Geoff S

Progress is happening, although slowly. I fitted the cowl with a pair of location pegs at the top. They are fitted to a balsa former attached to the cowl with CA reinforced with 3 x toothpick dowels. There 4 self-tapping screws as supplied in the kit. 1 each side and 2 across the bottom because I intend the bottom of the cowl to be also where the LiPo rests, The fuselage is beginning to look almost like a Hurricane. I made the cockpit sides from some very soft 0.5" balsa and carved to shape. You can also see the the cowl toothpick dowels and the papier mache wing fairing.

Yes, as far as I can see, the advert at Argos etc refers to the Mini Pro 4 with the transmitter that needs a smartphone attached - that's £549. As the options go up so does the price - quite a lot.

It's a stunning model. I hope it fetches a price near its true value. I sympathise with your reluctance to fly it yourself; I'm in a similar position. I took up aeromodelling late in life and never got to be more than an adequate pilot and now, at 85 I'm barely that. I have yet to maiden my own 60" DB S&S Sopwith Pup. I spent a lot of time on it and it looks ok (but nothing like your SE5a) and I'm very nervous to fly it. Unfortunately the best pilots in our club are all mode 1 and I'm mode 2 so I lack a test pilot.

Here's Thomas Sydney in my 60" DB S&S Sopwith Pup. He's named after my uncle Corporal T. Sydney Sleath who was killed on a wire cutting expedition in WW1 (my second name is in his honour). and here in his pilot's seat.

Wow, now I AM tempted. I wish I hadn't said anything 🙂

I was surprised to see full page advert in the morning's Guardian for a DJI Mini 4 quad. £549 and apparently available from Argos, Curry's and other retailers. I've never seen a similar advert for a RC model of any sort in a newspaper before. No real information - just a flashy picture and no mention of the legal implications. It almost tempted me 🙂

My SLEC fuselage jig is glued to a piece of MDF. It's remained perfectly flat for many years with just a couple of lengthwise strips of 1"x 1" near the edge. In fact I also use it as the base for the sheet of steel I use as building board with magnetic blocks. I think you're over engineering with the number you're suggesting. Though my MDF is only 15" (380mm) wide and 20mm thick, so perhaps some crosswise strips may be needed with your wider sheet. I also have a rarely used 'giant' board of 20mm MDF 1.8 metre x 700mm which has remained flat with a pair of 25mm x 50mm on edge along the length with 3 similarly sized cross pieces.

We've just had the renewal confirmation for our car insurance; it arrived this morning. In it I'm named as the main driver, so I assume we're properly covered.

Until old age eventually made an old injury more disabling I spent a lot more time cycling than aeromodelling. I rode a minimum of 1.5 hours on my 13 miles each way commute commute (further in the summer sometimes) with club runs and organised rides of 200 to 400km (known as Audaxes). Didn't do much racing but made up the numbers in the club's weekly evening 10 mile time trial during Summer - pathetically slowly with PB of about 24 mins 50 seconds - but I did set the club's trike records at 10 and 25 miles. We were in the national Tandem Club and I was on the committee and edited the bi-monthly magazine for a while. All our holidays involved cycling - often combined with lightweight camping in Europe. We also raced dinghies for years (the cycling started as means of getting fit for sailing). We started with a Graduate and then moved to a Scorpion. We usually sailed the National Champs each year. This stopped when I had the accident that's now affecting me more but I managed to keep cycling at a reduced level. Interesting that Futura57 did for a hobby what I did for a living. I did some for amusement privately but not much - the working week was enough. I suppose being child-free meant we had time for all our hobbies. Now both in our mid-80s we can look back on having had a lot of fun and my wife is still my best friend. And I never mentioned all the motor-bikes!

I suppose my first warbird was my Flair SE5a which was about the 3rd model I built. They fly almost like a trainer. But I suppose you mean WW2 rather than WW1. I'm hoping the Warbirds Replica Mk1 Hurricane I'm building will be OK - everyone says they're fine so I suppose they are.

I just found the thread for my ARTF Wo4/electric conversion/build back in 2018. Unfortunately the pictures don't come through as the forum has been up dated. Here are some of them. Can't remember what thrust adjustments I made but using 4mm threaded studding makes it easy to adjust if required. Unfortunately I stuffed it in last Autumn but I made a new fuselage because everything else was relatively undamaged. It looks like this now and still flies OK.

I've been banned from FB for some unknown reason. I don't have a personal page but I was on to view friends and family stuff as well as a site related to our caravan and a couple of sites with old photos etc about my former home town. They wanted me to post a video of myself to be re-admitted but that's not going to happen. This is the only site I'm on that's anything like social media. Very odd.

I made a mistake on this post. The carbon tube is 4mm with a 1mm wall thickness and a 2mm hole which suits 2mm threaded rod epoxied in place. Sorry for any confusion.

