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Funscale Raf Fe-8 ,maiden flight yesterday. Mainly scratchbuilt,started with polish Combat kit in epp foam. Foam , floorlaquer,tissue,carbon and balsa . The control surfaces are done like the original with pulleys and kevlar thread. Anders

From an original by Roger Bale, circa 1998, to this:- # I wonder what happened?? To this 121 " span, zenoah 80 power and 38lbs! Strictly non aerobatic, it 'preambulates with purpose' The flag can be raised in flight and the Nav raises his hand to the onlooker In terms of storage and transport, its a bit of a monster!

My latest scratch build from three view found online and couple of old pics. AVRO 539. Originally designed as a float plane for the 1919 Schneider Trophy. After float damage returned to Avro factory and floats replaced with wheels and vertical stabilizer redesigned for Airiel Derby. As I will eventually add floats I kept the original Stab on my wheeled version. Builders perogative! 40 inch span, built from 6mm white depron (Yes I still have 10 shets left) and some blue fom. All covered with 40gram glass cloth using west system epoxy painted with own mix of ivory acrylic. 35.36 910kv motor. 3cell 2200 lipo. 12x7 woodprop. 1350 grams flying weight..

Plan built with Belair laser cut parts Jerry Bates Sea Fury 1/5th scale, British made Laser 360 v twin four stroke. Spinner canopy and cowl from Phil at Fighter Aces. Retracts from Giant Sierra. Just completed and now awaiting first engine run ups in the garden. Will await early spring after our patch has had a few cuts for the maiden flights.

Couple of successful maiden flights for me this week of models that were waiting to fly since the lockdown. First off a 60" span Vickers Wellington, traditional stick and tissue build from an RCMW plan by my clubmate Bob. I picked this lovely model up at a swapmeet a couple of weeks before the lockdown and finally had the conditions for a maiden on Monday. She flies beautifully, but our concerns on the original GWS EPS geared brushed motors on 3s1p 2250mah were well founded -they don't like that high voltage and were dead after 3 flights. Those three flights were perfect though ? I've now replaced the motors and will be more gentle with 2s2p 1800mah instead. Plenty of Wimpeys did their training flights over these hills and she sits perfectly in these surroundings.

Hi All, Recently finished my TN Sunderland and took some photos last night Just for fun I made her some legs and trolly scaled up from the Airfix kit. Wingspan 72" weight: 3.7kg or 8.15lbs Covered in encapsulation film and sprayed with Halfords white primer and Flair Spectrum paint on the upper surfaces Power uses the 4 max setup and a 3s 6000 and plenty of pull on the bench I made some access hatches in the nacelles to get to the speed controllers The cockpit lifts out to get at the battery now waiting to maiden Regards Robert

Finished my first foamboard build. a Ki45. 60" span, 2 x 3536 1200kv motors contra-rotating 9x4 3-bladers from a little 2200 3S pack. Duration may be a bit short, but I have a few of them, so get more flights! It would have been a quick build, but for time lost rubbing my chin as I got my head around foamboard construction, and 72 hours lost this weekend as Storm Eunice, or whatever we call her killed our power... It is, however, very low cost. 3 sheets of makerboard is about £13. 1 sheet of 1/4" balsa, and around 10 glue sticks. Covering is brown paper and PVA. No dope, paint is emulsion sprayed on. Matchpots from Homebase, and a bit of mixing, sprayed on with a small automotive gun with a 0.8mm nozzle, and edges softened with my airbrush. Panel lines are a sharpie and a white gel pen, weathering is a mix of dark grey, black and rust acrylic paint, well thinned and airbrushed. Some weathering down to aluminium is via a silver sharpie. The canopy frame is lined with aluminium tape and painted over. Natural handling wear will show the aluminium through it. Looks good from 6ft! It's a 'fling and flop' job, hence the finger grips under the wing. Weight ready to fly is a staggering (if you are used to conventional builds) 3lb 6Oz... One day, we may get to fly it... Graham

