John Lee

Club contact details are freely available on the BMFA Club finder pages. It would not be difficult to arrange a mail shot.

1) & 2) = Multiplex EasyGlider. Tough as old boots & flies brilliantly. You will find many experienced flyers take an EasyGlider along with them for flying sessions, they just fly so well. Slightly smaller than you state at 1800mm = 71inches, for something a bit bigger the MPX Solius & Heron are very good but I'd still go for the EasyGlider. Can't help with 3) I'm afraid.

I also agree AliExpress's search can be bit cumbersome. In my case I just put in '3s Lipo', saw there was a CHNL shop, opened that in a new tab, spent 10mins looking at other options then went back to the CHNL tab & placed my order. I stocked up with a load of CHNL Lipos from their EU warehouse just before Brexit. I've been very happy with them, particularly their Black series (100C-130C) in EDF's. I was hoping to buy some more from their UK warehouse but they had none in stock at the time (nor with the re-stock) so I was pleased find them available via AliExpress.

Ah, sorry Martin I assumed that your Tx would be DSM2 only. You are lucky to have a Tx that does both (as does my early DX9). That being the case it will bind as DSMX.

Yes it is backwards compatible to your Tx’s DSM2 protocol. This user guide is a better document for the specifications. PWM = I believe this stands for Pulse Width Modulation, the standard Rx output to a servo/ESC, rather than Spektrum’s SMART throttle signal to their SMART ESC’s

Following on from this thread I thought I would try AliExpress for the first time - thanks to those who suggested it. I ordered 4 LiPos from the China Hobbyline (CNHL) store within AliExpress (CNHL's UK warehouse had no suitable LiPos). VAT was added at the checkout & I saw that my PayPal payment went to Alipay (UK) Ltd. I looked up this Company on the Government's Company's House website which confirmed that it is registered in London. A glance through their 2021 accounts (freely available at the previous link) shows that it has a number of overseas subsidiary companies, a turnover of £295million and pays both UK & Overseas taxes. I placed my order on 21 July and exactly 2 weeks later the LiPo's were delivered today via Evri (formerly Hermes) courier. It had a UK shipping label so presumably the goods are shipped in bulk to the UK before being relabelled for the final dispatch. So all above board, I am very happy with the whole process & will certainly be using them again.

I placed an order with them 21 Oct 2020. Other than an automated acknowledgement of my order I never received another word, or goods, from them despite multiple attempts on my part both direct & via PayPal. I eventually received a refund from PayPal on 10 Dec 2020.

I've flown quite a few WotsWots and have had one as a winter hack for a few years (having the battery hatch on the top makes it much easier for muddy field operation than the other foamy Wots). As with others I found all of them flew well straight out of the box. However flying mine one calm afternoon I decided to play about with mixing to produce apparent pure yaw from the rudder. I ended up with 15% opposite aileron mix and 30% up elevator mix (with a baseline max travel ailerons 80%, and elevator max travel 125% up & 65% down). With this the model wags from side to side with the application of rudder but continues straight and level. Note I'm not advocating that anyone else does this rather, as GG says, just enjoy it for Wot it is.

Yes. The Wright brothers looked extensively as to the best place to conduct their flight trials. They settled on Kitty Hawk, some 530 miles from Dayton as the crow flies. They made annual trips there from their home in Dayton Ohio from 1901, travelling by train via Norfolk, Virginia to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. They then hired a boat for the 30 mile crossing of Albermarle Sound to Kitty Hawk. Each trip took up to a week's travel. Their aircraft was sent in kit form, created up and assembled on site. The first two years when they made gliding trials they lived on site in tents for 3 months but for 1903 they assembled two large wooden camp buildings. The flying almost seems to have been the easiest part of the exercise!

I visited the Wright Brothers Museum in Dayton, Ohio about the same time and had a very similar experience, the place was very quiet but was staffed by an enthusiastic Ranger who opened up the replica bicycle workshop next door just for me. I was there again in 2016, making a diversion on the way home from Oshkosh. Ohio has a very rich aviation heritage with Neil Armstrong also being born in that State. The Armstrong Air & Space Museum, the Wright-Patterson Museum of the USAF and the Wright Brother Museum are must visits for any Total Aviation Person.

Just have a brief flick though Wilbur's 1901 lecture speech I linked to above Don & it will give you an idea of the painstaking research they did. Of course they stood on the shoulders of those that came before, just as Newton said he did, but they contributed immensely to fundamental aerodynamic research.

