Cabbage Man

Andrew, I couldn't find anything last time i looked. which surprised me. I would take that as a sign its not a popular builders kit. If you unsure, consider the airsail one or even the 1/4 scale wood kit from traplet based on the Dave Wormsley BMFA nationals one. Very scale. The one mistake I made was to assume the Apache version was reasonably close to scale when in reality its wayyyyyy off that.

I use only nanotech in 3-10  cell set ups .I cant recall any puffing and only 1 out of 30 was a dud. Superb punchy power right till the end of a pac. Low 1/2 a charging and reasonable discharge rates below 10c seem to be working.   Edited By Cabbage Man on 08/06/2016 13:32:05

I have a half built RAF chippy from SLEC. Average CNC cutting, quite a ' sturdy ' design with a lot of old school design elements . 2 piece wing arrangement isn't very strong and hard to use in practice. A wing tube would be preferable. I went for a one piece wing as a result. I needed to create a wing jig to help prevent washout issues . There is a lot of glue, shave, sand, repeat involved. Overall, its not the lightest of models and takes a lot of building to come together.   Edited By Cabbage Man on 07/06/2016 14:27:28

Collectors are quite an odd bunch in my experience, not unlike spotters. There passion is in the collecting and nostalgia . I doubt there is any money to be made in model engines though, not serious money. For that you need things like stamps or art work. I suppose one benefit of collecting glow and diesels is that in theory they can all still be used today even if 50 years old. Being able to own a rare diesel or glow motor but not use it must be a mild form of self inflicted pleasure torture. Even opening the box must be too much to bear! I personally prefer to invest in the future not the past.

I recall walking into a fellow modellers spare room once, full of unrun engines. There were hundreds all in display cases, seemingly trapped for eternity. Quite overwhelming. The sad thing is that no one on his family would keep them when he dies and most would end up being sold on ebay for next to nothing or binned by his all suffering wife. And yes me also collected old brushed electric motors! I sold him a Astro cobalt motor brushed to add to it. then again, I've met collectors of thimbles, lawnmowers and even garden tools in my time.

PAWs are really control line screamers and therefore for a select few. Real finger crackers if your slow . Offer them to the FF crowd via ebay as there still well used in Australia. As for the ST, that is a relic , a good one but a relic never the less. Again, go ebay but prepare to sell abroad. Personally, electric is so much cooler!

Some years ago , i read about an idea to gently puncture the lipo to relieve the puffing gas. I did it once but had to wear double bicycle clips to do it and even then wasn't totally comfortable . Is this feasible and what exactly happens when a cell puffs?

100% with you mattyb. the voice of the people!  Your entitled to an opinion and maybe if 'others' don't like what they read,  they can follow there own wise words and not respond to the thread.  As for the model, its damn huge and frankly full size in terms of ability and risk. id rather modelling went back to its more humbler roots and not along the lines of watching this type of modelling.  Edited By Cabbage Man on 31/05/2016 18:15:20

Your regime for storage etc looks A1 and not far off what i do. After quite a few years, I've decided it makes no difference which brand you use as whilst they can be tested and cell matched in the factory, its your use that determines there lifespan. i would guess that well over 90% of the flyers i see use turnigy or one of there variants . This includes drones, 2m pattern ships, gliders , 10 cell aerobats etc. i can't recall seeing a top end lipo for years! i certainly avoid the very cheap stuff . I get probably 1 out of 10 puff up and they get relegated to the low drain vintage models. New stuff goes into the warbirds and bigger models. If any cell fails, its binned. It is luck really whether the internal resistance of a cell goes wrong and puffs. The only thing i can think causes puffing is excessive long periods of full discharge ( full power flying at over 1c discharge ). Prevent that and you may prevent puffing. I fly pretty much exclusively nano tech bar a few zippies. I've not binned one yet.  id also say that flying electric is  not a cost based decision in my book , more about clean flying and low noise. if cheap flying is the aim, then go petrol.          Edited By The Wrinkled Prune on 31/05/2016 17:41:58

Whats a shame is that i doubt the bmfa will reach out to some of its highly experienced members to help them get this right. Even in a small club, you often find there is a wealth of legal or commercial expertise to tap into so that key decisions like planning permission are done correctly. My last club wasted thousands when the committee had a go themselves at submitting a planning permission . It turned out not one of them had ever done anything like it before and were all from manual trades, so inexperienced at officialdom and LA liaison. As it transpired, we had solicitors and even a local planning officer in the club but didn't use them. The lack of facts/reasoning behind the location, costs, revenue, joint use etc not being provided worries me . Either its too sensitive to publish or it doesn't exist . The latter is fatal. Id sign off by wishing them well. if it goes well, it could be a financial success as well as potentially good for the hobby. if it fails, it may just break the association.

Totally agree with the concern that this is unlikely to do anything to help grassroots flyers. Its all about the preserving the competitions. Who in there right mind is going to drive hours JUST to fly. I would far rather see money spent on renting regional sites across the uk than a single site 4 hours from me. With the exception of sports funded by government funds such as archery, tennis etc, who else has a national centre? If the intention is to share the site with other users, why not hand this over to a commercial interest who takes the risk?

Lovely as the tiggie is, it takes a lot to make it look and fly well esp if you want to be aerobatic. Rolls need the differential aileron set up or the adverse yaw and drag turn them into lazy barrel rolls. Try setting the servo arm so that its not at 90 degrees to the servo but 15 degrees rearward. Old school differential ! Oh and use loads of power to get air across the surfaces.

Thanks guys , wasn't aware they used the same provider. I just want to satisfy my 2 clubs requirements for insurance. I am actually looking forward to moving to the other side!

Has anyone transferred from the BMFA to the LMA insurance scheme? Looking at the main elements of the insurance, both are £25m cover and appear to be suitable for club flyers. Im not into black tie dinners, relentlessly dull competitions or wasting money on white elephants so fancy a change to an association that focuses on flying.

Quite agree with the 2 posts above. The BMFA are obsessed with competition and offer little to the average weekend warrior club flyer. The National centre is a rather blunt example of that. Sadly I do see the national centre being a failure as like many above who have experience in business, i just can't see the value the site would bring to the average flyer who lives more than a couple of hours away. Shame. Reminds me of that abandoned new airport built in spain that won't ever see an arrival. Good point though about rent for fields even if fishing is an odd comparison to use. Our hobby has to offer the landowner an income that exceeds that of grazing or crops to be attractive unless that is you want to rent cash in hand from a dubious tenant and at risk of being thrown off without warning. Our field is 25 acres and we realised that to be attractive, we had to pay over £6000 a year . Luckily the farmer is a gent and charges us nothing.