David Davis

You may read the Telegraph's obituary at www.rcgroups.com in the Vintage and Old Timer section.

Our club trainer is powered by an ASP 46, or SC46, same thing so I'm told. It now needs new bearings.   None of my Irvines have ever required them.

Captain   What you require is Solarlac thinners.

If you do all of the above I'm sure you'll sort your problem out. OS make excellent engines.   I pride myself at being pretty good at setting up engines but we had a situation at the field last month which was really baffling. An OS 46 AX was reluctant to start and when it did, it would not run consistently. We tried everything: altering the needle settings, repositioning the tank, changing the plug etc etc. It was only when we drained the tank and used somebody else's fuel that the engine ran properly.

I usually recommend that beginners replace their nose legs with a fixed one until they have learned to fly. They're far less trouble. 

Well there's always JD McHard's free flight version which you could modify. Being only 41 inches in the span it would be much smaller it wouldn't take so long to finish, wouldn't cost too much and would take up less space. My Hobby Store FSP 721. 

Last weekend I took the OS 61FS out of my 8 foot Senior Telemaster ARTF, the same one as I am holding in my avatar, and substituted a 1400 watt electric motor, 70 watt ESC and 6 S Lipo. The old OS just flew the model but take-offs were a bit like the Spirit of St Louis   The STM had flown on the electric set-up before so I was pretty confident of success, so having armed the motor and carried the model to the runway, I advanced the throttle. She took off beautifully like all good Telemasters do and I turned her left then right out across a ploughed field and into a right-hand circuit. I suppose she was at about 100 feet in height and at least 200 yards away when she suddenly dropped her nose and headed for the ground! Oh no and the RCM&E Birthday party only weeks away   Fortunately I worked out what had gone wrong, I pulled up the transmitter aerial and regained control. Having got to this stage I extended it fully and the rest of the flight was uneventful. I suppose you could say that I had given it an "in-flight range test."   This would not have been too bad if I hadn't done exactly the same with a T240 several years ago. In that case however, the model had only just taken off before it crashed. The old T240 still awaits my attention.   That's the trouble when you own both FM and 2.4 equipment.   Think SMART.   Happy Landings.

I have a plan by Roy Scott of a BE2e. 84" wingspan. It's featured in the latest Flying Scale Models but I bought mine ages ago. It costs £19.50 from FSM plus £5 p&p. I'm sure a laser cutter like SLEC would cut out the wing ribs and formers if you didn't fancy doing it yourself, then you'd only have to buy the strip wood and you've got a kit!   The Traplet plan is a 1/6th scale BE2c by David Hurrell. It's just over 6 feet  in the wingspan. Code MW2907.   Alternatively there was a 55" rubber powered BE2c published in the Aeromodeller years ago, code FSR 215. My Hobby Store or the X List of plans should be able to get one for you and you could use it as a basis for an R/C model. I knew an old boy in Devon who built one and converted it for RTE powered by an ED Hunter, he'd done a lovely job of it but I never saw it fly unfortunately.Edited By David Davis Telemaster Sales UK on 09/06/2010 16:22:57

I think my charger stops charging once the batteries are full but I'm not sure as I find the technicalities associated with electric flight to be a crushing bore!   To be on the safe side I charge my LiPos on the concrete floor of my shed.

I am planning to fit the elevatoer and rudder servos in the rear of my Barn Door Telemaster. With an FM system the convention was to fit ferrite rings in the servo lead extensions.   Is this necessary with a 2.4 Ghz receiver.

    D-20 This is the state of the build; the elevator servo is mounted on a ply plate backed by balsa and ply to allow the screws something to bite on; the rudder servo will be screwed to two spruce strips across the bottom of the rear fuselage.   I have "engineered" a solution to the wobbly Laser 90 silencer which I feel should work and if the tail plane looks a little second hand, that's because it has been recycled from my first Senior Telemaster. 

No they are grub screws Tony.   If you visit the Laser website, go to "history" and have a look at the picture of their Laser 61, you'll see them each side of the inlet manifold.

D-25   Got the Laser running in the back garden last night, and it went beautifully. Unfortunately at least one of the previous owners was lacking in mechanical sympathy and only one of the four grub screws which hold the inlet manifold and the exhaust in place still survives. Two of the other three have been replaced with cheese headed set screws of the correct thread; these look awful but perform their function. The other grub screw has sheered off in the head. As a consequence, the exhaust jiggles about while the engine is running.   I have three options:   1. Bodge the exhaust into place using Liquid Metal.   2. Buy a replacement head for the Laser assuming they still stock one for an engine which has been out of production for so long.   3. Fit a different engine. The candidates are: Laser 70, OS 70 and Thunder Tiger 91.   Today's target is to build the starboard flap and aileron, fit servos to the rear of the model and to fit the undercarriage.   I also intend to take a few pictures.  

