Jon H

This is more or less impossible with a warbird. They all have imperfections you just have to live with and learn to fly around. Its part of what makes them so appealing to me as each one has its little nuances and offers me a bit of a challenge if i want to achieve my expected standard. If it was all easy it would be boring. That isnt to say they are horribly difficult though, and some are less well behaved than others. Bf109's tend to be more problematic, as do corsairs apparently. Mustangs and Spitfires sit in the middle, P47's tend to be the most benign in my experience. No matter what though most warbirds are never in trim. They climb when fast and dive when slow. Its what they do, dont worry about it, just fly it. I would also recommend you practice using your rudder as warbirds do require more active rudder work and far more active throttle work than most sport models. Can you get away without doing it? yea kinda, but it sounds like you want to step up your flying so i would use the opportunity to learn the new skills. Much of the rudder work is cherry on top stuff, but it makes such a difference to the way the model looks in the air as the bank and yank technique is rather unbecoming. I would choose the largest model you can as the bigger ones typically handle the weight of retracts better, have flaps to help control the speed on landing, have decent size wheels to help prevent nose overs, and the retract units themselves are a little less fragile at the larger size. I fly mostly 75-90 inch and find them convenient for storage and transport in a vw golf size car. I also recommend you drill into your head a much more formalised checklist type landing approach more in line with full size practice. Its not such a big deal with foamy's, but if you have an ic warbird over about 60 inch then you cant really just whip them round and throw them at the runway. They wont appreciate it and a more formal circuit to land giving you at least half a minute to get everything configured is very strongly recommended. This will get the model to the end of the runway at the right height and speed meaning you only have the flare to worry about. Trying to force a model down onto retracts is a shortcut to a repair bill. As my old gliding instructor once told me, the landing is done at the start of the circuit and not the end. Rates. Whatever the kit/artf recommends for elevator rate i would forget the high rate, use the low as high and maybe halve it for a more realistic low in the air. Most warbirds are extremely pitch sensitive and the elevator rate you need will be tiny. As i have said many times, i can loop my 80 inch sea fury using about 3mm of elevator deflection. This method also has the added advantage of allowing you to favour a more rearward c/g which aids ground handling and still gives you a stable model in the air. More generally warbird flying is about doing as little as possible. Just let the thing fly and use a minimum of guidance to get it to go where you want it to go. You might be 'busy' with countless small inputs all the time, but they are tiny nudges and nothing more. If you go in expecting to wring its neck you are unlikely to have a great time. As an example if i want to roll my sea fury (a proper slow barrel roll down the length of the runway) it might take 30 seconds or more to complete the manoeuver as i need to plan the one before it to leave me in the right part of the sky, then set up, run in, do the thing, run out. Admittedly the roll itself is about 500ft long but with run in and out i guess i use twice that distance. The point is to take your time with all of it and just enjoy watching it go by. 'Had'....yea im still angry about that. The worst model i think i have ever flown. I have been gifted one to experiment with as its previous owner got tired of its nonsense. if i have any joy ill let you know.

7700-8000 but 20x6 is the prop of choice for anything that used to fly with a gypsy engine

theres no need. peak rpm then go for it. Is it really 28lbs? That seems extremely high for a 1/4 tiger. I know there is loads of detail but im surprised its that high. I would still expect the 200 to fly it though and i would use a 20x6, but i suspect performance would be scale and nothing more.

That is pretty poor as i would expect that sort of rpm from 20x6 props. If you were still running the 2.5 turns you mentioned earlier its likely the engine was very rich, although at 2.5 turns i would almost be surprised the thing ran at all. How heavy did the model end up?

Yes, they are identical. Not sure who can send spares to NZ, but now sanye are making engines again i assume spares availability will increase. I know ali express have engines for sale, maybe they will do spares as well.

Having engines rotate in opposite directions is fairly pointless on models in my experience. Having operated a half dozen twins and a 4 engine herc i never had any trouble with torque on takeoff. On paper its a good idea, and it might even be measurably better, but in practical terms its not important as our models accelerate so fast the rudder becomes effective almost immediately and then its plain sailing. When it comes to the full size P38/Mosquito chat...where to begin. The mossie was notorious for ground swing and i think later Mk's with the Merlin 60 series engines did gain counter rotating props but i would need to double check as i cant remember. While technically this statement might not be wrong it very much misses the point and is extremely disrespectful. Asking a 19 year old with only a few hundred flying hours under his belt to handle a machine as powerful and complicated as a P38 is no small request. In the Battle of Britain some pilots had barely a handful of hours on their Spitfires or Hurricanes and were pretty meagre opposition to combat veteran luftwaffe pilots. The same was true in the Battle of France where the BEF was more or less wiped out for a variety of reasons mostly related to lack of experience. In the Pacific experienced Japanese pilots wiped the floor with American P40's and P39's operated by inexperienced pilots. But then the tides turned later in the war and it was the allies with the experienced pilots and axis forces suffering with inexperienced pilots. In any case, to say they werent good pilots is not fair and does not provide the proper context.

Not used the fuel tube trick myself and generally just go with the plug spanner. That said, you dont want to grip the plug spanner and go for it i just twiddle the end with two fingers as you cant get enough torque to do any harm doing it that way.

Is it just damaged or completely shredded? If its not totally stripped out you can save it by putting a tap through from the other side.

