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A couple of photos of my latest PSS model which, after a slow 'start/stop/start' kind of build was finished and flown for the first time in December 2024. The model is a 1/8th scale Hunting Percival Jet Provost TMk4, built conventionally from balsa and light ply from the Andy Blackburn plans available through the PSSA. It spans 57" with the tip tanks on and has an AUW ready for the slope at 6lb 4oz. It's finished in 25g/m2 Fighter Aces glass cloth and resin and painted in Lifecolor acrylics to represent an RAF Tactical Weapons Unit airframe from by 79 Sqn at RAF Brawdy in the 1980s. It uses 4 channel R/C for ailerons, elevator and rudder with speed brake and flaperons mixes programmed in for landing and light condition soaring. Canopy was vac-formed by Steve at Vortex Vacforms with pilot and seats 3D printed by Andy Meade. Vinyl decals by Lee at Pyramid Models. Waterslides all made on the home PC.

I was offered a very nice Mick Reeves Hurricane that for some reason I accepted and after some discussion with Byron and then negotiation with Mark the builder a payment plan was agreed on! I do not use savings to buy aircraft. Mark competed in 7 World Jet Masters competitions and was always amongst the top in static so the Hurricane is built to a very high standard. Originally built as an electric so it could met the weight limits but later converted to a DLE 85 as it was never flown in competition. The Volks filter is not scale but added to hide the cylinder head. Last Friday Byron and I drove the 1100km to go and collect it! this is one very special aircraft with lots of detail, far more accurate that we do!

The vast majority of kids who are into model flying tend to be the offspring of people already in the hobby; usually parents or grandparents. So I was impressed to hear about this young boy. He has no relatives in the hobby but is mad about aeroplanes. He has a tiny, lightweight P51 Mustang foamy which he has taught himself to fly, albeit with a lot of rough edges. He is 8. His grandad got in touch and we arranged a session at the Corby Model Flying Club where the youngster could have some goes on larger, more conventional models (on the buddy box). That's it.... he's hooked. He loved every minute. He is a very bright boy and is a fast learner. It shouldn't be long before he is going for his "A" Certificate.

Decent session this morning, though it was a bit chilly, started nice and bright, but gradually becoming overcast with increasing windspeed - forecast was for 5mph, but it ended up at 10mph. Perfectly flyable but cold on the fingers. I'd hoped tp maiden my wee Beaufighter, but my pal Jim had a couple of failed dolly launches with my dolly and we concluded that it might be better to wait until the grass had been cut to get more speed on the dolly. My Warbirds FW190 got off the dolly no bother at all, but has rather more excess power. I also bottled doing a maiden flight of my wee Red Arrows Hawk, though clubmate Jim had great fun flying his. Some days you get a feeling that it isn't the day for a maiden flight and that's what I felt today, when the motor mount on my Spitfire fractured on a perfectly normal landing. Did manage a first appearance of the A400 though, which flew beautifully and I was chuffed to get some pictures.

After 17 months in the production facility it was time to maiden my huge C-130. Scratch built from mostly depron, with some reinforcement in wing and fuselage. Glassed and hand painted. 4 x brushless 3548 on 4S lipos. This time the design is by Julius Perdana, however with major alterations: retractable landing gear and full set of flaps Flew great too!

Here is my Christmas build.

Parkzone Spitfire 1a refurbishment maiden flight this morning. This was an original Parkzone Spitfire II - the old one that had a 3 channel 27mhz radio, geared brushed motor and nicads. It had been fitted with a brushless motor, but was looking a little sorry for itself, lacking a spinner and as the motor was a hot 2200kv outrunner, had an implausibly small prop. Even with that small prop, the motor was pulling 29amps. That was replaced with an EMax 2215/25 and a 10"x8" prop off a P-51, which game a much more pleasing 17amps, 170watts, which works out to about 116w/lb. I 3D printed a pilot, cockpit, spinner, exhaust stacks, oil cooler and underwing radiator and will print an antenna mast and possibly a dummy tailwheet. Stripped the vinyl stickers off, repainted in Tamiya acrylics, masked and airbrushed the markings and have just got a bit of weathering to complete. The model represents the Spitfire 1a of F/O Gerald "Stapme" Stapleton of 603 City of Edinburgh squadron in August 1940 when Stapme shot down Oberleutenant Franz von Werra - famous as The One That Got Away. As the Spitfire is so light, she flew beautifully this morning, but does have a bit of a tendency to float on when landing. A great addition to my Spitfire fleet and one that I've been after for quite a while.