This has been about 15 years in the making. David Boddington 1/5 scale. about 70". Myself and modelling friends built it, despite being not quite finished, it had one flight on a 914st. Ended up in storage and recently a burst of enthusiasm came on to get it finished. Reworked a few things, including a recover and repaint in a different scheme, and a conversion to electric due to the infrequency at which it might fly, and avoiding fuelproofing. Flies brilliant on 5s, and is acutally quite easy to fly. Plan now on Outerzone, because I put it there. https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=13406

My 1/5th scale Supermarine S6b, which I completed over a year ago, finally took to the air yesterday. Ian Redshaw kindly did the first two flights - he did a superb job. The model flew really well. It handled well on the water, took off very easily, and needed only some up trim (probably because CG was set slightly forward at about 28% MAC). The Laser 200V seems to be a perfect match for the model, which balanced correctly without any added weights. The weather was good, but rather gloomy, so not very good for photos. Nevertheless, I am attaching a few pictures here.

Just completed a couple of test flights all seems well , just a couple of trim tweeks. I enjoyed the build, covering was a challenge

Nice shots Neil Latest successful maiden flight in a series for me this morning of my Flightline FW190, which zoomed around quite nicely in the increasingly breezy conditions.

Maidened yesterday - sport scale Morane Saulinier type "N" from Radio Modeller plan. This is the second one as I built the first one sometime in the late seventies. Using the very same engine ,Enya 35, from 40 years ago. 3 channel, all moving elevator as per original.

Waiting for 2 3" spinners and the wind to ease. No balsa was harmed making this Mosquito from foamboard and maker foam 71" span 5.8 lb. I hope to maiden it sometime next week.

Almost ready to fly again. Needs cockpit glazing and final check of wing incidences and adjustment of the rigging cable tension.

Been a little while but the first batches of flat twins are now more or less ready. The 5 160's are done with 2 of the 5 200's also finished. As soon as i get more piston rings the other 3 will join their friends. I also have another 200 inline done with 4 more to follow in the coming weeks. My bench is getting rather crowded! The production FT160 features a revised cam timing for improved performance and it now has even better response than it did before. The FT200's i ran today were complete animals and hit 9600rpm peak on an APC 17x6. The dumpy mufflers everyone voted for are also done (we are on version 3 already!) so you at least get something with the engine. I may be able to offer inline additional exhausts later but the one i flew with the older dumpy exhausts was very quiet in the air anyway. The mounts are WIP and i hope to ship the first engines mid-late next week. This is a video of the first production engine (in custom bare metal finish at the customers request) with the new cam timing. The first customers on the list have already been contacted so all of the current engines are spoken for. I will be doing a follow up batch asap but even this will not clear my list. If you want in, let me know and i will see what i can do. I do need to take a bit of a break from the new stuff though as stocks of normal engines are being neglected while my focus is on these so it might be a month or so before i get back to them after the first batch is done. I will see how things go.

I took delivery of my Fiat CR42 at our last flying session and my pal Derek has sent me through some nice static shots of the completed model - with the 3D printed bust of Mussolini's son as a pilot figure, the final added scale details and squadron markings. It will be the spring before I fly this marvellous model myself. 50" span (~1/8th scale), weighs 5lb 4oz, for a wing loading of 18.8 oz/sq ft, Powered by a D3548 motor, 11x5.5" APC-E prop and a 4s1p 3600mah Lipo .

