Toni Reynaud

Flew in F5 (about 25-30mph) this weekend. Used a Trixie, lightweight parasol wing geared 400 3-channel. Good fun flying backwards, but the backwards taxi after landing was uncontrollable! Also flew the Nijhuis Aerovan twin 400s - big loops and almost vertical landing approaches on a flat flying site by the sea.

The November issue of RC Model World had a free plan for an Auster AOP9, which I am building. I built up F4 and F5 according to the plan - wrong!! The plan is not totally accurate, so F5 was 4mm wider than F4, which caused problems later, giving the wing sweep forward. Build these formers over the top of each other!

There is a link on the FMS website to a page which shows how to link to the mic or line input to the PC, and this is a really cheap and simple interface, so I decided to have a go at it. The site has details for several makes and models of Tx, and told me that I needed a 3.5 mm jack to connect to the PC, and a plug to connect to the Tx trainer lead socket. I remembered an old (25 years!) 4-channel Futaba Tx which was laying around in the attic. I got it and checked it over, but it had no buddy-box socket. I took the back off and peered around inside, and found that the control section of the circuit board was completely separate from the RF section, connected by a plug and socket. I disconnected the two parts of the circuit board, got a battery and wired it in, and when I switched the Tx on I got a battery indication on the meter. First step OK. Next I fired up the laptop and started the Winscope oscilloscope and using the previously made interface lead, located the control output on the circuit board – all pulses present and correct and responding to the stick inputs. The next step was to solder the interface lead directly to the circuit board and connect the battery in a more permanent fashion, then try the Tx with the sim. All worked as advertised, so I now have a working 4-channel portable flight sim! it's brilliant fun, and I find it useful for practicing circuits and bumps and inverted flying. As a footnote, I must state that I have been in electronics all my working life, so I found the fiddling with wires, plugs and circuit boards fairly easy. I do not recommend anyone else to take this route unless they feel fairly competent to do so. FMS Homepage: http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html SmartPropo Plus (Interface cable) site: http://www.smartpropoplus.com/BlueAndGrey/default.asp One of the sites to download planes for FMS: http://rcp.web.infoseek.co.jp/fms_aircraft_e.html Software and instructions for creating your own planes: http://rcp.web.infoseek.co.jp/Rc_hp2/fms/Metasequoia_e.htm