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Met up with Tony Nijhuis on Sunday to shoot his new EDF jets that'll appear as pull-out plans in RCM&E over the coming months. All flew well.

Mornin all, I am at a funeral for a mate of mine who used to build speed boats, the funeral should be quick.......but it will be followed by a wake

I had a friend who had a pet pig. It was amazing, it would collect his slippers, bring in the mail from the doorstep. The only thing was it had a wooden back leg. When I asked him why, he said when you have a pig this good you don't eat it all at once.

Slow progress this month. Lots of family birthdays in January = not much building time... Wing is fixed in place. The usual 5mm nylon bolts: And from the tip: Then I started thinking about the belly pan. I decided I'd cut some side parts and top it with a bit of 3/4" wide block. The pipe will need a big hole down the middle and unless I wanted to make a fancy curved or planked cutout it would have to be some simple thick blocks: And after sticking some lumps together: These have been planed and sanded to some sort of shape. Might tinker with the shape a little but they're close enough for now. I've also final fixed the snake and close loop guides, sheeted the underside and put the tailplane and fin in place. Turns out I made a slight fist of the rear end - the sides were vertically misaligned (although the fuselage was free of twists) so anyone looking too closely will see a few slight oddities about the rear deck. And the underside is wonky. Never mind. At least the sides are vertical, the wing is aligned correctly and the tail feathers align properly to the wing. I think I need to make a rudder and a tailskid next. Then I must tidy up the canopy/deck join.

They say pink is the most masculine colour, as it shows you don't know how to do laundry properly........

Growing trend for GPS enabled RC helicopters...and this is the latest. In this first video we explore the difference between GPS and 3D modes.

Hopefully one of our PC and computing experts will know the answer to this one. I'm stuck. Was using my laptop to upload some family photos and stuff to Google drive this afternoon and then view emails when I lost wifi to the machine. Other connected gear was unaffected just my laptop. Did the usual on/off etc and then ran the 'diagnose faults' thingy that came back with 'Wifi doesn't have a valid IP congiguration' . Windows 10. Any ideas please? TIA.

Fimd 'base' software on rc-thoughts Download Extract using any free zip/unzip programme Run setup.exe from the folder you ectracted the software to. You will now have an old version of Phoenix that shouldd run (you can't use it yet - you need that dongle). 1. Locate the 'next' version on rc-thoughts 2. Download 3. Extract 4. Start Phoenix 5. Select 'Update' 6. Select the pkg file you just extracted. Repeat 1. to 6. for the remaining versions. You'll end up with v6. While waiting for your dongle, you can download sites and models and install them. The instructions above can be followed for eacb model but it's tedious... the instructions on rcgroups is quicker!

If you still have the disc, you can install from that disc. The program won't be able to update itself, but so what. To get the sim working, you don't need to download all the updates. The dongle is available on ebay, search for "22 in 1 simulator flysky". Cost around £10, comes from China of course, probably takes "some time" to arrive by post. If you want a current supported sim, Realflight would be the comparable offering.

My tank is a little higher than optimal, but I didn't really want to hack around with a new airframe for under 1/4"... Engine is an SC90. Glow plug on the OBG glows the same colour (by eye) as when attached to a glow stick, using a current of 1.4V when it's on high; on low, it's MUCH less bright, with a voltage of 0.8V It uses a separate 2S Lipo to the unit.

It was live streamed so is there immediately.

That should be fine, its the lipo ones that i have seen cause trouble. A friend had one on a nitro car and he was burning through plugs at quite a rate.

The joy of flying R/C models is derived from the skill of actually controlling them. A newby to the forum who wants "RC transmitters that can by controlled to send messages via programmable board (through pins) and not in combination (=build together) with RC controllers" This ridiculous concept should be regarded as highly suspicious.

