Erfolg

Simon I have started or changed my initial plan, to one where I have produced a body, this will enable me to more closely estimate the finished weight. From that I will have a better grip on the wing area required at a 20-23 oz m^2 loading. If wing comes out large, It could well be a bin job. In reality being very semi-scale, there is some latitude. You mentioned the anhedral tips being there as a cure for Dutch Rolling. One source suggests that they were introduced after V1 (Versuch) to cure wing vibration, generated from the tips. Being vortex attenuators, an to improve longitudinal snaking. I have just been reading about Luftwaffe Emergency Fighter Competition, it is of passing interest that all(maybe most) tenders with very low aspect wings, have the same tips. Again of passing interest, if the Germans had managed to stagger forward to 1945, it was obvious (particularly with hindsight) that the Heinkel turbine was never going to be a viable motor. On that basis the 162 and 262 was as good as would get.

Merry Christmas, to all.

I have made the first tentative start, with respect to the airframe. I decided to wrap the duct with the Depron sheet, after having removed the paper by wetting, then peeling/rubbing it of. I had considered using multiple slices, as with a sliced bread loaf, In the end going for the Swiss roll approach. Two reason, the first material waste, perhaps more importantly, the amount of adhesive I suspected that would be used. The adhesive used is Polyurethane (Gorilla). Partly because the UHU Por I had was no longer viable. I was interested how the Polyurethane would sand. Not bad, although not great either. My other concern was how would the art board sand, as some of my recent Depron look alike did not sand well. The art board is much better than I thought it might be. The first picture is after wrapping, the second is sanded down to shape. In retrospect I could have made the item a bit smaller, plus overall lighter. I would now do the thing slightly differently, with potential benefit. I am now having second thoughts about the model. As a one time engineer I liked the idea, that an external motor/fan would be easier to maintain, or switch for another, I could even change the motor combination without taking the whole of the body apart. I particularly liked the short duct, reducing losses by a significant amount. I even liked that the motor could be over the CG. I even like that the Froude number for the 162 body is much better than a lot of WW" and early jets, which were often like (tuby) barrels. Personally I had discounted the Meteor and Canberra, as the spars had to have a potentially heavy transfer rings mid span. Now I am thinking, perhaps I could live with limitations. Back on the 162, I have started the process of agonising, how to deal with the body, as I like robustness aand light weight, using a material I am less familiar. Thankfully Christmas is here and I can deliberate with good cause whist enjoying? family life, get togethers, hopefully in harmony. What I do not like is that the equation for drag on a body, has a much larger cross sectional area than some other piston type models

I totally agree with you Cuban. HK, Giant Cod, all helped make aeromodelling affordable, to many modellers and would be modellers. The sad thing was and is, that some of the very relatively expensive bits of kit, have on occasionally been less reliably than HK. Those who wax lyrical about the service of the LMS and or wholesalers, in my experience wear rose tinted glasses, I have received some very poor service from high price UK based business. The price of Brushless motors and Lipos did plummet from the competition that the likes of HK introduced. Perhaps a major change that seems to be overlooked, was the vast range of product that came with HK and GC. Not the limited range, that you made do with from the majority of LMS. A problem that the LMS has tended to struggle with, is that so much stock stayed on the shelf, unsold, label fading. If and when HK start suppling from International Warehouse, VAT paid, often I am more than willing to wait.

Ariel I use Fusion 360 for design and the Cura slicer, why because both were recommended by persons on this site. Are there better packages, i do not know, I do know that they both seem to work, even for me. I am a long way from being competent, there are things I want to do, as yet do not know how. I would benefit from some formal training in using Fusion. An example are exhaust stacks for a Dornier 355, where the stacks go from one plane to a plane at 90 degrees, whist translating from one shape into another. I have worked through one Autodesk Fusion worked example book, I found it hard work, not completing all the examples successfully. I recently discovered a way of achieving a functionality, from a chance discussion with a competent user. There are many ways of skinning a cat with Fusion, I am happy when I know one. Much of what I can do has been by discovery, I bet in some instances there are better ways. Also there are things which can be done, that I am still ignorant of. In short Fusion can do so much, it is not all that obvious, unless you know how to do something, then you think, why did I have a problem. I also am pretty ignorant on which filament to by, for me it is not obvious what is better. Plus how do you recognise better? They all seem to print. As for printing wheels, I do not necessarily see an issue, it is the tyres, obviously not PLA, but what? I have managed to fill two SD cards, which may not seem a lot, although I would guess at least 30 designs.

