Bruce Collinson

Nice plane the Heron. There are three or four at our club. I’ve just been told to take mine tomorrow as I deduce that the floaty experts are going to put me to shame in a “casual competition (oxymoron?). BTC

Ron, As a recent returner, if I were in your shoes I’d start the Spit but under periodic supervision from an old hand at your club and if you finish it before you can fly it solo, get the best flier of warbirds in the club to fly it with you on a buddy box. That way you’ll get to fly it, a bit, without re-kitting it on your first take-off. You’ll need a patient supportive tutor but these seem to be in fairly good supply, at least at my club. Just as well. Happy landings! BTC

PS try Pollyfilla Advanced for all those little sanding block/razor saw/Swann Morton mishaps; massively better than specialist balsa filler; sticks, is light, easy to get a no-sand finish but sands easily, handy 200 ml tube from B&Q although mine won't last long at this rate. Homebase have it in tubs too. Not my idea, I read it on the interweb so I knew it would be true. BTC

Jon, Agree. In fact you can win a small charger if they print it. The trestle comes dismantled, about 100mm sq package so it goes in the car boot (my car, the wife's is used for flying and is a lot bigger) with no problems. Tomorrow flyable so another project deferred .... BTC

Nifty, Notwithstanding the overwhelming response I was overcome by online retail therapy and collect my trestle from Screwyfix (no sound from Ken Anderson.....NE1....gratuitous Geordie Jokes dept.) and fear that radiator insulation will be winking at me in the morning. I have been using Homebase greenhouse insulation which is bubble wrap with aluminium foil but it’s a bit “snaggy “ on horns etc and I’ll try yours from the other post. Anyway, back to this post, I’d appreciate the dimensions offered above; save me doing it twice...also, if you made another one, apart from gluing the pipe wrap, would you modify the Mk 1? Flash of inspiration this pm, bought a quilt/duvet online for £6 delivered to pack planes in the boot of the wife’s car. Less gravel rash. BTC

Arguably the best single piece of kit I've bought since returning 3 yrs ago, a 4-Max Quad 4 charger. Runs off 12 or 240 v, any chemistry, 4 at once for those balmy summer days when every electric plane in the fleet is flying repeatedly. Even has a wasername socket for i-Things although obviously that doesn't get used whilst at the strip ... Not cheap although I think reduced by £10 recently. BTC

Erfolg, I'm afraid it's +1 for Dave Mellor. As a Chartered Surveyor, if surveying this for a potential purchaser, I'd start at the outer face of the retaining wall, plumb it with a spirit level and find the vertical cracks. If it was one of those lucky days and the nosey neighbour appeared I'd find out about the previous ground levels and degree of slope. I endorse the robust approaches above and don't forget, it's a patio, not the envelope of the dwelling. BTC

"He's making a list, he's checking it twice He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice" Santa Claus is thus in contravention of the General Data Protection Regulations (EU) 2016/679. Yours in despair, BTC

Nifty, very useful, as is your wingbag post. I can feel a trip to the Geordie Dating Agency coming on (see if Ken Anderson rises to that bait!) and another roll of rad/greenhouse insulant too, keep me away from cabin fever over Christmas. BTC PS keep these tips coming!

Obvious. It's a strimmer engine which has become caught up in its own cutters. BTC

I think you're right, when I was being taught and buddied 2 years ago, my tutor turned up one day with a progress schedule (not I recall directly A Cert but headed that way) and one of the tasks was to trim a model. The model was put out of trim in flight then passed to me via the buddy box switch. It was a salutary lesson but a very useful one, of which I was vividly reminded when flying a Wot 4 after repairs to fus and wings, which was quite out of trim. I don't recall this task being in the A test. Perhaps it should be. BTC

2 Sharp, Tom. BTC

I’m hoping someone out there can help me with this. I recently bought from a very nice chap in Dorset an old model Infinity, made by Probuild as an ARTF, 1.8 m span and I’d love to borrow a manual as it didn’t come with papers. It’s clearly an obsolete version although it came with a new wing so I have to fit aileron servos and horns etc and I’d rather not mess it up. I’d prefer to start it with the default c of g, throws etc. Also, it has a fairly sophisticated soft mount which will need a fair bit of work to put my engine in and if anyone knows the source so I can research it, that would be useful. It also lacks a canopy. Here’s hoping! BTC

Nigel N, Our LMS rarely runs out of Laser 5 as I suspect there's a high and consistent demand for it. Not sure about 2 strokes though. I have nudged my local farmshop to commission Rascals/Scallywags with 4 cherries to make the maths simpler but to no avail. Somebody else must be eating more of them than we do! BTC

+1 for Yeti. Abominable prices, literally hewn from aluminium billets and an incomparable “feel” in the hand and on the sticks. I don’t have one, I started with Spektrum as 90% of the club and all my tutors were using it, but I’m saving up for one as the three or four at my club have the least issues with range and reliability. Or, if I counted the hours spent pondering, assembling, fretting, mending etc. and costed them at all realistically, the cost of a decent tx and say 8 rxs would no longer be a significant deterrent. Are you convinced yet? To be fair I have not yet in 3 years been exposed to Frisky etc as there are few if any ar my club. One of my club mates has been involved in beta testing and seems very clued up on the state of play, and opines that Futaba are no,longer developing hobby radios, Multiplex are a spent force (shame) and most if not all of the others are built down to a price in China. He happens to use Spektrum. BTC

No idea why this thing is double posting. We all keep referring to "posting" (fuel, not post-modernist humour) but it needs to be couriered and some of these services can be very cheap indeed. Worth an enquiry, less than 4 gallons? BTC

