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As with the Fw190 , I will probably send a return envelope out to those that showed interest in the Tempest . I realise that some may have changed their mind , and anyway we are not quite ready to press go on the production line , but I need to know rough numbers . I dont want to send letters to those no longer interested so here is a list of those that expressed interest so far . Rather than PM me at this stage , perhaps if you just click like if you still want one , it will come up at the bottom . Dave B1 Ron Gray Martin Collins Leccy Flyer Andrew Exton Jonathan S Grumpy Gnome Glen Philbrick Peter Atkins Ace Chris Walby John Timmis Graham Bowers Murat Alan Hilton Roger Bird Dave Naylor Goose is the Hero Nigel Whitgar Piers Bowlan Nick Cribbs David Holland 2 David Davies Don Fry Bucks Boy Chris meek Concept 2 Flyer Rotten Row Chris Clementson John Britton .

I couldn't agree more, it is great fun and is very safe, the statistics back this up. However it is very safe because we have developed procedures and 'best practice' to ensure it is so.

Just maidened my Tony Nijhuis 78" EDF Vulcan. Built during 2020 and finally plucked up the courage. I do not know why I put it off so long, it is very stable and slows right down for landing. Sounds brilliant on full power.

Right, she's ready* 1/6 scale spitfire Mk1; P9374. This is a replica (let's not be too eager and call it 'scale'!) of the aircraft that crashed on it's second operation onto the beach at Calais and remained there until the 1980s before being removed and eventually renovated to flying condition. This is detailed in a wonderful book kindly given to me by Peter Miller. As happens with me, reading the book (and particularly John Romaine's pilot notes of the maiden flight) inspired me, and I was 'locked on'. This is the latest evolution of my learnings of how to make use of Depron. Particularly laminate flooring under floor insulation. This is sold by B&Q under the Diall brand in white in 3 and 6mm and their own brand in black at 6mm. The construction uses some ply and balsa to put strength where it's needed (a hard structure between wing root and motor mount), and B&Q 6mm square strip wood for the wing spars. It has flaps, retracts and Oleos and is set up with a 5065 320kv motor on 6S and currently spinning a 17x8 prop. I'm yet to do the full power checks, so not sure what the output is, but expect around 900-1000W. The battery (3300maH) sits vertically behind the motor, and it looks to balance without ballast. AUW is 8lb. As this model is 74", this is very light. It's the same size as Mick Reeves' Mk9, which apparently fly very well, and usually come in at around 12lb plus. Jon from Laser reckons this is the correct weight, so I may have to stake it down to stop it floating off! In any case, I should get a nice scale speed. It's covered in 25gsm glass cloth applied with B&Q water based varnish. Paint is good old valspar (again, B&Q) matchpot emulsion matched to the book. It's a tiny bit light, but the effect is good. This is sprayed with my little HVLP gun, and then sprayed over with a light coat of gloss varnish to give a slight sheen for the vinyl to adhere to. Vinyl, canopy, decals and the wonderful dash are all from Mick Reeves. The exhausts are 3D printed. *Some detailing to do, electrical checks, a lot of worrying, and purchase of bike clips notwithstanding... Graham

You are not subsidising them. Not one penny of the £42 you paid for your 2023 membership was used to subsidise them. However as I mentioned previously you have still benefitted indirectly, the BMFA didn't have to spend some of the pennies you paid to hire venues that we would have had to previously because we were able to use Buckminster. Buckminster has also proved very useful in promoting model aircraft flying and helping to put our sport in to the public eye. Something all model aircraft flyers benefit from. In years when the BMFA makes a surplus of over £10k £10k will be transferred to the National Centre reserve. But only if there is a healthy surplus, the BMFA does have some other income streams apart from membership subscriptions though and £10k is probably a lot less then would have to be paid to hire venues annually that now no longer need to be hired. Your subs are not used to fund Buckminster. Clubs are not forced to have 100% BMFA membership, it is a choice they make to affiliate because they consider the benefits of affiliation are worth it. It's actually a bit of a no-brainer when you consider all the benefits that otherwise the club would have to pay for.

