leccyflyer

Andy is referring to his own club test in order to allow solo flight.

What a brilliant idea - nice one Mike! 😎👍

Agree 100%. I have no particular interest in this topic, never having owned a Laser engine and never likely too, but there are IKMO, far too many unnecessary calls to close perfectly reasonable threads in this forum. This thread was started in good faith, to discuss continued customer service issues into the future and ought not be closed.

Definitely interested. After breaking two sets of the small EFlite twist and turn retracts, which use a very fragile extra ball link for the twist function, I modified an FMS set, which uses a short metal stub to actuate the twist, so anything which would make this style of retract more robust would be worth a luck. My larger Corsair uses the FMS 1450mm retracts and one of those is playing up as well.

Ta. I never use the U-Turn button, but the telemetry is a major boon and we regularly get 10-12 minute flights, so especially useful if there are a bunch of wee fellas up in the air at the same time.

I'm still very happy with the Creality Ender 5 Pro that I posted about. It has given good service and produces good quality prints, with very few failures to date. I now have it in an enclosure with a view to trying to print in ABS as an option, where the Maylan 150 failed dismally due to curl on the margins of the prints.

Agreed - twist and turn retracts are even more of a pain than plain ordinary retracts.

Would prefer a Hellcat to a P-47 TBH, since there really aren't that many Hellcats around already, but loads of options for P-47s.

Interesting. Does the low voltage telemetry still work when the model is assigned to the Taranis or Radiomaster transmitter?

Yes, it was fine in the 70#s but hugely surpassed by far, far better, more robust and higher quality films, such as Profilm. Solartex certainly deserved preserving, but Solarfilm surely won't be missed, in all it's saggy, wrinkly glory. The Far East films, like the HK ones were far superior to the original Solarfilm.

Lovely Spring morning here and a good turn out at the very soggy field. No photos this week, but enjoyed successful maiden flights on my VMC Hurricane, after the extensive wing repairs and my new Volantex Corsair. The latter exhibited some remarkable wing rocking coming out of turns, which must be somthing to do with the gyro stabilisation but other than that was very enjoyable to fly. Also flew a couple of depron profile jobs and my venerable Durafly P-51D Candyman/ Moose. What we need now is a few weeks of dry weather to dry out the car parking area.

That's what I found, when I inadvertently let a 3s1p LiFe transmitter pack run down to dead flat. Below 3v a cell they were goosed and even after getting them to take a charge. they were slightly puffy, they ran down rapidly and couldn't deliver under a modest load. I wouldn't consider using such a pack in a critical location and it went to the tip.

They fly so well with the stabilisation on that I never flip mine to Expert mode, other than by mistake. Marvellous wee things. Should be trying a maiden flight for my new Corsair this morning.

Phil Green has been making great use of those disposable vape lipos. I've only seen one myself, on the floor next to the postbox and picked it up in a plastic bag, to break it down in the workshop, where it yielded a single cylindrical 180mah lipo, midway in size between a AA and an AAA NiMh cell. Haven't used it yet.

Brilliant news Toto - you really deserved a good day flying today and I'm made up that you experienced the joy of a good landing =it's the best feeling in flying for me. You've earned a debrief with your pal John Smith this evening. 👍😎

55-60" is what I'd consider a very practical size for a single engined electric warbird, which, at a push, ought to be able to be transported fully rigged - wings on - in my estate car. Once you get above that size and up to the 80" span range, those would tend to become high day and holiday type models, which will invariably need rigging at the field. I rather dislike having to put models together at the field and especially having to take them apart again to stow them and bring them home. I can live with that, as a special occasion model, but for everyday flying give me three 48" span models that can fit, wings on, all together and be ready to go. That's just practicality in operation on an everyday basis to help make sure that those models get a regular outing. FWIW I think you have impeccable taste in aeroplanes Richard and you have the experience in the market to have a good handle on what can be sufficiently commercial to work out. That is reflected in the recognition that the Lightning, B-17 and Whirlwind, whilst desirable, probably would not sell in large enough numbers. I'd diverge on the subject of the Mosquito there, as such an iconic aeroplane would make commercial sense, especially if it were true enough to scale, rather than some of the slightly weird looking ARTF Mossies that have emerged. If the choice was between a P-47 and Sea Fury I'd have to plump for the P-47 Razorback, though I already have good quality foamies of both, the variety of colour schemes for a kit built P-47 is huge, whist for the Sea Fury, as a warbird are rather limited, albeit very striking, I wouldn't countenance any of the post war racing schemes, as I don't consider those to be warbirds at all.

"Morning Arnold...."

There are a few Bearcat schemes are out there beyond the classic Midnight Blue, even including, heaven forbid, non-warbird Reno Racer style liveries 😞 , but the Bearcat's tubby ovoid fuselage barely has a straight line or plane on it, suggesting either planking or veneered foam turtle decks, fuselage sides and bottom - similar to the Thunderbolt.

Venting of electrolyte can occur with heavily abused NiCds or NiMhs and I've seen that as white, grey or greenish blue efflorescence- but it will be on the positive lead, rather than the negative lead, as that is where the vents are located. The BWC was definitely more prevalent in the past, hence me starting this thread, as I hadn't seen it in years. Irrespective of the different chemistry of lipos vs NiCds/NiMhs, the different storage regimes would likely not promote the phenomenon in lipos, which really ought not be stored in the model, connected to the wiring loom and likely not in cold damp conditions. As mentioned above it's a simple enough check to make, to bring out the crimped connector from it's housing on the battery and examine it under a magnifier to look for any discolouration or indications of corrosion.

FWIW I would jump at the chance of a WR Spitfire Mk1a, above anything else. I already have a Spitfire IX kit, Hurricane, P-51D but you cannot have too many Spitfires, A 55" span Bf109E is a hole in my fleet as well.

As pointed out above, decent quality isoporopanol will remove those covering film adhesive marks and is relatively gentle. Good old fashioned purple methylated spirits would be my next port of call if the residue was particularly stubborn, moving on to white spirit. I'm constantly surprised at the frequent advice to use acetone, or even worse, cellulose thinners for such jobs. Personally those would be my absolute last resort solvents to let anywhere near a model which had any form of plastic covering.

Indeed - but my point was that the BWC can't spread to the wiring loom inside the model if the battery isn't connected to anything else. The usual explanation is that cold damp sheds provide the perfect environment for that black wire corrosion to take place. FWIW when I mothball a model into storage all the gear is taken out, including batteries. It's only a small number of models which are in active service, where they have a receiver pack built in, that would be of any concern and that's what preflights on the bench are meant to detect.

That's a valid point Andy. In this case, with no switch, the battery isn't connected, so the BWC was confined to the battery lead itself. The vast majority of my models do not use flight batteries, but the small number that do, will be getting their usual thorough checks before making any trip to the field.

Yep, definitely prefer the razorback version of the Thunderbolt. In fact I prefer the razorback version of everything - P-51B >>>>>> P-51D, Spitfire 1 over any late Mk Spitfires The Thunderbolt has a lot of desireable attributes for an electric warbird - wide track undercarriage, deep fuselage to aid with getting the lipos in close to the front, big radial cowl, so plenty of room for the motor. I wasn't really into them and did question the assertion made several times in RCM&E that the Thunderbolt was the most frequent warbird on the warbird circuit but once I got my Eflite P-47D I was a convert, they fly beautifully and the ground handling is excellent.