Fylingdales Flyer

Chris, have you looked at the Whitby club, 20 miles north of Scarborough. It's on the BMFA club finder or Just google Whitby Model Flying Club. Just don't confuse it for the one in Canada! The flying field is at Goldsborough, just north of Whitby, mostly fixed wing, it's small and friendly. As for model shops, a new one has opened recently in Whitby. It's called G Force R/C and seems to be a fully stocked, old fashioned model shop-kits, balsa, fuel etc. It's got loads of stock. Only open on Thursdays , Fridays and Saturdays at present and is situated on Upgang lane, part of the 'Parade'. Graham

Thanks for the reply Gangster, plastic clevis don’t fill me with confidence as well. If they are similar in size to the Sullivan ones, then they are probably American and not metric. I’ll just order the smaller size an see if they fit. I may end up buying and trying all the nearby sizes yet, but thanks for your help anyway. Graham

I have an ancient Arising Star which I have recently resurrected. The plastic clevis on the outer end of the rudder and elevator pushrods have deteriorated and pulled off. Can anyone tell me what thread the pushrods are as 2mm won't screw on and 3mm are too big? Are they 2.5mm or one of those strange American sizes? I would just like to know the size to save me from having to buy all the likely sizes. Graham

Thank you Piers. Now that I have seen the plan again I can remember why I was unhappy with the T.E. It was a single skin, over which the end of the ribs extended. I cut down the ribs, and added an upper T.E skin with a vertical shear web between each rib, forming a triangular section. I don't think that much weight was added, but it certainly is stronger and supports the covering better. I'll add some photographs when I fetch it from the loft to make some progress, hopefully soon. Graham

I have been building a Great Planes Slowpoke Sport 40 from a kit, but it's not finished yet. It's covered, with Solartex, but needs the radio and engine fitted. There has been a delay, as I originally built it to take my HP61VT engine, but, as I have recently gravitated towards electric power I have an Axi 4120/14 motor and Jeti 70 Amp ESC to fit. I don't think that it actually needs a 'perfect CG' but I understand that they have a tendency to turn out nose heavy. I have tried to keep the tail light and with the weight of the batteries and motor well forward, I hope I won't need too much lead. I also have an Eagle Tree Guardian flight stabiliser to fit, which it might not need, but then I'm not a great pilot. I bought it because I liked the look of it, an ebay purchase from the USA. It was a very enjoyable build with everything slotting nicely together. The instructions are great, but some of the wood seems a little heavy. However, with it's massive wing area, this should not be an issue. There is a recognised weakness in the fuselage structure where the solid side panels join the strip structure, just aft of the wing seat. This is easily taken care of with a little doubler over the joint. I was also unhappy with the wing trailing edge, between the aileron bay and the centre section. It just looked inadequate to me, so I modified and strengthened the structure. I would have photographed these modifications and posted them, but they are under the covering now. When you see the plan, though, I think it will be obvious what is needed. It's unfortunate that Great Planes have discontinued this model. I have another discontinued Great Planes kit, waiting to be built, an Old Timer 40, which I also bought for it's looks and will build for electric power. Graham

Posted by Tom Sharp 2 on 12/11/2017 11:12:20: never mind the planes, look at the car Healey Tickford saloon. Rare then, very scarce now. Graham

Apologies for the delayed response and many thanks for the advice. Nigel, I've had no success getting the Sanwa servos to work with a Futaba receiver. The servos heated up quite alarmingly when connected and did not respond, so I think I will buy the ones suggested by Piers. Piers, thanks for the suggestion, I'll order some. The Mini Super was built from a Ben Buclkle kit, but is a tail dragger as was the original Boddington design. However, it does have the reduced dihedral of the Ben Buckle plan, about 3/4" under each wing tip, so I'm hoping it will be OK. The wing covering was damaged when something was dropped on it, so I thought I would convert to ailerons whilst re-covering it.

Having flown my electric powered Ben Buckle Mini Super only once, I have decided to convert to four channel by adding ‘barn door’ ailerons. I ordered a pair of, what I thought would be suitable, servos from Servo Shop, but inadvertently ordered micro servos instead of Mini servos. The Futaba S3114 servos that arrived yesterday seem to be very small and I don’t think that they are suitable. Anyone care to comment? I do have a pair of unused older Sanwa SM-411 Mini servos, which look about right. The plugs don’t fit the sockets on the Futaba ‘Y’ lead, but I can change to a Futaba plug. Question is, will the Sanwa servos operate OK with the Futaba receiver, given that Sanwa use a different pulse length? The wiring colours on the Sanwa servos are different i.e red,black,black. How do these match up to the Futaba black red white? Graham     Edited By BayNavigator on 22/10/2017 23:56:14 Edited By BayNavigator on 22/10/2017 23:57:35

Definitely Solartex for the Junior 60, but preferably the 'vintage' colours or Antique, to give a see through covering with the 'bones' visible. I always give mine a couple of coats of dope as well, to seal the surface and keep it clean. 'Old Geezer', plus one for the Axi on the nose. Mines a 2820/10 and pulls it off the runway in about 10 feet. Graham Edited By BayNavigator on 22/10/2017 18:15:06