Well Simon the 162 looks the business. I can confirm that the earlier Depron I have, is far superior from our perspective. The foam board is rather spongy, when the paper is removed. Time will tell how well it can be sanded. The old stuff could be sanded quite well, if sanded slowly, with light pressure. I do not think Lippisch played any role with the Heinkel. In Eric Browns "Wings of the Luftwaffe", he wrote that the 162 was the nicest handling aircraft of WW2. By that I take it that the aircraft was OK. In theory a swept forward wing should handle well at the stall, although the 162 has not much of forward sweep, unlike the Junkers 287 & the Grumman X29. That is if the wing does not twist from the flying loads. I guess that the torsionally rigid wing is difficult to build in practice. Anyway back to your model, how thick is the body skin? Have you used a cambered wing section? Or as TN a symmetrical section? Are the body formers Depron or PLA? Where is the Lipo, is it in a internal box? Where is the elevator servo, is the drive a split rod to each halve, if so have you used ball type attachments? Is the duct attached to the body with a bottom hatch or a detachable duct (which seems messy to arm the battery? Now you are thinking what does he not desire to know! Well my whole career was based on using others experiences.

Flyboy, I am not bothered, I see no reason why I should be. If I buy from Amazon, the item is not always from their warehouse. An example is a SD card ordered last week, delivered from Dumferline (or that is their return address). I have ordered items from a UK, at the time a well known retailer, one item was missing from the delivery. My communications with the retailer, did not result with a satisfactory result, that is the missing item, or the purchase price refunded. They still trade. Another example is a Lipo ordered from Amazon, it was faulty, that was resolved within possibly a day, with a refund. The battery disposed of via the local refuse system. I have many more positive purchases via UK retailers, from 4max, makeitbuildit, plus a few more UK retailers. It does not seem to matter where the retailer is with respect to the service. If they are in China, the UK or else where, sometimes good, others leave a bit to be desired. I for one have never had an issue with HK. You know if I had, I would probably just right it of, as the difference in bottom line cost is just to favourable to HK.

I have no idea as to the size of HK import warehouse, although I have seen the size of a few Toolstation outlets, they seem quite small. Yet the stock seems in general quite extensive. IMO it does seem sensible not to stock some slow moving items, if that is what HK are doing. Especially when parcel post charges are small, from China (or elsewhere) and postal service is quite fast. For people like myself, where you live at the end of the road to nowhere, with few relevant shops, it works for me. In the case of large or heavy type items, I imagine that determining demand is a must, as I guess these type of items will probably be part of a container shipment. I have noticed that many non modelling items are now sipped from China, vat pre paid. I suspect that an SD card I have ordered is coming off-sure by such an arrangement. Personally I have respect and a degree of admiration for businesses who adopt a business model that is appropriate to the circumstances. For once I even have respect to HMRC with their of sure VAT collection services. The probable downside is that for some UK based wholesalers and retailers also need to be pretty fly. The successful ones will be. Everything changes with time. Apparently there is a novel which is based on a time where there were no shops as I understand them in pre Victorian times (in Knutsford), where most retailers were trades people, working from home, where customers were served in the front room, after the customer knocked on the front door to gain entry. With the coming of the railway, small shops, of the type of my youth morphed.

Simon, as with our Bachem models, I can anticipate that getting the CG in an acceptable position without using lead could be an issue. I learnt quite a bit from both my Me 263 (Ju 248), in that I could cut down the Blue foam a lot more than I did, more of an issue was that the ply chasis, I used for the UC needed lightening a lot more to keep the weight down. It flew, although not as well as the 163, that used the same wing (cloud models). In case of the Bachem, if you remember I wanted a pusher prop, then ended up with a tractor. In that case, I found just from taking moments, I could not get an acceptable CG without it being a tractor prop. Perhaps more interestingly, the tailerons worked really well and I could cut down the wing area to nearer scale, as it flew really well (being a plain wing could have been a benefit).. There was an issue in that I used an old Futaba 35, and it glitched. I could and cannot be bothered developing the model further. The paint job was a prototype development airframe that I saw in the Deutsches Museum Munchen (I was concerned about seeing it). I have used Depron previously, although I have always used it in sheet form. The picture is of the first, the second model used a different grade of Depron? which was not as rigid. Which meant I needed 4 servos to effectively drive the Elevons, as the control surface flexed, even with a Bamboo longitudinal stiffener. So where does all of this take me, well, I want to keep the weight down, but as when and where we worked, I want a robust, everyday, reliable model. In this case I want to use Depron, as I no longer have any amount of Blue Foam. I am not keen on the idea of planks, although I could go there, and glass cover the body as with the other foam models to obtain a ding resistant model. You probably have gathered that the wing will be a mixed material fabrication, in construction. I have noticed that the TN DFs have a constant thickness section. Without looking up the curves for a NACA 000 series airfoil, I can only guess that at these chord lengths, it has a similar effect to washing out. Have you any opinion or experience?

