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Isn't today the last day of Christmas, the 'season of goodwill' - and you lot want blood because theres a clicky thing on your toybox? 😂

Annoying, but not unacceptable on something we get free. Someone should be fired? For making a mistake? Seriously? I also spent a life (35 years) in IT, and no middle managers ever got bonuses based on pushing out upgrades that weren't ready...... that would be called Underperforming........ I'm sure they'll fix it when they can.

There will be a queue to watch the wretched pop-up problem getting repaired...

Well I couldn’t find a Cambria Funfighter build blog on here so I thought I would do one as I have just started building a Cambria P-51 Mustang funfighter. I believe they are intended to be easy and quick to build, so here goes. Cambria funfighters website can be found here: https://www.funfighters.co.uk/ They also have a very useful facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1460474474245610 A quick view of what you get to start with. All wood is good quality and laser cut, nice pair of veneer foam wings with washout built in. Pretty much everything you need is included in the kit, you just need to add engine, spinner and finishing materials. Engine wise, you can use anything from 20 to 35, many use a 32 which is what the Cambria display team use at shows and I have managed to acquire an OS 32 for this build. There is a comprehensive set of instructions and a plan with excellent detail is also provided. Note, the plan quotes 15 to 25 engines, I’m guessing this dates back to the 70’s when these models were first introduced. Following the instructions, the build starts with the fuselage. Balsa sides with ply doublers, 4.5mm sq longerons also added to bottom of fuselage. Engine bulkhead comprises of 2 X 3mm ply formers laminated together which I did first so they will be ready to fit with formers F3,F4 & F6 at the next stage. Formers F2, F4 & F6 glued in place, it was a bit tricky holding former 3 in place and at 90 degrees to the fuselage side so I decided to fit that at the same time as fitting the second side of the fuselage when it will be held captive between the two sides. Very easy build so far, formers key into slots formed by the ply doubler – no excuses for getting in the wrong position. Second side of fuselage being glued in place, former F3 which was due to go in at this point turned out to be about 3mm too wide, so I will trim it and fit when this is dry as it can easily be slid into place and glued then. While this is drying, I thought I may as well glue the leading edges onto the wings. F3 trimmed and glued in place after second side of fuselage glued to F2, F4 & F6 and dry. So that’s the parallel section done, now in the jig to bring the tail together and fit F7 & F8 toward the tail. Next is gluing in place the two radiator sides and then 2mm sheeting to the tail.

So how many of you have been here ?.

I suppose the Post Office would say you’re the only one having this problem.

Are we paying members? I don't pay any subs but I can still access the forum.

The tech response I've rec'd is... "We have implemented Cookie consent module that appeared to be blocking something that was required, there's an issue with it not remembering peoples selections that I'm waiting for a response from the vendors support on." That must be the little blue disc that's now appearing bottom left. Hopefully just a short term niggle.

Hi Don, The frame is two 570mm x 32 x12 lengths of pine , 2 100mm wheels and 1 50mm wheel. Just an old pair of undercarriage legs I has in the spares box, the pink is hair curlers with a soft wire centre to prevent the wing getting damaged by the undercarriage wire protruding.

Don't know what has happened to the North East weather 4 flying days this week, 9 flights today with the new Warbirds Replicas FW190 bringing it up to 20 flights so far. A great aeroplane Richard! Also flew my Spitfire.

I think it’s intended to be humourous as positronic is either a company name or something from science fiction - plus hyperlinks weren’t developed until the mid eighties. Some very unusual usage of other terms too…but as I was studying the Beano in 1965 I may have missed their context!

You think this is bad, I used to frequent the Model Engineer forum (also Morton's) the ME site now it has been updated is dire and understandably the users are throwing thier toys out. The ME forum has become the worst forum site I have ever visited and very rarely go there now. Probably the same techies that run this place too.

It's a minor technical blip probably caused by a backend update with a parameter incorrectly configured. Give them a few hours and I'm sure it will be fixed - remember, if it's annoying for you, it's also annoying for the forum owners, admins and advertisers too, so it's in their interest to get it fixed.

I just selectively ad blocked it, job done!

Been noted, patience whilst sorted please.

Every time I move to a new page (on both MS Edge and Chrome) I get the pop-up titled We value your privacy asking to Customize, Reject All and Accept All cookies. This is incredibly irritating and should not happen once I made my choice - please fix!!

The Post Office Horizon software supplied by Fujitsu cost a billion pounds according to the ITV programme 'Mr Bates versus the Post Office' and no-one has disputed the cost so I assume it's correct. That caused a lot more problems than the one we're complaining about.