Doh! I was looking at the eliptical wing and the shape of the fin and cockpit window profile. I completely missed that the fuselage was wrong. It looks like it would be an easier build than a Southerner though. Graham

They look like Southerner 60's, designed by Bill Dean in 1946 and kitted by KeilKraft. Still available as a print wood kit from Ben Buckle, it makes a good electric conversion. Mine is covered with Solartex and powered by an Axi 2820/10 with a 40 amp Jeti ESC and 3s Life battery. Graham

Just watched it pass my house in Robin Hood's Bay, plenty of spectators although the weather wasn't as good as last year. Great aerial shots of Whitby and Scarborough and the North York Moors from the helicopter. Graham

I use LiFe batteries from Component Shop Wales (google it). Excellent service and a good selection of 3s batteries. Graham

I had always been fascinated by ships and the sea,but was not attracted to military discipline, so I joined the Merchant Navy as a navigating officer cadet in 1973 at the age of 18. My cadetship, with the old cargo liner company, Ellerman City Liners was the most enjoyable time of my life and I saw much of Africa, India, North America and Australia with periods of academic study at Plymouth School of Maritime Studies in between. In 1977, just after I had qualified and obtained my Second Mates certificate, the Merchant Navy started to fall apart and companies like Ellermans started disposing of ships as fast as they could, whilst investing in other areas of business such as breweries and road transport.The british fleet reduced by 75 percent during this time. A couple of redundancies saw me working for Reardon Smith Line of Cardiff (one voyage only, then the ship was sold to the Greeks) and then Denholm Maclay on the North Atlantic ( Icebergs, pack ice and fog) for two years until, once again, we handed the ships over to the Greeks. The last six years of my seagoing career were spent on Nuclear Fuel carriers, bringing spent fuel back from Japan and sometimes Italy to France and Sellafield. Realising that i didn't relish spending the next thirty years doing this, and wanting to see my two children grow up, I came ashore and went to work for the Ministry of Defence in a completely different role. I hope to retire in the next couple of years. My only regret is that the Merchant Navy that existed up until the mid seventies disappeared so quickly. Had it continued to exist I would probably have stayed, however I wouldn't change anything. I've always lived on the beautiful North Yorkshire coast and continued my connection with the sea by saiing.

All of my Jeti ESC's work this way. Every time that you re- connect the battery, you have to move the throttle to full and then back to off before the system 'beeps' and arms. This is built in as a safety feature and is particularly useful if you use Futaba R/C as the throttle movements are the opposite of other manufacturers, and must be reversed. Graham

Danny M2Z, thanks for that. I seem to have misunderstood the information I read in Wikipedia and yes the input is often unverified. Maybe the P.S. to my post was unfortunate. However, I still prefer to use LiFe batteries after witnessing the devastation caused by a Lipo fire in our local model shop. They are just more tolerant of abuse and offer nearly the same performance as Lipos.

"How many of your local model shops have been incinerated"? Well our local Whitby Model Shop was, and the cause was a lipo fire. It's only just re-opened after three years. You could of course just use Life batteries. They have slightly lower power density than Lipos, but will withstand abuse and come in a hard case. They are readily available from Component Shop, Puffin Models and now, Hobbyking. I've used them exclusively since moving (mostly) from glowplug to electric. You do need a Life compatible charger. I use a Graupner Ultramat 14 Plus. They do not need to be balanced as often as Lipos but do benefit from an occasional balance charge. They retain their charge in storage and even the ones that I bought five years ago still perform as they always did. They have a nominal voltage of 3.3 volts, and the only downside is that they are a little heavier, for a given capacity, than lipos. P.S. Mobile phones don't use Lipo batteries, although they do use other types of Lithium battery mostly Lion. Wikipedia gives a good explanation, but your handheld electronic devices definitely do not contain soft cased Lithium-Polymer batteries. Edited By BayNavigator on 14/03/2015 11:04:11

