Tony Read 2

Watched the 'Fireflash' episode last night - awesome! Derek Meddings was the master of his profession.

Posted by Jon Harper on 20/04/2015 16:00:59: Todays piece of useless trivia is that all thunderbirds used in filming were jetex powered. that's how they got the nice rocket effects! Are you sure Jon? Does not look like any Jetex motor exhaust I ever had. I thought they used small fireworks??? Something in the back of my mind tells me they used CO2 canisters turned upside down to get the engine blast effect used for the Space 1999 Eagles.

I'm glad that the new TB's are just tweeks of the 1960's originals, with nods to modern tech, unlike the horrible film that was recently made. The pace is a lot faster than the original, which is what the 'youth of today' demand I suppose. I do find the music is drowning out the engine noises of the various craft. TB 2 takes off with a bit of a whimper, rather than the 'rocket blast' of the original. Gerry had the knack of making his models sound just right. I've just ordered the original TB's box set. Happy days!

Not sure what you mean about cutting things up. Mine plugged into one of the set of pins just inside the rear of the quad. I could not control the tilt of the cheap gimbal on the QX2 so ended up getting the Eflite GB200 gimbal, only to find that I needed a seperate receiver to control it! The QX3 is different in this respect. You will need to make a bracket to fit anything other than an Eflite gimbal. Mine was made of bent aluminimum bolted to the bottom of the quad. It was in 2 parts so that it could be quickly unscrewed to remove the gimbal. I still have it if you want to copy it.

I did a bit of reading up and it would seem that due to the way the alternator produces AC the shape of the sine wave should be reasonable, but the frequency might be all over the place???? Honestly I have no idea about electronics. If I do run my pump off the genny will the 'noise' damage it?

In reality the three screws will hold it - but any appropriate size of self tapper will do for the fourth. If you get stuck I might still have my screws. My cheapo gimbal was held on with 2x4mm cap heads and was fine. The standard grey plastic mount has its limitations, you may find yourself stumping up for a gimbal if/once you get hooked.

Hi Phil, I run my genny up in my barn, I plug it direct into the ring main, but always dissconnect from the grid first. I will fit a proper switch/connector in the fullness of time. Onetenor - I'm not sure that its the bearings, I adjusted the speed of the pump and it still squealed. I think its electronic noise. How can I convert my generator to a 'pure sine wave' generator? Edited By Tony Read 2 on 15/04/2015 13:52:35

Thanks Simon, Is there anything I can add to my setup that will help with this problem?

Its a beaut! And you can get a turbo diesel engine version!

Reckon so David! Thanks for finding it. It sounded great BTW.

Really beautiful, and so was the act. Wonder if she could make my bank balance?

A civilian twin engine aircraft flew over at the weekend. It reminded me of a Westland Whirlwind. I did not have my glasses on, but it appeared to have vertical wing tips. any ideas what it might have been?

A few weeks ago we had the strong winds and consequently went off grid for a day. I fired up my trusty Generac 4KVA generator and had more than enough power to run the fridge and freezer as well as making the odd cup of tea. I thought I would try the central heating and the oil fired boiler cut in and worked as normal, but the central heating pump had a certain 'squeal' to it. The pump was working as normal, and was not stalled, so I assumed this was some electronic generated noise caused by the generator. The squeal disappeared as soon as I was back on the grid. Any idea as to what this noise might be?

I could be wrong here, but I believe the Blade relies on GPS lock to maintain height, so it will fix its height relative to where it took off. This means it will not follow the contours of a hill, but fly straight and level.

I don't have a V3, but I understand that in some flight modes the throttle acts about the centre point, so that above centre it climbs, and below centre it descends (this might be AP mode). This does not fully explain your quads behaviour though. What mode were you flying in and did you have good GPS lock? Might be worth re-calibrating everything and if that does not work contact Horizon Hobby.

Unless you have a particular reason for hovering in one place for extended periods of time it does make for a rather boring video, better to move to different view points. I have a 350qx v2 and have found that maintaining height is not an issue for me for the filming periods I need. If you want it locked in then the Phantom does a better job, but I would expect the 350qx v3 to be just as good as the Phantom in this respect. The v3 is everything the v1 should have been. There are lots of aticles on the www concerning building a quad. Its not as difficult as you might think. The tricky bit is setting up the flight controller, but some are a lot simpler than others. It all depends on how much fiddling about you want to do.

There are also a few listed on 'evilbay'. Just checked and there is a nice Blade 350 QX3 for not a lot of money and looks to be in good nick. Needs a gimbal fitted if you want to use it for filming, however some people have had success in using a fixed camera with software to stabilise the image, similar to the Parrot Bebop.

Have a look on the classifieds section - there is/was a f450 there which would be right up your street. Has extended landing legs too, essential for a gimbal.

You can order a 'real' one!

Great vid! He should have washed those sarnies down with a nice mug of tea!

I haven't used CAD for ages, but the way I looked at it was that you were drawing full size on the computer, so a line defined at 50mm long on the PC really was 50mm long. It was only when you came to printing that scaling up or down came into play. Of course you can zoom in or out on the screen, much like you can zoom in or out on a subject with a camera, but the thing you are designing will always be the same 'virtual' size. I found using CAD quite time consuming until I started to find and use the short cuts and then things got much simpler and faster.

Going 'darn sarf' a bit I remember being taken to a large show somewhere in the Bedfordshire area in the late 70's, early 80's. It wasn't Old Warden. Where could it have been? I remember going past Duxford, then seeing the Cardington airship hangers. I then seem to remember being told that we were near a SOE type airfield, but that's about all, apart from my first sight (and sound) of a pulse jet. Sooooo loud!

Wow, very, very nice, and its in stock! Unlike the Lancaster of course.

Got a spare £840? You too could build the 'Sky Rider Drone' for only £840. Its in the 350 class and has a built in 720p camera and GPS. I belive it comes with a 'free' Tx. In my mind you can already get so much more for less money, let alone in 12/24 months, depending on how long you choose to pay. How many of these do they expect to sell I wonder??? Will they cover good flying etiquette and the legal side of things? Hope so!

This is the chap that recently sold his Spanish 109's from the BOB film. Interesting comparison between the 109/P51/Spit at around 4.20.