I must congratulate RCME for the speed they addressed the "unable to post" issue due to the "small reply box" presented at the bottom of each page, it was less than 1 character deep! I had to email RCME as I couldn't report the problem to the web site! It appeared at the same time as the privacy notice addition so this is my first post since then. More a comment than a grumble but the "privacy" update situation does rather show what a relatively innocent change can lead to. It is hard to believe the repeated "pop up" did no show in testing.

Ive been talking to Eric about this and am very pleased with how well his one works . It certainly works nicely . You could do a lot worse than simply copy it . To help out , I will do a slight variation and a drawing for people to down load . The problem at the moment is that our runway is way too wet to test on .

Thanks for that. Should we budget for the price of a new hair-do when totting it up ?-)

Thing is, nuclear power plant quality software costs a bit much. We never have the forum if we wanted that.

Any chance of that in English Ernie. I can code but buts goobldy gook to moi.

🤣

I haven't been able to post since Wednesday until now either.

Excellent Ron, keep them coming 👏 ( watched on YT channel)

The cookie things being worked on fellas.

Swearing won't get things resolved, issues being worked on.

Yup, back in the old days you had to think. So what's stopping anyone having to think NOW? You just said you find it a "mystery" You have to think of different things is all. I am not denying free flight is an art, but this "Oh it was better in the old days when nothing worked, cost an absolute fortune but weren't we all clever?" Is a bit disingenuous if we refuse to engage our much vaunted brains with a computer radio and a manual. Different skills, yes, but not necessarily better ones - evolution in action.

Well, when I was a pre-schooler I spent many hours watching my grandfather at his watch repair bench 🙂

No, you have to accept the third cookie which is a pain and shouldn’t be the case. But you can go directly to my YouTube channel to view it. Ron Gray

Having done a fair bit of low level (assembler/ 'C' etc) programming myself some years back, I agree with Red Baron. However, we've still got the annoying Cookie reminder every time we change a page view. I often found that when I deleted code I'd written but couldn't see why I'd done it in the first place that I discovered its purpose and quickly reinstated it 🙂

Chapter 2

Dear Moderators Please could you tell the forum fiddlers not to fiddle with an online live system. It does not take a lot of imagination to understand that fiddling should only be done with an off-line test system. If a fiddler fiddles and seriously damages a live system then the rule is do not go home until a working backup version has been reinstalled At about mid night yesterday, not only did we still have the silly pop ups, it was also not possible to post and also when hovering the mouse over a members button at left the post/rep information did not pop-up All of this is quite indefensible for anyone claiming to be a programmer. This knowledge was available back in the mid/late 1950s. There should not be any short term niggles if people are working correctly. To me it sounds like a major failure not an STN. I think that we the paying members deserve to be warned in advance of any silly fiddle and told what is changing. It would be even better if ALL potential changes were put to a members vote before implementing. If as David suggests this is a vendor problem then stop paying the vendor and find some professional to do the job. Thank you RedBaron

A good many modellers have had a relationship with a tree. Its usually a bit like a divorce; the tree finds out what you treasure most and grabs it from you.

I hope I don't get into trouble for taking the Mickey out of the way that Sean Connery pronounced his S's.

Hi Folks, latest fan with brim printed beautifully so will attach the 'fan with brim' STL below. Also I am using 4000 4s packs which are a bit too big for the battery bay so have made the cut-out indicated by Richard. I have also made a ply doubler to reinforce the area with some lite-ply as it looked a bit weak with the cut out, as well as beefing the motor mount up as it will be quite inaccessible once the ply is wrapped around. Probably does not need it, but once again when I had drilled the holes for the motor it looked a bit weak 🙂. Cheers, Simon FW 190 fan with brim.stl

My build has got under way but will be reported on in a slightly different way, by YouTube videos. Here’s the first one:

I’ve been working on the cowl, I want it to come off in one piece so plenty of room to get to the engine. I’m still working on the shape so it’s going to take a few more days. As you can see on the pictures I’ve got a ply plate on the back and the rest is done with sheet balsa and triangular strip.

I was in a bar last night, and the waitress screamed, "Anyone know CPR?" I said, "I know the entire alphabet." Everyone laughted.... Well, except one guy

Yep, kicked off this year’s campaign at the hill, it was chilly but not too bad and dry at least. Four flyers in all, I took the Lentus and Alan re-maidened a 30 year old Grunau Baby he rediscovered in his roof recently.

7 flights today, mostly WooHoo, but squeezed a couple of Habu flights and 1 P38 (UC mount issue). Previous Habu flight gave me a low LIPO voltage, but I was on WOT quite a bit. No such problems today as I only needed WOT for take off and the odd loop. Still moving the liop back so I don't have to put so much compensating elevator in when inverted, but it work in progress. The P38 is a really nice flyer, but its problems all the way (mine must have been a Friday job or Monday morning when all the glue guns are gummed up!). I had the one and only elevator horn come off (lack of glue) earlier in the year and today the starboard retract mounting plate came loose. Only needed the right amount of UHU-Por putting in the right place!. Getting cocky with the WooHoo with down wind take offs although with its power to weight it makes easy work of getting up to speed!