John, Webbies is some distance from me now, probably some + 60 miles. Also I have about 5 0r maybe 10 sheets, whatever the offer was at the time at Hobbykraft. PDB, yep the board I have are the boards that Hobbycraft had on offer. I am so pleased and grateful that you have replied with your experiences. I found that my tacking iron either did not soften the adhesive to allow the removal of the paper, or it melted the polystyrene. However, I have now found that if I soak the board (actually bits of the board), Ican tnen pull most of the paper of, the remainder I could then just rub of.

I remember reading somewhere on this forum as how to remove the paper covering easily/quickly from foamboard. Also the best way/method as how to bend stripped foam board into a radius/circle? Please remind me🙂

John, I am not completely convinced it would be necessary to deviate to fat from scale, to model an X3. The proportions at not that far from a EE TSR2, which I understand has been modelled by some, which includes TN? One of the dilemmas I wrestled with is where the motor/fan unit should go, I was thinking right at the back, with the Lipo in-front, between a bifurcated inlet duct, with a cheater inlet between the two wings. I could not convince myself that it could all be made to balance without some lead. I was surprised the nose length ratio to chord length at the root, was very similar to the TSR-2. it looks far more dramatic due the slender nose on the X3. Where as the TSR2 nose is quite chunky, probably for all the avionics. What finally killed the project with me, is that wanting to try my hand using Depron, I wanted to use the duct work as part of the structural strength and my abilities at 3d printing where/are not up to the task, That is why the duct on the 162 is as it is.

This thread demonstrates the threats/ restrictions or changes to model flying could occur both specifically or yet to be formulated. It is now that we need our representatives to both be alert to, and present arguments to authorities, that realistically can and should be reasonably resisted. Personally I am sometimes taken aback, when some take a view that nothing materially is being changed or imposed, when it is obviously the case. I accept that some will have no objection, which is a little different to arguing all will be remaining the same. In this specific case, there does appear to be long reaching implications, in addition to the immediate, yet does not necessarily have to be the case. The feel is one where Salami Slicing is potentially being contemplated. I hope that our representatives are alert to the issue and hope that already started engagement in the political processes. I imagine that those involved will recognise that not only is the fate of the hobby potentially at stake, over this, or future issues, so are the jobs of many, from retailers, distributers, manufacturers and of course those engaged in our representation. All the same, the hobby may just continue.

Missing pictures

Although I have a number of models waiting to have pretty much first flights or improvements (hopefully), I cannot resist building, especially something which I see as a challenge. I bought a 50 mm fan from 4 max to try and build a Douglas X3. I slowly came to the conclusion that I could see more problems, that I had few immediate possible answers, which particularly to where the CG would end up. Also there was, and still are issues on how to 3D print a inlet and outlet duct. My mind then drifted to the He 162 (design proposal/study) that was a free plan, a few months back. Also I have followed the TN series of DF, particularly the Grumman Panther and the Jet Provost. I Have always liked a bit of challenge, but possibly doable. In the past a Bachem Natter was such a model, finally flying successfully this year, now I think, hmm I could cut the wing area down to much nearer true scale, I then think why bother, the taileron control worked much to many peoples surprise, especially the unusual proportions. So this model is a low priority build, drawing on TNs designs, and a low consideration of the HE free plan as how it could be done. So far I am concentrating on the power pod and wing. The wing has been essentially a general copy of TNs proportions. This has dictated the size of the duct, which is scaled from a 1/72 Airfix model (built probably when a teenager). Another issue is I am still learning about design using Autodesk Ulitmate 360, I would benefit from some formal lessons, as I now seem to be a poor learner, and seem to lack intuition. I have piles of books with 162 info and pictures. This is as far as I have got.

FlyinFlynn Perhaps I will just accept that the SD card I purchased is not immediately useful, to me. Better that, than create chaos on my PC or lap top. In the next day or two the ScanDisk card should arrive, I will then see if that will work on my Ender3. If not, I will purchase an even smaller capacity card.

I will try and reformat the new old card, in a way, there is nothing to loose. In the mean time I suspect that the Scandisk is probably a non UK supply. I expected the card to arrive in a day, maybe two, as a Prime purchase. In reality it it is coming from somewhere with a 5 day postal service, I wonder where? Surprisingly it was nowhere near the lowest cost Scandisk. I really should have looked closer at Amazon add, I will try to remind myself in future.🤨

I am hoping I have been lucky in that I ordered a 32GB Scandisk before your posts Allen and FlyinFlynn. If I had a little more patience and a lot more knowledge these cock ups, could be avoided by me. Time will tell🙄. Thanks for the help, hopefully a lesson learnt.

As my existing Micro SD cards are pretty full I purchased an additional card. The card is QUMOX 64GB, it seems fine at receiving STL code from Autodesk Fusion 360 to and transferring the sliced object from Ultimate Cura to the card. However after inserting the card into by Ender printer, the menu says no card present. I have repeated the various operations a number of times. I have formatted the card, repeated the various operations, with the same result. Looking at the 😧 drive content, both the STL and G code appear to be there. Rather than delay what I am doing I have ordered a same size (that is GB) Scandisk. Still would kike to understand the problem and fix it if possible.

