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The fuselage which includes the wing roots is built around the the virtually full length inlet duct. Each formers are divided along the centre line and has to be carefully fitted so when glued in it fully supports the duct but does not distort it. Definitely "building in Depron" using techniques not that dissimilar to balsa.😉 In this state it is fairly delicate. Only when the Depron skin is complete does it become a full monocoque structure. In needs no further reinforcing. The large holes are not just for lightening (actually they only save 2.5g!) but should allow the aileron servo wires to be installed through to the cockpit area even when the skin is complete. Still some way to go.

So...maiden yesterday up at the back of Roaches, Flash, near Leek, which is a perfect site for a maiden as long as the wind is NE to ENE. The forecast said 15 to 25mph which was perfect, if a bit strong for the Petrel, but Chris's Magazine article told me that it could cope with stronger winds. In fact the stats showed that it was slightly under the weight of Chris's prototype as follows Weight 7.62 lbs/3.46 kg. Wing Area 7.39 sq ft. Wing Loading: 16.712 oz sq. ft. Pretty good for such a big glider. I wouldn't launch it in anything higher than 25mph, and am planning to use it for aerotowing if I can find some information about the Sherlow Event. Well I am provisionally going but being a newbie to aerotowing it is a bit auspicious. Will have to rustle together a towline methinks. Oh gawd. So how did the maiden go? Well I arranged to meet some chums to help with the launch of such a big glider (to me anyway!). When we arrived it was a bit chilly and I should have taken my microlight suit. Good medium strength wind, so I attempted to assemble. Even though I thought I had screwed in the hooks for the wing hold together bands in the right place, I hadn't done so. The rear ones were more or less in the right position but not the front ones which I had to remove and replace with Diamond Tape to hold the wings on. Not a problem, but they are now fixed and in the correct place. The big moment came. I was a bit nervous about the incidence of the wing. Bob gave me a good heave ho, and she was off. I had to feed in some up elevator so added some trim. Too much so I used about half of the trim travel and she was zooming around perfectly. She actually rises in the turn rather than falling out of the sky as some mouldies do. Against the hill she looked lovely. I tried some loops which pulled round very well, a stall turn which was perfect, a Chandelle, then I thought I would try a roll. Chris had specified 50% Aileron Differential which was dialled in. I also mixed in some rudder with aileron as per the Flamingo, which worked very well. No sign of adverse yaw (whatever that it?) So I clicked in full rates and decided to try a roll. Later in the day the wind moved a bit to the North and the lift improved. We were followed by Buzzards and a Red Kite, whom we also followed for thermals. A lot of height then a dive followed by a roll. I just couldn't believe how quickly the model rolls. Amazing. It might be the thin wing tips which cut through the air but I hardly needed any down elevator and the speed of the roll was like an aerobatic glider. I had 3 long flights which I thoroughly enjoyed. I would like to try it out in very light winds to see if it stays up - according to Chris it does so. Thank you to Dave for taking the pictures. My transmitter allows me to put the Butterfly elevator trim on a rotary knob so that you can adjust it in flight. I thus took the glider up high and tried out the crow brakes. I gave it slightly less up elevator which worked well. You can see here it coming into landing with full crow applied

A few more flying shots taken over the years - I still enjoy flying the little Skyhawk when the winds are up - great fun!

Thanks Ray, I was inspired by your Sunderland, I didn't want to go as big for transporting and setting up. I have started on the next build which is an 86" span Wellington. Some good flying weather will slow progress.

Good to know Paul. I had 4 flights today, all about 7 to 8 minutes roughly. Not a bad day. Back up tomorrow but with a different trainer and plane. Absolutely beautiful day for it today. Looking forward to tomorrow for more. The HZ sports cub may get an airing either tomorrow night if I feel up to it or one night through the week. Cheers Toto

I have just made marmalade. I thought of you as I skinned the lemons.

Now if you had a "stone hitting competition" i bet you couldn't do it again 😄.

Work on the new ep Chilli Breeze has been progressing and the airframe is now finally ready to cover. I also aim to give details of an i.c. conversion on the plan. Construction follows the original design but the all sheet tail surfaces have been replaced with built up items and the u/c is now mounted on the fuselage. There are also a few other small changes but the good news is that laser cut ribs are now a possibility or, if you wish to cut your own a set of rib patterns will be on the plan. In the end I decided to opt for a bottom mounted battery hatch as this frees up space for battery and esc and avoids the the need to vandalise the fuselage top. The model was quickly assembled for the photos to give an idea of the general layout. I used slec medium grade balsa throughout and made no particular attempts to save weight and the bare wooden airframe weighed in at 17.8oz/505g. This is about what I expected with a built up wing but a foam wing will only add add a few extra ounces.