A clubmate gave me two rolls of Proficover - it's a bit like Oratex or Solartex, a very good material to work with. So I had to build something with it. The result was a control line stunter (Jamison Special) and the rc plane you see in the pictures. It's my own design and it had its maiden flight yesterday. To my surprise it flew very well despite the not too powerful old open-rockers Saito 30. Karl

Quick update, I am now out of hospital in an amazing rehab centre , and am now doing loads more physio and they have lots of incredible specialist equipment including an exercise bike that has electrodes that you attach to your weaker limb that fire in time with the rotation of the pedddles to encourage your less good limb to relearn it’s role! I am so lucky to get a place here, as sometimes people wait weeks, but I got in last week only about 2 and a bit weeks after my stroke. That is ke, as apparently the early days after a stroke are when you have the best opportunity to improve.

The closure of Laser engines was inevitable. It is sad for me as I formed the company in 1983 with Reg Gross, Geoff’s father. I have not been involved for over 10 years. Geoff is now 70 and there is no one to take over the Company. The good news for Laser owners is that they were manufactured from very high quality materials, will run for many hours and will survive quite serious crashes. With modern fuels there is very little maintenance or wear. Spares or repairs are rarely required. Bearings are standard, easily and cheaply bought from suppliers. Engines made from 1996 are the best made and I am sure will be powering models for many years. Aeromodelling has declined, we have lost most model shops, magazines and the membership of the BMFA has dropped from36,000 in 2004 to 2,6000 now. Skills have been lost, it is far easier to buy a ready made foamie complete to fly. CAA legislation does not help. Thank you to everyone who has made Laser Engines a British success. Best wishes to Jon for a bright future and being part of the Laser legacy.

My latest fun scale build. A il-16 polikarpov captured by the Finnish Air Force during ww2. Cheers Anders

Maiden flight today. The big foam spitfire flew! Off the ground in 30ft, gentle climb out and flew like a big trainer. Once my vice grip is relieved on the sticks, I'll be getting to know this big beutiful lump of underfloor insulation! Graham

Given the current weather and long range forecast i thought i would invest in something suitable.

50 inch span Depron JU87. All covered in 50gram grp cloth and west system epoxy. Scratch build from scaled up 3 view on Wikipedia, and lots of photos. Started out in white winter camo, didn't like it, so changed to two-tone green camo. Didn't like that so added desert camo which I quite like. 1300 grams flying weight. 35/36 900 kv motor.2200 3cell lipo.

My last project from how she looked when I picked her up to now all completed and looking resplendent with her new cowling, fitted and painted. This was a complete back to bare airframe restoration and E conversion. She is a Bowman’s Model, Miles Magister 1 designed in 1979 with an 85 inch span and an AUW of 13 1/2lbs (recommended 10lbs), running a 6S system turning a 16x8 wooden prop. She fly’s really nice even with the extra weight.

Fw 190 A-8 in the Black 13 scheme of ace Pips Priller. Built over last 15 months from Vailly Aviation plans. Span is 92” AUW 16kg power Valach 85cc twin boxer with self starter. Klasskote paints, Sierra retracts. Just guns, aerials and pitot to add once trimming flights are over. First flew last weekend.

A old mate of mine needed to clear some of his models as he is still building at 84 and has help in flying the aircraft so they are lasting longer. I got his Flair Magnatilla that had not flown for nearly 20 years as the float flying club lost the use of the dam. I replaced the Irvine 53 with an electric set up as I fly from a dam close to the house and do not take a recovery boat with. I fly when the conditions are good.

