John Lee

The Avanti is the fourth 50mm Arrows EDF that I've got and in order of preference I would rank them: 1) Hawk 2 Avanti 3) Viper 4) T-33 That is very much down to my personal preference and I have no doubt that many others would have them in a different order. All are really good (I would not keep adding them to my collection otherwise!), I enjoy them all and one always accompanies me on every flying session. The Avanti flew well right out of the box with very nice control harmony. With 8 flights to date I find it is not as fast as the others in the range, I suspect that this may be a combination of it being a bit more draggy &/or having a more restrictive airflow into the fan, it has a grill over the breather hole unlike the unrestricted others. It is very 'groovy' in flight & does all the normal rudderless aeros without effort. Low speed handling is exemplary and it gets way from the launch & back on the ground without any drama. It looks good and has a nice 'sit' in the air. I use 1300mAh 100c 3S batteries on all these models which I find adequate, but I can appreciate that many will want to try a 4S in the Avanti &/or try & free up the breathing to give it a bit more high speed urge, but I will enjoy mine as it is. Hope that helps Colin.

I've always done my own maidens. I find the satisfaction they bring is one of the very best things in the hobby.

Lovely day once the early morning fog dispersed. Just the job for a couple of contrasting 3 channel models!

Keep an eye on: https://events.bmfa.uk/ where you can set a location and search within a specified radius. There is also a Calendar of events on his site.

On full size aircraft a gyro driven yaw damper is often used to correct an aerodynamic flaw (well perhaps 'inherent characteristic' would be better than 'flaw') leading to Dutch Roll. If you have ever flown in a SA Jetstream when the yaw damper is turned off you will find how effective it has been!

Whilst I agree and that is what I adopt I have first hand witnessed a NiMh explosion. Many years ago (pre-LiPo days) a Club Member was topping up the charge in his NiMh Rx battery in his trainer, in the pits, using a charger off his 12v battery. Some minutes later there was a large bang & the battery blasted through the side of the model with the remains ending up about 10ft from the model, fortunately all in the clear. I'm not suggesting anyone changes their processes from this freak occurrence, and no doubt there was a fault in the charger/battery/setting, but it goes to show that even the seemingly most benign energy store is not without some risk.

I used an OS 32 in my Raptor back in the day. The OS32 & OS37 have the same mounting dimensions & fit straight in the Raptor 30 mount, check here from https://www.os-engines.co.jp/english/line_up/engine/heri/herindex.htm : as does the Irvine 36: As mentioned elsewhere most heli's are now electric but there must be lots of the old heli engines still lying about. I still have a Hirobo Shuttle of a similar vintage which I converted to electric. ...and welcome to the forum!

I have fleet of about 40 models and about a third of them have gyros. Only one of these models actually needs a gyro - a large twin engined model which Dutch rolls annoyingly without some gyro damping. For the rest as Leccy says they are great for hand launching EDF jets whilst the others are personal preference. They do need setting up carefully to get the best out of them though and to avoid them interfering when not wanted.

The servo problems are usually as a result of a voltage or signal degradation with the long leads. Check that all the plugs & sockets are really clean & making good contacts, with a good voltage available to the receiver. Then if you still need to replace just run a modelling knife blade around the edges, minding the lead, & lever out with a wide thin flat blade, like a table knife. The ARTF's come out quite easily, however if it has been constructed from the kit & cyano'd in then it may be a struggle & impossible to extract without some damage. Fit the new servo with UHU Pro. ....and welcome to the forum!

This extract from a 1937 publication (obtainable from https://rclibrary.co.uk/index.asp )will give some insight to the thinking of the time:

The attached Data Sheet for Enerloop batteries shows the expected voltages at 400mA, 2A & 4A discharges. It should give you a good baseline and you can try searching for similar data for the cells you want to measure. Enerloop data.pdf

If the Liverpool Arena car park fire in December 2017 is any precedence it is going to take a long time. The risk assessment & preparatory work took 11 months before they started to remove the vehicles.

We have had a couple of Members receive similar emails in the Club. There was an article about this in the Feb 2023 BMFA News and on the basis of this information the CAA emails have been ignored.:

On 2200MAh and up I discharge to storage at 6amps using the ISDT 100. I do find it a very handy tool for battery management. I started using it some 6 years ago and developed a habit of returning all my batteries to storage voltage after every flying session, charging or discharging as required. It does seem to keep the batteries in much better condition than my previous rather casual approach and puffiness has been all but eliminated.

