Charles Sutherland

Thanks to all. Exactly the useful advice I was hoping for particularly the drawbacks of banded on u/c. I will go with an aluminium u/c with the nylon bolts. In our club the recommendation for beginners is the e-flite Apprentice and they all seem to do quite well despite their nosewheels although they don't exactly need a long run to get into the air. It's taildraggers for me all the way now.

I have a horrible old Thunder Tiger T2000 trainer and am fed up with the recurrent nosewheel damage from less than perfect landings not to mention the persistent tracking problems on our grass strip. I have flown a few taildraggers and found the ground handling much easier so I have already removed the wire legs for a hopefully quick and dirty taildragger conversion before it is finally binned. I have a serviceable aluminium underarriage assembly which would do the job and have heard that banded on undercarriage has been done in the past with bands and dowels and figure this could be an easy if inelegant solution. Has anyone any experience of this and could details be provided? All advice warmly welcomed.

Thanks both I straightened out the mount and re-glued it in but due to some internal foam distortion or something I ended up with a silly amount of right thrust which I have reduced by shimming the motor with washers. Hopefully the thing will fly again. For a bit.

I have crashed my Acrowot Foam e for the second time again crunching the nose but this time the replaced motor shaft seems to have survived. However I am revisiting the motor mount in the process of repair. It has an odd bent-looking appearance as seen from below in the photo. However the left arm of the mount measures 60mm from flange to front face while the right is 57-58mm. Also the angle of the flanges is near enough 90 degrees which leads me to suspect that the mount was made that way to provide a few degrees of right sidethrust. Obviously  the foam took the impact and I suspect that the plywood mounting plate would have splintered before there was enough impact force to bend the mount anyway. Has anyone examined their own Acrowot motor mount and able to reassure me that it is meant to look like this? Edited By Charles Suthrland on 15/03/2019 15:50:13 Edited By Charles Suthrland on 15/03/2019 15:51:30

The article on covering materials in the current issue is interesting but for me, as one more familiar with doped tissue, one key item of information was missing. Which, if any, of the film materials described is diesel fuel proof?

I have an imperial set and the 3/32 works for the backplate and head bolts but is too small for the silencer bolts and the 1/8 is too large. I assume it must be 7/64. The suggestion of filing down a 3mm key is probably the quickest solution. As to age I think it must be well more than 10 years old. I think these engines date back to the '70s and haven't they been painted that maroon colour for quite a few years?

I have recently acquired an old Irvine 40 Sport (plain aluminium crankcase/black anodised backplate and throttle body). It is assembled with hex socket screws which appear to be an obscure or obsolete size - I have nothing which fits. Can anyone advise the size of Allen key I need to remove the silencer? Thanks