Gordon Whitehead 1

It looked like a phishing message to me too, which is why I called PP rather than clicking on the "Next" button. The address bar still had the full Paypal address. The laptop I'm using is a chromebook which uses google to do the scanning. You two sound a bit more complacent about such occurrences than I am. Gordon

Hi Guys I've just had to shut down my Paypal account in order to open a new one that's uncompromised. It started with me attempting to order stuff from a well-known model shop dealing in top of the range ARTFs. Having gone to checkout and selected Paypal as the method of payment, I signed in to Paypal. Instead of opening my account, the following message came up: "Paypal is looking out for you. We've noticed some unusual activity and need your help to secure your account. Click NEXT to confirm your identity and change your password." Thinking that this might be the result of a hacker I immediately deleted my order from the shop's basket. Then I went back through old Paypal email receipts which wouldn't have been compromised, and found their contact number. I eventually got through to PP's security dept and was guided through setting up a new password and identity questions. Then I was able to open my PP account and check it. All was OK, and I also checked that the accounts I use to pay PP bills were untouched. However, this morning I attempted to log in to PP and got a repeat of the "PP is looking out for you ...etc " message. Although I'd been able to access the account immediately after changing my password etc, a couple of days later I was locked out again. So once again I checked my bank and credit card accounts (they were again untouched) and called PP security; the lady told me that there had been some suspicious activity and asked me if I'd ever had an address at one of three towns she listed. It could not have been coincidental that the model shop resided in one of the towns, and the other two were within 15 miles of it. It seems to me that the model shop's website must have been hacked and I will phone the shop to advise them of my suspicion when they get back from holiday. So I got the lady to cancel my PP account, which also cancels any recurring payment agreements on the account, eg with ebay, pocketmags etc. Looking at the subject model shop's website, I see that it is not secure. ie no https:// in the internet address line - which there is on the modelflying forum page you're looking at. Checking the websites of some PP transactions I had made a few days earlier, they did have the https:// prefix so it seems to me (though I might be mistaken as I'm not an internet security expert) that their websites were not the ones causing my logging-in problem. I'm now considering whether I should place future online orders with model shops that don't use https:// encryption, and just phone in with my credit card no. Let the online buyer beware! Gordon

Thanks for your inputs guys. I feel a little bit better knowing it's not an isolated problem. I agree with PatMc regarding the poor look of the windings, and thanks for the wiki extract too. I've noticed that small sintered magnets can crumble when used for holding large hatches on i/c models, which I assume is caused by vibration making the opposing magnets jitter against each other. Oh well. After seeing clubmates enjoying their Easy Streets with Ripmax Quantum II motors which are quite cheap, I'm thinking of getting my LMS to get the 25-size motor for me to to try. Cheers Gordon

The magnets are flaking and pitting Chris and David. The only hydrogen they'd have ever been near is that chemically bound in the water vapour in the damp flying conditions we often have to suffer in this country. I'm wondering if the magnets are made from powdered magnetic alloy bound with some kind of glue which is degrading with age. The epoxy fillets which you can see securing the magnets is araldite which I used many moons ago when re-installing detached magnets, and that has stayed whole. The motor wasn't particularly powerful but the current Aeronaut advert has it at a breathtaking 129 euro. I remember it did cost an arm and a leg when I bought it but nowhere near that. Perhaps the current limit was dictated by the magnets' composition. The magnets in my equally old AXI 4130/16 of about the same age and stored in the same box are still whole, thank goodness, as are those in a couple of old Hacker A50s I regularly use. Gordon Edited By Gordon Whitehead 1 on 20/09/2018 21:22:26

During the past week I've been working up the enthusiasm to design a nice 3S-powered Hawker Fury. Today I took the intended motor, an Actro C-6 1150kv outrunner, out of storage to check it out. I was a bit nonplussed to find that on fitting the prop this carefully stored motor felt really stiff when I turned it by hand. Rather than apply power, I took the motor apart and the photo show what the innards look like. The motor is well over 10 years old and has sat in a warm drawer in my workshop for at least the past 10 years. I do remember having to re-araldite some of the magnets back in place when the motor was only a month or so old, but haven't seen anything like this before. Applying sellotape doesn't remove hardly any of the magnetic dust, btw. Clearly I need a new motor. The Actro was only good for 30A so I'm planning to buy a replacement with rather more current handling capability. Gordon

Checking the volumes of the various Krumscheid silencers for large petrol engines here they are all in the range 14 to 16 times the capacity of the engines to be silenced. This, then, is probably a decent guide as to how big to make a home-made silencer for a given 2-stroke single. Gordon

Me too, Chris! Gordon

I had the Fleet version. I swapped the linear outputs for rotary, not realising that there were no end stops and the rotary output arms could go a full 360 degrees. So if (or in the case of my Fleet radio, when) you lost the signal, the servo would rotate right round until pulled up by the pushrod. This happened one day at height with my lovely HB 61 powered Mick Reeves Fournier, when the servos all went to one end, the elevator being stuck on down. Naturally the plane was a write-off. If one does wish to use a rotary output on this type of servo, the safe thing to do is cut off the lugs from the linear output racks so that they don't interfere with the output arms, and re-install the racks to act as end-stops. Then if the Rx loses the signal briefly, at least the servos have a chance of returning to normal service when the signal is resumed. Gordon

Hi Tom, simply copy and paste the url I quoted into your address bar and press enter. I hope this works for you. Or does that not work on a mobile or tablet? Actually I've just found the link instructions. Hang on while I try ! Cornwall Av'n Co Frolics I'll just check that it works Yup!  it does! Gordon Edited By Gordon Whitehead 1 on 05/08/2018 22:02:21