Not mine (yet ) but Saturday also saw the successful maiden flight of my pal Jim's Fiat CR42 Falco. Jim approached me earlier this year and floated the idea that he would design and build a Falco for my Battle of Britain collection, which I'd told him about. Naturally I agreed and Jim based the model on the example in the Battle of Britain hall at the RAF Museum at Hendon. I provided the 3D printed spats, and latterly the pilot, which is yet to be fitted, as my minor contribution, but everything else is Jim's own design- blown up from a 3-view. She's 50" span (~1/8th scale), weighs 5lb 4oz, for a wing loading of 18.8 oz/sq ft, Powered by a D3548 motor, 11x5.5" APC-E prop and a 4s1p 3600mah Lipo . It was an unseasonable calm late autumn day and with the model 99% finished Jim decided the timing was good for a maiden flight. Take off and the first 20 seconds were decidedly hairy, the surfeit of power and highly effective elevator contributing to her being very twitchy in pitch, but Jim soon had her tamed and the maiden went very smoothly, with a peach of a landing. I've attached my pal Derek's pictures of the maiden flight here - the overcast sky wasn't the best and Derek's pictures were so much better than mine. We are both delighted with the model - Jim just has a few finishing touches to make - some blisters, louvres, a few more graphics, windshield and pilot. Then she'll be joining my fleet. It was a lovely surprise and really made my weekend.?

Shorts Sperrin from the Chris Golds plan, 74" wingspan. 4 x 55mm Vasa fans, running on 6S, 53,000rpm producing over 800g of thrust each and using 450W. Successfully maidened today. Will take off from grass runway (not bowling green smooth) but would be better of tarmac. Will happily cruise around on 150W per fan so 9 minutes flights are possible. The Sperrin was designed late 40s early 50s as a fallback in case the Vulcan, Valiant & Victor, all revolutionary designs failed to live up to expectations. The Sperrin was very much a conventional design, rounded rectangular fuselage, basic wing with the unusual (in hindsight) stacked engines rather than side by side. 2 prototypes were built and ended up being used as test beds for other engines and for flight research.

Just finished my new design. A modified Taylorcraft call "tumbling T-Cart" If you want to google the full size search for N6685C. The model is 47" span, for electric power. Weight 48 oz. wing loading 17 oz per sq.ft.

BMFA Centenary Video

A perfect afternoon and Stuart Pickett brought up two models models. These came from Peter Taylor's estate The Flight LIne B-24 Liberator which flew like a dream ad the Dynam Gloster Meteor with the up grade 12 blade fans

Laydeeez and Genulmen, I give you.... Regianne RE2005 The latest product from the G Davies/ E Robson/ R Wills skunkworks, a foamboard scratch build. Built using a mix of FliteTest Maker Foam and Hobby craft foam board with a small amount of ply, lightply and balsa. It's a full-fat flaps and retracts warbird at 55" span.I had hoped to fly it on my little 2200 3S packs, but I've been guilty of a heavy back end, which is a repeating theme in my life... Had I got away with the 3S packs, it would have been 3lb 10 Oz ready to fly. Sadly, I will need to use big 4S packs to get the thing to balance, so will now tip the scales just over 4lb. Hardly porky though. Some scale liberties have been taken with the undercarriage position in order to make a practical model. Our strip is bumpy and doesn't suit tall, narrow undercarriages. The positions are cribbed directly from My (originally Peter's) Ballerina. That copes perfectly with the strip, so is a great role (roll) model. It's covered in brown paper and PVA, although the tail feathers are not covered at all, just painted directly onto the hobbycraft board. It's then sprayed with watered down emulsion paint. It's a really cheap build. I reckon the material cost in the finished and painted airframe is no more than £25. If I can satisfy myself that everything is ok, I will maiden her tomorrow... Graham

Club mate Mick King test flew his De Havilland 71 Tiger Moth yesterday

Yesterday maidened the Ben Buckle KK Falcon, powered by OSfs56a. 16 months in the build - flies a treat, even loops, stall turns and does rather suspicious rolls... Not bad for a 70-odd year old kit design - originally for free flight! More photos in a new post "Ben Buckle KK Falcon".

