Geoff S

I had a P47 with mechanical retracts and I powered them with a separate 4 xAA high capacity NMh pack (2AH IIRC) and it was completely useless because it wouldn't deliver the current. Obviously electric retracts are different but it shows what a high internal resistance some batteries can have. They give good service in long term low current use but are useful if a heavy load is imposed.

Well I managed to 'pull' using my dad's Morris Minor 1000 van with the family name sign written on the side (my only transport was my BSA Lightning). It was clearly successful as 60 years later the 'pull' continues 🙂

I always fit (and glue - epoxy) captive nuts to firewalls before they're installed. If you forget, then Modelfixings supply threaded insets that can be fitted from the front. Personally, I'm not too keen on using self tappers to mount motors. Can't you add the extra thickness to the back of the firewall? Or you could fit captive 'T' nuts to an extra firewall and fit that to the back. Even if the T nuts are loose as long as the bolts are in they can't fall out. The kv of a motor doesn't determine its power although more powerful motors tend to have lower kv because then larger propellers can be fitted without exceeding the motor's current rating. Provided your 1000 rpm/v motor has a suitable current rating it'll work fine with a slightly bigger prop (either length or pitch)

I think 'cyclors' is an invented name combining 'cyclists' and 'sailors'. Oddly enough they tend to come from rowing rather than cycling, though rowing with a sliding seat uses legs as much as (or even more than) arms. It must be a boring job, though.

I've just replaced mine from stock and I have one left. IIRC I bought mine from SLEC. Have you tried them?

I've seen YouTube videos of several dinghies with foils and they just have the one in place of the usual centerboard. I've even see them on Moths which are already very unstable (they fall over without anyone in situ to balance). They're fast small single-handers as it is; how on earth anyone learns to sail them is beyond me. I struggled enough keeping the metal over the wood in our Scorpion in a breeze.

Ah, Sammy Miller! One of my heroes. I saw him ride in trials on GOV 132 (and the Bultaco) numerous times, particularly in the Scottish 6 Days trial. Though I always rooted for Gordon Jackson (Miller always made it look hard, whereas Jackson made it look relatively easy). I had a 500cc Ariel HT5 trials bike I was restoring when I had my cycle accident and reluctantly sold it on as I'd never be able to ride it. Miller was a pretty good road racer too.

A yacht can't sail directly into wind, so on the windward legs they have to tack (change direction by turning the bow through the wind and zig-zag). A 'normal yacht or dinghy can sail roughly at 45 deg to the true wind. These foiling yachts go so fast the apparent wind is stronger than the actual wind so they always have to trim the sails very tightly to get the the best angle of attack. On the downwind legs it's slightly different. Obviously the shortest distance is a straight line towards the leeward gate (or finish line) but sailing dead downwind means the maximum speed is the wind speed. Sailing at angle is faster and with these yachts considerably so and thus faster. In this case they change tacks by gybing (when the stern goes through the wind). However, because they generate so much apparent wind the sails are still trimmed tightly. In a dinghy, we used spinnakers (baggy sails) off wind but we never went fast enough on a run (dead downwind) not to sail far off the direct route. Catamarans rarely use spinnakers because they sail a lot faster though not as fast as these foiling yachts. The yacht furthest up wind on the windward legs is leading despite being far apart. Similarly, the yacht furthest downwind is the leading boat on the downwind legs. Looks like it's all over bar the shouting. If Britannia can win both races today it'll be more exciting - they seem to do better in stronger winds. Fingers crossed 🙂

I built a Liddle Stik from a down-loaded plan during lock-down in 2020 and it flies OK as does my Wot4. It's all good that there's some variety and choice. ... and my repaired Wot 4 (I seriously dumb thumbed the original ARTF version)

Yes, but, in addition they're having to trim the foils for lift as well as raise the windward and lower the leeward foil. I think sail trim is hydraulic, too.

I got my pre-ordered Gloster Gladiator, only very slightly after the promised date and post free, too. £205 including 2 x 4S 2200 maH batteries seemed reasonable. It flies a lot better than the pilot to boot.

My Durafly Hurricane wasn't quite as bad as this Typhoon but I managed to get it flying after crashing it using similar techniques. It's not as pretty as when it was new but perhaps more realistically represents a battered war hardened aircraft. I stalled it inverted while executing a reversal and I think I'd made a mistake using a 4AH 4S battery rather than the recommended lighter 2.2AH 4S. Since discovering what good endurance I get with my Durafly Gloster Gladiator using the smaller LiPos next time I fly the Hurricane I'll use the batteries I bought with the Gladiator in the Hurricane. But foamies are certainly repairable, though probably not perfectly.

We had 2 Scorpions. The first was a SEBB stitch-and-glue version which, when we we bought it, the seller offered us some scrap metal that had been in the buoyancy tanks when it was weighed. It was somewhat underweight but, as we were highly unlikely to be high enough in a nationals race to be checked we raced it 'illegally'. The second was a Stewart-built boat and IIRC was 1745. The spinnaker system was the then popular twin-pole set-up which worked but was complicated. We sailed a 470 in Menorca years later which had a simple spinnaker system which we thought was much better. Both Scorpions were finished like grand pianos, so shiny was the varnish. That H2 sounds interesting. I guess it's like a Merlin in that it's so wide you need hiking boots to get across 🙂

You were missed, Simon. I hope you get well soon.