Perhaps all taxes should be much higher, for all and everything, no exceptions, then we would all value our services. We could also have extra services if we paid more. Hmmm, perhaps it would not be sensible to work or run a business. I was going to say that I remember that in ancient times monarchs used to keep their empires going from taxes, that their Lords and Governors would hold their lands and terrorties from the implementation and collection of the monarchs taxes, even republics had them, dictatorships, and democracies. They are nothing new then, although there have many rebellions when taxes are seen as to high or unjust etc. In other cases business activities decline, tax evasion becomes more frequent. But even I am not as old as Methuselah. In the case of HK, I would be surprised they are not paying the taxes due. Their lower cost per item just being a better business model, a wide range of keenly priced products obtained by good negotiation and location etc. Oh high tax does not automatically mean good service, we could not get a dustbin for my mother-in-law, being told that waste collection is not a high priority service.

All of my purchases that appear to have come from China, from eBay and Amazon have been invoiced via the those companies, if there are Vat numbers they pass me by. If any of these businesses are not paying Vat, HMRC would be there, faster than a rat going up a drain pipe. In the same way, I have not bothered looking for a Vat number from HK, again I am more than confident that the HMRC would be hot pursuit, if they even half believed that due Vat was due, and had not been paid.

I have started a design/build of a He 162. At present it is going at best OK. When finished the model will be small, on those grounds alone, I would like a esy to see paint job. Most paint jobs I have seen are pretty much the same. However I stumbled upon an image on a plastic kit, which is painted up like a JG 44 Reb and white home base recognition stripes. Is this a purely fanciful artists licence, it will help sell the kit job? Or was at least one painted up in this manner? If this is not real, is there any paint job that is better than the standard dark green + black green or Light grey + dark grey standard RLM type camouflage patterns. I have read that in the latter stages of WW2 that the RLM relaxed its specifications, with many aircraft having multiple paint jobs, driven by what the contractor had access to.

John, if you can see the differing addresses, so can HMRC. One positive aspect (dependant on your view point) HMRC are not behind the door when it comes to gathering tax, however tenuous the basis (business sections in the media, often write about the issue). There are possibly many reasons why there are many addresses. One could be that the warehouse is a purely forwarding premise, the alternative could be a small office, which deals with some administrative role. Although I guess there are alternative and valid reasons.

You are correct Slope Soarer, the Vat is a bit of a hobby horse for some, often suggested as the reason behind the demise of the LMS. In reality LMS were starting to reduce in number way back in the 80s, well before the arrival of HK or Giant Cod. Some 30 years back, I knew and had conversations with two MS proprietors. They complained that it was the utilities that dominated their costs, plus the retail waste collection, in additionto water and sewage, for a tap and sink, by the water company, last possibly not a minor charge, post office wanting a fee for music (although no radio). Then came the rates, right at the end of the discussion came the rent, in both cases. At the time one of my then friends said it is the HS operating out of wrinkly tin sheds, where the local council waved business rates and rental charges for a period, that undermined the high street retailers One also added in one discussion, that the margins on bits and pieces is what kept the till ticking over, that the number of (then) kits was nearer one a day. Now that ARTF models dominate the bits and pieces cash cow died. The major advantage that the HK warehouse had is that their is no middle man, in the conventional manner. The middle man being the Ripmax, Perkins etc. Most of the UK wholesalers need a Agent in countries such as China, to act as the forwarding body for their multi source goods. In the case of HK, they are located in Country, acting as the purchaser and clearing agent and retailer. HK business model in that sense is more efficient, in many areas. It is possible that the HK warehouses are just that, in that potentially all the orders and financial transactions take place in China. Another feature of HK, like all UK major retailers, almost certainly obtain massive discounts from manufacturers, guaranteeing bulk purchases from them. Also just as our leading supermarkets, they will access successful products of competitors, then produce a facsimile. All complain of the practice, whilst keeping a straight face doing the same. I cannot but notice that so many off shore retail sales are now Vat paid by arrangements with HMRC. The ones that come to mind are eBay, Amazon, Banggood, Alibaba. It would not surprise me that HK do the same, the UK warehouse just a despatch point. HK are not the baddie, boggie man, that some like to believe. IMO HK are a go to, now they are back.

Slope Soarer, if you suspect Newton Le Willows is not in the UK, I can reassure you, it is! Newton Le Willows is nearer to me than any MS. Although if just a return warehouse, not much use to me. The location could have been selected as it is on the main West Coast rail route, also the Port of Liverpool is probably less than 30 miles away, again on a rail route. Could Liverpool being a major container port (Seaforth Dock Complex), being a deep water port, Maersk has transferred from Felixstowe, be the reason?