Manish Chandrayan

Geoff, built one from DB Sport and Scale in 2007/2008. Loosely based on D-EBKT. Still flying with a Saito 56. Had a Magnum 52 to start with. Not much scale details though. Interesting fact! The day I maidened my DB kit built EBKT, the full size EBKT crashed in Germany a couple hours later. It has since been rebuilt and currently airworthy I did scratch my scale itch when I did the quarter scale from Falcon Models (pity no longer offered) and added all the bells and whistles. Currently needing some repairs due to a mishap during takeoff that was ocassioned when another flyer did not clear the runway in time and my observer was engrossed elsewhere.

Yes, those rudder ribs. While the original (on the model) Filaria afflicted undercarriage can be modified to some extent the mounting location will still be all wrong. But then I think I am being a scale purist

I wanted to press the buy button for the Phoenix Tiger Moth ARF that the local retailer had. But every time I went to the site, the hideous undercarriage and fin rendition by Phoenix put me off the purchase. I could live with other errors but these two areas were glaring. If only they had it closer to the Hangar 9 version it would have been a no brainer . Your Hawk and Tiger together look bright and cheery in the sunshine. Hope you get many hours of enjoyment flying them

Congratulations on a successful maiden 👍. Would love to watch a video in HD next time

Ernie, Prime Miniatures (as recommended by Simon) are your best bet within UK. I have bought from them and do recommend them.

Here you go please MRM

Started reading your post and was wondering what kind of performance were you getting using a 16x8 on 91 two stroke? Got a bit more incredulous as I read further when you said it was 61.....till the time you clarified it was a geared 61😀

To my eyes, the lines are closer to the Jaguar than the Gnat. Either way, looks good

Indeed they are👍

Interestingly the case crack has not propagated (currently)to inside. There is no evidence of any amount of oil seepage from inside the case through the crack. looking back through my records, I bought this engine way back in 2008 from a seller on RCU

The circlip groove is empty. No traces of a broken circlip. The piston is indeed cracked. Both the big and small ends have bronze bushes. Noticed a crack on the case as well. This I believe preexisted and not a result of the current failure as the cylinder has no sign of any damage Magnified picture of the broken rod ends

Hello Martin. If you notice the side that has the circlip intact, the gudgeon pin is indeed retained by the circlip around its circumference. In my views the tang on the circlip is more for insertion and removal than retention of the gudgeon pin. Yes, the piston does have bronze/brass bushes for the gudgeon pin. You can clearly see one of them in the posted pictures where it has been pushed out to the side. And yes the big and small ends of the connecting rods have the bronze bushes as well.

The second flight of the Profile Thunder Tiger Extra shot on mobile (not the best video you will see) https://youtu.be/uB3nSOn7YJc?si=rC8h322nUzxMsQ_R

Jon, Will check the circlip area again. I remember when I opened the engine, the gudgeon pin was supported both sides, The pin easily came out from the side the bush has displaced. That led me to wonder what retained the gudgeon pin on this side. Referred to the exploded diagram and confirmed that there should have been a circlip this side as well. I probed the groove area with a sharp toothpick and think I did not detect any remnant of the circlip. Will further look in more closely. Yes, that indeed is a crack that you spotted. Additionally the piston skirt has a damaged corner where the longer end of the broken rod has hit the piston skirt. This engine was most probably previously rebuilt at some point, as there are multiple marks on the case bottom that may have occurred from metal debris (probably the broken circlip or broken bearing cage). I remember seeing those when I had first opened up the engine case front to replace the bearings and thoroughly cleaned the engine of baked castor from the case bottom. Not replacing any thing on this engine and keeping it as parts for a NiB one that I have and that will be put back on the Chipmunk. Martin, The small end was absolutely smooth on the gudgeon pin, had evidence of oil film and the 120 R does not have an oil hole on the small end, Only the the big end has an oil hole and that is clear and the crank pin and big end again had oil and are smooth

One more picture of the Clipped wing Cub parked alongside a quarter scale Cub.

