Peter Miller

Now that is brilliant.It is just that. I could never understand why they made such an effort to get it back when it was stolen!

As I say. Look at other pictures in my various builds. A picture is worth a thousands words is so very true.

I remember a mate on the squadron bought a new mini in 1963 for about the same price. Maybe this thread should be renamed "Sign of the TImes Tragedy!!!

KC has got it right. It is my standard wing building system and has been for a good few years now. It works so well. The lower LE sheet is under the bottom spar. the cap strips butt up against the bottom spar. If you look at some of my other builds you should find sets of pictures that show this well.

It was 6 denarius

I am just about to order some balsa wood. I remember when a sheet of 3" wide 1/16" sheet cost 6 pence.😭

Always glad to help!

Re the curved under surface of the front of the ribs. You lay the leading edge sheet down flat. put the ribs on. Add the 1/8" leading edge sheet flush with the bottom of the ribs and then raised the lower LE sheet up and glue to the LE and ribs. The cut away drawing shows that the wing has lower cap strips for the wing and also top cap strips.

Just in passing: I remember back in the 50s a hard up member of our RAF club covered his combat model in strips of perforated tissue paper off a roll. Each small square had the words "Government Property" stamped on it in green ink. Anyone remember that material?

That looks excellent!

Yes, well, the chap who draws the final version for the magazine does some funny things. I will say no more!!

The grain should go vertically up the long dimension. If you like you can glue 1/4" wide strips across the former to add stiffness

There are a lot of sayings which I always follow "KISS" = Keep it simple, stupid. Simplicate and add lightness. What isn't there can't go wrong. But people like to try different ideas and sometimes they come up with things that no one has ever thought of. A classic example. How many people shape trailing edges from a strip of balsa cut from the sheet? Many years ago I edited the gadget pages in AMI. A chap sent in the idea of shaping the T.E. and then cutting it off the sheet. Obvious isn't it!!! And yet four members of the club who had been modelling since the 50 and one who was modelling before the war had never thought of doing it that way. We had all cut the strip and then wrestled with shaping it. I wonder how many others had never thought of doing that way. That chap won the prize that month!!

I certainly would not change the tailplane and elevators. I have used built up tail surfaces on some models but they are too weak in the event of a tumble. My new Oodalally broke the standard tailplane which it landed out in a weed covered field. It was very soft wood but was solid sheet.

They look impressive. Should be fine.

Hi Dave I am a strong believer in the KISS principle. have fun and enjoy.

The trailing edge spar will be fractionally larger than 1/4 Sq due to the taper of the TE. But in fact 1/4Sq could be used. I know that because I just built the SARIK version of the parts. In fact up until then they had not included the 1/4 sq TE. I have now advised them of that fact. To be honest when I built that Sarik kit I didn't realise the discrepancy that the original instructions said that and I just used 1/4 square and never noticed any problem...This may say something about my building🤔 Actually that drawing shows that the bottom is square or at 90 degrees to the vertical sides. If you happen to have some 1/4 sheet you can strip off some slightly wider sections and shape to match the ribs as shown. Alternatively you can either add a strip of 1/16 to the top of 1/4 sq. but that is being fiddly. The final solution would be to use 1/4" square and a bit of sanding and fractional thinning of the aileron. I hope this helps.

I would add that the pilots expression is very realistic!!!!

Do you know, I had completely forgotten that model! Now I see it I remembers it. It goes well!!! I did a lovely Macchi Folgore for Cambria Kits but they never produced it.

Hi Neil, I am so glad that you have had some good flying with Oodalally and are enjoying it. It is a nice model which I why I built a second one with the electric conversion. You have done a very nice of the building and covering. I wish you many happy hours of flying with her.

Lets be quite honest You can go on with all these theories and ideas but in fact slight errors in suposedly identical models will affect things.. The only way you are going to solve these various effects is with a proper wind tunnel. I will give you an interesting event to think about. Early in my air force career I worked on the last Lancasters in the RAF and was able to go in three air tests after major servicing. Part of each air test involved a stall test which involved throttling back,pulling back on the controls until the nose would drop in the classic stall. Then open the throttle and resume normal flight. On one air test the aircraft refused to stall. IT just wallowed along nose high and throttled right back. The pilot tried this four or five times with the same effect. After that they just gave up. Explain that because no one else could.

Actually rereading Graham's statement he is saying that when he applies rudder it is having the same effect as DOWN ELEVATOR. If it is the effect of having more rudder surface above the datum line in theory it should make the aircraft PITCH UP. but his pitches down. I still don't believe that the small difference in area so close to and above the datum line would make the model pitch down. I do appreciate the super fine tuning of pattern ship and the need for ultimate precision of everything but here Graham is talking about a basic model and an extremely wild effect theoretically going the wrong wy if the larger area above the datum line is the cause.

I am a bit puzzled by this. All aircraft have more rudder above the horizontal axis. Now I have never noticed it in any of my designs but then perhaps I don't fly very well. I know that my CAP flew the most perfect knife edge and I don't remember ever needing any aileron correction and one needed a LOT of rudder for that. and I can't say that I have ever heard of it in any full size aircraft. After all, the amount of differential leverage on a rudder considering that most rudders are tapered with more area below the centre line will be quite small.

WE have a club member who built a Ballerina. He complained bitterly about the big gap when he joined the wings. considering I had given him a set of the original instructions he didn't get a lot of sympathy. Then he glued a piece of brass tube into the wing to take the front locating down and FAILED to secure the actual dowel into the tube. He asked the club secretary to test the model. When the sec turned it inverted the dowel had slid out and the wing came off. The builder blamed the club secretary!!!!!!!. I will make no comment!

Hi James. You build the first wing complete with R-1.. You then build the second wing but DO NOT glue the root rib in place until you prop the first wing up in position and only then glue in the second root rib. This way you get a perfect fit of the two wings at the correct dihedral angle. You can then add the second wing top leading edge top sheet.