Nick Cripps

I can't imagine how incredibly hard this must be for you and your family but here on the forum we're all rooting for you. You are respected member of our community and we all look forward to seeing you get back to enjoying your hobby, alongside all the pleasures of family life.

Cracking photos, Mark! By the way, have you ever thought of writing copy for estate agents 🤔😂

As mentioned elsewhere, I spent the day at the fly-in hosted by the Don Valley MFC near Doncaster. There was a breezy crosswind which reduced the turnout today (compared to yesterday, so I'm told) but good fun was had by all. I took along the RV-4, Spitfire, L-39 and, seemingly, everyone's favourite model, the Cosmic Wind Little Toni; well, a couple of people told me how much they enjoyed seeing it fly! Current plan is to take the RV-4 and Little Toni down to Old Warden to fly at the Modelair scale event next weekend... but it all depends on the weather.

Another good day out at Don Valley MFC, despite being a bit blustery at times but at least it stayed dry. Good to meet up with Zflyer again and the other regulars, and thanks to John and the team for the usual friendly welcome and good organisation. This picture was taken later in the afternoon when things were winding down. In the foreground are a couple of my models with Paul Marsh's squadron and Chris Barlow's Wot 4XL behind. Looking forward to the next one over the August bank holiday weekend!

I just discharge them through a car headlight bulb for a couple of days outside then strip back the insulation and twist the bare ends together. I then take them to the local recycling centre and put them in the battery box or leave them out for the council guys to deal with.

Hopefully another weekend away in the caravan for me but, with such fickle weather at the moment, I'll leave it to the last minute to make the decision.

Not much flying today it seems so you can have a few more pictures of the RV-4. These are courtesy of Roy Maddison.

I can get only make it on the Sunday this time. Of course, that's assuming John books the right weather 😉

I've received some photos of the RV-4 from yesterday's impromptu flying display for the camera club. Here's a couple of them: Credit: Malcolm Casey.

Great day at the field today. I spent the morning helping my former trainee with some more advanced lessons and test-flying various models for a couple of new members. These were a Wot Trainer, Junior 60, Bixler and an Easy Pigeon - none of which types I'd flown before so new experiences for me. All went well apart from suffering a deadstick with the Wot Trainer. This surprised me with how long it would glide meaning I had to abort the crosswind landing on the short strip and haul it round onto the remaining half of the main runway. I then had a couple of flights with the Laser FT200-powered RV-4 which I'm now finally getting comfortable with. Before the 2nd flight, 4 guys from a local camera club came onto the site to take some photos of the nearby Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station which is due to be decommissioned at the end of September (UK's last coal-fired power station). They joined me in the pilots box and were happily snapping away as I flew low passes down the runway with the power station in the background. I thoroughly enjoyed this as it gave some purpose to the flight rather than just bumbling around and making it up as I go along. The landing was probably the best I've ever done with the model too! After the flight I passed on my email address and asked them to pick out a few shots and send them to me. Here's one I took on my phone:

You might want to consider skinning the forward section of the floats (ahead of the step) with 1/64" birch ply. Floats can take a bit of a battering in this area when running the model back to the edge of the lake. I've recently completed a set of hot-wire cut floats and skinned them in poplar veneer with glass-cloth over the top. I found the poplar ply to be a bit soft but with a distinct, harder grain in places. I'm thinking that over the winter I will strip the lower front section of the skinning and replace it with 1/64" ply. Not cheap but I think it is worth it for better damage resistance.

I'm planning to stay at Buckminster in the caravan from Thursday through to Sunday. I've got my FT200-powered RV4 for the Laser day on Friday, a Wot4 and anything else I can get finished for the Best of British weekend, including a couple of free-flight models if the weather is suitable. I may even dig out a Warlord and fly a bit of control-line.

Have a look at the Spektrum DXS and AR410 4 CH Receiver manual here. Buried near the bottom of page 9 is a reference to low Tx battery voltage is indicated by beeping and flashing red LED.

Absolutely spot on, Richard. That's the most important part of the flight to me, too.

DD is building a new model, not modifying an existing one. The CoG (balance point) was used as the datum for the moment calculation. The Laser is 220g (~8oz) heavier than the OS it will replace. Thinking on this a bit more, I would be tempted to err on the side of nose-heavy as balancing that out with a small weight at the rear is much more preferable to adding a lot of weight on what would be a very short nose if in fact it is required.