I spent 30years as a copper in London. When I joined we went out of our way to leave a clean list for the next shift, zero outstanding calls. We dealt with all the calls we could and went out and did our own stops and generated our own arrests; demand was different then. There were no Mobile phones in the 1980's and 999 calls were rare. People did not get offended on social media and cry "Hate Crime!" When I left 6-7 years ago, the lists of outstanding calls for help, each day, for each division, stood at 50-100 calls each and every day. The calls would be priorotised on an emergency basis, which meant I would spend each and every shift racing to the next most urgent emergency. No time any more for motorists doing red lights, shoplifters, petty thefts, minor punch ups etc etc etc.........I am ashamed to say Policing in this country is smashed to bits and there is now so much demand and so few coppers actually answering calls, that as long as you dont kill anybody, nobody is coming to enforce stupid, complicated laws about our "toy planes". Are witnesses and suspects going to hang around for the 6-7 days it will take for coppers to arrive? All of this legislation is not only flawed it's unenforceable. It wont stop a single bad actor, or catch a single criminal who wasn't already breaking the existing criminal law. I hate it! I want to fly my toy planes freely and safely without government interference. KB

Paul, I really don't know why you have started this thread yet in the one above take a swipe at people you call "committee" jobsworths who probably don't actually fly but sit on their folding chairs etc..... Most of those who have pointed out safety issues are experienced RC model pilots. Some might even have full size aviation experience. I'm sure there are quite a few like me who have been flying model aircraft (free flight, control line and radio control) from our teenage years (or younger) and, in my case, am comfortably into my 70s but still flying regularly and in competition. We try and pass on our hard won experience and yet you, with little or no experience, think you can criticise us for our words of wisdom. The issue of flight safety is paramount. This includes preparation for flight, which might cover a wide range of topics, actually conducting yourself in a manner that shows that you do take all the required safety precautions that hard won experience has shown are essential, and learning from the experience of others to make sure you don't unnecessarily do the wrong thing.

Maiden flight day

Because some of you have been concerned about the on-going situation after my daughter was sent to jail, here is a little update: She has taken it pretty hard and she is refusing all food, she has become moody and is screaming at everyone, has removed her clothes, and is repeatedly banging her mug on the table. Plus, she is threatening violence towards anyone who comes near to her. As a family, we are pretty worried and, as a result, we have taken the difficult decision to not play Monopoly with her anymore.

SWIMBO was having a sneaky look in my workshop. "well she said, thats a nice wing, it'll fit fine onto the car" How can I ever tell her, it was the tail for my Keil Kraft falcon ernie