After little bit more research I have found the full text of the speech by Wilbur Wright in 1901 that I referred to in my earlier response. In the published notes there is this page which shows some of the brothers' understanding of the position of the CoG: The reference to the 'rudder' in the final paragraph is in fact the canard fore-plane - naming conventions for the control surfaces had not then been standardised. The full text of the speech is available here

You must be using a search engine that tracks you & stores your information (Google?). It's easily solved by switching to DuckDuckGo for your searches. https://duckduckgo.com

Undoubtedly. The success of the Wright brothers came about as a result of a vast amount of research, both their own empirical and studying that of others. Their designs were aided by detailed mathematical calculations. For example 1901 they tested 38 airfoil sections each 43 times as they adjusted the angle of incidence by a quarter of a degree. That year in a lecture in Chicago Wilbur described how the centre of pressure moved with the change of the angle of attack which shows that he understood how the centre of gravity must be set to accommodate such shifts. That is from the book 'Wilbur & Orville', a detailed biography by Fred Howard.

The same area using GliderTracker - you can see how many more are visible & the powered aircraft filtered out:

Steve, a joke yes, but at your expense - no. Please don't take offence. This all came about following my post stating that you should use coordinated rudder and ailerons in a turn and not try to keep the wings level. In full size gliders to verify that you are flying coordinated it is common practice to tape a tuft of wool on the canopy which shows the direction of airflow over the screen. When keeping in balance with the rudder and aileron the wool stays in a straight line directly down the canopy but any coordination errors are immediately shown by the wool pointing off to one side or another. Beginners tend to have a great deal of difficulty initially in keeping the wool straight and have it darting from side to side as they over correct, hence the term of referring to the wool as a window wiper has been adopted in the full size gliding community. Incidentally in Frank's photo you can see the FLARM display that I referred to in last Sunday's post at the top of the panel - the little black box with '1.2' on it and an LED compass which indicates the direction of nearby gliders. The transponder which shows up on FlightRadar 24 is the 2nd instrument up from the bottom centre showing the code (often referred to as a 'squawk') of 7000 which is the general conspicuity code for uncontrolled* aircraft following Visual Flight Rules * by 'uncontrolled' I mean not being controlled by an Air Traffic Control unit.

I had the wool fly off the canopy when I was flying full size at the Long Mynd last week, Paul, and I’m sure my flying immediately improved as a result! I’d suggest the surreptitious use of a finger nail under the restraint tape when no one is looking.

Whoever gave that advice is completely and utterly wrong. For maximum efficiency the model (or full sized) should be kept in balance during a turn with co-ordinated rudder and aileron. Keeping the wings level & using the rudder to turn requires opposite aileron and is provoking a side slip which is a good method of losing height!

There is a good choice here, including auto cut-off to maintenance trickle: https://www.batterystation.co.uk/battery-chargers/aa-aaa-battery-chargers.html whilst I have not used any of those, I bought a different sort (now out of production) many years ago from Battery Station. I have bought from them many times and found them excellent in all respects.

Good suggestions for suppliers above and in addition there is a dedicated RC search engine 'RCFerret' that should help in your search for items: http://www.rcferret.co.uk/UK/Index

I believe that is because G-DEAJ is not in FlightRadar's database. If that is the case it may be able display real time data but it not record it. Aircraft owners can ask FR not to display information but in this case it is more likely that its information to enable tracking data has never been uploaded. There is more info here and here.

There are a number of different Electronic Conspicuity (EC) devices available for gliders & light aircraft in addition to transponders - eg Sky Echo, Pilot Aware, FLARM. As far as I am aware there will only appear on Flight Radar if they are configured to transmit ADS-B out (a specific sort of signal linked to their GPS position) in addition to their own protocols. The most common used on gliders is FLARM, https://flarm.com/solutions/for-pilots-aircraft-owners/gliders/ which transmits & receives a signal which enables the position and predicted track of other gliders nearby to be shown on a display in the cockpit. There are a number of Websites that enable gliders & their tow planes to be viewed eg GliderTracker: https://glidertracker.org

Precedent manufactured kits from the mid 1970's to the early 2000's. The T180 was one of their later designs, without researching I would guess that it would have been produced from around 1990. Good luck with the sale.

Dan, welcome. An untouched kit sold in May for £150 eBay Link Whilst one that had been partially constructed fetched just £41 eBay Link Fully completed and equipped models will fetch anything from around £5 to £100 depending on condition. As you can see the value of an untouched kit that appeals to a kit collector far outweighs the final value of a constructed model, however any missing parts or tatty box will substantially reduce the value. Hopefully that gives you some idea to help you decide what to do.