Nigel Heather

Sorry, this was meant to be posted in the ‘Duck Repairs’ thread.

Pancake is RAF slang for a crash landing.

It's quite common for them to crash land, I'm sure everyone here has heard of duck pancakes.

I don't have one. I think that hobbies and pastimes evolve over time and inevitably some disappear. I don't think you can do anything about it, you can't force people to do hobbies that they are not interested in. I don't think it is down to the lack of awareness, I think that young people do know about the hobby, they just aren't interested in it, or more interested in other things. Sometimes when I know I am going to be at the field on my own I ask my son to come along to help with the electric fence and keep me company. He watches, and each time I ask him if he is interested in having a go and each time he says no. He would rather get back to his gaming PC.

So James May had a popular TV series and episodes included making and building a 1:1 scale Airfix Spitfire and flying and RC plane across the Channel, other episodes include a giant model railway and a huge Scalectrix. He also has a YouTube channel that often includes Airfix kits. There was also a TV series/competition about railway layouts and a TV series about recreating the Battle of Britain with RC planes. None of these resulted in any noticeable improvement in any of the hobbies covered. It's going to take more than an ambassador. Looking at kids these days it is going to be very hard to pull them away from social media and console/PC gaming.

Also this. You buy a site and later adjacent land is sold to housing developers. Houses go up and suddenly, despite owning the land, you are not allowed to fly because you would be in contravention of the CAA Drone Code. This is not a fanciful scenario, a few years ago our farmer land owner wanted us to change fields and offered us one that looked okay at first glance. But then we realised that a nearby housing development was likely to expand so we declined, and sure enough there are now houses within 50 yds of where our pits and flightline would have been.

Appreciate you used this on a Tasman rather than a Tundra, but I imagine that both probably have very proprietary fixing mechanisms so I can't imagine this would be plug and play. So how did you go about mounting this on your Tasman?

Something for the OP to consider. When I see a product on sale my natural sceptic kicks in. Why is it on sale, it may be genuine, it might because the product is very good, or it could be that there is a new version about to be released. And the latter is the case here, the DJI Mini 5 Pro is due for release in September. That doesn’t mean that the sale on the Mini 4 Pro isn’t good, but if it were me, I’d be researching what improvements the Mini 5 is likely to bring and then considering whether the saving is sufficient reward to buy an older model that DJI want to clear from their warehouses.

Note that the Pro is considerably more capable than the mini but more expensive. Having said that I don't know whether the Argos/Currys price is for a big bundle but it seems expensive at £549. On the DJI site, the base mini is £329 and the base mini pro is £549 (maybe Argos are selling the pro version). But if I were buying the pro, I would want the one with the RC2 controller with the built in screen rather than using your phone) - £689. And I'd want to buy the 'fly more' package which includes extra batteries, bag and multi charger which brings the price up to £779.

I have a piece of 12mm MDF, 570mm x 1220mm. My original plan was to glue some felt to the bottom (to stop it scratching the work top) and then mount some plasterboard to the top for the building area. My concern, having left the MDF stood up for a few weeks is that it bowed - now to be fair when I laid it on the work surface for a few hours it settled down flat. But wondering whether I should add a wooden frame underneath to ensure it stays flat - the downside is that would significantly increase the weight making it harder to move around and store. But assuming I go with a frame, what arrangement would work best? My local timber merchant has some 25x32 which seems to be a nice balance of rigidity vs weight. Here is a picture of my initial ideas: As you can see I have focused on the long length, either 3 or 4 wood battens, with ends at the short length to finish it off. And the red dotted lines are whether I should add cross battens. My thoughts on the cross battens is whether they would serve any purpose - I’d either have to cut them in short lengths to fit between the long lengths or use a cross lap joint. But since the bowing is most likely along the long lengths or use would cross battens serve any purpose and would a cross lap simply weaken the long lengths which are there to stop the bowing. What do you think 3 or 4 long lengths Are cross battens worthwhile, if they, sat between the long battens or use cross lap joints Is there a better arrangement Don’t bother with battens at all, just let the MDF settle before building, besides the weight of the plasterboard will help keep it flat Appreciate your thoughts, I have a tendency to over-engineer and fear I might create a building board that is too heavy to use. BTW I’m looking for an economical solution so not looking to using expensive components like thick sheets of marine ply.

Yes, I appreciate that, my wording was wrong. What I meant was a warbird that is a little more forgiving.

As it happens the two planes I have a fondness for are the Hurricane and the Zero. Cheers, Nigel

Thanks for the recommendations. Puzzled by Warlord Replicas, wondering if I have found the right site, because they only seem to do three models, Spitfire, Hurricane and P-51, and even then, none are in stock.

Being reasonably confident with low wing sports planes, what would be a good warbird to start with, one that looks good, doesn't have to be super-scale but good enough that it doesn't look wrong. Stable flier without vices, WWII, slight presence for balsa over foam. Wingspan in range 1200-1400mm or thereabouts. What would you recommend?

I have a Tundra V3 and at first glance, the landing gear looked substantial, big soft balloon wheels, sprung suspension. Then reality kicked in, the wheels are now made from EPO, very light but hard, in fact the hardest wheels I have had on an RC model. And the springs are mostly there for show. But the real problem is the landing gear legs which are made out of Chinesium. Early on, I experienced a reasonably heavy landing, nothing of concern I thought, as I had seen worst. But it had put a big bend in the rear leg. I bent it back but the damage is done now, once bent, it now bends easily and anything less than a perfect landing results in a bent leg. First port of call was to buy a replacement, but checking the HK site they are out of stock across the world and reading posts on the Internet it seems it has been this way for a long time so I don't expect it to change any time soon. So wondering if anyone has upgraded their Tundra landing gear and if so what did you use?

