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Sturgeon has been arrested. . .

Well, Back from the field today, 4 flights in thr bag. Procedural turns were the name of the game today. I wouldn't say I have mastered then as yet. Takes a bit getting used to going from one direction into another whilst maintaining height with the elevators. Took a couple of dives as a result but nothing unrecoverable. I was using a different model today from yesterday. This one is a little bit more frisky and reactive so once I got used to its settings again I managed to get back to a certain level of control again. As far as flights go ...... that's me until I return from holiday on the 1st July ...... booooooo. . Dont get me wrong, I'm looming forward to having a break ..... but more from life in general than from flying. I just hope that when I return, I have not lost all of the confidence and the run of growing consistency that seem to have built up especially over the last couple of days. It has been a real turn around in flying fortunes. Great weekend on the whole .... the best by far ....... 10 decent flights with definite results, I need to keep the momentum going. Cheers for now Toto

OS60 fs engine, flew first time today.

Thanks Ron I've had to edit the video as it appears it's not the easiest thing to capture Interestingly, the footage from a single flight was 7.35 minutes and there was around 20% left in the 850mah 3s lipo, so not too bad. I may purchase a couple of 1000mah to try next time I order from George or even a small 4s as there is room. Anyway, here is parts of yesterday's flight knitted together. Rich

MattyB Nothing fancy just a series of paint brushes. As the artists brushes in particular are very soft I do thin the emulsion a bit with water. The painting now more or less complete. The inlets will have red edges. The decals are next to go on and I am also waiting for some small magnets to secure the rear of the cockpit. It weighs 530g (18.5 oz) with a 1500mAh 3s. It has a wing area of 6.06 sqft giving a wing loading of just 3.03 oz/sqft.

and done. Then I turned the wing over to do the bottom. 😕 Not good where the three 1/4" ribs are particularly the centre one which was something like 1/32" above the aileron spar, the same for all three between the aileron spar and trailing edge. Added balsa where needed and sanded down as required. Then hid it all with the centre sheet so no one would know. Bottom cap strips next. Steve

Thanks leccyflyer, it's good to be finishing up on a high for the holidays. As I said before, I am looking forward to getting away for a break but its mixed emotions as things have really seemed to turn a bit of a corner in terms of progression after a bit of a mixed start. My missus and I love our annual pilgramige to Cyprus and usually sit in despair on the last day at the thought of coming back, but between you and I ( and the rest of the forum ) I'm gagging to get back ...... just dont tell the missus. Everything just seemed to click this weekend, the weather... the availability of instructors .... for both days .... the working condition of the models ...... and of course last but not least ..... the approval of the RC gods. I've done all I can to throw myself into this and had some great support in return ..... from all parties ... I hope I can follow it through and reward everyone buy in with my own success. ....... get me solooooooooo. Cheers for now ..... I'll be reporting in from Cyprus. Toto

Great fun down at the funny farm with Osprey's MAC in Essex. The maiden of the THING went very well except the cheap hobby king motor I used from my spares box threw a magnet. The model flew great and not a click of trim was needed despite a couple of aborted launches into the long grass. A really nice flyer!

If portability isn't required, would you not be better off with a floor standing PC? The choice of keyboard/screen/mouse is then up to you. More inputs available (USB etc) and, if you buy one without operating system you can choose whatever suits your peripherals. Also, much easier to upgrade components.

Look at the Acer range,i have had two both brilliant. Only reason lost first one was being dropped.

Someone from Prague?

This is my first attempt at an online build log - so bear with me. I have built around 15 traditional balsa models since retiring from commercial aviation, so although I know a little bit, but I'm still learning !! I managed to acquire this Flair Cub from the local free cycle facebook page - the fuselage was part built, the foam core wings and all accessories were in the box!. It looks as if the local mice had eaten the plans and the ailerons, but for a freebee, had to give it a go.