Once again this is a retrospective thread because there is now a charge to fully view the original; so this a thread about the construction and flying of a 1/6th scale Parnall Elf. To hopefully whet your appetite, I'll start at the end and post a photo of the finished model. The project started about 3 years ago when I was given a pile of free plans from various mags one of which was for the Parnall Elf. I was hooked; a pretty biplane, upright engine, folding wings (no fiddly rigging to contend with) and last but by no means least, not a Tiger Moth! A little bit of research soon revealed that the designer had been stretching the truth a bit when he described it as a scale model, so I set about redrawing the plans. OK, so what was wrong with the plan? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "rivet counter", but some things have to be right. The plan had top and bottom wing proportions wrong and the tip shape was wrong, as you can see from this photo it just wouldn't have looked like an Elf in the air! After a trip to the Shuttleworth Collection, armed with the digital camera of course, numerous other less obvious errors were found. I'll not list them here but point them out as the thread progresses. I intend to develop this thread in the chronological order that I built the Elf but if anyone is building a similar project and thinks I might have an answer to a particular problem let me know and I'll try to help. I always start construction with the fuselage. Wings are usually fairly straight forward, but that didn't prove to be the case this time! The first thing is the "heart" of the model, the engine bearers, cabane strut, bottom wing and wheel hard points. Birch ply is the material of choice here as basically everything that needs strength is attached to it. Then the sides made from 1/16th ply and the rest of the formers. The cabane brackets are made from 0.5mm galvanised steel, from B&Q, much stronger then brass for these high stress points, the extra weight is minimal. They are fixed to the fuselage using model railway track fixing pins. ·

Good luck to all the participants in tomorrows challenge. I trust you all have a dry and not too windy day and the bun liners stay in the car.

Sorry. I 100% agree with consideration to other park users. And I highlighted the sentence I also agree with- sounds like the spectacle wearer was a chancer. I'd rather a tiny foamie or a rubber powered model bounced off my noggin instead of a cricket ball any day.

I have taken the opportunity of the current nice weather to test fly the planes I intend to take. Based on the 16 day forecast Sat looks best for me, no rain & just a 4 mph wind. We shall see!

Lovely work.

Thank you. The forecast has improved at North Leeds during the day and we are currently expecting a straight westerly which is our optimum direction. Apparently we are at c. 27 flying. BTC

Try this: https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-art-of-electronics-e33411099.html Mike

The bottom spars are shaped. The rule is used to make sure the sheet and spar edges are aligned, obviously the sheet and spar are not pinned in their final position. Now waiting for the glue to dry. Steve

Thanks JD8 I remember seeing a Sunderland flying when I was young it was off the NE Coast, there was only a small piece of beach open the rest was mined. It was a warm sunny day very little cloud, the white Sunderland looked great flying Northwards. You think I'm telling tales but it was a sunny day with blue skies in the NE.

Hi, Of course this is a very broad topic, and experiences may be different, so I am not saying these are "truths" just my feedback, regurarly flying ST (40 years) since they are very popular here in Italy. My current ST running on planes: .60 ABC with 0%nitro and 16% oil (half castor half synthetic). on .06-.15 (g29-x11-G20/15) use 20% oil (half&half) some nitro only on X11 (7% is absolute max, otherwise it will overheat). If I were you I'd try lowering a bit oil content (15%-16% range) with some synthetic -castor blend, I would try an exhaust silicone deflector to keep the plane cleaner. Nitro is usually useless on ST of this size if all rest is ok (tank position, carb setting, etc...), my .60 has a wonderful quick carb transition with 0% Nitro 15% Nitro could give overheat on some application. On ABC engine you can lower a 2% more the oil if you wish I always set the high speed needle a tad rich. Regards, Paolo

Don’t be provocative. I nearly made it, I’m ok for hight, arrrrrrrrh, roll/ yank. Debris field 30 odd meters long. Even identified the stone wot destroyed the motor.

Congratulations on a lovely finished model and for developing alternative construction materials and methods. These are so important today to offset the (trade supported) idea that people today don't have the time or skills to build and that they must buy the latest plastic fantastic with all the servos installed. Do give it a try off water. its great fun and an added dimension to the hobby.

Toto, I hope you get to fly on Sunday for the 2nd World Record attempt. Should be something to put in your log book!

