Leaderboard

I’ve managed to catch up, nearly there. I’m adding the weathering but still have the top of the wing to complete.

The current wind speed would blow us down to Barbados. Sunny day but too windy for flying. Tonight I will start weathering the Tempest.

Visited my old club today making arrangements to be solo'd there. The plan I to fly there on a Sunday and at East fortune on the Saturday in order to get my practice time up towards my A test. The chances are it will be on my old clubs site where I am tested so familiarity will be good. Not only that but once I am through my solo at the old club, I don't need to have anyone standing by my side so can take advantage of spare time slots without relying on having somebody babysitting me. I was chatting to my likely area Examiner as well and he is going to put me through some mock tests / exam conditions. .... so my stick time is about to increase a bit to both Saturday and Sunday over the next few months ..... depending on attaining my second club solo ..... and of course ..... as always ...... the weather playing ball. Toto

Panels done on one side, spent a lot of time on the garden so early night for me.

So I’ve been able to spend a couple more hours tonight on the beaufighter! More filling and sanding on the port nacelle - the lower rear most section is solid balsa carved to shape so that’s been done as well- I’d cut the battery hatch out last week so I’ve fitted some dowels on the front that fit into the ply firewall and a spring catch at the rear so the hatch stays nice and secure but is easy to remove for fitting batteries etc… move also started planking the starboard nacelle - time consuming but if you break the project into smaller sections it stays enjoyable as you can move from one to the other when one gets a bit tiresome! Hopefully will get more of the starboard nacelle planked over the next couple of days… then on to covering the wings! 😀

Reminds me of this one, which landed on its side in Bath last year… (don’t ask me how!)…

"Foamy Squadron" - three FT Spitfires (two 100%, one 85%), and a J-wings Spitfire. (There's a fifth out of shot!)

Remember only the rudder is fabric covered on the Tempest.

Airbrushing the mottled camouflage on the WR FW190, which consisted of a few minutes spraying and ten times as long cleaning and recleaning the airbrush. The B&Q paint is just too pigment heavy and even thinned with water and a little isopropanol, it clogs the airbrush very quickly, requiring a strip down of the airbrush. After much frustration I finally strained the thinned paint through a pop sock to keep back the coarsest pigment and that helped a little. Got there in the end and can mode on to the markings - those will use Tamiya acrylics, so should be less tricky. Also practiced my meagre TinkerCad "skills" to print a set of the distinctive louvres on the fuselage sides. The first ones were solid triangular prisms, like Mini Toblerones, , but I learned some new tricks today and was able to make something a little more scale.

If it allows you to get out flying more often its got to be a good thing. But if your improving, and practicing for your A cert, I would limit its use and preferably not use it at all. My answer to your big question is, ignore the muppets and enjoy your flying. Make sure though, you laugh out loud when they crash!

Just for info i got the call yesterday to get started sorting out the inline update today so that is WIP for those who are waiting. I have also worked out procedure for those wanting to have a go themselves. I do appreciate that all are frustrated by the long delay, but i have seen some comments about the place which have somewhat grated my cheese. It should be remembered that i am under no obligation to do any of this work and i do it only as i feel its the right thing to do. If i continue to see derogatory comments i will simply wash my hands of the whole thing.

Just the bottom left to do in Grey... X

Since I missed the D-Day deadline, I'm getting round to some of the wee details, like the cockpit and prepping the markings, which will be a combination of paint masks and water slide laser printed transfers. Got the instrument and cockpit side panels done today and working on the pilot and seat belts. Base coats are completed and first bit of the airbrushing done.

Just the exhausts and the lead ballast to add and the weather to improve .

coming along nicely

I’m hoping for that finish and colors, that was the prototype powered by a Leonides radial engine.

On my Hs129 refurb, I printed the dummy radial engine almost in bas relief, less than 2mm thick and it still gave the desired effect.

Thanks Brian, I can get a 4s 4000 in which is almost 2 oz heavier but it is still not balancing at 82mm. Not too concerned about the lead showing as it won't be noticeable in the air, it is up against the cowl now so not a lot of room for anything else, a piece of fine mesh would go in.