Three days of good weather in the North East has seen me flying this one. Laser 100 powered it has now had many flights and the engine is beautiful , starts first time and performs well , ticks over like a watch 6 -10min flights each day, on to my last gallon of Laser fuel so need to order some more. Nearest model shop 80 mls. away

Flew yesterday morning before the wind got up after12 and then again this morning Most of the time it was less windy than the photo and a very variable direction Coffee, canned drinks, good chats and 7 flights, more nose weight out of the P38L and T33 + I'll need to take the nose plate off the Habu2 for the lead removal (lead for 4S lipo, but now flying 6S).

A good days flying can be had with an SC 52 up front.

Hi Simon, It is intentionally tight on the motor so to align the cowl. The hole will be enlarged once I have fitted,trimmed and secured the cowling after the maiden.

If not too worried about portability, want decent connectivity options and good build quality I can recommend the ThinkPad P series. https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/c/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadp Been using them for years at work and for personal use, excellent kit.👍

Electric delivery is already here. Most of my Amazon deliveries are by electric vans now (I live on the Wirral, not a major city) and I regularly see dozens of them leaving their North Wales depot. They have a fleet of over 3000 electric vans in Europe and have just started trialing electric HGV's. Amazon would not be using them if they did not work & save them money. The daily milage of the vans is surprisingly small & electric is far more suited to their stop start routine than ICE's.

Thanks for the input. I think it was stored nose down and maybe I just have to give it a few runs. It started immediately after taking plug out and turning over, and when running ran very well, producing a lot of power without missing a beat. Although second hand I think it's a relatively 'new' engine.

You can speak to an advisor here to get something custom built to suit your exact specifications and at a decent price: PCSPECIALIST - Top Spec Custom PCs & Laptops Built to Order

I decided to fit the servo's and RX underneath to give easier access. The fuselage was reinforced around the access and a panel made to suit. A cooling air outlet was put into the panel.

The landing gear I used was a Seagull Cub SEA74 which was about 10mm too wide for the fuselage - but it does look nice! A mounting plate was made which overhangs the fuselage by 5mm each side which also acts as a mounting for the brackets to attach the wing struts too.

This is a bit left field but look into framework laptops. Framework are a relatively new company trying to make laptops more sustainable, repairable, and upgradable. They offer modules you can switch out to upgrade your i/o, offer full spares support and repair guides, and in a few years you can buy a new motherboard with more powerful processor etc and just plop it in your existing machine. The old processor and motherboard can then be repurposed using a case they supply and you can use it as a media centre or other small pc somewhere in the house.

I cant comment on the Acer lap tops but our Acer PC is brilliant . Compared to the old style tower the difference is night and day.

There was a presentation about this on a BMFA In the Air Tonight series a couple of years ago. For clubs who use it, it was very highly rated. It also provides lots of extras that you might never use! We ruled it out at the time because it would cost us about the same as 2 anual memberships

The battery tray is set at an angle and secured to the fwd bulk head and landing gear base plate. It is removable to access the ESC which is mounted underneath. The compartment can take up to 4S 5000mah/ 5S 3300mah size Lipo's although 4S 3300mah should be adequate. It does give an option for ballast if required instead of using church roof. I'm using a 80A ESC only as no spare 60A's in the cupboard.

A new centre rib was made to encompass the fwd wing support peg. Fwd and aft dihedral braces were added and the wings fibreglassed each side.

The kit came with foam cored wings, and I had decided to install 3kg mini servo's in the wing for aileron control. Boxes were made and the foam core bored and sleeved for the wiring.

OOP'S AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED !!!! After carefully working out the motor mount standoffs needed a 5mm offset to the left to bring the thrust centre line to the centre of the aircraft and giving 2.5 degrees RH thrust, It would appear I ignored my plan, made and fitted a bulk head with no off set ! 3mm of washers were required to give the right thrust I wanted, but not happy with the centre line being so far to the right. As mentioned before the original thrust line is quite high, so you would be limited to the positioning of the stand offs.

For reasons I shall not go into, a very good friend has very generously gifted me his Multiplex Acromaster Pro. Here it is alongside my 10 year old V1 which now has close to 500 flights on it.

We wont ask how you know...

