Peter Jenkins

Cold kills batteries. Below 10 C they start to lose performance. At 0 C forget it! Yes, IC don't get so badly affected but they are more reluctant to start and usually need the low and high speed needles a gently tweak if last flown in the summer. Fuel on fingers also accentuates the cold! I do fly IC still and enjoy doing so but on a freezing day, provided your flight pack is warm to the touch, it's just plug in and away you go - and you can do that while wearing gloves.

Hi Toto Nothing special I'm afraid. I bought it when I picked up the first brand new car I had bought, a Saab 9-5 Estate, and it was branded Saab back in 2001. It has a cold and hot switch. No other controls. I find that 30 mins heating is sufficent to warm up the packs - it holds 12x5S packs - I use two plugged in series to give a 10S 5000 mAh flight pack. There is enough room for an A5 size plastic box to hold various bits and bobs useful for electric flight. Provided I just open the box to remove and replace packs - used packs heat helps to top up the heat input - the packs stay warm to the touch for about 4-5 hours with OAT as low as 0C.

Well said Andy. I think some people who have posted are getting too carried away with some deep state conspiracy theories. From my time working both inside and outside central government, the cock up theory is almost always the correct one. You have to get a lot of different people and departments lined up to achieve such dastardly aims and, sadly, even during a major pandemic, it is clear that our machinery of government is very far from being the Rolls-Royce machine we'd like to think we have.

I have a pair of Zippo Hand Warmers. They are magic and can last up to 12 hours but I usually only half fill them as 6 hrs is quite enough.

I happened to have a picnic box with heating and cooling options. Found the heating option works well. My version only works off 12 v as it's designed for cars but you can get mains/12 v versions now. I plug it into the car 12v socket and drive to the field ~ 25 mins. The packs (10 × 5S packs used in pairs) are warm to the hand. Provided you keep the lid closed the packs won't drop below ~20C for about 5 hours.

Wow! Respect!

You would think so but wait till you want to fly an axial roll! With Mode 1, you apply aileron with the right stick and leave that stick alone, while the left stick is used to blend rudder and elevator round the roll. With Mode 2, you have to hold the aileron application steady (unless you are using full stick with low rate on aileron) then use the elevator while the left stick has to blend in rudder with the elevator movement. Many's the time that I considered re-training myself to fly Mode 1! So, don't think Mode 1 has no use!

Tell Ken to try harder to remember the schedule! 🤣 One of the problems with using a caller who is unfamiliar with the schedule is that they tend to call the next manoeuvre when you are still thrashing round the current one! Unless it's my mate who files the same schedule I just try hard to remember what comes next. I "fly" the schedule with my stick plane till I can remember it. Then in the real world, I tend to forget what happens after the 6th or 7th one! All good fun!

Made a snap decision to go out for 2 hrs after lunch to my 2nd flying site. Got in 3 flights of my new aerobatic schedule. Managed to remember all the manouevres (there are 17) and was pleased with my progress. The flight packs were charged but unused following the fog on Weds morning. No one else flying, surprisingly as conditions were superb -.mind you I was wearing my one piece Dickies overall and my furlined hat that buckesl under the chin! No problem with the cold as a result!

Just in csse you think the CAA has it in for us, they have published this public consultation on 29 Nov requiring responses by 22 Dec for public civil and military air displays - https://consultations.caa.co.uk/ga/copy-of-cap403-2023/?mc_cid=764d7a82d2&mc_eid=0960923b60 Interestingly, model aircraft are covered but as part of full size displays.

Love that sunset photo.

I rather suspect that you've never read and understood the Article 16 details. Even the simplified version makes all this clear.

Not airworthy in my opinion. I certainly wouldn't fly a model with the servos flapping around in it. Who knows when the whole lot could break away.

What?

Both videos are out of focus. I think you have the camera too close for the available focus power. You should not be having any movement of the servo mounting plate. Looks like the mount is not sound. You will not want to fly with the servos moving as they do as the flying controls will feel very spongy.