Gents, Thank you to all who have been in touch regarding these and please accept my apologies for such a slow response, some unexpected family issues have kept me busy this weekend. The state of play thus far is as follows:- The small Cox has received bids of £12 and £20 and to the person who asked I hope these pics will give you more info. The green twin exhaust engine - £16 The rear exhaust glow motor (Taipan?) - £18 plus an unspecified offer for just the silencer. The Enya 45 - £18 The Frog 80 - £25 plus a job lot offer of £70 for all of the misc engine group and £70 for the HP 21VT All are plus postage and sold as seen. On that basis the job lot offer probably comes out tops. The shutter will come down tomorrow evening and I will contact those making the best offers. I apologies if I have made this difficult. I really do know nothing about these engines, collectable or junk I have no idea, The aim is to get the best deal for the family of the owner while still making them a good buy for those interested. My thanks again to those who have responded. regards Stu K North Lincs

What is the other half of the pair? I’m no great shakes at messing with radios, but ASSUMING the dx8e wants to communicate with some other trani, it uses blue tooth or whatever, ie radio waves. If the other half hasn’t got a blue tooth receiver, if it wants to talk, needs a blue tooth gongle. I'm not aware such things exist.

Who are these "muppets"? And surely ANY crash is sad and not a reason for laughter...

It's interesting how opinions on the Arrows edfs stability are. Both me Viper and Hawk are siper simple and stable to launch - full beans, hard slightly up launch..... I can oftern leave them hands off from launch for up to 5 seconds. The T33 seems more challenging - 2 in the club, both with bent noses! Having said that, one has a fancy AS3X SAFE rx in it and still gives its owners the jitters on launch.

I think you may also need to practice for wet weather flying too Peter!

Totally agree Peter, but in my competitive sailing days I was often asked "how do you learn to sail in strong winds" and my answer was always the same, go out and sail in strong winds. I think I got that from Lawrie Smith one of the best Olympians we have ever had. I think the same applies here. Total respect to the devotion though, best of luck in the competition to you and Mark.

slow run needles too lean. Peak the main needle and then adjust the slow run until the bogging goes away. Do each engine individually, dont attempt to set them together.

Just to help anyone with panel line marking I have used this for reference. The curve on the page makes the front view look like Peter Miller's Insanity

Thank you all, it is very encouraging, appreciate the king words and of course, I will continue sharing the process.

Sounds like Stanley Holloway - though I suspect Brian is too young to remember him! 🤣

Got sidetracked this afternoon. Fuel valve entry cover patch with stitching. But this has raised an issue. I noticed that the fuel line is routed differently on this aircraft not like the aircraft that I was originally modelling. Also it doesn’t have rear view mirror, damn. I now have a spare rearview mirror that I really enjoyed making albeit years ago. Another difference, there is pipework carrying the electric cables to the navigation lights on the port side, on the starboard side there is a fuel line from the extra tank via the hand pump in the rear cockpit. Some 3.2mm or something like aluminium tube required me thinks. Also, the strut pipe holders are fwd facing not aft.

Photo showing the position of the cable passing through fuselage skin.

I think you'll find that it's a BE12a Geoff but it could easily be finished as a BE2e or, with some modification any of the BE2 series. Without going into too much nurdy detail the BE2 was built as a general purpose two seater tractor biplane. It first flew in February 1912. There was a BE1 which was virtually the same but with a different engine. It was followed by the BE2a and Be2b which were developments of the original aircraft. All of these aeroplanes featured one wing above the other and featured wing warping for roll control. A Be2b was the first aircraft to land in France once war had been declared and in my opinion it is the most beautiful of the BE2 series. The Be2c featured staggered wings and ailerons and it first flew in May 1914. When war broke out it was produced in large numbers mostly by contractors and it equipped most artillery observation squadrons in the RFC. It was designed to be very stable so it could not out-fly a German fighter and when fitted with the 70 bhp Renault engine it was rather slow. It was vulnerable to attacks from Fokker Eindekkers and when these were replaced by Albatros fighters, it was even more vulnerable. The observer had a very limited field of fire sat in the front cockpit. There was a BE2d but they were virtually a BE2c with a set of dual controls. The Be2e was a sesquiplane version of the BE2c with a different fin and tailplane. Speed and climb were better than a BE2c and of all of the BE2 variants this was the most widely produced. Despite these improvements and the fitting of a 90 bhp engine the BE2e was just as vulnerable to enemy fighters. They were replaced by the RE8 which had a 140 bhp engine, the crew positions reversed and a gun for both the pilot and the observer. The BE12 was a single seater version of the BE2. It was fitted with a Vickers gun and a 140bhp engine. It was no good as a fighter and was soon replaced. Manfred von Richtofen shot down three of them in October 1916. There were BE 12s, BE 12as and BE 12bs. In summary you could easily finish your model as any of the aileron equipped BEs. Wing warping for the earlier versions would be a challenge! I have no experience of building or flying Peter Rake's design but I started building Roy Scott's 1/6 scale BE2e years ago. I never finished it because I bought a complete model in an estate sale. It's powered by an OS 70FL four stroke. You need to use a lot of rudder in the turns. I've always been fascinated by the BE2 ever since I found out thet a man with the same name as me was shot down by the Red Baron while flying one. Narcissistic or what!