Personally, if my aircraft has a gyro, I never enable it until in the air at a safe height. I simply don't like the idea of it inducing a hard manoeuvre just after take off when I don't much time or height to react. The only exception is the tail gyro on helicopters which are essential to be on all the time. But as if to prove my point, I usually see a kick just as the helicopter becomes light on its skids. And my helicopter flight controller has other flight assists and I never enable those until safe in the air.

Any suggestions where I could buy cheap(ish) balloon wheels to replace the ones on my Tundra V3. When Durafly released the Tundra V3 they reverted to using EPO (the same stuff they make foamy fuselages from) from the previous soft foam. Although nice and light the EPO is relatively hard and makes landings bouncy. I like to swap them out for some softer wheels like they used on the V2. Any idea where I can get some, Hobby King just sell the EPO ones (even then they have no stock). They don’t have to be specifically for the Tundra, they could be generic or for other makes/models. They don’t have only ones I have found so far are inflatable ones but they are too expensive at £30-£40.

Well, looks like tariffs on Chinese goods into the US has settled down to 30%

After some detective work, my Tundra V3 has an Aerostar RVS G2 40A and for anyone interested, the manual is here ESC_Manual_output Corrected Final March 8th Cheers, Nigel

Yes, different scenarios and different attitudes. So, yes, if a business is left with a load of stock that they cannot sell, then they may choose to discount it. But that is the clear existing stock, they wouldn’t usually heavily discount product that they have yet to manufacture or purchase. It does depend on how much financial margin they have to play with, but when a business loses a significant number of customers, they face making an overall loss (less customers to cover the operating costs and overheads). There are several ways businesses react to try and recover profitability including (not claiming this is exhaustive) 1) reduce operating costs, lay of staff - downsizing approach 2) build up new customers, marketing, promotions, discounts - spend to accumulate approach 3) increase prices - remaining customers make up for the lost customers All three are difficult decisions especially if the business is already running with a low margin, many try option 3 in the first instance.

This puzzles me a bit. When I have to supply an ESC for a model, it comes with an instruction leaflet which explains The programmable values, like timing, BEC voltage, brake, and how read and set them with beeps or a programming card. The requirement to teach the ESC what min and max throttle is. But when the ESC comes with an ARTF, invariably there are no instructions at all, not an instruction leaflet, nor a section in the build manual. Now I get the absence of programming, every ESC I have bought has come with the most likely values already set, and in fact I have never felt the need to change any. And that makes sense for ARTFs, especially those aimed at beginners, taking out that more complicated option and ensuring beginners don’t mess with stuff that they don’t really understand. But the ‘teaching’ min and max values puzzles me. My understanding is this is to teach the ESC what your transmitter/receiver combination presents as minimum and maximum throttle - based on the idea that different radios might be different so this calibrates the ESC to match your radio. In fact, with all of the ESCs that I have purchased, they will not work until you have done this calibration. So how do the ESCs in ARTFs manage to dispense with this calibration, and if they can do it, why don’t all ESCs do this?

My radio has four options Hold - just freezes all the channels to what they were doing before loss of radio. Receiver - legacy setting for when the failsafe was fixed by the receiver. No Pulses - for aircraft with a GPS flight control, so basically turn everything off and initiate a GPS return to home. Custom - every channel available to do whatever you want. So I’m thinking that Custom is the only viable option in most cases. Throttle - cut or low? Aileron and elevator - neutral (no throws)? Rudder - should I set this to do a gentle turn left or right? Stabiliser - my receiver has this, could be off, stabilised, or level? So thinking low throttle, neutral elevator and ailerons, small left or right rudder, gyro set for level. Does that sound reasonable? What about flaps, worth putting in a little?

Hi, Does the BMFA stipulate or recommend failsafe settings? I’m looking at my latest radio gear thinking it would be a simple matter to just enable default settings but instead find it is really comprehensive allowing me to individually set every single channel. Not just the main flight surfaces but it can set which mode the gyro-stabilised should switch into (if applicable) for example. My radio does have some fixed options but they don’t seem that ‘safe’ to me - such as just hold the setting when radio was lost. With so much control my first thought is whether the BMFA actually mandates settings or what the general consensus is.

It won't. Let's say the tariffs stay, are enforced and there are no workarounds. Price in the US from Chinese Acme RC will increase significantly. Many US customers will stop buying and as the US is ACME RC's biggest customer that will put a strain on their finances. Two possibilities then os that ACME RC ceases trading or they increase their prices to other countries like the UK to try and cover the loss. Hi tariffs are bad for all, not just those specifically targeted.

Okay, why are there thousands of other videos with naughty crosses on YouTube that don't trigger rules. Just this morning, my feed included a video from a militaria collector in Canada. Not someone I follow, or a subject I'm particularly interested in, but the YouTube algorithm clearly decided that based on other videos that I watch this one might be of interest. So I watched the video - it was an unpacking video of a parcel he had received containing 3x binoculars, 5x helmets and one belt. The helmets were all German WWII, all over-restored, all contained badges with naughty crosses and three of them included the very naughty unit badges. The belt was fake, made to depict an item worn by a soldier of a very naughty unit and had both naughty crosses and very naughty two character lettering. So not only did YouTube not ban this they promoted and proliferated it by sending it as a recommendation to people who had never viewed that YouTuber before.