Pup Cam

Just to re-kindle this old thread ...... I was looking through some old Aeromodellers online this morning and I came across a report of the ME Exhibition of 1975 and a photo of my mate and his little Pitts S2 I mentioned previously (five years ago, blimey!). HB was so impressed with it, as you know, he kitted a Pitts shortly after although IIRC he enlarged it slightly and might even have plumped for the S1 (I can't remember now) when he did so. Happy days as they say!

I remember being introduced to it at The Rotax Model Flying Club (subsequently amalgamated with Hemel Hempstead MFC) in the very early 70's. We mainly used to fly own designs and converted KK and Veron Flying Scale rubber kits. Suitable types had retracting undercarriages operated by home brew actuators operated by reversing the power to the model and running the motor from an on board bridge rectifier. My mate built an own design and beautiful PittsS2 in Rothmans colours ( THE colour scheme for the Pitts IMHO ) the design of which was IIRC passed on to Harry Butler who subsequently kitted it. We used to go flying at the Model Engineer Exhibition when it was at the New Horticultural Hall (or was it Cental Hall - I can't rmember) where a flying circle was laid out above the trade stands on the ground floor between the two balconies. The circular "runway" was about 2' wide with netting inside to catch wayward models and stop them "going downstairs". I can't rmember the name of the bods from MAP who ran it by I have vivid memories of their white polystyrene trays packed with the motor of the day, the Mabuchi FT36D. Happy days! Alan Edited By Pup Cam on 16/07/2017 19:58:15 Edited By Pup Cam on 16/07/2017 20:00:44 Edited By Pup Cam on 16/07/2017 20:01:06

Sorry folks, no the Triplane has been mainly gathering dust this year with just a few weekend trips out to Old Warden and Duxford To be honest I've not done any modelling since doing the Vickers with my spare time being taken up mostly by investigating and building a telecine machine to transfer some old family Standard 8 cine films from years ago to PC and hence DVD. Most educational it has been too but that's a completely different story ....... New Year's resolutions - Get back on to the triplane and get it finished and restore my 30% Chilton DW1A to flying condition. Have a good one everyone. Alan

A little late in the day I'm afaraid Jez but this link may be interesting to you if you haven't seen it all ready **LINK** Alan Edited By Pup Cam on 02/05/2016 16:40:50

Peter, not sure if you are aware of this useful set of documents: **LINK** Alan Edited By Pup Cam on 02/05/2016 16:38:22

Thanks Peter, I see. Richard (from Perfect Pilots) used a similar technique for the ones he used on his Flair Tiger I seem to recall. There's nothing for it then; yet more metalwork! Alan

Great build Peter! - I partiicularly like the duplication of the fullsize's aileron operation to give the correct differential response. With regard to your elevator control cables; where did you get your miniature cable thimbles from please? - I need some 1/3 scale versions. Alan

All glued together it sort of looks a bit like the original and I've even turned up a few rounds to go in the belt Here it is installed with the (top bit of the) ammo box in the aeroplane Still a long way to go! Alan

..... but mostly I have been scratch building the Vickers machine gun. The barrel jacket has been formed from litho plate with some simple wire jigs using my bench drill as a press and the breech from thin nickle silver sheet Finished off with ali turnings, more bits of abused litho plate, brass and ali sheet and a load of pin heads Edited By Pup Cam on 01/05/2016 22:51:03

I was just checking out Jez's progress with his lovely Tiger Moth on here and I realised that it's been over a year since I updated my thread. Unfortunately I can't match Jez and his lightning build speed but some progress has been made nevertheless! The detail work on the ailerons (all six of them!) is underway made the brackets and mounted the throttle and choke servos and I've made the cowling side and top panels