Marc Humphries

Has RCM&E gone 100% on-line?  Have I stumbled across the future?   Great sneak preview though!

Agree with RW about going brushless.  I can't bear the the thought of burrowing out the wing for another wire to each motor, changing the mounts, replacing the rather neat PCB power connection board etc.   An easier upgrade might be to go for two 480s - if you can still get them - on 7x4 props.Edited By Marc Humphries on 18/08/2009 18:00:39

  Agree about the Gunthers.  One kept slipping off and causing very interesting flight patterns until you realise what is going on and shut the throttle. I use 6x3 or 6x4 props with adaptors - much more reliable. Edited By Marc Humphries on 18/08/2009 15:13:45

Nice one David!   Just listened to it while I'm working at home.  Suprisingly engaging and professional with great sound quality.   Enjoyed the comparisions between the US and UK scene.   Cheers.

Social Marketing me duck.    Look at all the adds around the forum screen - and when you're reading the posts - think of all the products that are being talked about and recommended by the contributors.

Here's one for David Ashby and his techie crew.   Research into social networking and online collaboration / communities of practice say that: 1% of group members will start and initiate discussions 10% will read and add comments 89% will be passive and do neither of the above   After a couple of years of data - it will interesting to see if Model Flying validates these numbers.  So if there are 10,000 members signed up: 100 will be starting threads 1,000 will add comments 8,900 will just read them   Anorack coming off now.Edited By Marc Humphries on 14/08/2009 16:04:31

Tim's right.   Some of those CNC free flight scale rubber or electric jobs look very appealing...   Made a few competition chuck gliders a few years back and took them to the local flying field.  Most of the new breed of RC flyers had never seen the like (they had epoxy tube fuselages and had dethermalisers).   When one of them hooked a thermal and was lost OOS when the DT failed, the amazement was complete!  "How can it fly that high and far without radio?"   My favourite free flight competetion machines are the Wakefield Rubber powered jobs. They have delayed prop release, so they can be hurled like a javelin into the air.  Then the huge prop opens and they climb almost vertically - but in near silence.  Strangely captivating.

I've sworn that the last two seasons will be the last for my tatty Formosa.   Permanently stained from mud and dung underneath, more splits in the cowling than the last Tory government, fuselage glued back together and having to make do with a piece of coke bottle for a canopy - since the foam one disappeared into woodland after one flick roll too many.  But it's still here.   Just come pack from the local park and running 4 packs through it.  Can still be wrung out.  Flies as steady as a rock in calm conditions and eats up the sky like an IMAC job - well almost.  Even shed a prop. blade on the last flight.  All 130 Watts shuddering away at the front couldn't stop it.   Classic model!Edited By Marc Humphries on 13/08/2009 21:09:40

Great stuff.  I was reading a post from a newbie to RC and he seriously asked "what is free flight?".  Well - this is the sharp end of free flight!   The one time editor of Aeromodeller, Martyn Cowley, was an member of my old Northampton club.  He used to fly these things in competetion.  Had a Rossi 15  engine screaming at 20,000 rpm to get it aloft in a 10 second motor.  They had all sorts of programmable features even then.  A variable incidence tail would reduce the positive pitch for the power run - and then in synch with the engine timer either bunt it off the top or make it loop and transition into the glide.   Great soundtrack too - but how did it get past the YouTube police?

 Oh well - my first thread that hasn't sparked any response.

 After reading the recent article about Howard Boys - I felt compelled to write about my memories of the guy.  As a teenage member of the Northampton Model Aero Club he made an impact on me with his sheer knowledge of all things related to model aviation, his willingness to help and his eccentricity.  Only now do I have some time to spare on a train journey - assisted by the luxury of a wi-fi connection and a table seat with a power socket on a Virgin train! Howard had all the hallmarks of a classic British eccentric. In 1975 he was still wearing his brown de-mob style overcoat that you only used to see in grainy black and white photos in old issues of Aeromodeller. You know the ones – a group of young men in their 20s who look about 50 – each clutching a small rubber or diesel powered model at the SMAE South Midlands rally or something similar. Occasionally string was employed as a makeshift belt. But it didn’t stop there. He would turn up on club nights at Thornton Park Community Centre (a beautiful Georgian mansion that has now been sold by the council and converted to trendy apartments) in a variety of home made cars. One was a three wheeler that was kick started by Howard lifting the bonnet and placing his right foot into the engine bay. Another looked like a cigar tube and could have been driven by Professor Pat Pending in Whacky Races. I remember someone telling me what an impact he had in the world of radio control – although you wouldn’t have known it. He was a very modest and unassuming character – and looking back was largely ignored by the new breed of cheque book RC flyer – those who had never tried to get a free flight model to circle right under power and then transition to a left hand glide. My first naïve attempts at RC flying back then comprised of plan building a scale Cessna 172 and using an old RCS single channel set complete with rubber powered Elmic escapement. Even in 1975 this was vintage kit from a different era. But Howard’s eyes lit up. He took me out to the adjacent park and filing a plastic knitting needle to a hexagonal shape, proceeded to instruct me how to tune a super-regen receiver. Those who remember how this is done – answers on a post card to… Another great moment was when I brought my uncovered Cessna to a club night and asked for his help in making the windscreen. From the deep pockets of his de-mob coat came a pair of scissors, a pencil and some thin card. In a flurry of activity he produced a series of patterns that I could take home and trace onto acetate.  A true gentleman.