Nigel/Jon, Exactly what I was about to write. They seem to list or stock lots om MT fuel, just not Laser 5 which surprises me as every time I call at the Precious Shop and check for orders, somebody I fly with needs Laser 5. It seems to be used in most of the 4 strokes except the odd YS (£40+/gal!) and some Saitos, although mine ran well on it. I don't know about 2 strokes as we're not allowed to fly them for reasons of noise. I think I heard that right. Addlestone patently have a trade a/c and regular deliveries with MT and can surely produce some for you? Another reason to buy from the LMS by default. BTC

Don, That's the spirit! Neither currents nor currants are deficient, all I've left to fly are powered by electrickery and the currants in a Rascal are mainly within. The advantage of payment in confectionery/bakery is that the payment can be consumed post haste, whereas flying on even a small libation is reckless, or so I am lead to believe anyway. Although I did trade a case of white for a hand built, welded alloy silencer for a DLE 20 .... BTC

Share your shame. Had a leggy Excelsior patternship with a Saito 72 which rapidly became my go-to until a flaky battery made the ground rush up etc... have one petrol and 2 glow on production line, but too much time wasted working, answering posts on forums and nattering in the Precious Shop about the price of fish and the march of the ists and isms and how unfair it all is and there ought to be a law etc. Plus it's raining and Wed is an informal club day. Bugger. BTC

Nigel, If you used gallons a month you'd do what an erstwhile shooting acquaintance of mine did with cartridges and buy them by the pallet load, c. 20% discount and free delivery. Probably needed an explosives licence, technically, as might a large volume of nitromethane. Rascals; yes the Bettys original is deficient in cherries. So good, you posted it twice ... then twice more! Did you drool on the keyboard? BTC (tongue in cheek ... got an almond stuck in lower R 7 ...)

Fat Rascals. Well done Eric, the power of the interweb. Although resident in God's own county for more than half my adult life I am not a native Yorkshireman so the Python-esque phonetic patois is largely wasted on me, although it looks more like Barnsley than Harrogate anyway. A schizophrenic manifestation of the confectioner's art; it can't decide whether it's a scone or a cake. Devised by Bettys, cloned by the bakers who supply an excellent farmshop which is en route to the strip; almost a meal in itself for a flying lunch with no Tupperware boxes, plastic (one-use) cutlery, paper napkins or other clutter. Almost divisible in two apart from the asymmetry of the cherries, of which there are three, a tremendous bellweather of the ambition vs. greed of any recipient of a free one, to see whether they take the half with one or two cherries. The aeromodelling equivalent of the apocryphal multi-blade pocket knife in the joke about the attractive woman and the boy scout (punchlines only; "it's amazing what a Boy Scout will do to get his hands on one of these...." most favours, tanks of fuel, spare plugs and props, Osamas for wreckage, an IT lesson on a Spektrum tx, all can be rewarded by half a Fat Rascal although technically ours are clones and are properly called Yorkshire Scallywags. Here endeth the first lesson. I do hope it was helpful. BTC

Is it really worth the risk to the engine if you can’t get good synthetic oil or the methanol is what Jon alludes to, when I paid under £20 for a gallon of Laser 5 this afternoon? By the time I’ve driven there and back to the strip, bought Fat Rascals for all the club mates I owe favours to, replaced yet another Wot 4, it seems to me that fuel costs are a relatively small proportion of the total cost of flying. BTC

Third for Ron, my DLE 20 RA has been fine and docile since the jets were returned to factory settings then re-set, economical, clean but TOO LOUD MAN so make sure you can source, afford and fit in the plane an exhaust which will really get you below your site limits without stifling the thing. I understand that this has many more options in the larger sizes than mine. With the benefit of hindsight I ought to have read between the lines when on point of purchase I asked about noise and the answer was, try it, might be a tad sharp, try the plug in inserts etc. The correct answer was , not a great deal you can do. Let us know what you choose and how it goes, I might stop buying Wot 4s and get a Wot 8 next time. BTC

Get the biggest newest one you can justify. Unless you’re even more uncoordinated than me, if you take to this fine excuse for repeated retail therapy you will be looking for capacity, model memory, features etc within a year. I started off with an Apprentice with its Dx6. Mistake, within months I had a Dx9 which I still have. Use what the majority of the good, helpful fliers use at your club as every time there’s an IT malfunction you have the most likelihood of someone nailing it for you without wasting half the afternoon. Then, turn your bold setting off. Best of luck. BTC

Day job. Gary, how old is it and what does the outer leaf look like? If it’s ordinary loadbearing masonry with a very small gap between the back of the plasterboard and the lintol then it’s dot and dab and the lintol is probably a pressed steel profile as described above as a Catnic and it can be drilled through with a suitable bit, but it’s a pain. There’s a chance that it’s timber framed although it doesn’t sound like it. Look in the roof void to view the inner face of the wall to determine this. If it is, try to find a stud and screw into that. Don’t go berserk in case you perforate the vapour barrier in the wall. It’s exceptionally unlikely to be a true rolled steel joist you’re encountering as these are far too heavy and dear for new builders to use other than in exceptional circumstances, certainly over original window openings. Plan C, if there’s clear wall to the outer edges, clear of metal behind, think about a glued and screwed counter batten of 2x1 pse and then fix to that. If there isn’t, try gluing the counter batten. Plan D, get a person in. That used to be get a man in, but the man may have identified as a woman and you won’t know if you’re coming or going. BTC