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Chris Freeman 3

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Everything posted by Chris Freeman 3

  1. Stunning, makes all the hard work worth it! Byron and I need to get our act together and finish the Byron one! Too many projects and not enough time. What is your next build Nick?
  2. After having lost everything it is something that never leaves you as when you are doing a simple job and you might need a tool that you know that you had then you need to think if you had it after the fire or before the fire! The other more positive aspect is that I had aircraft and kits that I thought I would never be able to replace but somehow we did manage to rebuild and recover hobby wise and we once again have a large fleet of aircraft and I have lots of kits for my retirement in just under 3 years time. We had a round 150 flying aircraft and about 60 kits and some were over 30 years old. Many of the aircraft had a history to them as they were either built as prototypes or kits built as reviews or even done lots of displays. I also had stuff that was given to me and projects that we had done as a group build such as a 1/3 scale Bleriot.
  3. 11 years ago I got up early and went flying with my Dave Platt 1/5 Spitfire, 1/4 Tri pacer and 1/4 Spacewalker with Gemini 160 twin. The wind was quite strong so I only flew the Tri Pacer and Spitfire and decided not to fly the Spacewalker in the wind. When I got home My wife and I had a swim and a Barbeque and played with the dogs. I had cleaned the planes and put them on the workbench ready for another attempt the next day. Byron got home from work and spent some time on his new giant scale aerobatic plane he had just been sponsored. That afternoon my wife and Byron were having an afternoon nap and I was watching some cricket on TV when I heard some noises in the garage and went to investigate. The new aircraft of Byron's was on fire and the aircraft hanging on the ceiling were starting to fall down, I ran for a fire extinguisher but as I got into the garage the fuel tank exploded and I was in the path of the flames. After that Byron ran around the house to open the garage door and he was greeted with a fireball. After that it all became a blur, My wife just managed to unlock a security gate to get out, she had passed an open sliding door but for some reason went to the front door. That night I went to bed in someone who I did know and was even wearing some of his cloth's. We lost everything including 2 of our 3 dogs. We had only the cloths that e had on when the fire started, no id's, wallets or cell phones. My Wife's car was totally burnt out and Byron and my Fiat vans keys were burnt and as they have coded keys new ignitions had to be imported from Italy. The cars were towed into a neighbors property for safe keeping but on the Monday we had a huge hailstorm which further damaged the cars. Lucky the house and cars were insured and I have had the same broker for 20 years so the house was rebuilt and cars fixed and replaced. Priority was given to getting the house sorted and this used most of the funds. You never quite know what you have until it is all gone and you also do not always appreciate what you have. The fire was started by a 2 cell 2200 lipo that was the receiver battery for Byron's aircraft!
  4. Byron had a friend help with the cad drawings for mold for the drop tanks for the P38. The mold has been 3d printed and fiberglass drop tanks will be made in this. They are large and should look good.
  5. On Saturday we took delivery of the counter rotating unit that was the reason for the build of this airframe. The unit looks great and now needs to be tested so it has been mounted in the old faithful Stick! We need to use larger wheels to get some more prop clearance.
  6. Very Nice Nick, good luck with the test flight. Sorry about the P47 as they are just such nice flying aircraft and yours looked so good. Can be a tough hobby this!
  7. Hi Steve Thanks for the reply, a real privilege to get a post like this as it will really help. I have followed your work in the magazines from when you were a kid! Byron and I will be getting together on the weekend to see what the requirements are for servo's. At this stage the servos are in the boom, but we well look at the available options. It is also a little strange as the original builder still owns the aircraft and does have some say in the project so we do have to keep that in mind. I think the airframe will be Byron's once finished Was the flutter on the elevator or the stab as that could also influence what needs to be done. I must say I have also found the fact that the elevator is one piece and has a servo at each end strange. My head is more comfortable with 2 elevator half's which is not practical on this design. Many years ago in the 80's my dad built a large stick that we lost when the stab bowed under load and this locked the elevator. Byron's Grandfather was a great believer in having the control surface thicker than the flying surface as this prevented airflow separation and turbulence which can start flutter. Jack built a 2 50% WW1 aircraft in the 80's and 90's so he did have some experience. I might have to use a very strong mouth wash for saying this but the test flights will be done as an electric set up as this will make the test flying less stressful! we do have 2 DLE 55's and 2 MVVS 58's which can be used once the test flying is sorted.
  8. Very sad to read this, he sure has been a prolific supporter of the hobby. We sure have lost another true icon of the hobby. Condolences to the family and friends
  9. Richard, I have a Spitfire problem, built 10 with more to come! We have 3 1/3 cubs and 3 DB Dakota's so i understand what you are saying! Chris W From what i remember from the plans which Byron now has is that it has 1400 wing area and wing loading was 44 to 46oz/sq ft. Greg Hann built his one at 42 pounds with Zenoah 38's and reported it was a joy to fly. We plan to keep it as light as possible and will fly it in primer so we can see how much weight we can still add with a finish but we tend to try and keep things as light as possible. The many electric projects I built have taught me how important weight is. I had a Ziroli Beech 18 that was rebuilt from wreck and that flew on Zenoah 38's and weighed 50 pounds so it really taught me how to fly smoothly and power management.
  10. A friend of ours had one with DLE 55 and it flew very well but lost it when one motor quit and he heard it to late. They always say if you have height and speed with a twin it will be ok, if low and slow the good motor will take you to the scene of the accident! Reliability is the key to this project. The airframe was originally set up for DLE 35's but we did not get them.