Back in 2010 I was waiting for the Windrider 737 to arrive, and since it took some time I started another build. The McDonnel Douglas MD-83 was based on drawings from scale-parkflyer.de. Back then I got it nearly finished (95%) and then the 737 showed up - and the project has been stored ever since. The 737 is long gone, so it was time to finish the MD-83 project and fly it! Plans where from www.scale-parkflyer.de (now also availible with a precut depron piece set) and the specs are as follows: Wingspan: 1300 mm (51") Fuse length: 1670 mm (65") RTF weight: 1250 grams (39oz) Power: Two55 mm brushless EDFs Here are a cople of shots from the first meeting in the season (yes, it is a frozen lake!) The development within the field of EDF has come a long way over the last 12 years, but I opted for keeping the old fans - and it actually works, not too much power, but enoug to get of the ground (ice) and do well in the air. It need some speed, the wings are not big at all! Enjoy video and pictures! Drone video of the maiden flight: Video of the second flight:

Larger magnets have now been fitted to the (outer) tank hatches and spinner adapters, courtesy of Just Engines, have also been fitted. A bit of time was spent at the field getting the engines to run in sync, a job made much easier nowadays with the aid of point adjustable curves for the servo outputs. Each engine has its own servo and servo channel from the receiver so its possible to use one engine as a reference and adjust the servo curves of the other 3 using the (9) point adjustments in the AFR settings - I'm using a Futaba transmitter, though imagine that most comparable radios will have a similar facility though it might not be called Adjustable Function Rate (AFR). Mixed fortunes on the first flight. Son Steve was pressed into service as the test pilot and did a splendid job, the good news is it flew with only minor trim adjustments required, the bad news (not really), a silicon exhaust coupler failed on the first circuit and the flight had to be terminated. The inner engines each have a bendy pipe leading from the exhaust port to the homemade silencer. Short lengths of 1/2" silicon tube were used to make the couplings but the silicon cannot stand the exhaust heat for very long and one failed. This has happened a few times in the past and I haven't come up with an alternate solution, but one is needed as the fuel tanks are only millimetres above the exhaust pipes. When a silicon tube fails, the hot exhaust can be directed onto the bottom of a fuel tank and deform it. I'll have to think of another method to connect the two parts together which will allow a degree of vibration protection and also not allow any of the silicon tube to come in direct contact with exhaust gases. Fellow club member Mike Mennell takes excellent pictures of member's aircraft and lived up to his standard on Friday when these were taken.

My latest build, laminate film covering (purchased from Ron Gray ?) and a spitfire diesel engine, I have named it "Naked Princess" because I have covered it in laminating film, no colour. Yet to maiden as it is a total of 1lb11oz I am waiting for the wind to go down a little. Steve

Maiden flight today in high winds after trimming it flew quite well but had to hold it on down elevator to land as I had run out of trim now reset. At 3lb ready to fly it penetrated the wind quite well.

I hope I'm posting this correctly, I've only posted once or twice before). I recently finished this Magnatilla and had a successful maiden a couple of weeks back. It was a lovely calm day and after only a little bit of trimming the model flew very nicely - it does tend to climb a little under throttle, but it's quite manageable (even for a relative newbie like me). It's an electric set up (4s3300mAh) - so I thought I'd include an image of the battery location - all recommended and supplied by George at 4 max. . 4m

I'm on a bit of a 'stick and tissue' roll at the moment. Just finished this KK Cadet from an old 'cut out the bits' (they weren't always the good old days) version. Will tow it up next Spring and see what happens.... ?

After 3 unsuccessful maiden attempts that resulted in flights somewhat shorter than intended, and landing approaches somewhat steeper than intended, the FVVS-J22 finally flew today. The last attempt resulted in a full on tent peg, so the entire wing centre section has been rebuilt. As this is my first attempt to design a scale model, I wanted to see it through, even if it looked a dogs dinner. As it turned out, I enjoyed rebuilding her, and during the process discovered that at some point I had indadvertedly introduced a couple of degrees of positive incidence. This had caused the previous flight attempts to commence fully stalled. This now resolved, all was reasonably well. I say reasonably, but my repairs had introduced a bit of twist, so it needed a lot of trim. BUT, 2 flights, 2 gentle landings and the glow of designign, building and flying an unusual subject.

