Willyuk

I am just rebuilding a laser 150 v twin and have been experiencing the same. I have now done one cylinder. I placed a piece of triangular balsa inside the combustion chamber, then covered this with a piece of ply. Now the valves cannot move. I then put a small G clamp on to the ply and one side of the spring retainer. I could compress this far enough to slip the collet on one side, then slip it around to the other side and put the second collet in. I found working inside a bag impossible btw. I may try that again on cyl 2/ good luck

Battery voltage sag is not unusual especially with well used batteries. I pull 85 amps from 10s lipos and on long up lines with my older battery packs, I get sag down to 35 volts on occasion it really depends on how much I try to pull from them and how old the packs are.

Based on my experience, using a flight testing school helped me enormously. I was in a club but found it hard to get regular tuition. I used Midlands flight training and was able to schedule sessions 2 or 3 times a week. That made a big difference, regular consistent flying with a good instructor. Used their planes also. One of the benefits is that Colin Chapman was happy to leave me to attempt to get out of trouble when I inevitably lost orientation. He only stepped in at the last moment. It worked for me. It might not for others.

I attended two of these, one before I did my B test and one after. I am not an instructor, just a club flyer. I found them really worthwhile. I learned a great deal about the test, what the expected standard is and WHY, which is important. It certainly gave me an insight into what the BMFA want to achieve with the scheme and also how difficult it is to obtain and maintain a common standard. You will see the differing interpretations of the rules that some examiners turn up with. you will enjoy it.

You could try looking at the GBRCAA website and look at the varous schules. There are ribbon diagrams for some of them. The FAI sporting code also contans descriptions of aerobatic manoeuvers

If that does not work try a new battery. I had a similar problem, sometimes would work and sometimes not. I tried switch cleaner, phoned dremel suppport ( just offered a discount on a new one). In the end i bought a replacement battery, not a dremel one but £8.00 substitute from germany and it has been fine ever since. Note that i checked the original battery voltage etc. and it seemed fine.

I run win 10 on a laptop, Mac os X on a desktop, IOS on an Ipad and Android on my phone. It works on ALL of these as I have just checked. So something strange is going on for some folks

you could also look at the Kosmo3 or 4 from mantua models, it is very reasonably priced and available from a couple of UK stores. Beware though the instructions are only in Italian

Get a set with interchangeable lenses. Not necessarily those advertised for model flying which can be pricey. I got a set for shooting with 4 colours from light yellow for dull hazy days, bronze for some sun to dark grey for very sunny. I find with that set I can always find something to assist with glare. About £30 from outdoor shops

The anhedral tailplane is not dead. The latest F3a designs from B.J.Park have the option of an anhedral all flying stab. They seem to work quite well, used by the UK team in the recent world cup in Argentina.

Thanks Matty, i thought the slight variations was not significant but they do seem to get worse over a period of time and also the IR raises a bit, one cycle on my PL6 seems to even everything out again.

your views welcomed​​I have been parallel charging my 5s lipos for some time now and have a question for the experts about how the cells are balanced across the packs. EG. I charge 4 5 cell lipos, the charger only sees 5 cells, so all 4 cell number 1 are seen as one cell. The charger then balances between the 5 cells in the "pack". So it must average out the 4 number 1 cells, the 4 number 2 cells and so on. I have noticed that when looked at as one large pack, it shows all cells as equal but when I check each individual pack each cell is different across all of the packs, i.e I have 20 cells at slightly different voltages. Add them all up and they are balanced. Is this a problem?? Recently I have been parallel charging to 4.15 volts and then finishing the charge for each pack separately so that they all end up at bang on 4.2. Is it worth the effort or does a minor variation matter in terms of longevity etc.

Matty is spot on about having a sufficiently powerful charger. With the right gear, parallel charging is a godsend. I use 10s flight packs made up of two 5s, 5000 mah lipo packs. These are not cheap and so having more than 8 or 10 battery packs, i.e. 4 or 5 flight packs is prohibative. When i go flying i like to have more than 4, 8 minute flights so parallel charging is the way to go. I use a powerlab cellpro 6 with the parallel charge board. With that set up and a decent leisure battery i have managed to fly more than enough. I usually put the first pair of batteries on charge immiediatly they have been used, add a set after a further flight and have even had six packs being charged at once, thats a 30 amp plus charge rate. The only issue i have had is the need to balance charge the batteries individualy from time to time. That ensures that the cell voltages are matched and helps bring the ir into line.

I bought a direct replacement from inwoods last year

here are a couple of photos of the event. I am the old guy at the back!!