Sounds like a star trek episode involving a transporter accident

Im in agreement with learning to overcome the problem rather than whack a gyro on it. I fly mostly tail draggers as WWII fighters tend to be tail draggers and theres no bother with directional control even though almost all of them have completely free castoring tail wheels. My WWI Nieuport is lively on the ground, but its not a big issue to deal with that either. If you are able to give more specific details of the model you have and when/how the problem develops more detailed advice can be offered.

Just to bring things back to fuel, i got an email today saying my fuel was ready and i just need to hand over the folding. I plan to do that tomorrow evening as i will have been paid by then and i had a question about postage i needed an answer to as well. Total time from first enquiry to order ready was 8 days and that included having to actually make the fuel. Cant complain about that i dont think.

I emailed him last sunday and had a reply monday waiting when i got home from work on monday. He said he was waiting on an oil delivery and was then going to mix up the fuel 'later in the week' so everything seems on track. I know from my own experience at laser that sometimes its better to just get on with the job. I had customers complain all the time that they werent getting updates and while i could see their point, i also didnt have time back when i had 50 or more back orders. To call everyone, usually to tell them nothing, was just a waste of time.

And as we know, software updates never cause reliability problems... Agreed. I was test flying a model for a club mate and out of blue it yelled at me 'timer expired' or words to that effect and vibrated like..er yea well anyway it frightened the life out of me and i almost dropped the damn thing. I have also flown with people who have their radio talk to them constantly. Reading out cylinder temperature or other useless nonsense, confirming every switch move just to remind the owner that he did in fact just move the retract switch or rates, as well as playing a myriad of tunes and jingles from time to time all while vibrating away merrily. Its monumentally distracting just being stood next to it i cant imagine what its like to fly with. Oh and before someone says 'you get used to it and zone it out' i would argue that if you zone it out then its not important anyway and you can turn off the annoying noises.

In 30 years of flying i have never serviced or needed a spare part on a futaba tx. The FF6 i used through my teens was abused until its case completely fell apart so i upgraded to an FF9 despite it working fine as i needed more channels anyway. The FF9 (bought used but in good nick in about 2009) is in an advanced state of cosmetic tattiness but fully functional and used all the time. my 8J (bought approx 2011/12) is dirty but also fully operational. The only things i have ever replaced are batteries. I would not loose too much sleep over servicing but if concerned call perkins and ask them as they are the distributor now and they would have all the info.

The OS clones are a copy of the MkI surpass and not the MKII and this accounts for the difference in the intake. I have a non pumped 91 SII and it has the same cranked intake. I am almost certain an ASP/SC carb will just bolt on, but can see from the manual that the part numbers for the intakes are different for the standard and pump versions. Which part is a apparently a different size? I assume its where it plugs into the carb body? If so and its larger it can probably be modified. I would make sure the tank in the model is in the right place if you bin the pump. With the pump on the engine it didnt matter where it went so the thing could be anywhere. Final question...why bother with any of it if you plan to sell the model? Seems a great deal of effort and expense to put into a model you already plan to sell.

Just booked my ticket 🙂

Anyone heading to Old Warden tomorrow? Looks like good weather and it seems they have been warming up today..

i was curious as the introduction of 4 stroke power equipment at model engine sizes is relatively new. I also see commercial products like that as a possible starter for 10 and source of parts i can convert into something else if i so choose.

Yea they quote 2.2hp for the 50cc honda. i think briggs lawnmower engines are about 150cc and 4.5hp. using the online calculators a laser 300 is 4.5hp from 50cc but its obvious a lawnmower has more power. As always, hp is not always a reliable measure of performance.

I was interested in looking into a honda 50cc 4 stroke petrol strimmer for its potential modelling applications. Looking on youtube someone beat me to it and the thing would barely pull the skin off a rice pudding. 50cc it might be, but its down around 20cc for actual performance.

I have mentioned before that i have been very disappointed by the price hike from optifuel and i will be going to southern from now on (once i get my act together). On cost though, i suppose its all relative. It costs me nearly 8 quid in petrol just driving to and from the field each time. If i use 1/2 gallon of fuel as i did last time i flew thats another 16 quid (at opti prices), plus a lunch meal deal for 3.50. My day out doing what i enjoy costs me less than 30 quid and that was flying 40 and 60cc glow engines so consumption was higher than most. Also my sea fury would cost probably £2500 to build today if you bought new, so in the grand scheme 30 quid to go and play with it is not a massive outlay. Anyway its open mic night at the pub and i need to head out....£3.20 to park, £15 for a couple of pints and some peanuts. More or less 2/3 the cost of my day out flying for 4 hours out of the house and even more if i spend 11 quid on a taxi instead of driving. Its so much easier to spend it than earn it.

watched the flypast on a sky highlights thing. Pretty poor, seen bigger formations at duxford.

I suspect the engine had already given up the ghost and caused the forced landing. Compressed wood impregnated with resin i believe. Should be a rotol if my memory is right.

On a very rusty fs40 i simply drilled through the crankcase and tapped the bearing/camshaft out from the other side. It caused all kinds of distress among the natives here but it was the fastest way to get the job done and very easy to repair. If the other methods dont work that certainly will.

This is the 4 stroke is it not? Its been a while admittedly but i recall the 2 strokes being (size)AR and the 4 strokes being FS(size)AR, at least they were in ASP language. I can see that SC have changed that now but i did find magnum branded engines have reappeared using the FS(size)AR naming on aliexpress. In any event i was under the impression this was a 4 stroke chat and the op wanted to swap the 61 for the 70 which do not share a crankcase so the mounting dimensions are different. As you say though, a like for like engine swap ASP to SC would be fine.