Fredrum

Having just finished an extended, although sporadic, build on Jemima, I decided that I wanted to build something as fast and as simple as possible with which I could just nip down to the local park to get a bit flying in when I felt like it rather than having to wait for the weekend to get to the club field, not to mention having to wait for a flying spot. Being a beginner, I would also have to wait for an instructor to become available to take me up with the buddy box, which eats into his time as well. I will be still going down that route once I get around to getting a new receiver for Jemima, but in the meantime, I would like to get a bit of practice in. I have been flying my Vapor at the indoor meetings lately and I think I’ve gained enough confidence to enable me to lurch for the sky by myself, and if the worst happens, I won’t have invested a huge amount of time or money in my incipient bin bag full of sticks. I was curious to see just how fast I could build a working model from scratch, so here goes. I started early afternoon with a few blank sheets of paper and drew up the wing, tail feathers and fuselage. Starting with the wing, some spars were stripped up and a pair of rib templates made up in ply. A set of over-sized rib blanks were cut out including holes for the threaded rods. Bolted all the blanks between the templates and planed & sanded them to shape. This went extremely quickly. The only slightly time consuming part was adjusting the spar cutouts for a snug fit. The wings were built in one piece to be separated later. The leading edge sheet, lower cap strips and trailing edge sheet were pinned down and glued together. The bottom spars were glued to LE sheet & cap strips. Ribs were centered on the cap strips and glued down. The LE sheet was pulled up at the front and glued in the hand, one rib at a time starting from the centre. The dihedral ribs were set with a jig and the tip ribs angled outwards by eye (TLAR). Top spar added followed by shear webs, top sheeting and cap strips. The front of the LE sheeting was sanded back flush with the front of the ribs and a 3mm false LE was glued on followed by a 6mm leading edge. The LE was planed to section and the wing sanded, cut in half and the dihedral ribs sanded on the shooting board. It was early evening by this time and I was pretty pleased with progress. At this stage, all the balsa came from what I had to hand. Thus endeth the first day. Edited By Fredrum on 17/03/2016 12:22:03

When you do get around to mowing the lawn Andy, you probably won't want to be standing in front of the grass chute when you get to that bit where your second dog seems to be sitting with intent Impressive build BTW.

A lot of great prototypes here that I hadn't considered. My wish list included the DH88 Comet and the T33 Shooting Star, but as EDF's and multis are not likely to get up, my three are: Tiger Moth (one of the most beautiful designs of all time) JU87 Stuka (severe, but beautiful in it's own way) Luton Minor (relatively simple design and easy to fly)

Nice.

Hi James. I'm not a very experienced modeler, but I can tell you that having instruction on how to fly will mean that you will be competent enough to go out and do your own thing if that's what you want and it won't cost you a fortune in broken models. I'm self employed and I work on my own. I'm often using wood working machinery such as saws, routers, planers etc. and it has been in my own best interest to learn how to safely operate them. I actually take a little more care because there's no-one there to call for an ambulance if anything happens. I've been doing it this way for 10 years and I still have all my fingers. Someone earlier mentioned the CAA and I think that's very relevant to your situation. There have been stories recently of people being arrested for flying models too close to full size planes, sensitive government installations or indeed other people. If you're not acquainted with the law (and not all of it can be anticipated by just using common sense) you run the risk of being arrested, especially with heightened awareness of security issues these days. I would suggest if you do want to plough your own furrow, take the time to acquaint yourself with the relevant regulations generally as well as those specific to where you want to fly. Or you could just join a club long enough to get all the experience and knowledge you need then go out on your own. Other advantages of being in the club are that you can get advice on how to set your model up (or indeed whether the model you have is even appropriate to your skill level) and that when you do bend a model (and you will) there will be a wealth of knowledge to draw from on how to competently fix it. Some might even offer to do it for you. The best of luck. Edited By Fredrum on 04/01/2016 10:45:43