Had this Enya 120 R on a Seagull Chipmunk. Engine History - Was bought used 10+ years back from US forum seller. Tested and never used again. During the Covid lockdown, engine was inspected and found that the crank bearings had deteriorated and both were duly replaced. Only the front housing was removed to replace the bearings. Prior to installing on the Seagull Chipmunk, the 120 was mounted on test bench and run using a 15x8 prop with 16% oil and 5% nitro fuel. All being good, engine was installed on to the model and have had four flights. RPM recordings were in the range of 8800, and detuned to approx 8200. The cowl is tightly baffled and has adequate exit area with a formed lip to extract the hot air Wanted to fly the model last weekend but the engine did not start despite multiple attempts. Flew other models and the Chipmunk was relegated to investigation for another day. This past Saturday, opened up the cowl and checked all possible source of failures (plugs, on board glow connections, etc) and nothing was found wrong. The engine started fairly easily. Cowl was put back on and the engine was restarted. The engine was tuned by ear and was in the process of being checked for Hi-Lo transition when the prop, spinner together went flying off and the engine stopped. Assuming that I may have not tightened the prop correctly , the errant prop and spinner et all were recovered in preparation of reinstall. Only to realize that there was some internal issue with the engine. The engine was dismounted and brought back home. Dismantling the engine confirmed what was suspected. A broken connection rod. Top end and bottom end of the rod had oil and I did not see any signs of roughness. What did notice was that the rocker cover had lot of oil but it was black oil (not the usual) that one would see due to metal to metal rubbing. The gudgeon pin run in two bronze bushes installed in the piston and retained with wire circlips on both ends. One of the bronze bush on the piston was partially displaced outwards and signs of the bush outer edge contacting the cylinder could be evidenced. The retaining circlip on this end was no where to be seen. My assessment of the failure is The circlip was probably not installed correctly or maybe failed for some reason and was pulverized within the engine. That would explain the black oil. Absence of the circlip allowed the gudgeon pin to move to one side and this could have cause the connecting rod to shift causing it be misaligned and thus stressing it to failure. What are the thoughts on the above?

Two new ARF's over the past two weekends. The first one is Thunder Tiger Fun Tigre Extra profile, and the second one is The World Models Clipped Wing Cub 48. The Profile is powered by an MVVS 49 and 13x4 APC, while the Cub has a used OS 48 Fs with 12x6 prop. Cub will get the cowl in due course. Both the models were procured few months back from other Cities in India and were stated to be NiB. Turned out both had damages. The profile had covering intact but the ribs were all smashed. The Cub had some formers unglued in the fuse, but the bigger issue was covering delamination due to age. Both the ARF's were stripped and converted to ARC. All necessary repairs made, and then again brought to ARF stage for assembly. Bit annoying but I am sure the end result is better than the sticky back covering that was on the Thunder Tiger Extra and the peeling covering on the TWM Cub

My first experience was with a Powerbox single and it felt totally un natural with the gyro on, one has to recalibrate the brain and finger responses when flying with gyros initially. The gyros do help in windy conditions but on the flip side as Brian mentioned they add delay to the control response from Tx

If the pack is to be often removed, I use contact cement to stick velcro on the battery pack and the surface where it's to be mounted. This ensures that the pack will not slide around. And then use a velcro strap or straps to secure it in place (depending on the size of the pack). If the pack does not need to be removed frequently instead of velcro starps I use zip ties. In case of removal the zip ties are snipped and replaced when reinstalling.

Try contacting MRM, I think they do one in third scale too. I am using their quarter scale pilot in my Tiger Moth

Good to know that Paul. Looking at the pictures I could make out the flap servo hatch with a hole but no servo arm. Must be all concealed linkages. What kit is the Storch from? Happy landings

The Storch does look fantastic. Missing the servos I suppose? What kit is it from?

Ron, it's not the valve, it's fueling through the feed pipe (of which the valve is a component). This risk is eliminated/drastically reduced when fuelling through a third line and using a sintered/felt clunk as appropriate for petrol or glow. That way any FOD introduced while filling remains in the tank and does not get introduced into the feed line. Not until the FOD particles being smaller the clunk filter. But at that size it would not matter much

Peter, agree that when refilling with the valve the probe isolates the engine side. But the risk of introducing contamination in the feed line and the tank remains. Plus as mentioned by you the valve o rings fail and cause a headache. I used that valve on a Goldberg Cub (pre internet days and my first time using that valve and did not know the failure point). Wasted an entire evening trying to figure out where the bubbles in the feed line were originating from. Never used another one since then

Agree. That risk remains