OK, I know this is going to be controversial, and ignores the ARTF or RTF aspect of your question, but why don't you just build yourself a simple electric trainer? You've already built a Barnstormer so you must be a competent builder and a small, straightforward vintage style model will soon have you flying with basic competence. I found myself in a similar position to you, having returned to flying after a long break. I had only really flown single channel back in the late sixties and early seventies, so I needed to develop some competence with modern proportional radio. I had some nice models, ready to fly, but bearing in mind the time and emotional investment involved in building them, I was reluctant to practice on them. Lack of opportunity for instruction from my local club meant that I was doing plenty of building but not gaining any competence at flying. My son had been given a Ben Buckle Matador, built but unfinished and never flown. I decided to restore it to flying condition for him. Stripped and recovered, it was fitted with a brushless motor ( Pelikan Ray C3530/14 complete with ESC, £33.95 from Puffin) and a 3S A123 battery due to my personal dislike of Lipos. We took the aeroplane up to a nice open area of moorland and, since that first flight, we have practised extensively until we felt we were at a standard where we could turn up at our club field and fly competently and safely. I now feel ready to progress to flying some of my more sophisticated models  and, now that I have the basics mastered, fellow club members seem more willing to help. However, I came to like the little Matador so much ( it's our smallest model) with it's ability just to be put in the boot of the car and taken up to the moors for a bit of relaxing flying, that I decided that I needed a 48 inch span model of my own, so that my son and I can fly one each at the same time. Not wanting another identical model, I've just bought a Mini- Super Kit from Ben Buckle and shall have it completed in a couple of weeks. The model is similar in size to the Matador and will have the same power system. With no runway at our moorland flying site, we hand launch and land by dumping the model in the heather. So far, despite some 'interesting' arrivals and flipping onto it's back, no damage has been sustained. The Matador is covered in Supershrink Polyester Solarfilm, but will soon be re-covered in Solartex (doped) for a more vintage look as will the Mini-Super. In conclusion Nigel, all I will say is why do you need an ARTF? A Matador or Mini=Super won't take you long to put together, will withstand the rigours of learning, will be easy to repair should anything happen and will cost well under your £200 budget to get in the air. Use the present spell of bad weather to get it built and be ready for some fun flying as soon as the balmy weather comes. What's more, you will want to keep it as a nice relaxing flyer even when you are competently flying your Barnstormer. Food for thought? Graham Edited By BayNavigator on 15/01/2015 21:25:31

Complacency crept up on me when I completed my first electric model after many years of I/C. I had finished my Junior 60 and decided to test the radio installation prior to going to the flying field for the maiden flight. The aeroplane, minus wings, was sat on the kitchen table. I switched on the transmitter, then the aircraft power system. As the receiver was powered from the BEC the motor electrics were live, and the propeller fitted. I waggled the rudder, checked the movement of the elevator and then, well I'm sure you know what comes next... Yes, with the transmitter in my left hand my brain reverted to I/C mode and shoved the throttle forward! All hell broke loose as the Axi 2820/10 went to full power and the fuselage leapt off the table. Luckily I was stood to one side but unfortunately my right hand shot out instinctivly to catch it. I caught the whirling propeller which chewed my hand and right arm. I was just able, through the shock and pain, to retrieve the Tx, which I had dropped, and shut it down. The injuries, though severe enough, were not as bad as they could have been, no permanent damage, apart from scarring. The blood spatter though was spectacular, even reaching the tailplane. The incident didn't put me off electrics, in fact I have now almost completely moved over to electric flight. I am, though, very wary of 'live' electric models. I fit an arming plug in the battery leads and only use Jeti ESC's with a switch fitted. As an aside, after a Lipo accident burned down our local model shop in Whitby, I decided to use only LiFe batteries, as I do not trust myself not to become complacent with Lipos. Graham   Edited By BayNavigator on 26/10/2014 16:24:53 Edited By BayNavigator on 26/10/2014 16:25:17 Edited By BayNavigator on 26/10/2014 16:27:00

How about the biplane versions, the 58" & 72" Bi-stormers? I have an unstarted 58" version. I might just make it my next build.

One of my favourite photographs of my Daimler V8, I restored this about ten years ago. It would seem that quite a number of aeromodellers are into classic cars.   Edited By BayNavigator on 29/09/2012 16:13:45

Dope is basically cellulose dissolved in acetone. The acetone is what gives it the distinctive 'pear drops' aroma. The only suiable thinner is one suitable for cellulose based paint, as used to be available for automotive paints, although I think those have changed and I'm not sure if 'cellulose thinner' is still available from automotive suppliers. I use pure acetone, available from my local boatyard, for thinning dope. Graham

Only four and I won't be buying anymore until they are built. Ben Buckle Elf biplane Great Planes Old Timer Balsa USA Phaeton 2 biplane SIG Hog Biplane and I'm just covering a Great Planes Slowpoke Sport 40.

Here's my two Junior 60's. The one in the foreground is 42 years old and built, by me, from a KeilKraft kit. It's recently been recovered in solartex and is powered by an HP21VT. Has in the past been single channel and powered by a PAW 15 Diesel, Super Tigre G20/23 and a PAW 19BR. Sounds almost as quiet as an electric model and flies easily on half throttle, but requires a rather long take of run. The one in the background is a recent Flair ARTF Junior 60. Powered by an AXI 2828/10 with a Jeti 40 Amp ESC and 3s A123 battery. It has been problematic, in that the glue joints in the structure were poor and have had to be re glued to some extent, tailplane was completely rebuilt due to poor quality wood and warps. Now flies sucessfully but will in due course get a re-cover in semi transparent vintage Solartex for a more authentic vintage look (I like the sun to shine through the wings as the model flies overhead). It flies on quarter throttle and has a very short take off run. They are both the wide body version of the Junior 60 as supplied in the current Flair kit, the Ben Buckle kit builds the original version from 1948, which has the narrower fuselage. They are both excellent models for a relaxing flight on a calm summer evening.