Mike Rolls

I have now managed to sign - but I continue to wonder how many would-be signatories may have been put off. Not everyone has my bloody-mindedness. Mike

Dave Protech do a 2m - the Omega. Unlike the Alpha, whihc I like - and was the reason for me buying an Omega - this one I don't like. With the supplied power train (identical to the smaller, lighter Alpha) it is horribly underpowered. The aileron horns are so placed that one or other of them touches the ground as the model slows on landing - grass sites are murder on the horn and/or the servo gears. (Actually it has so much dihedral that ailerons are totally unnecessary and pretty ineffective unless used in coordiantion with rudder. The T tail mounting is very weak - rapid deceleration on a grass landing sees the tailplane sheer off from the top of the fin (the grain on the fin runs the wrong way). Mike

I have just tried, yet again, to sign up to this petition. It said I had been sent a confirmatory E-mail - I hadn't. Could something be stinking just a little bit? Four attempts to sign up without success - I wonder how many signatures haven't made it to the list in the same way as mine? Mike

Interesting to see that with the signatures over the one million mark the site can not, as I write, cope and advises people to try and sign up 'later'. I've tried three times to sign up over the last two weeks and each time the site has been too busy. I wonder how many other people have tried unsuccessfully? On the actual principles involved - please do not run away with theide that this will be good news for anyone except a very few fortunates individuals. It's just anothe excuse to: a. Squeeze more money out of the motorist b. Provide an excuse for allowing our road system to continue to deteriorate c. Provide an excuse to do nothing about our woeful and very expensive public transport systme (looking at the systme for the country as a whole, not just a few fortunate city locations) Mike

Peter Wasn't mine - mine all were shown propless. All the best Mike

Don't forget that the -D was the Mk IV in RAF service - might be another useful filter Mike

Mike I didn't mention David because, like you, I haven't heard of anything from him for quite awhile. Exquisite little engines. Mike

Anthiny Have you tried simply putting Mustang RAF into Google? There are hundreds of schemes 'out there' and that will bring up thigs for you to make your own choice HTH Mike

The advanatge of diesels for 'low-tech' F/F models such as the Ebeneezer is that they are far more controllable than glow motors. Because of that they can also swing a substantially bigger prop if wanted. PAW are just about the only UK maker of diesels left. Their smallest is a 0.55cc - absolute little gem. However, their motors have benefitted from decades of development and tend to more powerful, for their size, than the motors of earlier years. Do't make the mistake of assuming that the 0.55 is the equivalent of motrs of the same size from the 'old days' such as the ED Baby or Frog 50 - it is actullay a lot more powerful. Similarly, the PAW 80 (0.8cc) and 100 (1.0 cc) are a lot more powerful than motors such as the Mills 75 or Allbon Merlin - same size as the 80 - or the ED Bee or Allbon Spitfire - same size as the 100. Unless they have been badly mistreated, small diesels used for F/F last virtually for ever. I still have an ED Bee dating from 1949 which works fine; I recently sold a couple of Mills 75s of similar age and stillin first class runnnig condition. HTH Mike

I also have a Chameleon and am very pleased with it - although 'quirky' is a bit of an understatement regarding the manual whihc left me totally cross-eyed after reading it. Fortunately the manula includes a 'user's algorithm' diagram whihch is much easier to understand. You don't have to go to the expense of the Chameleon though - for whatit costs, and provided you don't intend to use packs bigger than 4S you can get two perfectly good chargers - I have two Graupner Ultramat 10s which only cost £54 each, and although they are now out of production Graupner have a similar specced replacement and there are of course other makes. Two chargers make sense - Li-pos take a lot longer to charge than Ni-Cads or Ni-Mh cells. A full charge typically takes 80-90 minutes, even more if charging through a balancer, and leaving Li-pos to charge unattended is a defintie no-no, so can be a pretty boring and lenghty process if you have several packs to charge. HTH Mike

Forgot to say that the 20 minute run would be using the same size prop - or a tad bigger than - as the original. For maximum rate of climbe use a 10x6 folder which roughly trebles rate of climb at the cost of reducing motor run to around 10-12 minutes Mike

The Protech Alpha V is a good starter. 72" span one piece wing so easy to transport in any reasonable size car. Comes with generic 540 motor and 35A speed controller. 7 cells maximum with that set up and the supplied prop. Climb out is gentle. Performance can be improved slightly by substituting a Graupner 8x4.5 folding prop. Can be improved a lot by replacing the motor (after you have gained experience) with a 600 size brushless such as the Tornado 3630/1000 or Jeti 30/3 and suitable ESC. The battery compartment will take an E-tek 3400 3s lipo for even greater performance. The standard set-up gives a motor run of around 7 minutes - the brushlee/li-po upgrade gives around 20 minutes climb time and double th eclimb rate HTH Mike

Mike Windy Ain't It - brings back memories. One of the regulars at Hounslow Heath used tofly one with an ED 246 up front in the mid 50s. Can't remember if it was F/F or single channel R/C (not that there was much difference in many cases!)but do remember he had painted it a really grotty sort of 'dirty red' all over - still, it was beautiful in his eyes! Mike

Dependent on how many ribs you need, if they are the same size (parallel chord) then it is worthwhile making a template in ply to cut round. Also worth keeping the template in case of accidents - repairing will be simplified. Mike

Not enough! Currently: Electric 5xown design aerobats 1x ARTF (Pelikan Dingo) 1 shockie 1 plan built - Tigershark IC SAS Starjet KK Phantom APS Lucky Lady Gliders Middle Phase Protech Alpha and Omega (electric gliders) Plus about 7 or 8 needing some form of TLC before being used. Mike

I've never known Prymol cause Solarflm to wrinkle. I apply it with a wad of kitchen paper - don't like cotton wool as you can get bits of it coming off as you use it - and also a fine brush for small areas. Perhaps you are applying too much? You only need to smear it lightly over the surface HTH Mike