I don't know of anyone who flies F3A competitively that doesn't use expo. The main reason is to allow small control movements around neutral such that no one notices except the pilot and even they might not actually "see" the change but it affects the shape of the manoeuvre being flown or the straight line to be maintained in a cross wind. Rudder, in particularly, has expo applied as you need a balance between small movements to allow minute control corrections to be made as well as having a good movement for stall turns. I have to say that I use stick position switches to give me more movement of the rudder in stall turns. My start point for ailerons and elevators is 10 deg each way and then I use around 20% expo. I alter that to suit in the light of flying the aircraft. The rudder I generally set to 25 deg each way with 30% expo and the aforementioned stick position switch to kick in extra rudder at full rudder stick deflection.

Go and form your own unaffiliated club then. Simples.

Your problem is you can't be bothered to research the lead up to the acquisition of the Buckminster lease. If you joined after the Buckminster lease was agreed then research it. If you were a member before and during the acquisitoon process you would have known that an acquisition was considered but eventually ruled unaffordable. The Buckminster lease was agreed at 35 years with regular breakpoints. You would also have known that a fund was set up and many people gave generously to the Buckminster fund as it was agreed that no BMFA subscription income was to be used. Our insurers also agrred to provide sponsorship. Those are the headlines as far as I can remember then. Now be a good chap find out the details by asking for the minutes of the EGM and the subsequent fund that was set up. When you've taken the trouble to do that have the grace to apologise for your ill informed comments.

Good work Adrian. This is where an adjustable incidence comes in as you could set both wings to the same incidence. I have found that my Robart gauge reads slightly differently when its rotated to face outwards on both wings. Having it face inwards makes it difficult to read so I resorted to photographing the readings using my phone. Turned out to be the same incidence on both wings! Worth a try to see if the machined slot in the bar is outside tolerance before making any other adjustments.

No, the LMA was never in the frame for being hosted at Buckminster when the original decision to lease Buckminster was taken.

Indeed! Sorry, thought I'd read it somewhere but just cannot find where it was posted. I'm happy to admit I am wrong on this.

This was all covered at the EGM years ago where the decision to go ahead with the Buckminster lease was taken. You could look up the minutes of that meeting and I'm sure the BMFA would be happy to provide you with a copy if you asked.

Did you see that the LMA is now going to come under the BMFA and LMA members will need to pay for BMFA membership as well as the LMA is no longer going to provide insurance. So, you might want to just carry on being a BMFA member. The increase is nothing to do with Buckminster. It is to do with the reducing membership but having not taken the necessary steps to manage the costs of the BMFA down. I understand that we are now down to around 28,000 members and there are many other calls on the BMFA subs. I do wish you would take the time to ask your Club representatives what the situation is before transmitting a lot of misinformation on this forum. The BMFA website gives this information and someone has already posted on that. If you think that the work the BMFA has led on to get us to Article 16 exemptions and in helping to guide the CAA away from some of the wilder ideas that have been tabled then clearly you do not value the fact that you have been able to continue flying your model with virtually no difference whereas it could have been much worse. That requires a lot of travel to meetings in both Europe and into London (usually) and some of these meetings are multi-day events. So you think that £12 will make a difference to your hobby over the year? I suspect when you tot up all that you spend on it then the extra, which I thought was £5 actually, is going to make any difference then I would be mightily surprised.

Where I have twin aileron servos in a wing, I now use the Ashlock connectors, now called Maxlock and available from 4 Max with a twin plug. Impossible to get the connection wrong as the plugs only fit one way and have an inbuilt locking mechanism making colour coding redundant. Very quick way to connect up twin ailerons. They also do a 4 way connector so you can have twin ailerons and twin flap connectors connected and locked with one action. I think they are great but you do need to be able to crimp reliably as the plugs are longer than standard.

I'm surprised your throw meter weight affects the control surface resting position. Mine doesn't I have to say. I should have said the markings on my throw meter are in degrees, so the meter is showing 4.5 degrees of up elevator in this case. Interestingly, this is my Wot 4 and with that total movement, both ways, I can fly the full fixed wing B test, apart from the spin. The loop and bunt are a bit bigger of course!