly these days, and agree with comments regarding the Nats showline. Used to love it and flew there, and at the Engineering Exhibition, Olympia for a number of years. All manner of models, that more often than not, could be purchased on the trade line after salivating over a demo slot. All a bit cliquey and exclusive these days. Things change, I get it. But not always for the better...

I read the thread as well, EV won't be for me purely because of cost, do I feel threatened by them like some appear to do ? Not at all, it's just a tool to get from A to B. We need to consume less ? Good luck on that one, Gimme trumps all it seems.

Don, the point is that EVs waste far less energy than combustion cars - an EV power train has an efficiency of over 90%, whereas a typical road car is 30 - 40%. In energy terms, 1l of petrol or diesel contains about 10kWh, and will take a 45mpg car about 10 miles, giving an efficiency of 1 mile/kWh. A Tesla Model 3 will fairly readily achieve 4 miles/kWh, so even if its electricity is derived purely from fossil fuels, it will use less and cause less emissions. Averaged over a year, about half the UK's electricity is derived from fossil fuels, and it continues to decrease, so the difference will get even greater. You are right, though, that fundamentally we all need to consume less. Like Paul, I would love an EV but can't afford one at present, hopefully in the near to medium future that will change.

nice. 4x 70s or 80s then

I've been dipping into this thread now and again and I do find the subject genuinely fascinating. I tend to be somewhat neutral in the whole EV v ICE debate and can see both sides of the argument but I had no real world experience of EV's until a couple of weeks ago. A young guy at my club turned up in a Tesla and was kind enough to give me a quick trip in it. I have to say that the minimalist interior was very much to my liking although it would probably take me eons to fathom the touch screen controlling everything. That aside, the actual driving experience, even just as a passenger, was very impressive and I came to the conclusion that the ICE, whether petrol or diesel, seemed somewhat archaic and over complicated by comparison. However, I am not now, or ever in the future, going to have the money available to buy an EV so it will remain within the realms of my dreams much like exotic sports cars or a classic VW camper.

First flight on the 109 today, 3 clicks of aileron was all that was needed, brilliant flier, very smooth and predictable, given me a lot of confidence to do more foam board builds. Elevator droop was rectified as suggested with Costa coffee stirrer sticks let in on their edge in a cut groove with epoxy.

Calling my first foam board build finished 🥳, 46" span, all up weight with a tad of lead in the nose is 2lbs 5oz ready to fly on a 4s 3000 pack, it has BAGS of power and pulls 30A on WOT on a 10x5 prop. Very pleased with the out come but the proof in the pudding is flying it, i will wait a week or so before committing it to the air as i like looking at my finished planes and i can see something for the effort which might not be there once flown! This was a learning curve for me and if doing it again i would alter a few areas that i now think i could have done better and i will put that knowledge into the next foam board build, Cost of the foamboard to make the airframe and brown paper covering for the fuselage was approx £10. One area is that the elevators have drooped on their out ends, the plans don`t mention making a wood leading edge for them but that would have stopped the distortion. This is obviously going to have to be sorted before i fly it, the right hand one is not too bad but the left one needs looking at, i have considered a bamboo skewer pushed up inside along the length of the elevator or a lollipop stick/carbon added to the underside to pull it straight and stiffen it. Any suggestions from the experts on here would be greatly appreciated.

Finally got my Taylorcraft "Tumbling T-truck test flown. It was a little strange at first with a tendency to need a ot of rudder to help a right turn. When I added considerably more aileron throw it could really be thrown round. No shots while aerobatting but here it is in Level flight.

I bit the bullet last night and cut the cowl. The good news is that I didn't need to take quite so much material out. From underneath it's not hugely noticeable And from the side its almost invisible. So with that out of the way, the firewall was drilled and captive T nuts fitted and the engine mounted. The engine is very slightly too low so I need to trim/sand a modicum off the rear lower of the cowl to tilt it down slightly. Also need to check the fuel tank level as it was originally intended for a side mounted engine. It may need to be lowered somehow. Not very straightforward on this model.

In my first post of May 20th, I expressed surprise at the alleged cost of building a simple sports model being £150-£200. Indeed I said, "I reckon I could knock up something similar for £50!" I don't think that I will have spend much on the Skyrider simply because I already have stocks of most of the materials. I've had to pay £37 for the purple and pink covering material because that's the colour scheme she wanted but I could have saved that if I'd used film from existing stocks. I am keeping an account of expenditure to see whether £263 is a fair price for a Speed Air. So far this model has cost me over £100 and that includes the cost of replacing the wood.

Elvington near York has a massive space big enough for the Nats. The LMA have their August show there. I think it's privately owned. The model jet jockeys use it as well and it also has the Yorkshire Air Museum. Some of you may think it's too far north but it's roughly halfway between Lands End and Aberdeen.

I think the relevant part there is "...as we've known them..." Things have changed, and maybe national-level competitions and events need to change to ease their likelyhood of going ahead. A big trade presence would not be needed at the NFC as it has been paid for (as far as I know); there are fewer overheads for the organisers to cover by getting income from the traders.

If only there was some sort of purpose built BMFA centre where national flying events could take place.