John Stainforth

Each to their own (tea leaves, or whatever). Personally, I find the advice of experts such as Jon H very useful and heed what they have to say.

I think this film clip was meant to be humorous. The finishing touch for me was the inadequate-looking elastic bands holding the wing on. I was expecting the wing to come off any moment during the aerobatics, as a grand finale!

A really good book on the Wright Brothers, if you haven't read it, is David McCullough's "The Wright Brothers".

I assure you that the sole role of the vertical and horizontal stabilisers (fin and tailplane) is to stabilise - that is, maintain and bring back the plane back to an equilibrium position. That does not cut out small bumps, because it takes a finite time for the plane to respond. (Though quite how a kestrel maintains an absolutely fixed position in bumpy winds is a wonder to behold!.) Modern airliners have a great margin of stability built in, particularly in pitch. This stability comes at the cost of an enormous downward load on the tailplane (horizontal stabilizer).

The Americans use horizontal and vertical stabilizer for tailplane and fin, respectively. The former are at least as correct and accurate as the latter. Incidentally, when I have used the term "undercarriage" in America, Americans generally think this is very quaint. They use "landing gear".

No, the word "airplane" is much more than a few decades old. "According to Merriam-Webster, the word first known use of the word airplane was in 1906, about three years after the Wright brothers took to the air on the first successful flight with the 'flying machine.' "

Airplane is just the American spelling and is very widely used on the internet. It is not a corruption. The first airplane was invented by the Wright brothers, there was even a movie called Airplane etc etc.

I've added an album to my profile called "S6b_construction", which shows the method I used for sheeting the wings of my S6b with a double set of jigs that conform to the shape of the ribs. I think pictures speak loader than words. The underside was sheeted first, so the first set of jigs (beneath every third rib) conform to the shape of the upper side of the wing without the sheeting. The jigging pieces, made of 1/4" balsa are glued straight to the glass building "board". The upperside was sheeted next with the wing supported by jigs that conform to the lower side of the wing plus sheeting. A combination of CA and aliphatic resin (mainly the latter) was used to glue the sheeting. The sheeting was held in place while the glue dried with weights (model magazines); and leading edge sheeting by a liberal use of masking tape. (The pictures show what I mean by liberal!) Note there is not a pin in sight. The benefit of this method is that the wings come out absolutely true. The sheeting cannot create warps: indeed, it locks the wing into the correct shape.

That's not exactly a plane view!

What a sad situation! But I remain hopeful that the current madness will eventually be reversed.

Andy, 4.5 lbs for an 80" span model is an incredibly ambitious target. If you can achieve that it will be something of a record and you will have an amazing soarer!

For aerobatic flying or "3D flying" one might need the CG fairly far back, although there are other criteria for optimising the CG position (such as the behaviour in vertical downlines and inverted flight). With an i.c. model one can get a feel for the twitchiness of the plane as the fuel tank (which is usually in front of the CG) empties, and then decide how much twitchiness can be tolerated. If the plane starts getting too twitchy, one needs to land pretty soon, because it gets worse each time one goes around for another landing attempt!

Yes, Roman chariots that were designed to fit the hindquarters of two standard Roman horses. When the Romans came to Britain the chariot wheels created ruts in the roads - particularly their stone-paved roads - which made it awkward for any subsequent horse-drawn carriages to have different wheel gauges. Then, when railway lines were put in on the same routes it was only practical to place them over the ruts.

Are you sure it is not M7? I had one model that had a nylon wing bolt of that size, which was not really satisfactory being on the short side: it only went into the plastic nut a few turns. M7 is a less common size, and I ended up replacing the nylon bolt with a longer M7 bolt made of beautiful titanium.

I meant "normal" temperature and pressure (i.e., 20 C), not "standard".