Hi Comper . Heres my Elf just after its first flight. Ive now found some blue wing bands that look a bit better. Re the tail fin area , My plan is not the BB plan as that was somehow lost after fuz was started so downloaded a plan from Outer Zone . Same plan form but some slightly different build techniques . It suggested a smaller fin for 4ch RC . I wish I had gone for the 3ch sized fin , Slightly taller and wider . BB one might already be bigger ? Other mods include wing struts fixed using poppers as used on the Panic and carbon bottom wing dowels. Good luck and enjoy the build . Next flight , when ground dries out a bit I must try for some flying pics,

Geoff , I remember we had a chat about your Mossie and my prototype . I have been flying mine . After enjoying my 60" He111 for several years , I decided that the convenience of 60" span and one battery , meant that I used it more than the 72" twins with two packs . (two pack ? sounds like a rapper ) . The 60" Mossie is very easy to fly , it runs on one 3300mmah 4s pack and has room for a sound system . The fuselage splits behind the wing which means that all the wiring apart from two plugs , stays connected . I get around 6-7 mins no problem . Given that it flies well throttle back , I could probably blow it up to 64" for a bit more presence with no detriment elsewhere . I havent painted it because I got side tracked by the 190 . A kit version would be all wood and probably not much heavier . Even if it was, at 64" it will have more wing area so it will fly the same . Twins of this size (apart from the P38 ) are winners all round really . They get more out of battery by having twin props . They also have bigger wheels which means less stresses and more practicality .

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

I would suggest the problems and hazards facing a landing aircraft are far fewer than a self driving car has. There are no other aircraft trying to land at the same time and those that are (on an adjacent runway, say) are flying in the same direction not coming out of side roads unexpectedly or travelling in the opposite direction. Moreover they are landing in a controlled environment with no other users - not like a public road, where anything can, and often does, happen. A friend of mine is very experienced in the design of self-driving road vehicles. In fact the last time I spoke to him he was designing a self-driving bus for, IIRC, use at Southampton Airport to transport car passengers to and from the car parks to the terminal. He was trying the bus out on our airfield (and paying the owner for the privilege). His opinion is that a truly self-driving car is far into the future. I attended a Faraday Lecture back in the early 60s called 'Electronics and Air Safety' and even then, hands off landings were possible - that's about 60 years ago when computers needed an air-conditioned environment and were huge. The ones I was working on at the time had a clock speed of 1Mhz and the semi-conductors were germanium transistors. We've a long way to go before self driving cars become a reality.

Without spotlighting on any specific plane type for RC model flight, it has got easier to attempt it, and electric flight and ARTF/RTF are the key ingredients. No learning curve to handle engines, starters, fuel pumps, etc. No mess. By comparison no deadsticks, or nerves about them doing so affecting how you fly. turn up, turn on accessibility Minimal build time. Gyros etc helping the early stages. Radio that does not glitch and servos regularly fail. Do the new people attempting aviation now feel this? Of course they don't, in the same way that drivers now do not understand the difficulties of the days before power steering, reliable engines, good brakes (even brakes on every wheel), long gaps between maintenance periods, the lack of the need to double de-clutch a crash box up and down every change, using a clutch that is either in or out with NO slide (cone clutches,etc). To them its still a challenge, and some won't make it. Twas ever thus.

I think getting into the hobby is easier with models that only take a few minutes to assemble, and with built in stabilisation at the flick of a switch, there is much less risk of going home with a bag of bits after your first flight. So this makes it easier to fly and a pilots interest to grow and expand into more complex models. The learning curve never stops though! I have flown using Hi-Tec radios for years now, but with the demise of Hi-Tec radios I have had to look elsewhere for a new radio system, so I opted for the cheap and cheerful Frysky Taranis QX7. Thank God for YouTube is all I can say, otherwise I'd still be scratching my head and the programming of my first full house powered glider is almost complete with only speed reflex & thermal camber across ailerons & flaps to complete this evening. This has been challenging to say the least but at least I'm getting to grips with the programming and may purchase a more complex model later on.

Rich, You are not telling me anything I did not know. As I said I use the skills I learned before RC and I have not lost them. I am free flight capable. Why argue?

I am not sure it (flying) has become easier. The people who I teach all seem to display the same, traditional problems and mistakes as in previous times. As has already been noted, the more you practice, the easier it gets. However, the hobby/sport has never been easier to get in to. ARTF models and reliable radios certainly are making the game far more user-friendly than it was in the 1960s...... lol.