I made a few more detail items and once again old biros have proved to be a most useful source for such things I made the small air scoop on the right hand side over the wing from an old pen top, a little bit of filler and a piece of thin ply and then the wing tip pitot probe from a biro inner, which still had some red ink in so that might prove messy should I ever damage it! I also made the two little aerials on top of the fuselage using pieces of snake inners which I made a push fit into some soft close cupboard door buffer pads so like the pitot probe I’ll be able to remove these for transportation. I finally decided where to fit my receiver switch, it’s snug but there’s just room for it behind the ejector seat. It’ll be out of sight but just about accessible with the canopy removed. With everything in primer it was now time to start with some colour. As per Phil Cooke’s recommendation I decided to use Lifecolor paints from airbrushes.com. After some research and from their ‘Mimetic’ range I used UA095 – Sky for the underside and UA516 – Dark Sea Grey for on top, along with the Lifecolor thinner. Six of each colour and a 250ml bottle of thinner proved about right for the task. I used the airbrush and compressor I bought last year for my little Alpha jet build I’ve not had much experience of airbrush spraying, all my previous Correx builds have been finished with rattle cans and/or vinyl so once again I’m on something of a learning curve here. That said it all went reasonably well and before long I had everything painted up in the sky colour. It took 4 or 5 coats to get a consistent even finish. Initially I had been using a 0.2mm spray nozzle but soon found the larger 0.4mm provided much better coverage. At times I was suffering with a gradual build-up of liquid paint in the nozzle which if left unaddressed would then splatter onto the surface I was spraying so found that soaking this away with paper towel every so often would help. I was mixing the paint like for like with thinner so maybe a different ratio would have helped or different pressures, I was spraying at around 20psi. With the sky done I couldn’t resist finishing off the arrester hook and applying some gloss. After some careful masking it was then onto the grey. The grey seemed to cover so much better than the sky had done. The blob on the tail fin was a nightmare to mask. I first masked off the plane and sprayed the whole blob in Tamiya flat yellow after which I then masked off the yellow and sprayed the black. I had a bit of seepage in places so there was quite a bit of touching up required afterwards but it didn’t turn out too badly. And then I masked and sprayed the concave exhaust surfaces in silver too. I finished my pilot and ejector seat off, making his harness straps by folding masking tape back on itself and cutting the required width and then painting. Perhaps he could really do with an oxygen mask and maybe a visor too so maybe I'll have a go at that sometime. I added my instrument photos to the unit I had made previously, after which I was then able to spray and fit the canopy. The Callie graphics vinyls were a delight to apply. I had to cut some of them where they overlapped the servo covers and ailerons. I was a little fearful when applying the fuselage roundel that the opacity of the vinyl might not have been sufficient when bridging between the grey and sky colours but my fears were totally unfounded. The ridge from my masking between grey and sky can be seen but the colours of the roundel are completely unaffected by the fuselage’s colour change. I wanted to add some further detail over and above the Callie graphic vinyls so with some assistance from my daughter in the graphics department we made some additional waterslide decals. I printed them onto clear waterslide paper so their colours got dulled down a bit once applied to the fuselage but they look ok nonetheless. I decided I wanted to add one or two panel lines, something else I've never attempted. I’m not sure quite how far I’ll go with them yet but for now have added a few around the exhaust, the trim tabs on the rudder and elevators and the flaps on the wings. There’s more still to do on the fuselage. Initially I planned on using some water based ink art pens I had since there was a good range of colours to be had but found they didn't mark that well and smudged all too easily so ended up using a black ultrafine Sharpie instead. Before finishing the fuselage and whilst the weather was good and warm I chose to spray a gloss finish over everything else instead. I am using Plastikote clear gloss and will probably break into a third can by the time I’m done. So here we now have a little SHINY kit of parts, all now ready for assembly All that remains for me now is to finish detailing and then glossing the fuselage and I’ll then be able to put it all together, if all goes to plan I reckon I should have a finished plane by the end of the month.

Flair legionnaire

My latest maiden, or that should be remaiden as this one had a few. The second MB5 in my fleet, brought from a chap in west London late 90’s, he was part of a club who made a their own fuselage moulds & foam wings for the MB5. This was one of a few models they produced in the 80’s ish, and had been stored in his loft for a good number of years after he’d finished flying it. I converted it from the OS40 to electric soon after, but that maiden didn’t go well (very aft CG!), and the remains lived in my loft until this winter. This time I had to first repair all the damage I’d done before making a better job of the electric conversion. After recalculating, measuring and checking the CG several times, I can report the last maiden went a lot smoother. Overall very pleased with how it flys even if it’s taken me over 20 years!

Jaydeez an genulmen, I give you... ...Dusty Crophopper. My 2 year old Grandson has taken a huge liking to the Planes movie. If you haven't seen it, it's really rather good and the aircraft are well represented. To stoke his interest, I've built a flying version that if we ever get some decent weather, he'll be able to see in the air. My usual B&Q laminate flooring insulation depron construction. Glass cloth/ B&Q water based varnish covered and painted with sprayed emulsion. The orange in Valspar matchpot, and a story in itself. I had a picture on my phone, but of course you can't match to a phone image, so I grabbed a B&Q bucket. This was too translucnt, so the match was dark, so we scanned the B&Q apron of the young lady operating the machine! Span is 47", 3536 1200 motor and will use 3S 1500 packs. Weight is just a touch over 2 pounds ready to go. I think it might qualify as a scale model... Graham

Years of reading model mags and huge amounts of balsa dust, Glue fumes and paint fumes have had a negative impact on my resistance levels and ability to think clearly at times. I have just paid for a new airframe that I will only get in a months time when My son is on holiday in Durban. It was built by a very well known and respected South African modeller so I could not help myself as it has been on my must build list for 20 years!