TBH I don't think we would have had the take up if I hadn't produced the 'kits' but as they are only £30 for the cut foam parts, the CF spar and the motor it would appear to be too good an opportunity plus the various rounds of my Wacky Races has met with enthusiasm too! Our first round is in April at our season's launch meeting so we'll see how we all get on, final results in October.

Smashing day at the field today - literally in some cases. Started off great not a breath of wind, blue sky with a light high overcast and lovely conditions. Threw the PZ SE5a around the sky - brilliant fun, followed by the Volantex Zero. Got the repaired and refinished Magnatilla out for a photoshoot and drama free low key fly around. This model doesn't do much, other than potter round the sky, in a similar manner to the Atilla that I used to fly years ago. Very happy with how the model looks in the air now, with the Cameo-cut markings. Photo credits Derek Robertson for the Magnatilla. Later on I struck the very top of one of the electric fence posts landing my Hurricane- shattered the u/c door, tore an aileron off on the wire, broke the leading edge and snapped the aileron servo shaft. Only realised later that I really should have used the flaps Then switching to my spare PZ| Spitfire for another flight chasing Derek's Ripmax Bf109e before inexplicably losing power and going in quite hard, outside the strip - pulled the wing through the mounting plate, snapped the fuselage in half and whipped off the underwing radiator, All repairable, but, as AVM Park would have said "That should damned well never have happened". On reflection I think I hit the throttle cut switch. Again. Lots of other fun stuff going on - red kites vying with four gliders for the bit of lift on offer. Mike's lovely big scratch built glider tug moving to parachuting duties and lots of blether in the warm sunshine. Marvellous day.

I have used several makes of plug with Tailor, Fireball as well as OS and Enya. All have given good service. Also had good service from Model Technics plugs, an interesting one they do is a two stroke plug for inverted engines. Looks a bit like a four stroke plug, not sure it makes much difference. The main thing for plug life is not to over power them. As mentioned before the general use of starter sticks and on board glows has reduced the chances of the plug being driven to brilliant sun orange by the user turning up the power on starter panel trying to get the motor going.

I had the Galaxy Models Escort GT, I flew it at the Aqua Nats and Leisure Lakes float plane comps.

Found a old black and white picture of my simple stuntman, think its from 79 or 80.

I understand the technical goal here, but given the OP is a new member with a zero post count I want to understand why he wants to operate without a transmitter before offering advice. Whilst autonomous systems are available that allow this sort of control, the operator still needs to maintain LOS and based on my understanding of the current regs I am not certain you can dispense with manual control completely, hence my question. Until we know why he wants to do this, and whether his intended mode of operation is legal, I really don't want to be offering advice.

Before we answer, what is your goal here? Why do you want to dispense with the transmitter?

Cockpit starting to take shape with the pilots being painted and the headrests and control panels getting Sorted.

Cold up the patch, but hardly any wind. Perfect BAE Hawk weather!

Reasonable weather both days this weekend so it was twins Saturday with a Grumpy Tiger Cub and a couple of BH Mossies (trimming and shakedown flight, hence the non scale flying and the elevator control with a lot of hysteresis was proving a challenge for both of us! VID-20230204-WA0002.mp4 And Sunday was much more relaxed with a good smattering of twins again! Wing straight down the runway ..nice

@Piers Bowlan I was going to buy one a couple of years ago, an Omtech CO2 costing approx £2.5K, but my wife suggested that I needed to clear some of my heavy machinery from the workshop to make way for it! Roll on 2 years and over the last couple of months I got rid of some of the machinery but also looked into diode lasers and decided to go for one of those, a Sculpfun Pro Max 20w with extended frame (400 x 900mm). It has enough power to cut through ½” ply so plenty for what I want without the need for additional things like water chilling (CO2). I am very impressed with this machine, it’s easy to use and producing things like ply bulkheads / battery trays etc are a doddle with very little edge burning. @Andy JoyceWhite Depron is a pain, presumably due to the ‘low’ power of the diode laser, a 60w CO2 wouldn’t have a problem. Therefore I use grey Depronwhich cutsvreally well (see my short vid below). Using grey isn’t a problem for me especially as it’s more readily available than white

Hi Stu, My understanding is that Waterside Farm at Ullswater is unavailable again this year but the WMWF are looking for other alternative sites.

