Geoff S
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Posts posted by Geoff S
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16 minutes ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:
I'm yet to notice any problems. Perhaps those experiencing them might post some info about browsers, devices, ISPs etc. in case there's a common factor?
I run the latest version of Firefox and Win 11 pro, have 32gB of RAM with 2 SSD - the main one is a terabyte and I have a 250gb HD I use for data back-up. Everything else works fine, as does this site - some of the time but it's been playing up for a couple of weeks.
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I find it's pretty slow sometimes and images don't always load without a refresh. As video still works perfectly (sometimes on 2 PCs simultaneously) and other sites are as fast as ever I'm sure it's not my broadband speed.
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Modern cars and motorcycles are much more complicated than was formerly the case. They perform better and are much more fuel efficient but the extra complications needed to achieve that makes them difficult for the average home mechanic to maintain. I used to do just about everything to both cars and motorcycles but when our Mitsubishi Spacestar (our previous car) refused to start I lifted the bonnet and had difficulty finding the engine (it turned out to be faulty engine disable unit). I always wondered how people who had no idea how their car/motorcycle worked coped - now I know!
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19 hours ago, kevin b said:
Where do you find the first one please ?
🤣
Use my plumber. His van is fuller than that but just as tidy. Do you live anywhere near Chesterfield?
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I've used electrically heated fingerless gloves I bought on eBay successfully in the past. I power them from a so-called Turnigy powerbank I bought from Hobbyking years ago. The main drawback is trailing wires but that's overcome by feeding them down jacket sleeves. It is a bit of a faff, though.
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25 minutes ago, Cuban8 said:
The 70s I do recall very clearly indeed and the best I can say about that era was that it was good in parts.
Like every one before or since.
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@KC Not only London. Here's a picture of our shop in Eastwood, Notts taken in 1955 when I was 15 and the shops are open. There is almost no traffic or parked vehicles. At the time, second hand cars were more than new ones, which were in short supply.
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2 hours ago, Cuban8 said:
A bit before my time but my late mate who was ten years older than me said that things never really started to look up for ordinary people until well into the late 50's and early 60s. That included clothing that tended to remain functional, was mended rather than replaced and with very little concern about fashion until much later.
Don't forget the invention of the 'teenager' in 1955/6 when there were riots in cinemas when Bill Haley's 'Rock around the Clock' was shown and Teddy Boys wore drape jackets with velvet collars and instruments of violence. Personally, I was uninterested and continued wearing the clothes I always had. One good thing was that friends who were aware of fashion never mocked me as would seem to be the case now. I was working away from home, living in digs and had almost no money to spend on trivia 🙂 We still repair clothes - I'm currently wearing 30 year old Berghaus fleece jacket I bought one Christmas in Ambleside which has had the zip replaced by my wife.
I've just wasted a few hours watching Shell films and could easily waste a lot more. 1958 British GP and the 1953 Mille Miglia to name a couple and being reminded that racing drivers wore everyday clothes, too, with minimal safety equipment.
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It's the clothes that takes me back to 1951 when I was 11. Everyone wearing a long mac and most wearing a hat and tie - in my case a school cap and even shorts until I was 15. I always wore a tie, even on my motor bike, until I started working on the design of industrial knitting machines in the early 70s and a tie was unwise.
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21 minutes ago, Paul De Tourtoulon said:
No one using cut up inner tubes anymore ?
Not many inner tubes these days of tubeless tyres. It was usual to use cut up inner tubes to hold competition numbers or to hold spare tubes on my trials motor cycles back in the 1960s but I've never seen anyone used them to hold wings in place.
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4 hours ago, Peter Christy said:
Its good to be wary of the cold! A tale from a few decades ago... (around 1975!)
I was learning to fly helicopters, and could just about stagger round a circuit and land in one piece. It was so cold we lit a bonfire on the moor that were were flying from. I had just landed my heli, and was approaching it - hand outstretched to stop the rotors - when it suddenly went to full throttle, shot off over my head, and crashed behind me! The previously ultra-reliable receiver had gone berserk!
Checking it with freezer spray, I discovered that the SCS devices (Silicon Controlled Switches - a form of transistor) that made up the decoder stopped working if the temperature dropped below zero. But not all stopped at the same temperature! This meant that only some channels stopped, with the result that the next channel in the chain got the previous channels output instead of its own!
The next day I was down the transistor shop and came away with a bag full of SCSs, and proceeded to test both my six channel receivers, freezing the SCSs one at a time, and replacing them until I ended up with two receivers that would work reliably in the cold! Took me nearly all day, but I never had the problem again!
Freezing temperatures can bite you in very unexpected ways!
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Pete
I was working at Murphy Radio in the service department as a teenager in the late 50s. Transistor radios were a very new thing and the transistors were all germanium rather than silicon. The local oscillators wouldn't operate at low temperatures, not even on a cold morning in (say) a bedroom so the radio didn't work. Those holes and electrons were reluctant to move until they warmed up - rather like me now 🙂 Semi-conductor technology has moved on a lot since the transistor was invented in 1949.
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3 hours ago, Brian Cooper said:
Be cautious re: government backed insulation.
In the news recently:
If they are using a spray foam, it will make the house unsellable in future.
Basically, mortgage lenders won't lend for properties with this type of insulation.
People are having to pay £thousands to get it removed from their houses before they can sell them.
Avoid.
