Tim A

Bill 60 watts should be sufficient, although I use a125watt iron that's years old, the secret is to plug another XT60 into the one your soldering to act as a heat sink. Not one attached to a battery either - Boom! You need an iron that will melt solder quickly holding it on the connector too long trying to get enough heat in will melt the plastic before the you have a good solder joint though.

Tony didn't I see a list of your other projects in the Hurricane thread? Or have they been bumped?

Unless you had a catastrophic airframe failure due to motor/fan failure you would still have control of flight surfaces from power supllied by the ESC's UBEC. i would only bother fitting a seperate UBEC if you fitted retracts.

Hi Roger, Motor used Turnigy L2855 2300kv 450watt, ESC Turnigy Plush 60amp, Servos Turnigy XDG-9 micro. All from HK. Linkages as supplied in in kit. Servos are cheap and work well HXT-900's would fit but have had problems with them in other A/c - jittering & uncommanded movement.

I have actually got two HK vmapires the first one I got is the arf with retracts, have flown it with three batteries all 4s. A 2200Mah, 3800Mah & 4000Mah and as Bill B say's there's actually very little if any gain using the larger batteries, the added weight overcomes any real benefit in speed or flight times, plus take off from grass is marginal and you use up any gain in getting off. All three batteries have a flight time of only 6 mins. That's being conservative on the throttle - it does glide well! The second one was the basic kit. I added a CS 10 blade fan, 2300kv motor and 60 amp plush ESC. Easy to fit a fan in as the fuse comes in 2 halves split horizontally. No retracts, easy hand launch, (As long as the throwee doesn't chuck into the ground - Chris K). I only got the second because our club's El Presidente and I got into a competition over who could make theirs sound the best. Although a bit faster and better sound again it flew best on the 2200Mah battery. Flight times only slightly longer than the retract model. It tends to prove the theory that airframes have a max speed that to overcome would require a condsiderable increase in thrust. We have four HK vampres in the club and those with retracts we belly land to save the retracts. As for fan balance both mine are fine, they do seem to have a resonance about 1/3 throttle.

Has any one tried out the sound system by MrRCSound? Looks like it offers good value & low weight.**LINK** UK reseller is R/C airplane world. It always astounds me how much you guy's in the UK get clobbered for frieght costs, duty, taxes etc. We must be lucky here in NZ as all we pay is the actual cost incl. frieght up to NZ$399, and usually customs don't bother much if it is over that for toy's & hobbies. More interested in catching Dope smugglers & money laundering.

Sorry Bob my fault left out the squiggle! Try this. **LINK**

Try this website Robert, heaps of info here on almost anything, Alan Tong is probably the web guru for Hitec. **LINK**

Now I know why there's a world wide shortage of Balsa. It's all going to the Tony Bennett Ministry of Aircraft Production.

Balsa for me thanks

"Barack Obama & David Cameron are both left handed rulers" That's strange I thought one was a President the other a Prime Minister? Pat. And if thats the case is a democratic ruler metric or imperial?

Kevin, does it follow then that when I crash (it happens) I hit the sky not the ground?

I can't see anyone in Antartica so I guess that makes me the furthest South!! Kiwikanfli when the blizzards stop.

It's true those early explorers that went off to prove the earth wasn't flat and never returned had unknowily crossed the Equator and all their ships fell apart when the bolts fell out! her downunder we had to invent LH lock washers to stop our wings falling off! Now where did I put my LH scewdriver?

Sorry VC I am not part of the Tony Bennett Ministry of Model Aircraft production probably take 4-5 years before completion. No apart from blowing the flying budget space is at a premium, thought about asking my wife to park her car on the street instead of in the garage so I could expand the hanger space but self preservation set in before I made possibly a fatal mistake.

I have been in touch with Tony to see what the cost would be in shipping Plan, Vac parts & CNC pack to NZ. Unfortunately the quote came back at 150.00 pounds, nearly $300 NZ which obviously makes it totally prohibitive. Also asked about getting the CNC cutting done here downunder but his main concern is not with royalties, but having no control over quality. I can certainly understand this and respect his view. However I have researched another method of shipment which has an approximate price of NZ $50.50 (to within $5.00) and is controlled from NZ, so this looks like the way to go. 1/6th the UK price!! Now I have to decide to go for the P51-B or Tony's 62" Hurricane ( I lean more towards British A/c) Ahh too many choices. Tim aka kiwikanfli

Great film, disappointed to find my Scaletrix Le Mans set I had as a child was nothing like the real thing, but I didn't now that at the time! Thanks Martin

White heatshrink, slide it on, shrink it, Bingo. Kiwikanfli.

Funnily enough was having trouble with orientation last week now that I have started gliding and tried a friends pair of Rapid eyeware sunnies what a difference, so now have a pair of their Elevate glasses (3 interchangable lenses) on order. Looked at their ones with flip up lenses for wearing over prescription glasses ( I wear glasses for reading now!!) but couldn't bring myself to go to that extreme - probably would have been more sensible but don't need to look at the transmitter when gliding for battery voltage telemetry. Hopefully NZ$86.90 well spent, might save a plane as I lost it briefly yesterday at a reasonable height.

Three cheers for you Pete, I thought I was the only one and to embarrassed to say so. Both manuals I have (DX6i & Hitec Aurora 9) seem to take it for granted that you know what & why - try setting up flaps using ailerons on the DX6i I could get one or the other but not both. After several nights I figured out you have to do it in a certain order ie flaps then ailerons, no mention of that in the book - ARRRGH. As for Aurora it says you can set up several flight modes this way but one mode may affect another - how ? why? when? -ARRRGH Again. As for offset according to Wikipedia one meaning is Offset (geometry), the shape driven out from an original shape in equal distance and direction, normally or perpendicularly to the original shape. Oh that really clears that up - NOT. Someone with more brains than me not too many mind KISS applies here, should/could write a series in RCME covering this call it Computer Flying for Dummies. Kiwikanfli mixed up & offset

Good newa here in NZ the days are now going to get longer, the bad news is we are in the grips of the worst winter storm for ages. Our flying field is now under 3 to 4 feet of water mixed with cow muck! Before After

Hi Keith, Yes it can be a bit frustrating, I need a magnifying glass to see what plugs into what on the SS. Anyway D (data) on SS into Data port on RX, P (power) into spare channel on RX, R1/R2 = Rpm sensors, G = GPS sensor, C = Current sensor, V = volt sensor, T1/T2/T3/T4 = temp sensors. I used batt/ch7 on Optima 7 for power. The manual for HSS can be found at www.hitecrcd.com/support/manuals/telemetry Unfortunately the manuals are probably Hitecs biggest weakness and can be confusing because although most? info is there it isn't laid out in the most logical way. More info/tips can be found by the Guru of Hitec systems at Alan's Hobby, Model & RC FAQS. There is a plethora of all sorts of info there - in fact you could get lost in there for several days!! Sorry if this looks rammed together but I am having trouble formatting. Let me know if you have success or not.

Keith, telemetry screens will only show when the Aurora TX sees feedback from the sensor station, ie you must have the system setup in the A/c with an Optima 7 or 9 bound, and powered up. Once this is done cockpit & EZview will become live.