There are some desirable engines there which should find a ready market. I'd suggest entering them in a future online BMFA auction which is held in the National Centre and has a world-wide coverage. https://nationalcentre.bmfa.org/catalogues You may be too late for the next auction on the 27/28th of this month, but get in touch with Manny at the National Centre who will be able to give you good guidance. As for the models , these are likely to have very little value given their age. You may want to get in touch with a local Club https://bmfa.justgo.com/clubFinder.html who may be able to give you a better idea if they can view them. There are also some traders who will purchase collections, eg https://www.radiocontrolledmodels.co.uk/about-us

Can I remind you that: If you want to discuss Spektrum problems please post in an appropriate thread, or start a new one.

I've assembled five Hangar 9 and two Graupner (also made by Seagull back in the day) balsa ARTF's. All were really well made, needed no modifications & had a long life before I sold them on, I now just have a Pulse 40 left from that collection. I have flown quite a few Seagull models, they all seemed OK, nothing more, but I have never assembled one so I also cannot make a direct comparison as to their construction. However I suspect that your surmise may well be correct.

I use a steam cleaner.

You can get car GPS speedos that stick on the top of the dashboard for about £15 from the likes of Amazon & eBay, or use a cycle one that has its own power. They don't use a mobile signal.

Sorry Pat, yes, too many 'unders' used in slightly different contexts! Perhaps best to give a worked example. The speedo commonly works by measuring the rate of rotation of the wheels, measured by sensors on a drive shaft, the ABS system or a cable from the gearbox. It then converts that to a calibrated speed. If you have a typical 26" diameter tyre & wheel at 30mph it will be doing 387.85 RPM. Let's say the speedo is dead accurate at that calibration. If the tyres wears down by a quarter of an inch (6mm) and your speedo still reads 30mph you will be doing 29.42mph. If you put on tyres with a half inch bigger sidewall without compensating with smaller wheel rims (as mentioned by Shaun) when your speedo reads 30mph you will be doing 31.2mph.

As your tyres wear down their radius decreases & your speedo will increasingly under read your true speed, giving a little bit more margin for error. What you need to be really careful of is replacing tyres with anything other than those which fully comply with the manufacturer's specification. Fitting tyres with increased sidewalls (eg to improve ride comfort as sometimes recommended by 'none official' sources) will give an increased radius & circumference, so your speedo will under read and leave you vulnerable to inadvertently exceeding the speed limit.

That is not true. It's not +/-, just + The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 Schedule 3 Section 19 requires: 2. For all true speeds up to the design speed of the vehicle, the true speed shall not exceed the indicated speed. (my emphasis) 3. For all true speeds of between 25 mph and 70 mph (or the maximum speed if lower), the difference between the indicated speed and the true speed shall not exceed— V/10 + 6.25 mph where V = the true speed of the vehicle in mph. ie at a true 30mph the speedo must read not less than 30mph & not above 39.25mph (30+[30/10+6.25])

What's that about? They don't look dead to me. ZF (Zeppelin Factory! It's what they grew out of and they have an interesting museum in Feidrichafen), from their August 2023 Investor statement: ZF Confirms 2023 Full-Year Outlook, Adjusts Corporate Structure Sales in the first half of 2023 increase to €23.3 billion, adjusted EBIT margin is 4.0 percent ZF pushes forward alignment of corporate structures with core business units Technology company establishes joint venture with Foxconn for passenger car chassis systems ZF confirms full-year outlook for 2023, target is an EBIT margin between 4.7 and 5.2 percent for the full year Friedrichshafen, Germany. In the first half of 2023, ZF stood its ground in a globally challenging and volatile market environment. In the first six months of the year, the company generated sales of €23.3 billion (2022: €21.2 billion), an increase of around 10 percent on the prior-year period. Adjusted EBIT totaled €941 million (2022: €851 million), equivalent to an adjusted EBIT margin of 4.0 percent (2022: 4.0 percent).

Seagull make models for Hangar9! See this screen grab from a Seagull factory tour, from their shipping department.