leccyflyer

The best plan protector stuff that I've found -by accident - was the clear plastic covering on some sheet metal panels from Wickes. It's like thick cellophane, crystal clear and none of the adhesives that I use will stick to it. Before that I used the builders' polythene, but that is not as crystal clear as this stuff.

That SuperPhatic looks either pretty old, or maybe due to storage. The dark stain on the glue seems to develop with age in the bottle, but not on the wood, and when it gets to that stage I tend to bin it. I doubt there is any change in the strength of the glue joint, but it isn't visually very nice and can show through covering. Still my favourite glue for balsa and ply - marvellous stuff.

Well, one old guy and one young guy, in a bit of a different format last night but the most enjoyable night out I've had in years. Francis Rossi and a young feller called Andy Brooks sat in big armchairs and going through some of Frame's songs over a cracking three hours with just two Electroacoustic guitars. The tome, sound and execution were all superb, the banter between the songs very entertaining and a brilliant gig. As a lifelong fan I wasn't sure exactly what to expect when I received the tickets as a Christmas present, didn't know if there would be a band, or just chat with a few songs thrown in, but we had a packed three hour gig with 20-odd songs in two sets. All with marvellous arrangements for two electroacoustic guitars. Highly recommended.

Bit like the hobby nowadays....😉 Fantastic work on the nose art David - that takes real skill. 😎

Not the greatest weekend's flying, but pleasant to sit in the sunshine and have a blether. Quite a few mass flights with the wee fellas yesterday and just the one mid air, plus some good flights with the wee Hawk. Less successful non-flights with the F-14, which just failed to get away and then the fan impeller came off again, requiring a bit of remedial surgery again. All fixed again ready for next time. This morning's forecast was for pretty breezy conditions early on, then strengthening and swinging to be a dead north cross wind. That comes in over the trees and becomes very turbulent, which made for very unpleasant flying conditions, so after a few flights everyone packed up and went home well before noon.

Maybe because they are out of stock, with no ETA predicted? I replaced the rather flat inflatable wheels on my FMS Cub with the same wheels from AliExpress and these have been holding up okay, though I store the model with the wheels off the ground. Didn't have any success with trying to reinflate te originals. The Dubro inflatables are better quality, but considerably more expensive at about £28 a wheel, compared to £30 that I paid for the pair of FMS from Aliexpress. However the OP has said that he does not want to pay £30-40 for a pair of wheels, so that isn't a viable option.

It's a lesson that most Hobbyking customers get to learn eventually. If it isn't in stock, don't order it. Past experience has shown that stuff which is not showing as In Stock can stay that way for years, before eventually being designated as Discontinued. Always filter search results with the In Stock filter and if you want it from the UK as well, filter on the UK Warehouse.

Not really Dark Nights, more Bright Days but I thought this was an appropriate place to share a recent ongoing experience that has just taken a turn for the worse this afternoon. At last months club Bring and Buy, I picked up a well worn, well flown wee Brewster Buffalo, which I'd flown my Wildcat/Martlet alongside many times and so knew it was a good flyer. However, cosmetically she was a bit tired with quite a bot of both hangar rash and a wee bit of landing induced wear and tear. No problem I was keen to rescheme the silver and yellow US Navy colours with something RAF/RNZAF from the Far East. After some minor repairs, removing a few dings, repairing some chunks out of the leading edge and a bit of filling the airframe was looking ready for paint. With my Wildcat/Martlet rescheme I'd gone to a lot of trouble stripping the model back to bare foam, which in the end was a bit disappointing in terms of how the surface worked out. Forgetting the experience that I'd had with the Hobbyking Hellcat repaint I opted to just overpaint the repaired existing paint scheme. Biiiiiiiiiiiiig mistake. 😞 About a week after starting the repaint with carefully matched Valspar paints and now being totally addicted to airbrushed masked markings, squadron codes and serials, this afternoon it was time to remove the CNC cut Oracal paint masks. The wings proved somewhat problematical, with some bits of the paintwork coming away from the airframe along with the masks, however carefully I removed them. The paint came off the wings in some small patches, at the interface between the silver, factory applied paint and the bare foam. However it wasn't all that bad and should be easily touched up with careful brushwork. Moving onto the fuselage proved catastrophic. With the exception of the masks on the fin, the masks on the fuselage came away carrying most of the paint with them. Must have been 75% ish of the carefully masked base colours around the marking was away. Much worse than the Hellcat had been, with great shards of the base layers pulling away. I realised then that I would need to go back all the way to bare foam and set to with the sticky tape, removing the vast majority of the paint in less than half an hour. I'll get the few remaining bits off tomorrow, but should be able to rescue the paintjob on the wing, and the fin, with some touch up. So I'll be refinishing in the manner that I really should have used in the first place. I do wonder whether the foam had not even been degreased before the factory applied the paint. The fuselage will be given a good scrub with isopropanol, just in case, then I'll apply a layer of Ezekote, without glasscloth, as a stabiliser/primer, as I know that works. I'll need to cut a new set of masks with the Silhouette Cameo and just repeat the four colours of the markings. Several days work for me down the pan.

