Richard Wicker

Thanks to everyone for the advice on this topic, it's going to take a while to sort it all out I think, but yes, it will be built. Perhaps construction details and pics can be posted on the site if anyone would be interested.

Hi David. It may do, I guess it would be similar to bench testing a pusher, where the only cooling air is what's being sucked past the engine. It may also be possible to fabricate a type of heat sink from the head to the outer cowling. P.S. We're talking about I.C. here, I'm not intending to go electric.

During his trade training in the RAF, (Radar Technician) my late father was sent from the class room to the stores one day for a box of 'Cal Pips'. Off he went, thinking nothing of it. At the stores, the storeman asked him what colour he wanted, and not knowing, had to go back and ask his instructor. "Green of course" he was told, "and hurry up, the class can't carry on 'til you get back with 'em" Off he went again, around to the stores at the double and asked the storeman for a box of green Cal Pips. "Sorry son" said the storeman, "no green ones left, only blue or white, try technical stores, they should have them" Now technical stores was at the far side of the camp, so after a long 'double march', poor old Dad, red faced and sweating, got there and asked his question. "Got loads of 'em" the Sergeant in charge told him, and went off down the room, looking on shelves. On reaching the back of the stores he shouted back to Dad "What size do you want, large or small?" Dad of course didn't know but asked for a box of each and he would return whichever box was wrong. "Sorry lad, can't do that" came the reply "valuable items these are, I can only issue one box at a time, you'll have to go back and find out what size you need" On his return to technical stores, by this time almost in tears and on the point of collapse, soaked in sweat, with his instructors words "Bloody small ones you idiot, 'avant you learned anything" ringing in his ears, he managed to gasp out his request to the Sergeant. "Not your lucky day is it lad" grinned the Sergeant, "an officer from air traffic control just took the last box, you'll just have to explain to your instructor" As he left, dad heard the Sergeants parting words........."Try again tomorrow, I might have some then" As you will have guessed, this is the 'long stand', 'glass hammer', 'bucket of steam' trick, for those who don't know, 'Cal Pips' are Calibration Pips, the small green dots of light that mark a radar screen. In memory of you Dad, I still chuckle when I remember you telling me that, God bless you.

This one I can believe. During WW1 a British pilot had had his aircraft badly damaged in a dog fight. He was frantically looking for somewhere to land before fire or airframe collapse brought certain death, when he spotted a large chateau with immaculate lawned grounds. Seizing his one chance, he managed to get it down and clamber from the wreckage without being badly injured. As he staggered towards the chateau a group of staff officers came out and started to tear him one almighty strip off, demanding to know what he thought he was doing ruining the garden and ploughing up their croquet lawn. His reply earned him a court martial (Later withdrawn) "I'm very sorry sir, I didn't realise I was this far behind the lines!"

Hi all. We all know the problems with keeping an engine cool, getting enough air through the cowl around the motor etc, and this seems to effect us scale types more than most for obvious reasons. Has anyone had a problem cooling an engine in a pusher layout, where there's no blast of air from the prop to direct onto the engine? I was just turning a few ideas over in my mind and this question popped up, so I thought I'd post it here and see what everyone thinks.

The following is said to be true, but who knows. A newly qualified navigator in the U.S.A.F. on his first operational posting is warned that his pilot is a "real hard ass" with a reputation for getting a new guy to quit and request a transfer within a week. On their first flight the pilot holds up a pistol, and when the Nav asks what it's for he replies "It's for shootin' you the first time you get us lost!" Thinking quickly, the Nav takes out his own pistol and taps the pilot on the shoulder with it, saying "Yeah, well I'm gonna know we're lost before you do!" After this the two were reported to be best buddies.

Nah, his wife's just caught him sneaking out for a flight when he'd promised to take her shopping!

Hi Bruce. Yes, i get more from drawing up plans and building than i do from flying to be honest. Fitting it all in around my work is a big problem though, my employer seems to want first call on my time! My last completed build was a free flight Fokker E111 for .75cc diesel power which i scaled up from a 1/72 drawing. Built as close to scale as possible (1/12) it has scale tail areas, zero dihedral and metal cowl and forward fuselage panels. The rigging is from control line wire (with the plastic coating burnt off) and is functional. It took a while to trim out, but yes it does fly. It goes to prove that you don't have to enlarge tails and crank on loads of non-scale dihedral to fly free flight, no matter what some people believe. At present I'm building a Luton Minor, not my own drawing, but my own conversion to light weight radio from the old E. Fearnley free flight plan. It wont be true scale as all I've done is alter the construction to take the radio and also take the dihedral off it, but it should still look the part and i just wanted something small, relaxing and pretty to potter around with on the nice calm summer evenings.......If we get any!! Drawings are under way for a 1/4 scale Sopwith Triplane, (yes, i know it's been done to death but I like the aircraft and a guy at the club with a Fokker Dr1 at 1/4 scale will be able to do it justice flying wise!) and a 1/4 scale PFALZ D111a, because it looks fantastic and i have some excellent documentation and colour profiles for it. I find the drawing up and building fairly easy as long as I've an interest in the subject, which is why i don't do anything modern. "They stopped building aeroplanes when they took the propellers off them" is my motto (Except for the ME 262).

Petrol can't smell half as bad as the stink caused by a carton of milk splitting open in the boot once on a shopping trip a good many years ago! Tried allsorts to shift the stink, had to sell it on in the end.

I agree with Phil, glasses and eyeballs. Apart from those, a trusty Swan Morton scalpel, a razor saw, a good set of french curves and a technical drawing/draughtsmans set of 1920's vintage, inhereted from my late Grandfather.

Thanks to everyone for the advise on this one. With regard to scale, it would be 1/4 but all information i have about scale pulleys report problems with slop. Has this problem now been solved with up to date materials etc, as i do admit a lot of my books, magazines etc are a bit dated.

Since my better half and I are babysitting our Grand children this New Year, it seeems the ideal time to pop on here and wish everyone a very, very.............. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hi people. When building a WW1 type with scale wing section, is there a fool proof way of rigging up a closed loop system (or a dummy one) without having an unsightly push rod showing under the wing to the control horn? Richard.

Hi Clive. Sorry to say it's looking like Old Warden......But, why don't we scale fans all take photo's of that sort of thing (the small details) when we visit such places? Even if we don't need the ones we take, someone else may have the ones we need, so a library of detail pics could soon be built. Just an idea, what do people think? Richard.

Two days into Eric's Honeymoon he made the mistake of asking his wife to pass him the transmitter...........