With the final bits of the fuselage skin added a start made on the cockpit, battery box and some paint.. The underside has had a light coat of white 'match pot' emulsion overall but I have run out of masking tape to complete the grey upper surface!

It usually does, especially after a few pints and a chicken vindaloo!

Scientist evaluates latest NHS prostate test.

Or maybe try a landing like this? Still the coolest landing I've seen by a full size aeroplane.😎

Sure... now, once you're going up and down in one piece... then make your landings: more accurate deadstick crosswind "a bit more scale like" do touch and goes spot landing on a target eliminate bouncing touch tail wheel down first / roll along on the back wheels of your trike gear sideslip the approach do small landing circuits do large realistic landing circuit get a model with flaps or spoilers or brakes - and use them take off, fly an entire circuit at head height, before landing on the same circuit take off into immediately pulling a stall turn, exit stall turn into immediate landing take off into a half loop, fly inverted past the strip, complete the loop and immediately land just some ideas 🙂

Working from the rear forward.....sprayed the nomenclature on the rudder and underside of the elevators and tailwheel doors.....added the blue and red to the fin...

Having looked closer at the fuselage and wiggled all the joints it was evident that re-glueing was required, I used Titebond aliphatic over all the joints apart from the stab which when wiggled came out ! Still feeling a little unsure about the original glue adhesion, I added 6mm square light balsa between the frames upper and lower fuselage and added triangular section to the vertical face of the frames. This also allowed to create a radius at the edges.

Whilst it's not my cup of tea, I like the build threads, and am also gaining an insight into the complexities of this aspect of the hobby. Nice one!

Still quite a bit still to do and the final fiddly bits take time but the wings are now on . As a 'single piece' plane it looks like a lot of Depron. Battery compartment next which hopefully will end up somewhere under the cockpit canopy!

The wing construction is a bit unusual, just top and bottom skins and shear webs. All in 3mm Depron. The wing section itself is entirely controlled by the shear web's dimensions. First the leading edge shear web. The actual leading edge will be 6mm Depron glued on and sanded to profile. All six shear webs. The 6th shear web carries the elevon. The top skin glued in place and the 6 mm leading edge added. The forces required to bend the skin meant it was a two stage process. Simple weights could be use for the skin over shear webs 2 to 6. Only when that was fully set (24 hours) could the skin be brought on lo the leading edge web and be held in place with many spring clamps. This type of construction does rely on the glue drying truly rock hard, foam safe Technicqll in this case. The bare wing weighs 31.2 g. The servo and elevon will be fitted before the wing is attached to the fuselage. The other wing is WIP.

And that is more or less it,the wings were stripped, re-glued where required,recovered, painted and 2k applied, just final fitting of electrics and then to the flying field

I'm afraid that I didn't do at all well this year and have probably finished dead last from a field of about seventy pilots who turned up. The Ukarinian Baron being hors de combat I was forced to use my British Baron which is a bit less stable with a reduced wing area. Frans, Tiko and I drove down to the flying field on the Friday, a four and a half hour drive, and camped in tents overnight. It rained a lot but the tents were water proof. We were drawn in the last group along with three other four stroke users. The first round involves hitting one-metre high balsa wood sticks . We were all in the air when two of the other Barons hit the ground. We were told to fly high to allow a couple of lads to retrieve the crashed models. I was some distance downwind when my Baron seemed to fall out of control and hit the ground. We recovered it, found nothing untoward so I'm quite prepared to admit to pilot error. We repaired it, wonderful stuff cyano, but we were too late to enter the second round. So having crashed two Barons in ten days I felt rather demoralised so I decided to pack up and go home. Arrived home four hours later very tired. Next year I plan to enter a Baron powered by a Laser 50 but I don't like driving long distances these days. We'll see.

3 years ago I sent a parcel to a friend in Australia it weighed about 8 kilos and cost under £30.00. I now have another parcel to send to him which weighs 4 kilos. The cheapest price I can find is now £137.00 !!! So half the weight and over 4 times the price. If I were to send him the same parcel from New York it would cost me £64.00 (and would probably get there quicker).