On this evening's Antiques Road Show the grandson of the founder of the Cornwall Aviation Co Ltd, Capt P Phillips, showed some memorabilia and described the background to the company. Intrigued, I googled the company and found this fabulous cine film which I though you all might like to view. http://cornishmemory.com/item/CHA_05 Gordon

Posted by SR 71 on 03/08/2018 21:08:08: Hi Jon can the needle valve be turned to the side, never owned a laser but very interested in the petrol one If you mean can the carb assembly be rotated so that the needle points out sideways wrt the cylinder, as on the Saito 180 FS and ASP 180 FS, it's possible that the throttle arm/slow running screw assembly will interfere with the silencer to prevent a full 90deg rotation. If a flex tube exhaust is used, then in the absence of the silencer body I suspect that the carb assy will readily achieve the full 90deg rotation. Anyone with a spare Laser laying around could check that for you. Mine is in a cowled installation so I can't help you with that. Gordon

Hi Jon GA25? Isn't that the petrol version of the 155, and not the 180? If so, goody!!! Cheers Gordon

Posted by ChrisB on 27/07/2018 08:49:41: Collateral damage????? That’s ridiculous, there should be no impact from any electronic interference on innocent and law abiding parties! So far I’ve been quite relaxed about the regs, but this is an issue that must be fully addressed! I was thinking more of the impact of a shot-down drone on striking something, be that a car driver's windscreen, baby in a pram, kids playing football, a prison inmate walking round the yard unaware of the drone smuggling going on at the time. There would be lots of scope for media hype in such a situation, hence the requirement for carefully devised procedures and systems. How would you have dealt with the V1 and the Scud any differently than they were defended against at the time? The falling destroyed missile debris would always risk causing harm to someone or something, but the missiles' destruction would usually have been required to protect the intended target.

I don't think it will be totally indiscriminate, in that a procedure will be designed, trained for and followed before pressing the tit. There'll always to be a risk of collateral damage, and I'm sure that any risk will be evaluated before action is taken. Gordon PS  I've read it too. Edited By Gordon Whitehead 1 on 27/07/2018 08:09:02

You might make a better job of keeping the spinner backplate hole central if you use a propeller reamer. Gordon

Somewhere within these 38 pages Geoff is a reference in the official documents defining ground level as just that, ignoring buildings, trees etc. I read and noted it because we have tall trees bordering our flying field so our club has a vested interest in knowing the situation ref ground level. But I'm not wading back through this lot to find it! Gordon

Posted by Andy Symons - BMFA on 25/07/2018 13:13:51: It is however a choice you can make. Makes the £34 BMFA membership fee look even more of a bargain. It's always been a bargain since I joined back in the 1960's

The law is that the Air Navigation Order applies to every man woman and child in this country. Edited By Gordon Whitehead 1 on 25/07/2018 12:59:42

Congratulations to the BMFA and the allied associations for negotiating an excellent result. There's just one area which I've been trying to clarify by reading the new permission document, the ANO Article 94, the relevant but now out-of date BMFA Handbook sections 8.1(4)(b) and 8.1(4)(c) and the BMFA update. The old BMFA rules (2017 edition) page14, paras 8.1(4), 8.1(4)(b) and 8.1(4)(c) were perfectly clear that model flying within an aerodrome traffic zone was restricted to below 400ft for models weighing over 7kg and that those weighing less than 7kg weren't so restricted. Note that para 8.1(4) subsumes all subsequent sub-paras. The new permission document isn't quite so clear. Para 3a of the permission does state that the mass of the SUA shall not exceed 7kg etc, but does not subsume para 3d, which states that the permission shall not apply to any flight within the flight restriction zone of a protected aerodrome ... etc. This means to me that the old rule whereby you could fly a sub-7kg model above 400ft within an air traffic zone has gone, but I might be wrong. The BMFA update states that any model aircraft flying within 1km of the boundary of a licensed airfield at any height will have to be with the permission of the airfield air traffic control or airfield operator. Clearly this applies to all models whether under or over 7kg. Is this 1km limit the same as the "flight restriction zone" mentioned earlier, which is a far smaller area than the ATZ? Or does "flight restriction zone" mean "ATZ" What I'd like to have clarified, in the context of the majority of model flyers, is this: which of the following statements applies in regards to, say, Manchester Airport ATZ, Birmingham Airport ATZ, etc: a. Nothing flies over 400ft b. Models under 7kg can still fly over 400ft but those over 7kg are prohibited. There are quite a lot of model flyers located near airports who will be affected by the answer. Gordon

Hi Danny It's not my photo sequence. The last time I had to trim a spinner was years ago, well before I found this photo sequence, and I can't really remember how I did it. Probably by chain-drilling a series of holes, joining the holes with a very thin rat-tail file, then finishing off using a dremel with coarse grit grindstone to get the overall shape, with a half-round rat-tail file for finishing. Gordon

WOW! That video was a real conversation stopper! Is everyone just too gobsmacked, or has everyone gone on holiday? OK, let's attempt to cheer things up with another video which shows my miserable attempt at doing an unscripted uncoordinated aerobatic sequence within a 300ft height restriction back in 2011. Due to other defined "no fly" areas (this was on an airfield too !!) the entire box was about 300 yards long by 200 yards across, just a bit bigger than the sheep field I fly in these days. It's just possible that I did stray a bit out of the "box" on occasion, but not by much. My thanks to Harry Curzon on camera for staying on his feet when he should have been dizzy, and filming each of the two flights in its entirety so there was no need for stitching bits together. It's not pretty! Here's hoping we get the required height exemption. Gordon Edited By Pete B - Moderator on 24/07/2018 16:12:34

Ref spinner cutting. I found this series of annotated photos on a forum some time ago. Apologies for not noting the name of the originator. Hope this helps Gordon