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leccyflyer

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Everything posted by leccyflyer

  1. For the winter I have my timer set for five minutes, which compensates for cold fingers and the occasional chilly battery and leaves plenty in the tank - typically landing at something around 3.85-3,88v/cell.
  2. I've used the servo tested to put some servos on an initial work out, leaving them cycling for up to an hour, as the logic is sound that dodgy electronic items generally fail in that initial period and if they survive that they will go on to have a long, productive life. Unfortunately that has not been the case on more than one Durafly model, where I adopted the practice after several servo failures resulting in crashes. Put the next model's servos on the pre flight extended test, which they all passed, only to have one aileron servo go bad on the second flight. Now, I just routinely remove them and replace them. As it happens I had to order up a new servo tester yesterday, when my existing one, which has worked fine for years just gave up the ghost. Connected the battery to be greeted with a wisp of blue smoke and that smell of burning electronics. Dead as a dodo now.
  3. Just weighed my WR FW190. Fuselage - 1310g (this includes 40g of balance weight in the cowl) Wing (no retracts) 472g Battery 4s1p 4000mah HRB - 400g Total AUW - 2182g I didn't make any attempt to lighten the model in any way and added a few extra details, such as side louvres, instrument panels, pilot, headrest etc which will have added a few grammes. I did also add a couple of liteply battery restraining strips in the battery compartment. Finish was brown paper, a sealing coat of EzeKote and two coats of B & Q Valspar sample pot paint. The model flies beautifully at that weight and I seriously doubt that I'll bother fitting the retracts, as the FW190 works so well off my dolly.
  4. I haven't watched the whole video series yet Ron, as my Tempest is still firmly in the box and some way down the build queue. However your point about shaving off as much as possible to achieve a more rounded rear fuselage section is well made and a good illustration of how we can end up with different weights. I'd been seriously considering adding an additional 1/32nd balsa skin over pink foam fillets to achieve a more rounded fuselage, which would add more weight exactly where it isn't wanted.
  5. No elevator on the differential thrust pusher jets, so it's a completely different style of flying that you need to use. Full throttle the F16 climbs almost vertically, full throttle and hard left or right and it'll pull tight circuits. No shortage of power and much quicker than the wee blue Su-27. Had another session with these this morning, plus flights with the wee Me109 and Wot-4 foam-E. From having just a few models with lights a few weeks ago, it was lit up like Blackpool illuminations and showed up well against the grey skies.
  6. Rainy morning here and nearly didn't go the the field, but then got the message that a few of the club members were braving the weather, so threw a few models in the car and limped the few miles to the field. It didn't clear for another half an hour, but eventually the rain stopped and conditions were perfect - sunny, with the gentlest of NE breezes, blue skies and fluffy clouds - was even able to take my gloves off. Maiden flights for my latest Wot-4 foamie, complete with LED lights for night flying. The model behaved impeccably, like all Wot-4s, but the sky was too bright for the lights to do much. Nice to have a flight ready Wottie to chuck in the car again. Maiden for my wee Volantex F-16 - another differential thrust twin pusher, but with loads more power than the wee Su-27. The F-16 is resplendent in the lovely red, white and blue General Dynamics scheme and has super bright LEDs under both wings and as an afterburner. No bother seeing those. These models take a little bit of getting used to, with no elevator, but are pretty stable - the F16 drops it's nose more when you cut the power than the Su-27, but comes into it's own when turning and burning. Great fun.
  7. One of my clubmates found a decent enough approximation at a haberdashers to finish his Magnatilla - looks superb.
  8. The appearance of an additional page which says that it is checking whether you are human suggests that someone has been tweaking again, rather than leaving something well alone which was previously working fine.
  9. It's positively glacial this morning, taking minutes to not connect and popping up a new Verification page, supposedly checking whether you are a robot, then timing out.
  10. It was a bit warm- you could feel and smell the heat. Luckily the pad had worn through just about a mile from the garage, so it was metal to metal, but the disc had not been damaged at all. I had the front brakes done just before Christmas, but the rear brakes were okay at the time.
  11. Was working towards a maiden flight for the Wee Beaufighter on Sunday, the 80th anniversary of Black Friday and that meant getting the markings applied this evening or tomorrow, Had got most of the painting done by close of play yesterday and got the cowls, exhaust stacks and air intakes all together by this morning, before moving on to vacforming the clear cupola and masking the canopy for painting. The cupola turned out just right, which was a big relief. Also sorted out the flight battery and hatch retention and all was going well. Then this afternoon returning from an appointment in town my car went u/s, with the rear brakes stuck on. Luckily was just around the corner from the garage and they were able to get them freed and the pads replaced in about an hour on a busy Friday afternoon. They said that should be fine to get me home, but to monitor it and bring it back first thing on Monday if it was getting hot, as the brake caliper had been stuck, but they had freed it up. Drove home, broke out the infra red thermometer to get an accurate reading on the brake discs - 220 degrees C So that's me grounded and starting the airbrushing of the roundels, fin flashes, squadron codes and serials tomorrow, but now with no prospect of a maiden flight on Sunday.