  11. Thanks Stu, I will follow up on this. Byron has done a bit of research on this subject and the booms are a problem, they break just behind the wings or just in front of the stab. The booms look bigger than they are but when you see how much is removed for the wheels to retract and also to have a hatch to allow them to be removed from the wings it leaves just the sides of the boom for strength. The back of the booms is the same, not much wood as they are rounded and then have the stab in the middle of them, compounded by the fact that they are a long way behind the CG so you are trying to save weight. The pushrods are piano wire inside a nyrod which is as per the plan, I will be checking on this as servo installation is next. The original design called for Zenoah 38's but double the power is often used. Dennis Crooks raced one in the Madera races for many years and this was a composite version he made. He had 4.2 motors and apparently on one race the one motor quit just after take off so he flew the entire race on one motor!
  12. A while ago Byron went to visit one of our flying buddies and when he returned he asked me to come and have a look at something! On the lawn was a mostly framed up P38 lightning! Jon had run out of enthusiasm for the project and asked Byron if he would finish it! The airframe had been around for a while and was starting to pick up damage from being moved around and the number of components and the size made this a very serous build. A big tub contained all the spinners, plastic parts and the Robart Retracts with an electric conversion kit. I started to do some of the woodwork in the areas that needed fixing or strip planking to be finished. Whilst working on the bits we decided it would be best to glass as soon as possible to make it more ding resistant. As a piece was finished it went down the road for Byron to start final sanding and glassing. Byron also spent a lot of time getting all the parts to fit better as the wing is in 3 parts, removable booms and stab. Work has been on and off as other projects had priority. When the DC3 repair moved back to me, Byron started to do more work on the P38 and On Sunday when I went around to his house it was back on the lawn for me to see and help discuss some ideas. I must say that it is a very impressive aircraft but also one that takes a huge amount of perseverance or long suffering to build and also one that needs to be flown with a huge amount of respect. This is were it is now:
  13. I found this this morning when paging through an old mag whilst looking for the Hurricane article in it.
  14. I have an old Tamiya ME 110 kit and think the color scheme is quite interesting
  15. In the 80's i built the big brother to the Mannock which was the Giant and it was a giant in its day. All Balsa and was very light. I used Parachute Silk that I got from parachute flares while doing national service in the Airforce. The silk sure pulled tight and bowed the ribs in the wing but being a DB design it still flew very well with a 35cc Quadra. I thought the structure would not last with all the vibration and eventually sold it 20 years later!
  16. Thanks, I am a bit paranoid when it comes to switches as I lost a Giant Stinger that I scratch built on its test flight when a switch failed. Buried the 45cc ST in hard ground and destroyed the airframe. These switches seem to be a good quality. I also look at the wire and the connectors to see the quality. Silver wire with few strands and silver connectors are often a indicator of cheap quality. I tend to use 2 switches in higher vibration airframes. As this is electric, 1 switch is for the retracts and 1 for the radio.
  17. Been a while since we tried to fly the Beaufighter, I used the motors from the DC3 so I was not 100% sure that they had not been damaged. I had used 1 of the ESC's so I had to buy another. The ESC leads were short so it was quite hard to do all the motor checks but it all seemed fine. Byron and I went to the field and set it up and did all the checks. The take off had a pronounced swing to the right and Byron needed lots of left trim once airborne, the was struggling so we left the wheels down as the CG would move back it retracted. He did a few circuits and settled down a bit. Soon it was time to land and to our surprise and relief it was a good one. On the way home Byron said it was almost as it it had asymmetric thrust. I was not sure if it was a motor that was damaged. I let the Beaufighter sit on the naughty bench for a while and then started to do some checks to see what was wrong. I had another motor the same size so I replaced the left motor. I then took it outside to do some checks and found the left motor was down 200 watts compared to the right motor. Must be the ESC but this was the new one. I decided to try and reset it by powering up the ESC with full throttle I GOT the beeps and when throttling back it armed. When checking the watts it matched the 1100 watts of the right motor. So this was a set up error! The next attempt at the field went much better and Byron was quite impressed on the available power a the flying characteristics. We still need to have more flights in better weather conditions to see how well it goes and then to decide if we want to do some more work on it as it has had a hard life.
  18. Byron completed the priming and detailing work that he wanted to do so the airframe was shipped back up the hill for me to do the equipment installation. I am very happy with the work that has been done as you cannot see any of the repairs that were made. The center section is the most work as it is the heart of the aircraft as the u/c, motors, esc's, batteries and receiver are all mounted here. The nacelles and cowl mounting are also lots of work with lots of trial and error.
  19. One valuable pointer given to me in the early days of flying was to always stand parallel to the runway so that you know exactly where the runway is. If you are moving around it is easy not to land straight down the runway. A mustang can also be quite hard to land without a bounce, the legs are long and quite far forward in the wing.
  20. Some pictures from the weekend of the aircraft Byron flew: DB Auster, about 25 years old and recently rebuilt, ASP fs power, the camo sure works well. Our Mustang and a Fly Fan 1/4 scale 3W 150cc that Byron flew for a friend. Very impressive in the air with a great sound from the inline twin.
  21. We flew at a scale fly in 2 weeks ago and had 2 flights with the Mustang, the first time it has flown from tar runways. It was quite hot and gusty so not the best of flying conditions but the Mustang did well. The video is good but my technology skills are not great so I am not sure why it is a reduced screen!
  22. Chart tape normally used for panel lines is very scarce in South Africa and if you can get it, it is very expensive. Byron found a product used for their nails which is available and cheap and this does the required task. 10 Rand is about 45p.
  23. Byron did lots of work on the DAK, the MS primer was sprayed and then the sanding, lots of it. A glass finish is a lot of work if you want a nice finish and also if you do not want to add too much weight. Panel lines done using a thin/narrow tape. The repairs cannot be seen which is great.
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