There is so much bad news being reported these days, both in the papers and on the tube, not to mention online in general, that it’s easy to forget that there is a lot of good stuff happening in the world, but unfortunately, it’s rarely click-bait. I thought that I would open this thread to see if there was any interest in sharing good news modeling stories, as I’m sure we all have them whether they involve new acquaintances or old friends. Let me kick it off. I hope this isn’t too long-winded. I’ve had a bit of odd history with modeling. When I was a teenager in the ‘70’s, I saw an RC model plane, as yet uncovered, that had been built by a family friend. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen (apart from the first time I saw a drummer performing in person a few years earlier). It seemed magical to me that someone would have the skills to do such a thing. The friend very generously gave me the plan (I still have it), which happened to be a Tyro Major. I made a couple of early attempts which didn’t quite work out mostly because even at that age, I had a habit of fiddling with things that already work, but it got me interested in looking into other woodworking disciplines and, to cut a long story short, was directly responsible for me becoming a professional woodworker many years later. During all these intervening years, I voraciously read every book, magazine and article I could get my hands on and even though I wasn’t actually building or flying, it provided me with quite a rich fantasy life. Fast forward to a couple of years ago and while surfing the ‘net, I came across a discussion thread that mentioned an indoor flying group not far from me. As it turns out, it wasn’t a club per se, rather just an informal group of like-minded (though quite diverse) people who got together once a month in a church hall to commit mini-aviation. I was a little nervous about being a stranger walking into an established group unannounced and not sure what the welcome would be. There were people already flying some aerobatics when I arrived plus some rotary wing and small RC sports models. After a couple of minutes of just wandering around looking at models and saying hello to people, the organizer of the group came up to welcome me. He spent a large part of the rest of the evening talking to me about models and he seemed very interested in my areas of interest in the hobby. He gave me some great advice about getting started in indoor flying with some suggestions about what kind of models would give me the best chance of success in what I wanted to do. I spent the rest of the evening chatting to people about what they were doing and they were all just as welcoming. A little later, some of them were flying little mini vapors and floaty rubber free flight models. There was that magic again. I gave the organizer my details so he could keep me advised of meetings. A couple of days later, he rang and said that he travels past my place on his way to work and asked if he could drop in with some stuff. He arrived the next day with a plan for a Hangar Rat, a small building board and some balsa to get me started which enabled me to turn up at the next meeting with my first properly built model. Over the next few months, he also called me when he was available and the weather was right, to meet me at the park to give me some outdoor flying experience with one of his models. At the next meeting, the resident aerobatic whiz said that seeing my model had rekindled his interest and he had built his own Hangar Rat, which he hadn’t done for some years. He also gave me a kit of parts for another one that he had run up on his CNC machine that he uses to make his shockies along with an assembly jig, so at the next meeting, I had two Hangar Rats (I’m now up to number 5). A few others have also turned up since. I had so much fun building these little rubber models that I figured it was time to do a proper RC build. I had the knowledge and the skills; I just didn’t have the experience. I discovered the RCM&E build forums and was amazed by the willingness for people to share what they know and how they overcame problems as well as the support for each other whether they be scale masters or complete newbies. I built a model from an RCM&E free plan that was finished last week just shy of 2 years sporadic modeling. I have related my experience with the local modeling club last weekend on my build thread here, but I’ll mention it again. I contacted the club through their website and they invited me to the field where they said they would be happy to check over the model and maiden it for me even though I’m not a member. On arrival, my welcome was just the same as it had been with the indoor guys. They were all very interested in my model and declared her to be attractive and well built. Initially I had a range problem with my radio so one of the guys loaned me a new unused receiver that he had with him and his transmitter and spent quite some time setting it up; time that he could have spent flying himself. The consensus was that the best man for the maiden flight was the club president. He was quite busy that day as he was also instructing some other newbies, but he took the time to check over the model for me and took it up for two flights. He was obviously a very competent pilot and normally flies aerobatic and pylon models, but I’m pleased to say that he really enjoyed flying my high wing floater. He described the flying characteristics as just like a genuine vintage old-timer and said that it was a beautiful plane to fly. The rest of the day was spent chatting with club members and I went home happy. Edited By Fr

Jim Newberry's Jemima. Feb 2013 free plan (but with modified cowl).

