leccyflyer

Forecast for the weekend looks not too bad at all - Sunday possibly a little better than Saturday.. If you already have the original Super Cub in your model memories it should just be a matter of rebinding the AR620 to the transmitter, then checking all is correct, shouldn't it?

Certainly in terms of catching criminals, as I'm sure you know, some of them are their own worst enemies and there have been prosecutions where the miscreant has proudly shared the video of their offence online. Literally caught red handed. That's what happened to the guy who flew the FPV-equipped Zagi near to a nuclear submarine base and to the guy who had a near miss with a Hurricane during a public display.

This one - plastic kit modelled at the fantastic wee museum at Herdla, Western Norway. 65 Squadron Mustang III based at RAF Peterhead and flown by W/O Cecil Claude Caesar who was shot down and killed at the Forde Fjord on Black Friday, 9th February 1945. His was the only Mustang shot down during the battle, but the Dallachy Strike Wing Beaufighters fared much worse, with eight aeroplanes and thirteen crew lost. It's the 90th anniversary in a few weeks and I'd like to take a wee trip up to RAF Dallachy to pay my respects.

Me three. 🙂 Haven't started my Warbirds Mustang yet, but that'll be a 65 Squadron Mustang III. 😎👍

Thanks John - I didn't see any obvious way of removing the water rudder, but will give it a closer look.

I've recently added the 1300mm FMS PA-18 Super Cub to the fleet, taking the place of the Wot-4 Foam-E as a winter hack. I'm impressed so far, very nice to fly, very manoeuvrable, nice big wheels to handle frozen, uneven grass and I've also invested in the floats. I'd hoped to be able to use the floats on water, snow and ice, but the design of the servo operated water rudder is such that it would be destroyed landing on anything other than water of deep snow. Best of all, as a winter hack, the 1300mm version fits in the back of the car, fully rigged. I still have to get the flap-elevator mix fine tuned as these are very effective and result in a big pitch up when deployed. My first attempts were overcompensating, resulting in a very uncomfortable pitch down, so that needs further tweaking.

Hopefully the FBI will be able to track the miscreant down and make an example of them.

Unless you get your piano wire from a known supplier - like the K&B Metals stand - there is a risk that the currently available piano wire is indeed very different to that you used in the past. It is very often brittle and can break easily if you look sideways at it,

Not really. As Eric pointed out, going to a 6s1p battery would not suit the supplied motors and props and you would need to come down to much smaller pros and be carrying lots of undesirable battery weight. Those 6s1p batteries are going to be significantly more expensive than the smaller capacity 4s1p 3300mah packs. Richard's post is spot on - he's recommended an optimised power train for the model and diverting too far from that will make things unnecessarily more complex and with reduced chances of smooth operation.

Eze tissue works very well over laminating film, applied as per the Deluxe Materials instructions. That means soaking the tissue as cut slightly oversize with thinned water:Eze Dope 95:5,, until wetted out then rolling in a ball and squeezing out the excess fluid. I like to use their tissue paste around the edges before applying the damp tissue and smoothing into place with a wetted piece of foam rubber, fingers and thumbs. Once dry a couple of coats of 70:30 water:Eze Dope to finish off.

Another braw day - that's three in a row - albeit a bit murkier, but warmer than recent bitter days and a decent turn out. Another day for pusher and prop in a slot "jets" with up to four in the air at a time. Gave a rare outing to my Hobbyking Su-35, which is the noisiest of those models that I have, but unfortunately doesn't have the space to move the slot away from the prop by even a few mm, which would make it quieter.

Most of my early printing was in PLA, as it is probably the most forgiving "plastic" to print with, at around 180 degrees C and doesn't need an enclosure for hobby printers. Almost all of the many scale pilot figures that I have printed over the past several years have been PLA and show no signs of degradation, I suppose that since they are painted that isn't a test of UV stability. I find PLA isn't the easiest to work with subsequently if any sanding or carving is needed - it doesn't cut well with a saw or a knife. However, for a beginner, as I was, it's ease of use is a big attraction. The heat stability might be an issue in hot places, and is one of the reasons PLA does not sand or cut well with power tools, but I haven't found it an issue in Scotland and have also made multiple successful vac formed canopies using PETG over printed PLA plugs. Personally I had very little success with ABS, until I got an enclosure, suffering severe warping and curling on the edges. With an enclosure it's now my preferred filament as the parts fix together beautifully with ordinary styrene solvent, rather than having to use CA, plus as styrene it sands well, cuts beautifully and is strong enough - after all we have been using ABS parts on models for decades. For the things you are proposing such as cockpit details etc, those are the jobs that I bought my first printer for and PLA is ideal for the job, due to ease of use, especially for a first time printer novice.

It's puncture resistant, lighter, much stronger and provides an excellent substrate for water-based polyurethane finishes.

To charge a set of four identical lipos at 1C takes about an hour, since I try not to discharge my lipos down below 3.8v/cell, so they are typically nowhere near discharged, as they are starting off at storage voltage. That is all going on whilst I'm doing other things in the workshop. I had four flights this afternoon with my Tucano and Super Cub - as well as lots of flights with single cell wee fellas. I'll recharge those packs in the morning in the hour or so before heading to the field, charging at 1C, two packs at a time. My lipo bag still has maybe eight batteries that were not used this afternoon.

Brilliant news on the successful maiden flight Eric 😎👍 Cracking afternoon's flying up here, cold and frosty, but flat calm - just lacking the bright sun and big blue skies of yesterday. A good turn out with seven of us there, sat around blethering between flights. Remembered to take the DX7 as well today, so was able to give the ancient BVR Tucano a couple of flights. Couple of mass launches with up to six of the wee fellas in the air at a time - couple of mid airs but no damage and the video glasses worked just fine, tracking well. The video of the whole flight is too big to post, but there's a link to a short version below. I was impressed with clubmate Mike's flat plate profile depron Eurofighter Typhoon, which had the most amazing flight envelope, especially the extended inverted falling leaf style slow descent and the slowest and lowest of high alpha passes. Profile prop in a slot models are popular in the club and it sounds like a few more of these will soon appear.