  12. Sadly a source for quantities of good quality balsa can also be from one's clubmates long accumulated stashes, some of which may not have seen a modelling knife in many years. Such sales after a fellow modeller has made their last flight do yield precious items, with which one can think back and remember those who have gone. That might be thought of as somewhat morbid, but I tend to see it as a cue for remembrance and I know that every time that I fly a particular model I remember my long lost pals - the same goes for every time I use a precious piece of 1970's vintage Solarbo or Graupner balsa.
  13. Congratulations on the successful Tempest maiden Murat, she looks the business. I see you also flew the PT-19 as well.😎👍
  14. Preferably on a printed sticky label inside the battery compartment, remembering that the compartment must be able to be opened without the use of any tool. It used to say specialised tool, until some clever clogs queried what actually constituted a specialised tool, to which the rather unexpected reply came that a screwdriver is to be considered a specialist tool. So no tools to open the battery compartment. In the vent that a sticky label cannot be fixed inside a suitable compartment, then a sticky label attached to the underside of the tailplane is my second port of call. I'm currently using just laser printed self adhesive paper label stock, but previously had used a Dymo labeller to print on white plastic tape for a more permanent solution. That's the Dymo labeller that prints legible text onto plastic or paper self adhesive tape, not the sort of Dymo labeller that created embossed labels.
  15. Spot on Don, you cannot really classify balsa as a foam, because it isn't. A material being porous - such as balsa -does not define it as being a foam. Having holes in it doesn't define it as a foam. As Martin said earlier the most plausible definition is of a material which is formed by a foaming process.
  16. There are lots of different foams used in modelling, with different characteristics and different uses. That's not even including foaming at the mouth.
  17. Finally got to the painting stage on the wee Deacon Beaufighter, In the end I decided to go with glasscloth and EzeCote for the wings, to give a bit of protection, since she'll be landing on the nacelles. The fuselage is tissue and EzeDope, whilst the tail surfaces are laminating film, so a bit of a mixture. Paint is B&Q Valspar sample pots, thinned and with a dash of Floetrol and went on very nicely in no time. Final fettling on the peanut butter jar cowls was a bit fiddly, but all worked out in the end. I left the painting until after that stage, so that I could see the anchoring points through the clear plastic. 3D printed air intakes and hand crafter Porcupine exhaust stacks are yet to be fixed onto the cowls.
  18. Some updates and musings on different filament types. As described in another thread recently I'd experienced some weakness in an ABS spinner that I'd printed for a clubmate, such that I wouldn't have trusted it on a motor in practice. In discussion with others, especially Paul Johnson, I opted to give PETG a try and was duly impressed. It printed beautifully and was very strong indeed. The model has now flown successfully with the printed spinner and it worked great and looked superb in the air. So much better than making do with a "that's about right" spinner. I've printed another few things with the PETG and the strength is impressive, albeit with a little more stringing than with ABS and the toughness of the plastic does make any post printing tidy up a wee bit trickier. The main thing though has been the tenacity with which it sticks to the PEI build plate. I destroyed my previous plate in printing the mould to vac form the observer's cupola on the wee Beaufighter, The top layer of the build plate came away with the printed part - very firmly attached. I've printed another couple of very small items today, on a new build plate and again the adhesion is extreme - very difficult to get the work off the PEI build plate. The surface texture of the small items was also rather coarser than I'd like, so for those, where ultimate strength isn't needed, I'm going to be reverting to ABS, I just prefer the styrene as a modelling material for non structural components, as it cuts, sands and glues so nicely.
  19. Tonight, 4th February 2025 9pm Channel 4 Top Guns: Inside the RAF. Series two. Episode one. RAF jets rapidly redeploy from Romania as Iran threatens Israel. And a close call over the Black Sea for a rookie pilot scouting Russian military activity.
  20. AR620 failsafe setting instructions back in this thread. If you rebind with the throttle trim all the way down to the bottom, when you test your failsafe the motor should stop completely.
  21. I have a plastic box containing thousands of Swann Morton 10A blades with the best intention of resharpening them one day. However, since I've been filling, emptying and refilling that box since 1988 and have bought several boxes of 100 blades a year, whilst not resharpening a single blade, that is unlikely to ever actually happen. I was buying boxes of 10A blades from Webbies for years before I got back into model flying and was going through a packet a day - draughting film is very harsh on blades and they need to be very sharp to neatly scratch out dashed black ink lines on drawings, without looking horrible.
  22. Don't think I've ever cut myself with a newly fitted scalpel blade. I've cut myself loads of times with scalpel blades that were just about ready to swap out for a brand new one. I go through a lot of scalpel blades, especially whilst covering a model. In terms of numbers of models that are blood stained, that would be very few, as a cut finger typically goes straight in the mouth and is then given a drop of odourless CA. Stings a bit with the heat, but stops the bleeding, rather that getting it all over the model.
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