Glad she enjoyed sailing the Grad. We had a lot of fun with the 3 we had. We used to sail an open meeting in the middle of Lichfield on a tiny pond - literally, we were within 0.5 mile of the cathedral! From what I've read the Nationals are now just a weekend event. It was a full week when we sailed and there were upwards of a 100 boats on the start line. We were very much middle of the fleet but there was always someone to race against. Things change and dinghy classes come and go. Edit. I've just checked on Google maps and Stowe pool where we raced is only 200 metres from Lichfield cathedral 🙂

What do you sail, Dave? We (my wife and me) used to sail a 12' dinghy called a Graduate (no spinnaker/trapeze) then we moved to a 14' Scorpion (spinnaker but no trapeze) and I ended up with a Laser until a bad cycle accident put a stop to serious sailing. If there'd been any others about I think we'd have gone to a 470 which we sailed on holidays in Menorca. I also used to get a free sailing holiday for several years as 1st mate on the Rolls-Royce ferro-cement ketch 'Merlin of Clyde mostly in the Irish sea - the best work gig I ever got 🙂 At 84 it's all getting a bit too much I'm afraid so I enjoy sailing vicariously 😞 I prefer watching fleet races - hardly anyone match races except for the Cup.

I've just acquired a set of electric retracts to suit the WR Hurricane I've had in 'storage' for longer than I should. They arrived promptly from Richard Wills. I've done a preliminary check using a cheap servo tester and they work perfectly. However, I'm curious about the energy consumption. I haven't gone to the trouble of attempting to measure the current (at least, yet) but I wondered if anyone else has. I'm most interested to know if they draw any current when not actually moving up or down but also how much current when they are moving. I'm sure they'll be perfectly OK for my purpose (they look to be quite sturdy) but I don't want any nasty surprises. The model will be electrically powered (6S?) and I may even use BEC with a 60 amp Frsky esc which will allow for some telemetry feedback in flight.

Hope to see some of you tomorrow at Ashbourne. Weather's not perfect but it's forecast to be dry, chilly with fairly light winds - not too bad for mid October.

Yes, I watched the first race and it wasn't great for Britannia. They were faster down wind but not fast enough. Hopefully they can do better but the history of the America's Cup is littered with one-sided regattas. In 1934 Tommy Sopwith's Endeavour won the first 2 races in big J Class yachts but the New York YC's defender, Rainbow, won the next 4. That was considered close compared to earlier attempts. INEOS cycling team have pretty good cycling record - recently they've won all 3 Grand Tours several times. Chris Froome won all 3 consecutively (though not in the same year, he won the Giro in the spring following the previous year's Tour and Vuelta). No idea about the football.

I've been watching on Discovery+. The women's races have been dogged with ultra light winds which means very delicate handling of both tacks and gybes to avoid falling off the foils. The difference in speed between displacement and foiling is huge and trying to get back into the fast mode in very light winds is difficult. It's amazing that the apparent wind moves so far forward the yachts are close-hauled even on a dead down-wind course - so different from the Scorpion was used to sail with a spinnaker when 12kts seemed liked flying - 40+ knots must be incredible (and dangerous - we sailed bare-headed and they wear bigger helmets than we did on our motorcycles. I think INEOS Brittania has a good chance as they've been racing continuously for several weeks in the LVC and the Kiwis haven't. Time will tell. Personally, I wish they were still racing 12 metre yachts but time moves on.

That's an incredible site. I used to take Wireless World back in the 1960s and two of my colleagues had a phase-locked loop solid state stereo decoder design published there - they went on to form a company called Integrex and supplied kits to build it. I experimentally opened a 1969 issue of WW and it's all there to read as a pdf file.

That's what I thought when I bought the engine for the trainer I built and chose an MDS 40. The engines are so simple, what difference does it make? Yet it behaved as the vast majority of MDS 40s did - it was unreliable and no-one at my first club (RR Hucknall) could get it to run. Some MDS 40s were OK (very few) and I think it was down to poor quality control. The later MDS 38s were much better. I had one in a Limbo Dancer but the ST34 I fitted was much better and the brushless motor better still.

It's interesting that there's been more responses to this thread about engines we've hated than the one about engines we loved. There's a message in there somewhere ... or perhaps not 🙂

You're lucky, Ron. I dropped the exhaust valve on my 1932 350cc Ariel and it totally destroyed the piston crown. I was in Devon but I was able to put it on the train unaccompanied and drove home in our AH Sprite with 3 adults and a child (a bit of a squash!). The bike arrived at our local station a couple of days later and I wheeled it home 🙂

Most of the members at my first club were RR trained/employed engineers (as was I, but not mechanical) and none of them succeeded in getting my MDS40 to run reliably. When I bought it, it was because I assumed with something so simple it didn't really matter which one I chose to put in the trainer I was building. I had fair bit of experience with 2 stroke motor cycle engines which (mostly) just work (Villiers and Scott) but, of course, none with glow engines. I eventually passed my 'A' with Precedent Funfly with a ST34, which is one of the few very reliable glow engines I used.