Well this P38 landed OK with a dead engine 🙂 It was a bit exciting at the point when the engine stopped though. Not me flying it btw - I was on the camera.

That's what my Dad did for my motorcycle insurance way back in the 1950s. IIRC it was done on the recommendation of the insurance broker. The insurance paid out a couple of times without any issue but it was long ago. Perhaps I should look into it. I was the insurance when we had a campervan but we sold it 3 years ago and replaced it with a small caravan. We certainly pay enough for insurance but this arrangement has been in place for nearly 60 years, though for much of that time my wife drove nearly as much as I did (I still had my motorcycles - too many at the same time, often!). We do very few miles these days.

It wasn't until I looked t the motor mount for my Wot4 that I remembered how I used a 3mm birch ply sub mount and I did the same here. The advantage is that it allows a bit more clearance for the studding and easily clears the rotating motor outer. It is slightly different now. I've had to cut away as much firewall below the esc shelf as possible to clear the cowl. I've now fitted the cowl and the motor with 2 deg right thrust and 1 degree down comes out in the middle of the cowl. It just sticks out about 5mm too far but that's easily corrected. The next challenge is making a battery access hatch in the top of the cowl. Not sure whether to us the cut out part of the cowl or make a balsa/ply hatch so it's thinking cap on. Plenty of time tomorrow as it's a rest day on the Giro d'Italia so I won't be distracted 🙂

Just had an email purporting to be from the DVLA warning that my Vehicle Excise Duty has expired and I risk a huge fine. Doesn't offer a name nor the registration number, which is a big red flag. The biggest flag is that I don't own a vehicle. When we got married nearly 60 years ago I only had motorcycles and my wife had a Mini so it's just carried on like that ever since (I'm a named driver on the insurance - in fact my wife hasn't driven at all for a couple of years). It's pretty obvious but I thought I'd post a warning even if only for the amusement of the Forum.

I've made a new, longer firewall and temporarily fitted the motor. The shelf below the motor is for the Frsky Neuron 60 amp esc. I intend cutting an air intake in the cowl for cooling. The site is at snail's pace and won't upload pictures. I'll try later.

The only regular interference I've (indirectly) experienced was at RR Model Flying Club at Hucknall when at least 2 models were lost on one 35Mhz channel that was serious enough to bar that channel from being use. In the end it turned out to be caused by a so-called bait boat being used by fishermen at nearby pond operating (illegally) on 35Mhz on equipment as supplied by the manufacturer. Never had any sort of problem on 2.4Ghz. Though I usually leave my phone in the car because I can't be bothered to carry it others don't.

I use 3mm carbon tube with 2mm threaded rod at each end. I usually have a ball link at the servo end (the plastic is highly unlikely to unscrew in use) and a s/s 2mm clevis/locknut at the control surface end. Very light and surprisingly stiff even when it's 400mm long. I'm also an admirer of Professor Fry - always lots of facts. When I was 16 back in 1956 part of my job at Butlin's amusement park in Skegness was in a cash box opposite the wooden Big-Dipper watching parts of it hanging loose and the odd one falling off as the cars passed by. No way would I have gone on it, even as a freebie 🙂

I'm pretty sure I used 4mm threaded rod on my ARTF (wood) Wot4 and it's been OK (until I stuffed it in, that is - now repaired with home made fuselage). It's stainless from Ian Shaw at Modelfixings. I think 5mm nuts will be difficult to get in - there's not much clearance between the motor mount holes and the motor itself.

Thanks Eric. I'll offset it about 3mm to give about 1.5 deg side thrust. I'll be mounting the motor on 4mm threaded rod so that adjustment is possible.

I'm fitting the motor. Has anyone used any down or right thrust? If so, how much? I like to offset the motor mount on the firewall so the prop driver ends up in the middle. Thanks in anticipation.

OTOH I pre-ordered a Gloster Gladiator and a couple of 2AH 4S LiPos (a size I'd never used before) about 15 months ago at IIRC £205 inc postage and it arrived as promised. HK seem to be having a lot of sales offers lately which may or may not be a good thing, considering Trumps on/off trade wars with China (and the rest of the world.

The videos on YouTube are free. Cookies are useful and aren't harmful and are a small price to pay to use the facility. It's handy going to a web site that 'remembers' where you visited before. The demand for cookies doesn't come from this web site but from YouTube itself so your only option is to accept cookies (there are several levels) or stop moaning and not watch YouTube - your choice. Because of cookies I get YouTube suggestions for videos that might interest me, in my case, some political, model related, cycling tool reviews and motor cycling etc. OK, I get some advertising which I ignore or, sometimes find useful- mostly the former but it's simply not a big deal. I've been on line for decades (starting with a 56k modem) and it's never been an issue.