Dave Bran

Yes, when you wriggle the controls, its always best to take note of the direction, not just if they move!

If a fellow club member asks for engine starting/running help, and you spend half an hour of your flying time getting it going REALLY well, only to see him seconds later fiddle for NO reason and ruin it again, never EVER help him again, no matter how much he damn well pleads. If a fellow club member asks you to test fly his new plane, make VERY sure he has actually:- 1. Fitted the wing securely (an 8mm by 1mm edge butt CA joint on a 70" span plane is NOT strangely sufficient) 2. Used control rods that are supported and stiff enough that they might actually stop the surfaces moving about in the breeze. 3. Fitted wing bands that keep the wing from lifting and do not move straight into the aileron slot, jamming same. 4, If a drone pilot says he has CAA certification, be absolutely convinced he'll have NO idea of the rules and regulations, will happily turn his FPV gear on with no prior check, wiping out your video feed, won't know what frequency he is on, will refuse to change "as its difficult to reach", and won't think it at all unacceptable to fly through the pits at eye level from and back to his car. And that is flying back after spending five minutes with it on the ground fiddling in the middle of the runway blocking everyone, only then to hover runway central at two metres up for the complete (yawn) battery. If having a "last flight" is risky (and strangely many think so), announce loudly that you are going to have two more flights, and stop after the first. Trees do NOT move, learn to avoid them. If you arrive and everyone is flying left hand circuit rule, do NOT fly in opposition, especially unannounced and after a pilot up has called "Landing" If you find a queue of pilots waiting for the strip as you attempt your tenth or more over fast and over height approach to land, consider re-taking your "A" cert because you clearly don't deserve to have the one you've got.   Happy Christmas!!!! Edited By Dave Bran on 18/12/2017 16:03:19

I'm going to Tweet Mr Trump and suggest he starts a "stop recycled to death old stale news" campaign, as that is what SO many closed forum etc threads on drone banning/regulation/etc are now. Of particular note though is the regular likening of UAVs to cars not being banned/regulated to death, so why leisure UAVs? REALLY?? Society clearly feels it requires cars/transport vehicles, but leisure model aircraft are NOT an item that is required for society to operate, no matter how much we love our sport. End of..................................Move on, nothing to be able to influence here.

I think he means what I feel about it, it has too many sharp change and ultra brief edits. Some of it is very good, some for me hardly watchable, it doesn't flow for the viewer. Good Spot though, jealous!!

Posted by Percy Verance on 10/12/2017 18:35:01: I just watched a feature on potential Christmas presents, hosted by Philip Schofield, and a number of multirotors were looked at with a test of several of the most expensive (costing £600+). They were flown both indoors in what looked like a big shed used for training horses, and outside in what looked like a park. Several of them seemed to malfunction and crash. At no time during the feature - also co-hosted by Vernon Kay, a model flyer - were any upcoming regulations together with the need to undergo a test before taking to the air mentioned. Not a single mention of any form of insurance either. And so it goes on.......... Edited By Percy Verance on 10/12/2017 18:36:34 How To Spend It Well at Christmas with Phillip Schofield. its on the ITV hub if you can be bothered to sit through the lengthy adverts.

I was in Lincoln on Saturday, one day of the Lindum Christmas Fayre , an event heavily over-populated with visitors, so we exited fast and went up onto the castle walls walkway. A camera quad was being hovered seemingly from a nearby tiny triangle of public land grass presumably filming the event. NOT over the crowd, but fairly close. It descended while we watched to out of sight and arose again at a timing which suggested a cell pack change. Viewing the Castle/Cathedral location from the town several hours later, and now full dark, it was still there with red and green marker lights on. I assume the Police, in any event somebody with a LOT of packs!!!

I was on a steam haul rail trip yesterday, Due to numbers at the destination (many trains but only ours steam), we were moved much later return, and ended up waiting for our train to be allowed to return from sidings, standing outside the station in the open (in spasmodic light snow) for over an hour and a half, to then having managed to get away within five mins of schedule be bounced from loop to loop on the ECML by faster delayed trains, this on a train with minimal heating. Arrived back in JUST enough time to get the last transport home with all the Sat night Drunks..............lovely..................