Thanks Mark. It's gonna be fun

Cheers, I'm pretty pleased with it and I've really enjoyed the build even though it's turned into a bit of a long-term project. Down at the field today and many compliments on a very attractive model (thanks Jim). Strangely, even though there were some excellent and very experienced pilots there, none of them built their own models so Jemima was a bit of a novelty for them. Initially I had a range problem with the radio so one of the guys donated a new receiver that he had with him and his transmitter. I was advised that the best man for the job of piloting the maiden flight was the club president, who agreed to give it a go. We set up low rates (which we subsequently found provided plenty of control authority) and after a bit of fiddling to get everything set up, we got the plane airborne. It tracked well on the ground and flew well from the off, but as can be seen from the video, a strange sound developed after a couple of minutes and a landing was called. Investigations found that the screws attaching the motor to the mount as well as the firewall attachment screws had come loose and the motor was flopping around in the cowl. I remembered then that I had only temporarily mounted the motor some time back to do some setting up and forgot that I had to tighten everything up and add the two remaining mounting screws. After some remedial work, another flight was called and Prez soon had her flying graceful circuits and even a couple of loops. After about 5 mins I asked him to fly another loop while I filmed, but she seemed to have trouble gaining height. Initially he thought that the battery was running down, but upon landing we found the battery was still holding 75% charge when I noticed that the TE of the wing had ridden up over the rear step. We also found that the battery bay was bit warm. I asked him how he found it to fly and he said ‘It’s a beautiful plane to fly. It feels just like a genuine vintage old-timer’. Praise indeed. I must say that I was excited to see her finally in her element and acquit herself well. I have a couple of things to do before the next flight: A new receiver Change the wing hold-down from rubber bands to bolts Drill some holes through the firewall to let some air in Loctite the motor attachment screws As soon as I get all that sorted, I’ll be back down at the field. I might even have a go at flying it myself. Thanks again Jim on designing such a lovely model.

Time to ‘fess up to a couple of issues I contacted the local flying club and they graciously invited me to the field where they would be happy to check over the model and maiden it for me even though I’m not a member. While preparing for it, it tseems that the plywood rudder horn was too flimsy and it snapped off so I headed down to the electronics store and bought a small sheet of fiberglass board to make a new one which was a bit deeper, front to back. While I was at it, I shortened the distance between the clevis holes in order to increase the rudder travel and bushed them in brass. The remains of the old horn were cut out and the slot extended into the rudder to increase the gluing surface. The other problem I encountered was that while reassembling the tail, the threaded insert inside the fin came adrift, which meant that I couldn’t screw it on, so I glued it on instead after removing some covering. In the end, it’s much more solid and better aligned. It also meant that I could leave off the attachment bolt, which saved a bit of weight where it matters most. I’m always happy when I can make a virtue out of disaster. Once it was all back together, the rudder throw was exactly as recommended at full servo travel. The plane was a little tail-heavy as built so I hammered some sinkers flat and bolted about 150g to the back of the firewall (electron wall?) to balance on the main spar. All up weight is 1.6kg (3lb 8oz). All ready for the maiden tomorrow.

This was in the paper this morning: "Swiss police have confirmed that when the seven FIFA officials were arrested they all threw themselves on the ground and pretended to be injured."

Thanks Birgir. It's my first proper build and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm now entering modelling-induced hibernation for a little while while I contemplate my next one

Just finished her today. Jemima from the RCM&E free plan. Build blog here.

Thanks for the advice Onetenor. All taken on board. For the glazing, I've used soft drink bottles which have a smooth section under the label just the right for the side panels. The chances are that i will need larger sections in the future, so I'll keep my eye out for acetate packaging The model is essentially finished now and I have very much enjoyed the build. An issue arose when I banded the wing on. The largest bands i could find are 8". There is not a huge amount of pressure on the wing, but there is quite a lot of backward pressure against the back stop due to the relative positions of the front dowel and the L.E. I’ve probably not made as good a job as I should have in the structure behind the wing seat and I’m finding that the right side of the seat is flexing back a little causing the wing to skew slightly. I put in some reinforcing pieces here, but it doesn’t seem to have helped. I might rethink the mounting system and look into using bolts instead, or I might be able to come up with another knock-offable system, or i might bit the bullet and take the covering off the turtle deck and do a little engineering, although I'm reluctant to add any more weight behind the CG. It may even be possible to move the front wing dowel closer to the L.E. Any advice would be very welcome.

The control runs have been finalized. Closed-loop for the rudder and golden rod for the elevator. The throw on the elevator worked out fine, but the maximum on the rudder is only 35mm as opposed to 45mm specified. I’m only going to be puttering around with it, so we’ll see how it goes on the maiden. If I need any more, I’ll move the attachments at the rudder end further in towards the hinge line.