When you say that you want to solder the replacement lipo in the helicopter, does the battery not have a connector, to enable it to be taken out and charged? Or is it hard-wired to a charging socket? TBH manufacturer's claims on C ratings seem to be pretty much plucked from thin air and are to be taken with a pinch of salt. As you have found out, it can be a case of just try it and see.

Marvellous- not too dissimilar to that Ai-produced version that I posted a while back.

I wouldn't be without them - pretty much every trip to the field starts and finishes with a flight with one of the wee fellas,

It dawned a bit dreich and cold and I wasn't going to bother with flying today, but then it showed some signs of lifting and we decided to have a couple of hours at the field which turned out to be a grand morning of very relaxed flying, though with just the two of us there. Mainly flying the wee fellas in pairs for multiple 15 minute flights in the warm sunshine and very light easterly wind - they really are great fun and some of the low flying was very low indeed. I did also fly my Parkzone Mosquito and the FMS FunCub, which both went very well and with no-one else there was able to taxi both of them in and out of the pits. Shared the air with three swallows who showed what super low level flyers they are.

Agreed. I'd also be at a loss without the audible countdown time and positive check on switch position. When I need to switch to my old DX7 on some models equipped with older DSM receiver that will not bind to the DX9 I find it a real wrench to lose the countdown timer, especially. I haven't used the telemetry supplied voltage read outs yet, but my Kyosho T33 refurbishment could be the first model that I'll use that on, as I'd like to keep a close eye on the voltage of the 3s1p LiFe pack that I'm intending using, with a non-lipo friendly integrated sensored ESC on the back of the Astro brushless inrunner.

Thankfully the wee 400mm span Volantex models will stay well below that 100g limit - they typically weigh in at about 60g, including the battery. I think the intention, as mentioned, is to include those 249g drones that the manufacturers brought out, specifically to sidestep the regulations. Now they will likely start knocking out 99g drones instead.

Realised this morning at the field that I'd flown seven straight days in a row, which I don't remember having done before. Seven of us at the field for a very enjoyable morning flying, sunny, warm, wind typically <3mph ESE made for perfect flying conditions and pleasant environment to sit having a blether between flights. Had eight flights in total including a maiden for my recent refurbishment of a Dynam Tempest, rescued from clubmate Ronnie's loft. Very pleased with how it flew, but will need to do something about the battery bay, as the 4s1p 2200mah packs that fit in there are a bit small for that size of model IMO- and the notorious;y unreliable Dynam retracts will be replaced. Got flights in with my Flightline Spitfire, Arrows Hawk, PZ FW190 and wee Volantex Mustang as well. A model I hadn't seen before was Steve's wee Hobbyking Corsair, which looked fantastic and very scale-like n the air and flew beautifully, like a much larger model.

