Steve Houghton

Last week I ordered some servos from Stan Yeo at Phoenix Model Products. Ordered at 14:00 on Thursday and they arrived at 10:30 next day. Always great service from PMP, even during the lockdown.

Thanks Phil, I've just seen your post about PSSA events, and you have my full support. Now then, will I be finished in time for 2021??

You are a wise man, Phil - this is the best decision, especially after tonight's broadcast by the PM.

It's bin a while! No progress for 4 weeks due to other commitments, but crawling along again now. Thanks for your comments, Dirk. Two halves make a whole There have been so many useful postings about the wing build from talented builders that it seems there's not much left to say, so excuse any repeats. I took the 'build in two halves' approach, having only a narrow building board. I used the same jig components for port and starboard wings, totally glue-less, and found that the port jig needed stretching a little, and the starboard, shown here, needed a little compression to fit the plan. This was accomplished with strategically placed pins. The excellent fit of the parts ensured it gripped tightly without glue. And squeeze.... Pins placed mainly outside the jig sections, to squeeze it into place. The root ribs had to be checked for verticality. Since both R1A jigs were used, this meant a 1/8" gap between the squares and R1: You raise me up..! As noted by other builders, I packed up the R1A jig pieces with 1/16" balsa glued to the base of each one, to level them with the other rib supports. Packing just visible below: Gotcha I fell for the gotcha of buying 1/4 x 1/8 spruce spars instead of 1/4 x 3/16, so just laminated the spars with a layer of 1/16 balsa on top, before glueing into the ribs. This has a useful benefit of being easier to sand in line with the tops of the ribs: Spar webs applied to both sides of the spars: Tip of the day Here's the tip jig, showing the 'compression' pins holding the jig, and the laminated spars (sounds grander than 'messed up'!): The completed halves. Great job with the jig production, Martin and Gordon. It made the assembly very quick and painless, although I'm glad I bought the pre-cut parts rather than cutting them all myself! Now I need to decide whether to go for inboard or outboard servos - still deliberating.

Hi folks, Phil: Pinch away - I'm sure the idea isn't new, although I'm quite pleased at how well the retro-fitting was accomplished! Martin: That thought did cross my mind, but I wanted to keep the aerials out of harms way, and mine are perpendicular. I'm never sure whether they will achieve the same reception if I straighten either of them up. Bear in mind that my radio is 'old' DSM2 technology, so not as much frequency hopping as some. I toyed with buying a new carbon friendly RX with longer aerials, but I'm too tight and not sure if all the DSMX RXs necessarily operate DSM2. I'm still in mourning at the passing of JR! So much so that I've just bought some dinky JR DS396 mini digital servos from Hobbyplastic - being sold off at half price at the moment (similar size/power to the HS-65MG).

Neat work, as always Dirk. When posting photos I always start by inserting a series of lines with just an x on each: x x Then, put the cursor after an x, insert the photo and change the x to a suitably witty caption. Move on to the next x for another photo.

Radio Bay I wanted to install the radio before any more work on the tail horn. In order to keep the weight forward I decided to tuck the RX away on top of the battery box on a tray mounted on sliding rails. This would have been easier to install before joining the fuselage sides, but ... hey ho .. hindsight is wonderful! The rails were made from 1/8" sq spruce, mounted on 1/16" ply sides, held together at the far end (the nose end) by a cross piece of 1/8 spruce, acting as both a spacer and to hold the rails 1/8" above the battery box. The sliding tray is simply 1/16" ply with two runners from 1/4" wide strips of ply. These also space the tray above the battery box to allow the velcro strap to wrap underneath: The velcro strap holds the RX in place, with a spare pair of slots in case I feel the need for two straps: Imagine looking down on the battery box from the top of the fuselage; the side ply strips of the rails will now be glued to the sides of the battery box, so that the tray is free to slide over the battery box: Glue it all together, using a temporary 1/8" balsa spacer, avoiding glueing the spacer into the rails, and the end result is thus. Note that I cut away approx 5mm of former F4 to allow the RX to pass through: My usual sliding ply strip will retain both the battery in the box, and the end of the RX tray: Slide the tray into the rails, having cut a locking slot in the end of the tray: ...and there we have a RX tray out of harm's way, securely locked into place. Next, on with the servo mountings.