I have a number of PSUs used from time to time to feed chargers, some ex-computer, some industrial fully adjustable stabilised lab/bench, but the bank of NIMH chargers (10 of!) I use for the school club are powered by these little devices, three of them. very small, very quiet. **LINK** I used to suggest these, HOWEVER, I do not think they are available now AND anyway the price was only £12 each retail when I bought!! A point with regard using car battery chargers as PSU. They are not! There are also so many types with and without regulation/boost/auto trickle that a blanket "use this" is IMO imprudent. While I rarely field charge these days, I have a number of very large capacity 4S/6S LiPo which subject to charger input do what I need. They also drive my engine starters. A "Sakura" car engine starter is always in the car anyway and despite being tiny I once used it to start a 7.6 litre 6 cylinder petrol! No more stone age heavy lead acids!

Banggood Lithium orders always take near the max timing stated, especially if you are not paying for an accelerated service, due the the carrier restrictions they face. My last few orders of LiPo from there have come in via Sweden. The std service is 20 WORKING days, and usually very close to that. Of the last two HK Euro orders (for 2200 3S), the first order of three had one with a shorted cell, and the replacement sent came through with one cell at 2.8V (which recovered OK)

Posted by Steve Ralph on 06/12/2017 09:17:34: I got my mag today by post, but the 20 page jetsupplement is missing. Steve. Shame I didn't see that earlier as mine got torn in half and binned without reading!

I chose to go Outdoor yesterday instead of the usual Indoor, lured by a forecast that failed big time. Wrong choice. Dull, extremely damp air, ground sopping wet, worm cast slurry going everywhere it shouldn't, wind swirling everywhere. And? I'll be going again today for more of it................................

NIMH chargers work by sensing the negative dip that occurs as a pack reaches full charge. If you repeat charge the charger will attempt to charge until it gets another negative dip, which might be a while, and during this time you are pumping more current into the pack that it does not need. Because it appears to charge again, that does not mean it was not fully charged in the first place.

I realise this is a long while ago but a friend and I taught a Dan Air Pilot (on Comets) to fly models. He could manage orientation APART from the landing, when he had to stand looking the way the plane was flying and look back over his shoulder. I always worried about his passengers......................................

Posted by Engine Doctor on 01/12/2017 09:48:29: The Zagi by Avicraft had a small amount of dihedral built in as wings were joined on a flat surface/table with top of wing flat on table. The taper of the wing section gave it the dihedral on the bottom surface. Edited By Engine Doctor on 01/12/2017 09:49:15 Yes, that is so, which is as I said above, normal practice for flying wings and a fair number of low wing aerobatic planes.

Posted by Mark Kettle 1 on 01/12/2017 06:37:55: No dihedral mind on this one. No, anhedral due the wing taper with washout.

As I fly from a short patch with upwind mature trees and a downhill slope in the usual wind direction, stopping is an issue esp on low to no wind days for some models and I have flapperon/spoileron fitted to ALL my plane inc scale. Small amounts of up aileron spoileron really do help and do NOT result in control loss (having been tested at height of course!). I do NOT mix elevator and control this normally, the main action being on a side slider I can adjust on the fly just like any other control. They are also useful to hold a model down and prevent bounce once landed, especially in a crosswind. Doing this I can stretch the approach using flapperon and shorten using spoileron at will, and rarely ever have to go around.

Posted by David Hall 9 on 30/11/2017 17:47:06: Thanks for your help... I have a further question about airbrakes for a wing, so will make a new thread. .. I have only once needed to add speed brakes, this was to a pod front delta wing. I fitted a servo which projected two rods each side out of the pod fuselage and pushed tape hinged plates out either side close to the CG. This was quite effective , but not really needed generally as most of mine were powered, and if you run a prop slowly, it causes a lot of braking drag.