Our annual Aberdeen and District Soarers Breakfast Fly-In at Kerloch Flyers MFC meant an early start, but the breakfast provided by the British Legion was superb and everyone enjoyed that before heading to the field. Unfortunately the forecast 10-12mph wind turned out much stronger and very blustery, meaning only the bravest, boldest or perhaps it was the daftest flyers actually took to the air. I'd gone equipped with some models that I'd previously found are good in the wind, but in the event had the most success with my Volantex Spitfire and FW190, which both managed their usual windy day schedule of mad downwind legs and steady upwind progress, with lots of throttle juggling and hovering. The wind today was strong enough to be able to maintain a steady backwards progression with the right throttle setting. I had less success with my ST Blaze warmliner, which did go pretty well and made lots of steep climbouts, piccies from Derek, before succumbing to me not piling the power on quickly enough when a long way downwind, such that she fell out of the air and split the wing at the joiner - a simple enough repair, but sufficient to convince me that was enough for the day. Derek took the strong wind as an opportunity for another Starfighter flight, but there was something wrong from the off with reduced power from the model, leading to some narrow escapes and on landing a total power failure. Remarkably for the second time in a few weeks the main power cable had parted on one of our models- luckily in this case only fully coming apart on landing, so no harm done. I'd taken a glider, in case it was too windy for the flat and called in at the slope on the way home, but on getting there the wind was SW, rather than the SE that is needed on that slope, so it was off home earlier than planned. Luckily by the time I got back the lads were still in session at my local field, with rather better, though still windy, conditions, so managed some more very enjoyable flights, which saved the day.

As GG says - chances are very good* that your plan build will end up nicer, more robust, more scale than an equivalent ARTF, quite probably with a cost saving and will probably perform better. Would the strimmer motor really be better than one purpose built to put in a model from the design stage? * We've seen some of your models featured in this forum and I think I'm on a fairly safe bet with that statement. 👍

Have to give a shout out to Dynam Direct UK for a faultless spares order, dispatched promptly, with great comms and a speedy delivery this week. I was rather sceptical about them, as I had only become aware of them recently on Facebook and they were advertising all sorts of Dynam aeroplanes that have been unavailable for ages and with that profile I mentally filed them alongside the scam FB pages offering EFlite products at a fraction of their retail price. However, having received a Tempest from a clubmate on Monday, I found the spinner was cracked and damaged, so needed replacement. It's a distinctive shape and I didn't have anything exactly right in stock, so took a chance and ordered one on Monday evening. I was pleasantly surprised to receive the spinner yesterday and it's perfect. I won't hesitate to use them again.

Are the days of converting strimmer motors for model use not far behind us, with the cost effective small petrol engines available to the model trade? My understanding is that they aren't the easiest things to effectively silence, but with some investment i a proper silencer system they can be very usable.

It's the exact same stuff that you can get from any number of DIY outlets for insulating garage doors - did mine a couple of weeks ago.

Aaah - a PSG fan, going by those colours 😉 Or perhaps the colours adopted by the Allies team in their game against the Wehrmacht in Escape To Victory? Looking very swish there - nice job.👍

That all makes sense. At one of my clubs we pay rent for the small, fenced off portion of a field, but of course we fly over the surrounding fields, which represent a far larger area, with permission. I would imagine that is a more widespread operating environment than a club which owns, rents or has the use of the entire footprint of their flying area.

Good point - model aircraft should have been differentiated from drones right back when the regulations to primarily control drones was raised. That was crystal clear right from the start. Good point about the slope too - could end up having to fit RID to my gliders, even with belonging to a specialist soaring focused club, which lists the sites that we operate from, if wanting to fly off a hill somewhere else there would not appear to be an exclusion available there.

Yes - I had an email directly from CAA first thing yesterday morning.

I received the email, but haven't read the document yet. Have to say that the exemption from RID for models operating at a club site is very welcome, but would sound a note of caution with that phrase "highly sophisticated model aircraft" excluding some models from the exemption, given that the previous regulations considered a screwdriver a specialised tool. Not good news for those lone flyers who don't belong to a club though. Perhaps it might encourage club membership?