A glorious morning today, and my clubmate Chris arrived with his fancy camera. Finally got some decent photos of my little 50mm Tony Nijhuis Hunter - flying much better now that a) I’ve switched to a lighter 1500 battery rather than the 2200 I was using, and b) I’ve had more stick time and I’m a better pilot! Finally getting comfortable with this little model, which really does look lovely in the air.

A 67 year old MULTI MILLIONAIRE from Yorkshire marries a 26 year old woman and takes her down the pub to introduce to his mates.... When his mates see him walk through the door with his new wife they can't believe their eyes "By eck old lad! How av you managed to pull a reyt nice lass like her?" The Yorkshireman replies, "It was easy! I gave her a bit of the old Yorkshire charm and then just lied about my age as well" "Ah I see, so you told her you was fotty?" Asks his friend "No ya daft bugger! I told her I was 90!"

Hi all ! Before i try more weathering , i started to paint the decals by using paintmasks, not without some adhesion problems along the way ! Practice makes perfect right ? Some of the first results: Me happy !

A little more progress.....

Fantastic Spring day today on the fringe of the Highlands - warm, sunny, light winds, blues skies and high cloud ending in a beautiful mackerel sky with a good turn out of club members. A lot of time spent sitting and blethering, including flying masses throngs of the wee fellas from a comfortable sitting position, buzzing around the air and causing much hilarity. Some great fun was also had with a couple of multi-aeroplane flights of the wee Red Arrows Hawks, with three up at once. I put my video glasses on for these and the videos are uploading to You Tube, but will take some hours through the glacial ADSL connection. A brilliant laugh for all involved, whether flying or just watching. Some spirited, more conventional flying of EDFs, sports models, warbirds, pattern ships and even some differential thrust pusher "jets". Here's to more of the same tomorrow morning. Loving Mike's Dynam Hurricane, which has the very reliable replacement retracts on separate channels, giving that lovely asymmetrical retraction effect. My own Dynam Hurricane does something similar, in that it does most of it's flights with one leg up and one leg down 🤨

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I had my second flight with TEMPEST. With 5mm up-down on elevator and 10mm up-down on ailerons. It now behaves well and flies great. 😄 And the FW190 dolly fits it perfectly.

No, it wouldn't. Literally millions of flights are made every year, using the LiPo technology that is currently available. In fact I would suggest that it is self evident that there are many more flights made these days with lipos in the unmanned aircraft realm than are made with any form of internal combustion engine. The technology is well established and it has been for year. The important thing is that model flyers recognise that they should take the appropriate mitigation against the risk of mishaps with their batteries, which again are very well established. Just as you wouldn't refuel a glow or petrol engined model with a lit cigarette in your hand, if you take the appropriate precautions in operating with lipo batteries, you ought to be able to reduce the risk to acceptable levels.

With the last project out of the way and the workshop cleaned ready for the next, I’m now starting a Seagull Master Edition A6M2 Zero, as I am in need of a warbird. The only other Seagull kit I have built was a Boomerang Trainer about ten years ago and from what I remember they are quite nice kits. An image of the box shows the basic spec of the model. In the box we have a set of comprehensive instructions and a full size plan (almost as big as my workshop) which is used for information/reference rather building directly from. Wood is mostly lite and birch ply with some balsa. Again a pretty comprehensive hardware pack is supplied. Clear canopy of course, glass fibre engine cowl, dodgy looking pilot, pushrods, fuel tank, nuts & bolts etc; here’s a short video of everything supplied. Zero Parts-2.mp4 Going with the instructions the fuselage is built first. One minor change I made in the order of build was to glue formers F2 to F5 in place before F1. The reason for this being F1 is angled to give 3 degrees side-thrust, thus the fuselage sides are not the same length and F1 sits at a slight angle between the two sides and fitting formers F2 to F5 first ensures distortion doesn’t creep in when F1 is then glued and clamped. So here is F2 being glued to the rh fuselage side and held square to get things off to a good start. Once this was dry, formers F3 to F6 added and then at this point a rectangular steel spine is passed through rectangular slots in formers F1 & F6 and then all formers up to F12, which ensures a nice straight fuselage. That’s progress to date, more to follow...