All my own design aerobatic flying wings and deltas (and that is a lot), whether wings are swept or "plank" in plan, have the two wing halves glued together upside down, so the tapering section from root to tip creates some dihedral.

At our flying field this morning, a drone of twin radials and an olive C47/DC3 with invasion striping flew over from the west presumably heading Biggin cct. About 15 mins later the usual Spitfire came closer than usual to our field after take off from 29 due the wind direction.

So, here we go recycling all the old comments all over again. Does anyone here bother to follow the AAIB and other Government reports on drone incidents? Been very VERY quiet for quite a few months. ALSO, to the "anti-multirotors in clubs" brigade - FACT - Every MR sport pilot who has joined into two of my clubs has gone on, if not already able, to fly helicopters and fixed-wing, and is an asset to the club. And a few competent FW pilots have added MR and Heli skills to their portfolio. In a lot of cases I have done the cross format familiarisation, and its been a pleasure, so YOUR LOSS. The worst experiences I have personally had have been with CAA certified pilots, who in my now quite extensive experience are in actuality shockingly clueless about safe use of video eqpt, safety rules, etc. The last one I was in contact arrived and turned on while using my (in use) video frequency. When asked he didn't know WHAT his video frequency was set to, or how to access it, or the process to check receive before transmit to ensure interference free. He was also quite happy to have a large and powerful fixed wing twin prop "drone" untethered and powered up in the pits, some of the time even facing his own legs while he played with the radio Tx settings with the tx buried into the back of his "faraday cage" 4x4! He didn't see any problem when it was mentioned, so one must assume he behaves similarly when out on jobs with public in the frame.

We had a voltage flash surge at home on Tuesday that stopped our freezer compressor dead (and did other lesser things around the house). I bodged it back into life, but we obviously needed and so ordered from an online supplier offering very fast service, paying extra for next day, delivery Wed. On delivery and unpacking by the delivery man (in time slot mid afternoon) it was trashed, severe door damage and smashed top valance and hinges. Next time we could see one in was Fri, but we needed one quickly, so agreed a replacement. On Friday, I get a call to say an hour away, early one slot. (note:- with a different courier firm chosen by sender) I get a second call ten mins later to say it had been loaded in the van on top of a washing machine, driver had not seen it was stacked two high, and it fell off while van on move to us, and guess what........severe door damage. So if you want to waste your time, buy from Appliance Direct, SOME bits may eventually get to you, but I hope you enjoy waiting in and like wasting your time. And now? Well its Black Friday weekend, and all the websites are seized by the pressure and the stores heaving......and all the delivery slots gone for a week or more...............

Thanks for heads up, this one is a must for me!

Thanks for update.

Well, your flight test obviously proves me downright wrong, but I'd have sworn that 35" span of anything would out power the Parkzone set on 1S!! Watching with interest!

No Worries! Related to recent posts, I have just been checking batteries for the after school club I run. When I got to the batteries for the three JP Twister Quads, either 550mAh or 600mAh 1S, not used for a couple of months, I found:- 1. The Nano-Techs only required a max of 6mAh to cut off (so no actual charge needed) 2. The IP's all required between 50 and 100mAh 3. The Overlanders also only required a max of 6mAh 3. The Hyperions had dropped the most, requiring between 150 and 250 mAh If you tried to guess their relative ages from these results you'd probably be wrong! Had a noticeably higher fail rate on Hyperion and IP than the others. I have tended in recent years to fly i.c. more in the main season and EP more in the winter. I keep the batteries in the warmth for 3-4 hours before placing into defrosted car and do not normally suffer less duration due temp. It's planes like the truly excellent Durafly/HK EFRacer and EFXtra, FMS Marauder, Radian, and a few own design fast Deltas that have tipped the balance this year more to EP, even in main season. Flying at least twice per week indoor sports hall and home/garden with micro quads has pushed it even more EP 3 of my i.c. planes and four i.c. helicopters have not flown this year at all (though some have!). Every single EP plane has flown at least once.