Winter project was this Trislander based on Robin Fowler's 80" plan. Motors as recommended by George at 4-max (thanks) on 9"x 4.5" props. Used a single 3s 6000mAh battery. Flies really nicely. I just need to brush up on my landings. It put on some weight with the mods I did and came out at 12.6lbs, but it would not fit in the car otherwise.

I built the Boulton Paul Defiant (Chris Gold plan ) but not flown it yet . The model is electric powered with 6s lipos and retracts and flaps. Has anyone built this model and flown it yet

So a pleasant evening setting up the radio, and all is good. C of G is about right with 1500mAh 2S LiFe Rx pack balanced on the cowl so should be good. AUW ready to fly, minus fuel. 4.38kg or 9.66lbs Pretty pleased with that......means the model is eligible for light scale Cheers Danny

Here's my scratch built Cessna GC-1, a not so famous 1929 air racer. It spans 1.57 meters, is powered by a Saito 72 and weighs 3 kg. I built it for the controlline events I visit once a year to compete in Scale and in Basic Carrier Deck flying - a nice diversion from my RC flying. The throttle is controlled by 2.4mhz RC, covering is hobbyking film, and it has sprung landing gear. Maiden flight soon. Karl-Georg

The winter project, a Dane-RC Leprechaun V3, saw light of day on Good Friday, and flew well. Review in the mag' in due course.

I posted these on the Stampe SR7 thread in the Peter Miller area, but thought I'd put them here too. The model was scratch built from the magazine free plan, and uses a 4s setup that I had lying around. It's a bit heavier than the prototype at 4.75lb (with battery) but I have added flaps and fairly heavy wheels, which together with a larger than needed motor has put the weight on. There's lots of wing though, and I've propped it to about 450W, so all should be well. Non stop high winds since it was finished a couple of weeks ago, will wait for a calm day to try it.

Cartoons for thinkers.... Cartoons for intellectuals.pdf

The price of a good quality, glossy magazine that caters to the needs of the users of this forum is £44 per year for print-only subscription. I don't think I want half my subs spent on the BMFA magazine. On top of that, the RCM&E version of the hobby is only one aspect of what the BMFA covers. I value what BMFA does as a governing body, I don't expect the magazine to be all that interesting, but I do expect it to cover some of the administrative (boring but necessary) stuff and have news from across the hobby. A couple of other sport associations I have belonged to updated their magazine offerings and they became even less use by trying to be 'interesting'. As members of any voluntary organisation, I also think that we should remember that there is not really a living breathing entity "the association". Actual people, almost all volunteers, are doing or not doing what we complain about. We too could volunteer, help, and then build the BMFA as what we really want. If I have not got time or inclination to do any more for the BMFA than skim through the magazine, I am profoundly thankful to those that toil away making this all work.

I must be one of the few that find it interesting. Not many of the articles pertain to my particular branch of the hobby, but I like to see what other people are up to as regards other aspects of the hobby.

I see that there are the usual complaints about a £2 increase - the first for a couple of years. And how much more are you paying for your aeromodelling stuff what with global shortages and having to pay handling charges for stuff bought from the EU? The National Centre made a £5k profit last year and a small one this year. However, that hasn't stopped people posting that the Centre is making a loss and will need external usage to break even. The perennial "we're doomed" as regards falling membership also continues. Yes, membership has dropped from 36,000 a few years ago to just over 30,000 this year. We are still the largest air sports element in the Royal Aero Club by a long way and no body goes around saying that their air sport is doomed. Folks, things go up and down, a bit like inflation really, so just enjoy your hobby or sport and do your best to bring in new recruits to keep the numbers as stable as possible. Just accept that there isn't going to be the sort of following there was in the mid 50s and 60s as there are so many more restrictions on what under 18s can get up to in this day and age. Oh and talking of inflation, it is generally a good thing if it's in the 2-3% range albeit we're going through a spike at the moment given the peculiarities of the pandemic's effect on world trade. We are blessed with amazing radio control equipment that is better and more reliable than its ever been and more affordable as well. True IC seems to be in decline but future advances in battery technology will come along, thanks to the work being done in the motor industry, that will give us even better electric power options. Finally, without Dave Phipps outstanding efforts over the gestation period of the drone laws we would all be hugely restricted in how we can fly. So, a big thank you to Dave and the BMFA for allowing our sport to proceed with only a few minor inconveniences.