Tim Hooper of this parish built the Peter Rake BE2C, must be twenty years ago and it was beautifully done. I don;t know if that would be of help foru you. https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?151947-Peter-Rake-BE2c-completed-pics!#post1308953 My boy, ten years old at the time did shoot a short video clip of the BE2c in action, when Tim visited our club field, but I doubt it will play now. Here's a picture though. Happy Days.

Todays little project. This might stop me poking my eye out too. It’s the remove before flight tab which on this aircraft is triangular shaped and not straight like others I have seen. All I need to do now is leave it in the sun to fade as it’s a bit ‘new’ looking. Also need to add the piece of cotton as a tie back.

I flew mine today, nothing like a couple of Saito 4 strokes, this is the stand that I keep it on, plenty of room in the car for it.

Richard, Its interesting that you intend to build the Southerner Major without the tip dihedral, I did that but wished now I had increased the dihedral to compensate. My model flies ok but is quite slow to respond in roll so I only fly it in calm conditions. I'm sure it would have been better with a greater angle. It won't look as pretty (though that's in the eye of the beholder) but will probably be more responsive. The plan states that the dihedral should be increased if the wing isn't polyhedral, but I knew better.....

Made this on back in 2022 for a young friend of mine down Liverpool ways,just to wind him up I called it the Northener seeing as I live next door to Ken Anderson ----- NE1 dept. Always liked this the elegance of this model,this is the oringinal 60" with ASP up front.

Finally managed to maiden the Centurion earlier today, fitting it into my Honda Fit with some careful positioning. Perfect conditions - sun and almost no wind. After assembly on the stand, I carried out the obligatory pre-maiden photo-shoot (to record the magnificence of the completed project in case it met an untimely demise on it's first few flights...yes, this HAS happened to me before!😒) The take-off run seemed nice and straight with no apparent tendency to ground loop, the tail coming up quite quickly allowing easy steering with rudder. Climbout at around 2/3 throttle seemed effortless before throttling back to about half, or slightly less once trim adjusted. Required a little up elevator and left trim, but then flew slowly and 'majestically' (Boddo's description) hands-off on about half throttle, although the throttle has been deliberately set up quite low (ie 'full throttle on the transmitter only opens the carb.intake about 3/4, if that, as the OS95fv provides way more power than required. The 16x6 overprops the motor, but moves plenty of air even at these lower revs.) Two test flights - 10 1/2 mins and 9 mins respectively . Touch and goes were a breeze, and the stall appears to be benign, resulting in gentle 'mushing' on about 1/3 throttle and full up elevator. Recovery on releasing sticks was all but immediate. Rudder seemed very responsive, elevator certainly adequate at this stage. Managed a fairly tight loop and both left and right stall turns on second flight. Won't be trying to roll it as the original build article suggests the airframe is not really designed for it, but as a sedate flying large model with sport scale looks it certainly has plenty of presence. Despite being just RET controlled, it is easy to place the Centurion where you want; nice, neat rectangular circuits were easy to maintain, and low, slow fly-bys in front of the pilot box are a delight. I'm extremely pleased with the end result of over three year's on-and-off effort, my only regret being I wish I had finished it sooner. Already looking forward to its next outing. Thanks Alec for all the encouragement, and to anyone else reading this who enjoys scratch-building their own planes, particularly larger ones, I found this build extremely enjoyable, partly because the larger sizes of wood required meant it wasn't too 'fiddly' - just be prepared to stick at it, 'cos there's lots of it! Here's one very happy chappie.

Next smaller challenge will be the firewall at it must bent at the top in order to follow the windshield line

That looks great. I have found that blue does not blend into sky blue skies as it is darker and if inverted it is in shadow. I think that the fact that I actually bought the kit for my electric conversion says a lot for the model and it's handling.

When I decided to build this model I chose to buy a set of lazer cut parts from a well known company.This is the first time I have done this, I normally buy a plan and a load of wood and cut everything according to the plan. At £130 I thought it was a bit pricy but as my wife was paying I went ahead. To say I havnt been impressed is an understatement. As the plan was supplied with the parts I wasnt expecting any problems. A lot of parts were way off spec. I ended up making one fuselage former and re fitting a couple of others. Today I thought I would start on the wings. My expectations were not high. As you can see the cut outs for the ribs on the trailing edge are way off. This resulted in me filling the misaligned notches and cutting new ones. I then had to to enlarge the cut outs in the ribs as they were too small to fit over the main spar. This is just the port wing, no doubt the starboard wing will be the same. I will not be taking this route again.