leccyflyer
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Posts posted by leccyflyer
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SR71?
Notoriously leaky those. According to the chap at Duxford, they need to get up to speed, so that skin friction expands the skin to close up all the gaps.
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Wet and windy weekend here, after a decent flying day on Friday, where I got some rare flat field gliding amongst my usual warbird sorties. Looks like the weather has changed and we've got a week of wind with showers, However that just gives an opportunity for some workshop work, starting with some low key maintenance fettling retracts on the P-47, putting the finishing touches to the Kyosho T-33 refurbishment and repainting the wee Brewster Buffalo.
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Witnessed totally disgusting behaviour on the beach at Skegness today. A man and woman arguing in front of a load of kids then she smacked him one on the head and it all kicked off between them, the police turned up and the policeman ended up using his baton on the bloke but the man actually managed to get the baton off the copper and started hitting the copper and the woman with it.
Then a crocodile turned up and stole all the sausages as the man shouted 'That's the way to do it'!!
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The fuzzy fabric style mylar hinges have certainly got enough wicking capacity against the hinge slot to allow thin CA to wick into the joint and produce a sound hinge line. Some of them have a slot up the middle to take a drop of CA.
Personally, as I cannot use thin CA, I prefer to use the Pacer Hinge Glue, which is applied to the slots and give plenty of time to insert the hinge and clean up. If using the leaf style hinges I put a smear of vaseline on the hinge pin and cut a shallow relief trough to accommodate the thickness of the hinge pin and surround.
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Could a moderator split off the very interesting lipo field use and charge management discussion to it's own thread. We can all learn something from the various methods that folks use to keep track of things and you might just see something that might improve the way that we do things.
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10 hours ago, GrumpyGnome said:
Marvellous. So instead of remembering to check your battery charge before flying (per BMFA Guidelines I believe), you'll need to remember to change the indicator after flight, and after any sort of charging/discharging, AND check the charge before flight.
Definite improvement! 🙂 That looks like a solution looking for a problem. But no doubt it works for some folk.
My system is simple, but then I don't actually keep track of the number of charges per pack. Charged packs are fitted with a 15mm long piece of Sullivan snake outer, over the 4mm positive male pin. These safety "doobers" perform two functions - they insulate and shroud the metal bullet connector and because they are coloured green, they signify a charged pack. Have been using these for about 25 years or more.
After a flight, the battery per cell voltage is checked for anything untoward and a blue doober is placed over the male connector, then the pack put back in the lipo bag.
Back in the workshop the used packs are checked again and any that are lower than 3.8v/cell, are given a quick storage charge, their blue "discharged" doober refitted and they are put away. At the moment, when I'm usually flying every few days, or more frequently, the charged packs stay charged. The Lipo status board on the wall is updated to remove the tally marks for the packs that have been used. When I'm not likely to be flying for a week, I might take them down to a storage charge of 3.85v/cell.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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3 minutes ago, Keiran Arnold said:
Todays Usless bit of Information is that when Vic Watts painted the Bagpipes he gave them too many drones The Great Highland Bagpipes have only three
Bit like the hobby nowadays....😉
Fantastic work on the nose art David - that takes real skill. 😎
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Marvellous- not too dissimilar to that Ai-produced version that I posted a while back.
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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,
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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.
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11 hours ago, Ron Gray said:
Having a Tx call out low voltage / excessive current draw / battery capacity left / temperature difference between cylinders on in-line twins / height and other things like speed are nice to have and imo are not useless nonsense! Another thing that can be useful is getting the Tx to call out the next manoeuvre when learning to fly a complex aerobatics routine.
I would also be a bit lost without voice messages when flying some of my flight controller equipped FPV where there are 20+ modes that can be activated by the switches / knobs.
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.
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21 hours ago, RottenRow said:
It's all referred to in chapter 3 of the document just published.
I quote:
"We maintain the view that greater education would improve the safety, security and compliance of UAS operations. Whilst the 250g threshold may have been appropriate in the past, there are now many highly capable UAS weighing below 250g available on the market that can pose a safety and security risk."
It also goes on to suggest that requiring a flyer ID, and therefore taking a test of some kind (DMARES or RCC for example) will increase the level of flyer understanding, pointing out for example the low proportion of drone fliers that appear to know much, if anything, about the current regulations.
They are also proposing to drop the current term 'toy' from the regulations, using a specific weight would seem to make for sense in that respect.
I guess the small R/C models such as the UMX models mentioned previously, will get caught up in this net even though that perhaps isn't the intention.
Brian.
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.
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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.
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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.
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38 minutes ago, payneib said:
The same could be said for plan and kit building, but I still put significant amounts of time, effort and money in to those because, well, it's a hobby. 🤷♂️
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. 👍
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Contra rotating props on multi engined models
in All Things Model Flying
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The DH Hornet and Henschel HS129 were also set up with opposite rotation engines and several more modern twin engine civil aircraft also follow that trend.
Peter mentions the Mosquito and apparently De Havilland thought that pursuing the additional complication of securing opposite prop rotation to be worthwhile in the case of the Hornet. FWIW my wee Parkzone Mosquito is equipped with opposite rotation props, as does my P-38 LIghtning and I don't think it's that unusual in twin engined models, since electric power makes it so simple to achieve that.