Hi All, Just finished my Flair Black Magic, covered in encapsulation/laminating film. Powered by an SC 30fs, I still need to add 100g lead in the nose to balance it. I bought the lit on a well know auction site and was listed as new, however, parts were missing which I replaced using the drawing and the bowden cables and I had to use snakes which is probably why I have to add the weight at the front. Note to self, check kits when bought and not leave them for years in the cupboard. Looking forward to the maiden Regards Robert

Here are my latest "quickie builds". Sometimes the wind is all wrong for our strip, so I go boating !

Original Veron Cardinal kit, covered with Litespan, powered by a late (yellow head) DC Dart... all 100% proper FF.

Just finished this. Waiting for delivery of motor and lipo but other than that, good to go. 50" span, AUW 37oz as it is now. OD "La Mouette"

Hi Guys My latest creation. Nothing special, an SLEC Fun Fly, but it is the first ic model I have built in years. OS 40FP up front. If the wind and rain ever clears hope to maiden it soon. Wish me luck Jeff

Kyosho Spitfire refurb just about completed ready for a maiden. Just the tailwheel, some dummy doped on gun port covers and a 3D printed aerial mast to add. I might give the model a light mist of polyurethane to seal in the weathering/panel lines which were added in pencil. Graphics from Callie Graphics and I'm impressed by their quality and the rather nice positioning carrier film which made the application relatively trouble free.

Call me old fashioned but I like the magazine. As an examiner, it keeps me up to speed on all sorts of topics related to our great hobby. I like the "chummy" way it is written. Having editited a magazine in the past, I know how much work goes into producing a copy every month. Well done the bods who put it together, long may it last!.

Thanks EarlyBird. I did wonder why they appeared as download icons but felt life was too short! I'll quote my own post and re-add the images Graham Images now correctly added!

Been quietly working on the Hurricane for a few weeks and today was the day. To recap a little, the model ended up at 23lbs and the 240v was giving a healthy 8500rpm on an 18x8 menz. I did a ground run last night to get everything set. So with much trepidation i took it to the field and launched it down the runway. All in all, it could not really have gone any better. My complete guess at an accurate c/g and control throws proved to be correct and apart from a few minor snags the model flew brilliantly. Its extremely stable, rolls beautifully, and has a very confidence inspiring solidity in flight. To my surprise the 240v was more than enough for the 23lb beast and scale Hurricane speeds were achieved at just over half throttle. It loops better than my La7 using the same power plant and prop and yet the la7 is nearly 4lbs lighter. How does that make sense? Fuel consumption for the 240 was good as well with my 6 minute maiden leaving half tanks and my 8 minute 2nd flight leaving barely under half tanks. I will set the timer for 8.30 for total time in the air of 10 mins plus reserve. Total fuel aboard was 22oz. Anyway i had two good flights and then stopped as i found a number of snags that need to be fixed. Current snag list includes replacing the undercarriage door that made a bid for freedom, glue the dummy radiator back on as the glue i used is already giving up the ghost, repair the elevator servo mount which cracked for some reason, paint the inside of the flaps as i forgot, and a few other minor items. All in all very pleased with the model and i hope to get it fixed up and back out next weekend.