I had a Sunshine and their 100S glider called Solitaire.  Both had foam wings and the pod and boom fuselage.   They were both very attractive looking machines and flew very well.  I flew the Solitaire in a few competetions - but they were never competition machines - the wing area was relatively low.   Mind you - at a comp at Warwick Racecourse in 1981 it caught an absolute hay bail lifter of a thermal in one slot.  It was dotted out after a couple of minutes and it was a struggle to get it down.  My violent manoeuvers caused a wing to fail and the resulting death dive into some woodland was spectacular.  It was flying again within the week and gave about 6 years of stirling service - particularly in light winds on the slope - where you could admire its good looks.   The Sunshine is also a great flyer - you will enjoy it.Edited By Marc Humphries on 07/08/2009 11:37:23

http://podcastmachine.com/podcasts/179   Check this out.  Couple of crazy Danes controling an RC Car with Wii and iPhones.    Who'll be first to try a plane?

I have this issue with a EG standard - supplied in Radio ready form with a Multiplex ESC and brushed 400 motor.  Is it possible to set the brake on this set up - can't seem to find it in the instructions.   Resorted to a small rubber band across the blades at the hub to provide a positive fold.  Even then I sometimes have to loop it or do a stall turn to sufficiently reduce the centrifugal force to enable the fold.

Just had a look at their website.   It is a crime against online retailing - I would not buy for that reason alone - and because somebody puts (Dr.) in parenthesis before their name.    

Great Formosa thread here. http://www.modelflying.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=9486     How much fun can you have for about £20 that doesn't need satellite TV? Edited By Marc Humphries on 17/07/2009 13:53:10

Plus - don't forget that putting a video up on YouTube with a copyrighted piece of music is illegal...  I have learnt that the hard way.   Peter Green and his team of lawyers will be listening out for "Albatross" on all our model vids! Edited By Marc Humphries on 07/06/2009 17:31:06

Er... Don't want to rain on anyone's parade - but this leaves me cold.   Can't see the point in it at all.  Go and fly a real plane, ride a motorcycle or drive a go-kart if you're after thrills and spills.   Underwhelmed.  For sure.

Timbo - I guess we're looking at it from a different angle.  If you're looking to replace / replicate the traditional IC trainer - I see where you're coming from.   But how many beginers go down that route?  I think the idea of joining a club to learn to fly is on it's last legs.  The new people who go down this route must be a fraction of the new people who buy RC planes - even if they start with an Silverlit thing.   Who wants to drive a 30 mile round trip (to one of my local clubs) for the dubious pleasure of being a) ignored b) told what to do c) adhere to some one else's schedule.   There was a great post a year or so ago challenging the "old way" of learning to fly.  Today's electric RTFs and flight simulators are fast making the traditional methods look very dated.  

Hi Rig the model to some sort of scale / balance to measure the thrust in grams - then divide by the weight.   Alternatively (assuming it's an electric model) - down load MotorCalc software (it's free for 15 days or so) and plug in all your parameters and it will do the clever calculations for you.   Marc

It's true the packs have had a relatively easy life - around 10C in terms of their discharge against a claimed 20 or 30C- so have never been severely thrashed.   The charger is a great piece of kit - shame about the nightmare of having to buy adapter leads for the variety of balance plugs.

"IC is better for a beginner for several reasons in MOST cases, mainly down to budget."   Timbo - can't really agree with this.  Look at some of the electric RTF deals with model, RC gear, etc all thrown in.   Even if you bought separate components it doesn't stack up.  Motor and ESC combos from around £15.  LiPos from £15.    

Hi folks... I finally got around to buying a balancer charger after two years of flying exclusively LiPo equiped electric models (wait for cries of derision).  I ordered a Turnigy thingy and and bunch of other stuff from Hobby City in Hong Kong on Good Friday - and the parcel arrived on Tuesday this week - that's five days.  This in itself is stunning.   Ripping apart the parcel, the charger was soon attached to my trusty mains power source - bought for £10 at  a car boot sale many years ago - and has a strange output of 13.5 Volts.  I hooked up one of my trusty 3S packs that have been charged on non balanced mode for around two years and probably have had around 100 charge discharge cycles.  It had last been charged a couple of months ago.  My new charger showed the cells to be in pretty good balance - certainly all within the +/- 0.05 V tolerance that is talked about.   Have I been lucky these past two years?

Hi foks - do any of you know of any flying sites / slopes / shops in Mallorca?  Going there for a holiday and might be able to sneak away from the family for an afternoon!