"Spin" The BMFA says quite openly these are difficult times, the numbers re membership are there, the various changes we are fighting against are there. Updates on the NFC and how it's being used and who pays for it is there, the proposed increase of £3 pound is there and the fact that the floor voted it up to £5 is there, and here's where I suspect the "Spin" comment comes from, the BMFA are actively saying collectively that the changes to come we can deal with and survive as an entity, what other position or comments would any sane person expect them to be saying ? We are doomed ? Also there's comment on the various social media containing a constant negative attitude from some, which they feel is damaging to our own wellbeing, I agree with that view. Only thing these people will achieve, is a reduction in our numbers. Article on the Drone photography, I like, here's a positive article someone took the trouble to set in motion and produce, exactly the kind of thing we need. Moaning is easy, dealing with difficult issues takes work.

My new Antares is waiting for some decent weather to make its debut. It's a replacement for the brown tissue attic-find thar I'd been flying for quite a while until the ancient balsa cement gave way in flight. Anyway, here's the new one, all resplendent white, grey and pink film. Span is 54" and weighs near 5lb, so it'll need to hustle to stay in the air. There's a 700 watt, 4S power train, turning a 10x6 prop - all pinched from original Antares, so that should be ample for some big aeros. An added detail is the milled ali motor/noseleg mount. Fingers crossed.......

. . . (Yes, I know it's an aeroplane.)

Leeccy wrote: "anyone who covers a funfighter in glossy film in a completely hideous colour scheme, without paying even the slightest attention to what it is, should be subject to a drumhead court martial, have their covering iron broken over the officer's knee and be ceremonially drummed out of the Brownies." I'd better go into hiding straightaway then! 😀

It really really isn't. The CAA have been given a task by Government to enable BVLOS drone operations, there fore they are making proposals to integrate them into the airspace, which happens to be in the bit we are going to have to share with them. If it was a CAA aim (or Govt) we would be out of the airspace. It really is that simple. Our challenge, and I don't just mean the BMFA’s I mean the BMFA/LMA etc and all of us as individuals is to do all we can to ensure whatever proposals are implemented are proportional and pragmatic so we can carry on our activities with as little impact as possible.

Strewth, what a lot of whingers. The BMFA does great work for the sport/hobby. . It's a thankless task, and their main problem is they don't shout about it. So every year we get the same old whingers complaining about a derisory increase in the subscription. Some folk really need to get a grip on reality. If people aren't prepared to pay the paltry subscription to support the National body, then they are in the wrong hobby.

I forgot to share a picture of the “Flat Gnat” after it was painted. I went for a cartoonish version of an RAF training scheme on the full size gnats. Given the simplicity of the model it worked out well and it’s now much easier to see in flight, which is useful as it’s surprisingly quick!

I had my Maiden flight today with my latest depron and foamboard model 65" span weight 6.5lb ready to fly, no problems apart from my fingers freezing in the cold N E wind second flight 4.5 minutes 71% left in the battery. Must be my age but I did not feel like hanging around in the cold so pleased with the result I went home some hit soup.

Topical

My mate Bill’s wife sighed & tearfully said, "Why can’t you treat me like you did when we were courting?" So Bill took her to the cinema, on for a lovely meal, kissed her goodnight, then dropped her off at her parents.

Foam board and depron Sunderland now painted after Maiden flight, hoping for good weather for Tomorrow, this weekend has been a washout up here.