Not at al! Your answer was technically correct, and a length of bell wire - about 6 ft - will have sufficient resistance to drop the voltage to a safe level. But IMHO, its not the optimum solution. Using a NiXX cell of suitable capacity and low enough internal resistance will do the job better, and be simpler. However, if a cylon battery is all you have, then your suggestion is fine. Use what you have, and upgrade when you can! 😁 -- Pete

Before I got to the stage shown in the photo above I needed to know how I was going to hinge the wings to the centre section. This is where the plan was seriously wrong; it had flat plate hinges. Whilst it was obvious using simple geometry that the hinges shown wouldn’t work, it wasn’t quite as obvious what would! Luckily the top hinges are visible and I was able to take a photo at Shuttleworth that gave me a good starting point but it wasn’t completely clear how they worked because of course I couldn’t fold the wings. I made a jig to see what happens as the wings fold. Wings fully extended Wings half folded Wings fully folded This confirmed the design; the hinge has to turn in the fuselage fixing. I achieved this by using 4mm bolts with captive nuts in the fuselage and centre section. The end result. No problem getting this in the car! At this stage I’d made the hinges and satisfied myself that they would work but hadn’t started the wings so the photo of the hinge above is really out of sequence but it’s the only one I’ve got of a finished hinge showing the bolt.

I have a degree in mechanical engineering and started off working as a mechanical development engineer in aerospace. Pretty soon, I realised that I wanted to understand electronics so I read Horowitz and Hill from cover to cover. After that, I ended up working mainly as an electronics engineer. A brilliant book, that makes sense of it all! Simon

Well i use it to monitor leaks i guess. Over the years ive blown off more than fuel tube and i have filled a fuel tank bay before now. The hand pump alerts me to this error in a away a leccy one might not. Fifty years of modelling...ive made mistakes.

Finally, the closing up of the gap underneath the ailerons which is quite large because they are top hinged, Chris W has a very clever system of strips of mylar held in position by double sided tape. The double sided tape is attached to the wing and the ailerons move within the mylar umbrella.

Nice trainer plane and well built.

Oh dear last time I posted on the Cat was nearly 12mhts ago, all sorts got in the way and it is so difficult to get back on track it has taken a good few weeks reacquainting myself with what I have done and even how I did it. Anyway some pics to bring it up to date ,

One of the guys in our club is a great advocate of the DB Tyo Major, three or four channel. The club was in need of a simple Trainer model and so I recently put this one together. Three channel, with the fus slightly wider than plan to facilitate the battery / esc and servos. SO simple to build and very quick. The wings are foam core with carbon tows laid on the top and lower surface in lieu of spars. Balsa L/e and T/e to be a bit more ding proof and then joined and covered with brown paper / PVA. A couple of layers of 80 gsm glasscloth as dihedral brace and stop the bands from digging in. Then all covered in the cheapest film covering that I could find. The finished wing came in at 300 grammes when a foam veneer wing, also film covered was 550 grammes Most of the wood came out of the scrap box and the fin and tailpane core are foam board with a balsa frame. Motor & ESC came from the Retford swopmeet and was £20 all in. I don't have a full and final cost but less than £50. As a trainer it is superb. Very stable and easy to fly. I'm very impressed with it. I learned with a Super 60 but this one is better. As a means of giving a complete novice some success on their first outing it has proved very good. The only downside is the limited duration on 3 cell 2200 lipos. I may well build another fus with a 20 glow motor just to improve the duration Who needs a stabilised RX?? 😉

I have been using one of these for years now. It's an American product and has proved very reliable. Trouble is, I can't remember where I bought it from! http://www.ohio-superstar.com/dave-brown-product-line/six-shooter-pump

I didn't show you all the steps I have taken since the above, as they are fairly self explanatory. The metal skid along the bottom of the fuselage. I got a piece of 20mm wide 1mm thick aluminium off Ebay, cut it to length, drilled 6 holes where shown on the plan at the front and back, countersunk the holes, then marked the relative positions on the balsa keel, drilled progressively bigger holes up to 6mm for the wooden dowels which I glued into position with the 5 minute PVA adhesive. This is a better hole gap filling glue than the Titebond Aliphatic Resin I also use. I then drilled pilot holes in the dowels, bent the skid to follow the shape of the keel and screwed it into position with 4mm screws. Balancing weight - the C of G is 85mm from the leading edge of the wing according to the plan. It needed quite a few pieces of lead to bring it into position. I feared that I had inset too much lead behind the P38 filler nose, but not so. With Reginald in the cockpit there is little room for even the receiver, so I had shoe horn it into the instrument binacle of the canopy. I now understand why Chris made it detachable with screws - so that one can insert lead inside it, which I screwed into position from underneath. Finally here are some pictures of it assembled. It weighs in at 7.62lbs, which is not far off Chris's estimate of 8lbs. It is a handsome beast. I now await a suitable day to launch off the slope. I still have to tidy up the servo wires inside the cockpit, glue in some guide tubes for the aerial wires, make some pieces of 2mm carbon rod to secure the wing joining bands, and make a wire hook for retrieving lost wing bands. Oh and very large radiator insulation bags, and some more "Petrel" vinyl sticker for the ailerons, plus stick on my Operator ID somewhere. Still stuff to do.