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We have finally sorted where the retracts are going to fit based upon the prototypes handling, there is still a mountain of work to do but we are getting there. The Nacelle plugs are now with our kit cutter and a trial set will be pulled and ready for Richard to carry out a first fit check.

Thanks guys ! More details... X

2 Saturdays ago Byron and I went flying at Secunda which is about 125 km from where we stay, it is a smaller town with a different way of life! the flying field in on a farm and the famer has a grass strip for the crop sprayers. great flying day but a long way if you do not make a day of it. we flew the Cub, Mustang, Spitfire and the twin. some video of the twin flying with its old ST 90's, the round head ones, must be nearly 40 years old!

As promised, an update... the problems seem to be stemming from the server and us needed a new one. They're looking into which is the best to move it onto and will keep me in the loop and in turn, I'll pop any updates I get in here. Beth

Before and after 16 days between

New models, new storage rack! Treated myself to three new 1/4 scale WW1 models in the last week 🤫, and i had nowhere to store them, out with the old cupboards on that side of my hobby room and a few evenings spent cutting and screwing some purpose made racking together. Takes all my 1/4 scale WW1 models except my other two DR1`s (one needs covering). New models to me are the Balsa USA Nieuport 17, BUSA SE5a and BUSA Fokker DR1 on the middle shelves, the other two DR1`s are both Flair, the one on the bottom is my go to model if the wind is not too strong.

Spent the morning assembling my new Dynam Tucano. Hopefully will maiden later this week. 🤞

I wasn't going to buy any more models (no, really!) but @Merry Mark and I have been winding each other up about the HK Yak-11 Steadfast the last few times we've met and so the inevitable happened when they recently came back in stock in the UK warehouse. The Steadfast is based on the full-size aircraft which was modified for air racing. HK's version is moulded foam, 59" span, weighs around 3kg and uses 6s 5-6000mAh lipos. The model is not without its faults including, as you can see, missing the spinner in my case, but went together reasonably well. I used a 5000mAh pack pushed as far forward as I could while still being restrained by the velcro strap. There's still space behind the firewall but then it would rely on just the velcro strips underneath to hold around 750g of battery - not ideal. I tried to compensate for the missing spinner by adding 90g of lead weights below the motor but still ended up with the cg about 5mm behind the rearmost position recommended in the instructions. Steadfast was off the grass after a short take-off roll while still only just above half-throttle - plenty of power! It required quite a bit of down elevator to prevent it climbing under power and was a bit too lively for me even on the mid-rate setting on the elevator; selecting low rates calmed things down a bit. I'd mixed 4% and 8% down elevator with take-off and landing flaps respectively before the flight and these seemed to be about right although it might be worth adding a tad of up mixed with selection of u/c down to stop it diving - something to test the next time out. The model is quite rapid at full throttle and the best part was the howl from the prop on fast downwind passes! The afternoon turned out to be a bit windier than I had expected so once I'd tested the flaps, took it up high to see how slow it would fly (although I didn't actually stall it), I decided it was time to land. Unfortunately a slightly bouncy landing resulted in the port u/c leg pulling out of the wing. Not much glue in evidence here: Accident inspectors have determined that the cause of the incident could have been due to the blustery wind conditions, heavy landing, pilot incompetence or poor assembly at the factory. It's still under investigation but the initial findings are that at least 3 of these factors are responsible...

Decent spring like morning and the young man’s first solo IC flight. 👍

We had a great day out at Kerloch. Day started at 3 degC but built up to 10 degC. Here are some photos (Courtesy of Leccy).