We had it put in about 5 years ago and it certainly works well as insulation. I can't remember the last time we turned on the central heating radiators upstairs and we use the so-called 'summer' duvet all year - moreover, I can't wear anything less in bed than I have most of my life 🙂 and I regularly wake up in the night because I'm too hot.
The spray-foam issue is concerning, or it would be if we were thinking of selling the house and we were younger. We're both in our mid 80s and I don't think the roof will rot away before we do. The house has been standing for 200 years so far. Not all mortgage lenders are hostile - Nationwide, for one.
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2 hours ago, Paul De Tourtoulon said:
I took one of my Ebike battery's to pieces, it was just an ordinary lipo in a case with a few wires and circuit boards in it.
I've taken a couple apart and they were both Li-ion. There is a charger circuit powered from a simple nominal 42v max rough dc mains supplied charger. I've converted several pedal cycles to electric assist with a powered front wheel and a special rear pannier to carry the battery that works well. My wife's bike battery had an intermittent problem somewhere so I bought a new one (including pannier etc) and stripped the old one. I'd be surprised if your battery was any different.
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Just a pointer on wing mounting. Build the wing centre section and use that as a guide when you bend and fit the piano wire wing supports. I bought the CNC parts from Sarik as well as the drawing because I'm lazy.
I soldered brass P clips to the ends of the piano wire supports so that wing removal/fitting was easier and repeatable. That's much the hardest part of the build IMO.
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1 hour ago, kc said:
You could ask any questions here on the forum if there are unexplained items.
This may not be the best model for a beginner. The big problem with WW1 models is the very short nose - you will need to keep the model very light at the tail end to avoid putting a lot of lead in the nose.
I'd agree with that. It took me numerous attempts to get the parasol wing supports right because the wing is in midair as it were. Not having flown it yet I'm not sure even now I have it right 🙂 It wasn't too difficult to get the CoG right but mine's electric.
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There was an article by Frank Skilbeck in March 2023 (last year) on building an electric version. If you buy the plan from Sarik then I think you also get a print-out of Peter's article from the January 2013 RCME. I built one earlier this year - finished but not yet flown.
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3 hours ago, Chris Walby said:
Would be interesting to hear from those with magnetic building boards how they prevent rust forming on the base or angle blocks?
Never any suggestion of corrosion on mine. It's about 1mm thick and still as shiny as the day I bought it along with the blocks at the last Cosford LMA show (5 years ago?). I've done nothing to protect it and I keep it standing on edge in my workshop. In use, I use the 20mm MDF board with stiffeners that has my SLEC fuselage jig as a flat base. It all works perfectly.
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Sorry to hear that. I once emailed him about one of his humorous comments in an article on (IIRC) Quiet flight and received a beautifully hand written reply. A lovely bloke and a very talented designer, artist and pilot both full size (believe he flew Hunters in the RAF) and model.
Condolences to his family and friends. I'm sure he will be greatly missed.
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3 hours ago, Peter Jenkins said:
Just a thought payneib - I'd be inclined to put your flight box, fuel can and tool roll in the front of the aircraft in case you need to apply the brakes hard! I use the footwells for stuff like that. Acceleration isn't a problem as you have full control over that but braking might be different!
I'd recommend that, too. I put my tool/flight box immediately behind the driver's seat with a restraining strap to the head rest supports. It's the first thing I load (usually through the rear passenger door). I put wings down the outside retained by the rear seat belts but that's not so important
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Very sad news indeed. Like many here I've built a few of his designs and he was always generous with his help and would provide .pdf copies of the drawings. I never met him but he was always a very positive influence.
Condolences to his friends and family who must already know how much he much he was respected in the hobby and pastime so widely.
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2 hours ago, Ernie said:
Hi Guys, I had a wee citroen 2CV....What a wonderful bit of design that was....You did however need a fully functioning brain to drive it
ernie
My younger brother used to get himself, his son and their tandem in his 2CV - not sure how but I think it involved removing seats. Citroen have always been innovative. I knew someone with (I think) an Ami6 which had a flywheel which stored energy on descents to use later. You could hear it spinning after he parked.
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When I was flying with the RR(Hucknall)MAC at the RR airfield (Now built on) There was a known problem on one 35MHz channel (I think 2 models were lost) and use of the channel was banned. It eventually turned out that someone was using a bait boat for fishing in a nearby pond (hidden by trees) which was illegally using that 35Mhz channel. I suspect it was ignorance rather than malice but the effect was the same.
Both my mid-airs have happened when few were flying - on one occasion just two of us. I think when there's a lot flying you tend to fly circuits but with just one other you tend to fly as if alone - it doesn't always work! If there are few of us at the field we tend to take it in turns to fly and I prefer that - or we agree to fly in different bits of sky.
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The BMFA site has a good selling section but I guess you don't want to join the association if you have no personal interest in models. There's a dedicated model aircraft selling site on Facebook but I've never used it. I have used eBay and that works OK - there is a dedicated model aeroplane section and it might be worth having a look at that. The Fair kits are no longer available and they're popular, especially unstarted examples.
I noticed that there's a boxed OS52 FS (I think). I suspect your Dad got it to fit in the SE5a (I fitted one in mine many years ago).
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43 minutes ago, EvilC57 said:
Or hold down Ctrl and roll the mouse wheel up & down on a Windows PC.
I've also been involved with computers since Big Ben was a wrist watch (or 1961, anyway) and wasn't aware of that. I've always used the +/- method.
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As am I - BT, that is. EE doesn't work indoors here. Our mobiles are Vodaphone but I never access this site with my phone.