OK folks, with today's race being a bit late in the day, the Channel 4 recorded highlights are very late. Or rather, quite early on Monday morning! So I'll post our results now, assuming that anyone desperate not to get any clue as to the result isn't surfing the net looking in places where that result - or clues to it - might be found! IF YOU ARE WAITING TO WATCH THE RECORDED HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY'S RACE AND DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY 'HINTS' ABOUT THE RESULT, PLEASE READ NO FURTHER! ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ So, having said that (and scrolled down a bit!) here are our scores for the Miami GP; Pos League Rank Team Manager Pts 1 9 4 Mannschaft Carl Brotherton 209 2 1 0 Essex Racing Tony Clark 192 3 5 0 LetsGoTotoLetsGo GrumpyGnome 175 4 3 0 GASTON Formula Chris McG 174 = 2 0 Iqonic racing iqon 174 6 6 1 DMFC Racing Team Simon Webb 166 7 4 0 Pitts Specials john stones 165 8 7 2 The JP Specials johnpflyrc 162 9 11 0 Revers Racing Pete B 160 10 15 0 Oyster f1 Glenn Philbrick 154 11 8 2 Norfolk Flyers Kevin Fairgrieve 141 12 10 2 Team Charles Picd Charles Pic 134 13 14 0 PSS Power Flyer 126 14 12 2 Hans Brake Zoonie 122 15 13 1 Torque of the devil Stu 103 16 16 0 teewrex John Tee 102 Top place with 209 points goes to Carl. Tony takes second place with 192 points. GrumpyGnome takes third place with 175 points. Well done to today's top three! And a special mention to Chris and Iqon who were both only 1 point behind 3rd place. Let's take a look now at the overall table; Pos League Rank Team Manager Pts 1 1 0 Essex Racing Tony Clark 1040 2 2 0 Iqonic racing iqon 967 3 3 0 GASTON Formula Chris McG 936 4 4 0 Pitts Specials john stones 888 5 5 0 LetsGoTotoLetsGo GrumpyGnome 880 6 6 1 DMFC Racing Team Simon Webb 838 7 7 2 The JP Specials johnpflyrc 820 8 8 2 Norfolk Flyers Kevin Fairgrieve 814 9 9 4 Mannschaft Carl Brotherton 807 10 10 2 Team Charles Picd Charles Pic 801 11 11 0 Revers Racing Pete B 793 12 12 2 Hans Brake Zoonie 760 13 13 1 Torque of the devil Stu 701 14 14 0 PSS Power Flyer 689 15 15 0 Oyster f1 Glenn Philbrick 645 16 16 0 teewrex John Tee 579 No changes in the top 5. Simon moves up 1 position to 6th, and I move up 2 places to 7th. This means that Kev slips 2 positions to 8th. Carl's impressive score today moves him up 4 places to 9th, with Charles and Zoonie each dropping 2 places to 10th and 12th and Stu slipping 1 place to 13th. All other positions remain unchanged. Next up is Italy in 2 weeks time, at a more 'normal' time of day. Don't forget your predictions!

Very nice Aidan, What is powering that then ? And what sort of wing span does it have? Hi Paul, Nothing could have stopped me from posting today. I didn't o er do my first post, it was a quick post just to let folks know that I did get some time in as folks seem to be following my thread. So courtesy would demand a quick update. I appreciate everyone enthusiasm for what I'm doing. My second flight today was definitely the best by far. The first was ok but the second seen some pretty stable flying with some nice turns made u der full control. They were quite graceful even. I was well chuffed. There are some reasonably good noises co ing from my instructor as well so I am hoping to be seen as to be " on track ". The next couple of weeks will tell if I can keep some sort of consistency and be seen to be ready for some small progressive steps. We are talking about doing patterns that will see me being able to align properly towards la ding approaches etc. The patterns that I have been doing to date are really miscellaneous in terms of being in a certain position relative to the runway. ..... a step at a time and hopefully a little more accurate in terms of overall position. A great day...... delighted. Cheers Toto

A link to the Sunderland in flight

Very odd, I'm certain that the 'Sold Out' tab now being displayed wasn't there when I looked before posting. Must have created a run on them? They're still being manufactured by the look of it, as several US model shop websites that I just looked at do have them in stock. Not sure about postage charges and all that import rules and regs/customs/cost etc would make it practical to order from them now.