Test flew my latest F3A plane today. Really please with it so far Simon

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An old sailor walks into a pub, wooden peg leg, hook for one hand and a patch over one eye. Orders a beer while the regulars are eyeing him up. eventually one summons up the courage and asks "How did you get a wooden leg?" "Oh arrr shark bit it off in Indian Ocean, now I wears the peg, oh arr" "What about the hook?" ' "Oh arr, Got into a fight with a shipmate, cut me 'and off, now I wears an 'ook oh arr" "So how did you lose an eye" "Oh arr twas in the Bahamas , blowing a full gale, looked up at the rigging and a seagull pooped in me eye oh arr now I wears a patch oh arr" " Lost your eye because a seagull pooped in it?" "Arr well twas the first day I had the ook , see oh arr"

Hi all, I’m sorry for my lack of updates on here. I do regularly speak to the tech team and explain of all yours (and our) difficulties. Last week they did a complete forum update, which they’ve said will allow them to then work on the issues we’ve been experiencing. I’ve got a meeting with them on Wednesday and so will speak with them about it again then and see what else I can find out. Thank you for your patience, we do appreciate it. beth

We finally had a break in weather and I maidened my Fournier. It was a bit windy but it managed to handle it. No flying phots as our photographer was off duty on the day!

Don't listen to the nay-sayers. I built my Cambrian Answer from the kit around a decade ago, and it still remains one of my favourite models, and is a regular flier for calm conditions! Your PAW 1.49 will probably be too much at full power for such a light airframe - although the noseweight might be useful. (Mine is electric, and uses a little outrunner on a 2S 1300 lipo, turning a 9x6 slo-fly prop). Yes, the Ritz wing design is unusual in its construction, but perfectly feasible to build and works well in flight. Mine is covered in tissue-over-Doculam. The bright yellow and red schem has faded considerably over the years, and is now a subtle lemon/pink combination. Tim Soaking the wing panels Joining the wing Planning the motor and battery as far forwards as possible. The naked airframe Red and yellow tissue over Doculam An old cylinder head has fooled quite a few! It's a lovely flier - honest!

Been there got the T shirt. 😀 The trouble with building and maintaining a contra system is, it becomes a project in its own right.

That's the wee RCSA John Deacon Beaufighter pretty much done, just the panel lines and receiver to be installed and she'll be ready for a maiden flight. Beaufighter Mk X, PL-O, NE831 of 144 Squadron of the Dallachy Strike Wing, which limped back to Dallachy and made an emergency landing, after being damaged in the raid on the German destroyer Z-44 in the Forde Fjord, Western Norway on Black Friday, 9th February 1945. I'd hoped to get a maiden done and fly the model up at Dallachy around about the 80th anniversary of Black Friday a couple of weeks ago, but didn't get any response from the club. It'll have to wait for their next fly-in, which is usually in the spring. In the meantime, I did add the wee Model Designs 30" span FW190 to the Dark Night's list and that is progressing, It will be finished as the FW190 A8 of Rudi Linz, JG5, which was scrambled from Herdla to intercept the Dallachy Strike wing on the raid and shot down in the action. The FW190 is approximately the same scale as the Beaufighter.

Eye testing for ALL drivers of any age, say every five years, seems to me to be an idea worth considering. Younger people are not immune from eye problems that affect vision, and even plain old short sightedness and astigmatism is known to creep up on people at any time. In our forties, most of us develop presbyopia and need reading/TV/computer glasses and hence go to the optician to fix it where we're also tested for other conditions and sight problems that might not have been previously noticed. Cataracts being the common problem for us oldies or younger folks on certain medications. Mixing model flying in to all this is over the top. We all need to ensure that we can make our flights safely and good vision in order to safely operate a model goes without saying. Several of my flying buddies have noticed problems with their eyes when flying that have not necessarily been that problematic when doing other activities. I think we're pretty sensible, so as has been said, I really think we've enough regs to go on with for the time being. Three weeks ago my wife noticed a sudden change to her vision in one eye. She booked a next day urgent optician exam which revealed a tear in her retina! Described to us as like a bit of torn wallpaper in the corner of a wall. The Specsavers optician phoned the local hospital ophthalmology department while we waited, and an appointment was arranged there and then to see an ophthalmic surgeon that very afternoon...........by 1500 she'd been examined and had Argon laser treatment to 'spot weld' around the damage to prevent any further deterioration. A follow up last week showed that the damage has been stemmed and was scarring over correctly as it should. She still has the floaters in her vision that rang the alarm bells originally but these will be reabsorbed naturally over the next few months. Her sight is otherwise unaffected. A lot of negative NHS stories around - thought I share a good and positive one with you. BTW.....never ignore any sudden change in your vision, either model flying, reading or driving (especially at night) - get it checked pronto.