Richard Ashworth

Will the picture be the right way up 50/50

Many Thanks - Off to ‘Sand Pit’ to play “getting it right way up”. Apologies to all with aching necks.

Sorry for inverted pic, I assumed the feature had been sorted in the time / new forum since the last pic I posted ? years ago.

First, post covering, mating of wings and fuz. Stil work to do but now realising how big it is!

When you fly model planes isn’t it easy. When you spend more time looking for lost planes and doing repairs it’s time for a visit to an optician. They may get bad press but Specsavers got me referred for cataracts early on (pre restarting the hobby) and I have not in 30 years had a problem with new glasses (varifocal).

I’m in the final stages of making one - electric, 1200W. Top hatch is easy - just razor saw cut a middle section out and ply face all four cut edges, a couple of bamboo pins at the front and a sprung hatch pin at the rear. Slight angle on the rear cut, to make inserting and removing the hatch easier. The cockpit sides are easily adjusted to fit the “new” gap between front and rear decks. The biggest challenge I had was getting a single battery plate piece of 3mm ply (with cutouts for cooling and battery straps) to fit. The fuz sides narrow both front to back and top to bottom. Solved with rails on both fuz sides deep enough for 5000 6S battery and a piece of card as a template slowly cut down size. Ply tray cut to template and final adjustment then epoxy front and both sides. Its probably the most solid front on any of my builds! There are minimal instructions with the kit, no plan, brief written overview with throws & CofG, some general sketches for facings on veneered parts and a bundle of A4 photos some of which are confusing as they show both pre and post what looks like a 2005 minor design change on rear former and wing bolt/bolts. I would agree it’s an easy IC build for an experienced builder but even after six previous leccy kit builds including conversions, I have done a lot of head scratching and learned quite a few new (old) construction techniques. I have to admit I felt a tad overfaced for a while at the start. I am putting a reg no on the wing F-JGFI. French CAP origins and thanks to a friend - Just Go For It! Biggest oops, on one aileron I got giddy, wanted to progress quickly, and put the leading edge facing on BEFORE I had built the bolt horn into the wing (photo 15th Jan no 22). Easily remedied by cutting out about 4 cm of facing, fitting the horn and splicing in a new piece of facing. Think twice etc. No build photos but will post a pic when complete - simple colour scheme, bright red fuz, white with red aileron and tip wings.

I Always learn something from another persons build/ mod. Count me in.

6 kits put together, 6 marked but only one twice. I was on double blood thinners for the first three planes and a quick dab of claret on an about to be covered, or hidden inside the fuz. It was then wrap in kitchen roll and walk around with finger pointing to the ceiling for up to half an hour! Now on a single thinner so just rolled in kitchen roll. Thought about Cyno but have experienced fingers stuck together, say no more. May not be linked to the christening but all the builds have flown well.

I did a DB S&S Barnstormer 63 two years ago. Not a difficult build but still ‘fondly’ remember the 33 bits of balsa that went into the built up tailplane! I Electrified it, reduced the dihedral (as per instructions) by 50% and added ailerons across the 4 outer bays in each wing. Very stable, flys smoothly on 1/3 throttle (200W), loops effortlessly on 450W. At 100ft, get the power right, two clicks of aileron and you can put the tx down and have a drink watching it gently fly around in 200ft circles. On a light wind day you can choose which wheel to land it on! Enjoy the build and flying it, it’s sturdy and has presence.

I think I am getting there with understanding RID but can anyone suggest what will be the consequences re the following. I live north west of Leeds literally 300m within the Leeds Bradford airport FRZ and fly fixed wing at the North Leeds MFC BMFA registered site.. If RID happens what’s the situation re setting up a model at home with RID at some stage built into the Rx? Could someone picking up the signal report me for flying in my garage, or God forbid the TX/RX just not work if Geofencing also happens? So far a lot of the discussion is about swapping modules at flying site but none of us (that I know of) build or do initial setting up there.

And just remember that on connectors, all metal that will remain visible after the male and female are plugged together, should be insulated with heat shrink tubing! With bullet connectors after I have the motor rotating the right way, standard anticlockwise, I put small wraps of red or green insulation tape on two of the the leads either side of the connectors so that if I need to take the electrics apart they are colour coded for quick reassembly.

Also watching, thank you. Not into warbirds but have now built four increasingly difficult electric sport plane flat pack kits (all self designed electric conversions!) with a fifth, Elan 100, part built. I follow most build blogs on the site and like most forumites have learnt and taken ideas from them all.

For small 10 mm standoffs I would use 8, (double thickness) 1cm square 5mm ply plates as washers. Mark them out and drilling them before cutting makes them much easier to handle.

I haven’t got one but I think the Fusion 2 is machine with big control surfaces primarily designed for extreme aerobatics but with VERY turned down throws can fly sedately. It’s a machine for fun flying after you master a Wot 4. Talking of which, before you get to either an ARTF or kit Wot4 and definitely before an Acrowot I would recommend you consider a Wot 4 Foam e. £140 including motor, ESC and servos. Repairable with brown Gorilla glue and cocktail sticks and flying on “cheap” 3S 2200 Lipos and a 4 channel receiver. You could have it flying in 2 hrs and it would not be too expensive a loss should the inevitable happen. (I killed 2 in my first 12 months, one dumb thumbs one by not properly fastening the wing on!).

I have both an ARTF and a Foss kit Wot4, not the Foss Classic but the Mk3 tapered wing. The kit 4 is relatively new (bought half as a make project during Covid) and I have only flown it 3 times but first impression was that it was a slightly nicer plane to fly and thats saying a lot as I really like the ARTF 4. As regards the two planes, the ARTF 4 with the electric pack goes together very easily and will have you flying it within days. The kit 4 can be converted to electric two ways, the underneath hatch method which I decided against or by replicating the ARTF by making a hatch between the front of the wing and the cowl and a tray inside similar to the ARTF 4. The top hatch method has the advantage of easy access to insert and remove the battery and connect / disconnect the battery / ESC (no turning the plane upside down). Whichever way you make the kit it will take at least a month (me two) but the end product is your creation. I decided to, other than the hatch, make it exactly as per the instruction book, tail skid and closed loop wires on the rudder with as per book connection to the rudder servo. I am not sure what others have done but rather than standard size servos, the veneered foam wings have cutouts for 17G standard micro servos and I decided that Hitec HS82MG servos would be man enough and went with them. They are probably a lot more powerful than the original single servo setups in Wot4s and I don’t intend trying 3D with it. In summary, if you want it flying soon ARTF, if you like building, Foss kit.