I always try to teach beginners to fly rectangular circuits because:         (a) it's required for the A Certificate.       (b) it helps line the model up for that most difficult of manoeuvres, the landing.   So I always try to get the beginner to level the wings after each turn. Turn, level wings, ....turn, level wings. Like anything else it's easy once you've practised it a bit and it makes for much more accurate flying.

  Barn Door Telemaster Build.   Introduction   Years ago I went to an old boy’s house to buy a plan. Suspended above the rafters of his garage were the damaged wings of a Senior Telemaster, an eight-foot (2.4 metre) wingspan high wing monoplane, He also had the tailplane and forward part of the fuselage but the fuselage from the trailing edge of the wing to the tail plane was missing. I bought some deal strip from a local hardware store, built a fuselage on the back of what remained, repaired the wing and covered it in yellow vintage Solartex, fitted a second-hand Merco 61 and flew it for years until it “went in” with “radio failure.” I’d probably not charged the receiver battery enough.   I had always been impressed by the Telemaster’s flying characteristics having gained my A Certificate on the 66 inch version (168cms), so in 2008 I set up Telemaster Sales UK, to import the Telemaster range into the UK. Profit? What profit?     A Brief Bit of History   The Telemaster was originally designed by a German, Karl-Heinz Denzin. It was initially marketed by Alexander Engel and first flew in 1961 or 1963 depending upon whose story you believe. At some stage, probably in the 1970s, the manufacturing rights were sold to the American company Hobby-Lobby which retained Joe Bridi to modify the design. The original wing featured two pairs of balsa spars tied together with 1/8th sheet webbing, thereby producing an I spar and inset, so-called “Barn Door” ailerons, similar to those found on real aeroplanes. The Bridi wing features a single pair of spruce spars and strip ailerons. It also featured a steerable tailwheel.     My Barn Door Telemaster   My old Telemaster featured the original German wing so I got a club-mate who is good with CAD to draw up a set of plans based upon the wreckage of my old wing. I have substituted spruce for the balsa wing spars and have built flaps onto the false trailing edge. I got SLEC to laser cut the wing ribs and plan to feature bolt-on wings and tail and a glider tow release. I also plan to fit an inverted Laser 90 which I bought second-hand and have never even run yet. I hope to have it ready by 26th June so that it could fly at the Fiftieth Anniversary Fly-in of RCM&E.   It is now 1st June, the structure is substantially built but that’s about it. Looks like I have 26 days to get it ready minus time off for a full-time job, my sister’s 60th birthday and a family wedding. Wish me luck!    

Phil Smith, the designer of many of the Veron range of model aircraft, died on Sunday 23rd May according to the SAM 1066 and R/C Groups websites.   Such a sad loss so soon after the death of David Boddington.   I never met him in person but spoke to him on the telephone and bought the plan of the Monocoupe 90A from him which flew well, powered by a PAW 19 diesel, until a strut failed. My fault. One day perhaps I'll rebuild it.   In these ARTF days, we truely will not see his like again.  

I've got their Stampe Monitor amongst my unstarted kit pile. One day...

The next batch of 6ft and 8ft Telemaster builder's kits, the Senior Telemaster and the Telemaster 40, will be sold without the substantial aluminium undercarriage (landing gear in American parlance,) which are such a feature of these kits. Hobby Lobby will reduce the retail cost of each kit by $15 to compensate.   I know that caron fibre undercarriages are available from companies such as Carbon Copy but does anyone know of a source of aluminium or dural underarriages which would suit?   For those interested in purchasing one of these kits, I still have stocks of both models complete with the aluminium landing gear.    

Welcome to the hobby and to the forum Bill.   AS others have said, Pegasus Models produce a range of very interesting  American kits. The Sig range are particularly worth looking at. You don't specify an engine/motor size but you could consider the Four Star 40/60/120 series, the Astro Hog if you want a traditional low-winger or the Citabria which is an aerobatic high winged scale monoplane.   You can still buy a WOT4 kit or an Acrowot kit from Chris Foss. We have indeed come to a pretty pass when the WOT 4 builder's kit is more expensive than the ARTF but that's where we have got to! Both of these are very strong models and a delight to fly.   You will need to convert all of these to electric power. A set-up producing 100 watts per lb should be adequate.   Chris Foss has details of converting the WOT 4 to electric power on his website.        

Take it back to the shop and trade it in for something bigger or keep it for a Senior Telemaster which I will willingly sell you!Edited By David Davis Telemaster Sales UK on 16/05/2010 07:20:54