And a slightly bigger one.... VID-20230128-WA0008.mp4

Did this work Craig? You never did tell me. Spoke to TN but he could not remember which fans he fitted but I would swear that they were the same as the 3s ones I have. He suggested to try 4s on them because the long wiring would reduce the voltage, but would need to greatly increase the battery hatch size. For various reasons I have never got round to doing it.

Finally add some fine mesh over the nacelle cheat holes to guard against loose grass and any other FOD blocking up the motors

Another tip is to make the access for the battery as wide as possible to that shown on the plan otherwise it can be difficult getting 4S packs in

My finished model

Maybe they could start by putting number plates on electric scooters, the number of accidents and deaths caused by them.

Utter, utter nonsense as usual. I like the bit that says................... "It comes amid growing concern that Britain's drone registration scheme is not being enforced properly – and that the aircraft could be used by terrorists to cause serious harm or economic damage". As if any registration scheme is a foolproof way to prevent illegal activity..........registering cars doesn't exactly stop car crime or misuse of cars, or vehicles being used in crime or terrorism does it?

Hi gents, As some of you may know I’ve really got into building the old Bowman kits of late, the fleet contains 5 examples currently. Well I’ve just acquired one more from a lady’s late stepdad estate. It’s a built-up fuselage version Hurricane un-started and in it’s original box. I’ve had a good look through it, and its all looks very nine and still in very good condition, plus there’s are some of the additional bit’s in the box. One thing I have notice is the joining method of the foam wing panels and the aileron linkages are different between the this and the glassfibre kit. I assume these were little upgrades over time. Can anyone out there who built one of these back in the day, remember if there were issues with the wing panels coming apart? The plan for this kit when space on the building board allows is to, convert it to electric and add a set of retracts and steerable tail wheel. The instruction show details for the Mk IID and having a look at some images of the Mk IID on line I think I’ll go with it.

How time flies! I've been adding a small forest's worth of wood to the fuselage. Lots of soft block for razor plane and sanding... Canopy: And on the raw, unshaped fuselage: Different angle: Side on: It was actually quite tricky to get the bottom to fit nicely to the deck. Challenger has a few sneaky curves on that lower box (i.e. a slight "hump") that made fitting the canopy structure a little taxing. Plus, I thought I knew better than the plan, for some reason, and bought the wrong wood (thicker than needed) which made it difficult to form nicely. After some shaping, it looked like this: What you don't see there is where I messed up the height of the rear deck, removed the rear deck entirely, cut a sliver out at the rear to reduce the rear height but keep the front end the same, then reattached it, then reshaped it. Whoops. On to the cowling... Foamboard to the rescue. I built the cowl up around the motor. A different angle: And eventually, after much more shaping and sanding, and some fuelproofing, and a little neatening up of the wing saddle, I have reached this point: Starting to look like a proper smooth sleek airplane shape. Fair few mistakes made on this one but I've managed to disguise them so far. I'm going to end up with a few gobs of filler around the join between the canopy and the rear decking. It is still not permanently attached - I avoided doing that, to make it easier to shape the front decking. The shape around the transition between canopy and deck was another really tricksy little bit of construction. This fuselage actually hides quite a few bits that look deceptively simple but took a bit of thinking / working out / re-doing-after-I-did-it-wrong. I think I still have some fine-tuning of the curves to do yet and if I'm honest I got the shape at the rear just a touch wrong - I didn't stick to the plan when it came to the fuselage width, and that then affected the shape the top deck took right at the back. Still, if I don't tell anyone, nobody will notice.* Next I need to attend to the underwing fairing. I shall probably close up the bottom of the fuselage first though. That will nearly be the end of the woodwork! * except everyone reading this thread of course, but, shhh.