Nick Cripps

It does happen from time-to-time, when you get a combination of easterly winds but still reasonable flying conditions. Not so much these days though as, like many coal-fired stations in this country, it doesn't run very often now. I did see a glider disappear into the plume one afternoon many years ago, to reappear a few seconds later minus one wing! It was handy as a wind indicator as you can see it from miles away across the Trent valley and judge whether the wind speed and direction was worth making the trip to the field. "Windy" Miller of this parish worked at Ratcliffe for many years but was probably still in nappies in 1967!

Lovely day for the first trip to the field in over 3 months. I started off gently with a 20 minute flight with my Phoenix 2000, followed by the maiden (for me) of an E-flite Apprentice recently donated to the club for training and, finally, a few flights with the Carbon Cub to finish off the day. Here she is, waiting for take-off clearance: Back again this afternoon to take advantage of the weather.

Been down to the field this morning to put up notices detailing our Covid-19 precautions and to mark out 2m spacing in the pits and pilot boxes. I'm sure the other members will appreciate it and thank the committee profusely...

Lovely job, Phil. That will look great over The Orme.

Looking good, Rubber Duck!

How far has the throttle cable got to go? You could use a small Permagrit round file either manually or spun slowly in a drill. Alternatively grind a chisel point on a length of piano wire to drill through the bulkheads.

I will have had my 2nd jab by then so will come along on whichever day has the best weather forecast.

Flaming spears, Around my ears...

I've seen several of these at various waterplane meetings and they always go well. Here's a couple of photos to whet (wet?) your appetite. If I remember correctly, this one was scaled 125%.

Martin, Mike Woodhouse's article rightly points out that use of film in place of tissue can reduce the torsional strength of the structure and could lead to flutter if the underlying wooden structure is insufficient to resist the likely aerodynamic loads. However, he is talking about competition models where the structures are pared back to the minimum in the pursuit of performance which clearly isn't the case for the simple Cessna. It looks to me that the thick leading and trailing edges, along with the relatively deep section and low aspect ratio would probably be strong enough for the sort of speeds and conditions the Cessna is likely to encounter and film would be sufficient. Having said that, I think I would try out the tissue over mylar (or lam film) as championed by PatMc and others on this forum and suggested by Bob C above. Alternatively, diagonals between the ribs would give a good increase in stiffness without too much weight gain (and which seems to be your preference). The Alasdair Sutherland article, while very good in itself, does not consider torsional strength of the structure, only bending strength which, in a wing structure, is provided by the spar(s). It has to be said that the single beam spars, centred at mid-height of the wing section, are not the most efficient but were quite common on older designs. It would be better with a decent D-box design which would address both torsional and bending strength but then you wouldn't be building the Sterling Cessna 180 you remember from your youth.

Lovely model, David, it looks great. When will the free plan be published in RCM&E? ?

You've got a bit of a dilemma, Danny. I agree with David's suggestion but it looks like the fuel tank can only be fitted from the front? Perhaps the solution is to mount the engine on a removable firewall, as per the H9 Carbon Cub. See below, taken from the instruction manual. The CC also has the tank mounted on a shelf attached to the rear of the firewall but I don't think that would be necessary if you go this route with the Auster.

Very nice, Stu. I've got a SeaStormer in build but mine has taken about 8 years so far! Hopefully it will be finished in the next few months ready for the summer waterplane events.

It must be heavy balsa, it's flattened your dog ?

Looks good. I see the site caught me out - the bottom picture on my post was the wrong orientation and I thought I'd deleted it and replaced it with the upper picture which I'd edited. Something to be aware of...

I think Boddo used that fuselage structure on a lot of his designs, Danny. This is the tail of my Sea Stormer which has stringers running the full length of the fuselage and then tapering onto a 1/16" sheet support under the tailplane. I broke one of the stringers while planing in the taper so added a strip of balsa behind to restore the strength.

Another vote for the Rival from me. It made a great first waterplane and got me hooked on this fascinating branch of the hobby.

I flew control-line for many years in my teens before leaving the hobby to pursue other interests (the usual: beer, girls, motorbikes, etc). I rejoined my local club some 10 years later and carried on where I left off but as interest in CL at the club tapered off I moved on to RC. My 1st model was a Veron Impala fitted with a Cox Baby Bee mounted on a pylon above the wing and controlled by a Micron radio I had built some years earlier when I was doing a bit of model car racing. The Impala met its demise when I tried flying it on a windy day - it was much too windy for the model and I was too inexperienced to realise it. Deciding to take it more seriously I bought a Precedent HiBoy, Super Tigre S40 and a secondhand Futaba radio. The horrible liteply caused the fuselage to contort like a twisted banana so was scrapped and replaced by one built from 1/8 balsa and covered with Solartex - much better. With the help of my instructor, Steve, I learnt to fly without too many mishaps but finally killed off the model while attempting to fly inverted. Here it is sitting in the long grass in my back garden after it's 1st day out.

There were 4 beds behind the old Seven Storey block on A-site which were last used at least 20 years ago. Many of those old buildings are long gone, as are the row of poplars on Victory Road and the Bassett Block further down. I retired early last year (thanks to Covid) and spent the last 10 years in the Lombard Building. If the wind was in the wrong direction you could get a strong smell of Avgas through the air conditioning when prod or dev engines were being tested on the beds next to Wilmore Road.

I never went there myself but many of my colleagues in the RR Performance Office spent many happy days testing a range of Tay, V2500, RB211 and Trent engines at Pyestock some years ago. As Geoff says, there's no longer any engine testing at Hucknall but production and development engines still run regularly at the Derby site. Even near to the test beds on the Sinfin site you can hear very little noise, just a low frequency rumble at times. I read somewhere that running a pipe into a bucket of water made for an effective silencer for model engines. Probably one of the WOO articles in RCM&E.

Congratulations, Geoff. My wife would have been having her 5th birthday party when you got married! I'll be flying on the 30th as well.

Nice job, Phil.

I use a loop of strong cord round the prop and hang the model from a hook screwed into a rail around the edge of the garage roof.

Still plenty of people watching, Chris, even if a few of us tend to keep a low profile. Perhaps we need to behave more like teenagers now, with lots of gratuitous LOL and thumbs-up messages?

Good news! I'll have a go at this when it warms up a bit in my workshop - probably sometime in March...