Nigel Heather

Another thing to consider is pigment size. Acrylic paint is made of coloured pigment suspended in a solvent. Paints with fine pigment will airbrush better but will be more translucent, conversely paints with coarse pigment will be more opaque but can clog airbrushes. Paint with coarser pigments will cover with fewer coats and it is these are are usually designed for hand brush painting, I suspect that B&Q paint has coarse pigment. Specific airbrush paint has finer pigment so sprays better and less likely to clog fine needles. So my recommendation if spraying B&Q paint is to use an airbrush nozzle no finer than 0.5mm. Mind you spraying something as bug as an RC plan you'd want a nice bug nozzle anyway otherwise it will take ages.

I do a lot of plastic model making so am familiar with airbrushing. Acrylics are either water based or solvent based. Ideally the water ones should be thinned with water and the solvent based ones (like Tamiya) with IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) but both types will usually thin with either. There are some exceptions, where the paint will turn gloopy if the wrong type is used so it is advised to test some first. IPA is considered a 'hotter' solvent which means it evaporates much quicker than water which means that sometimes, especially in warm weather, the paint can dry in the air before it hits the model resulting in a rough powdered finish. So it is common to add a few drops of retarder to the paint, this slows down the drying time helping the paint to flow better helping to remove brush marks if hand painted or the powdered finish if airbrushing. You can also add retarder to water though it is less necessary as it naturally dries slower, but a drop of IPA or detergent can be helpful as it breaks the high surface tension that water has. Retarder is also called Flow Enhancer - depends on the company that makes it. You can buy it from the art section in Hobbycraft (or similar). The bottles are small but you only need a drop or two. I have also heard that windscreen washer works and it was 'all the rage' a few years back but you don't hear it so much these days. The reason it works is that it is mostly water and alcohol. The colour of the screen wash can add a slight tint to lighter coloured paints.

One thing you might consider. I have a double detached garage which I converted into a man cave. After several years I have come away with two takeaways. 1) Despite all my attempts to include plenty of insulation on every floor, ceiling and wall it is prohibitively expensive to keep warm enough in the winter to use. 2) At times I miss having a space to store stuff, or to do dirty/smelly work. For example, when we had our kitchen redone, the builders needed a place to store all the flat pack units and appliances, and my man cave was the only option. Or when I want to get my workmate out and saw/sand some timber, I have to do it outside (weather permitting) because I don’t want to make my man cave dirty. Or when we are putting stuff aside to the tip, it gets dumped in the man cave until enough has accumulated to justify a tip run. What I am saying, is have a think what you currently use your garage for, for most it isn’t for parking your car but for storage and dirty jobs, and think how you will manage those needs if you convert it to a hobby room. With hindsight, I probably wish I hadn’t bothered, or at least just partitioned off part of the garage which would have been easier to heat and light and still leave me with space for storage and to do the dirty/smelly jobs.

So is the 'original genuine' Depron sheet that SLEC sells old stock or are they telling porkies?

I had my double garage converted to a man cave. The advice was to keep the double garage doors in place so that a) it could easily be converted back to a garage if future owners wanted and b) it avoided the need for planning permission. My double garage is detached, it has electricity but no water or gas. From the start I was concerned about insulation so the walls, floor, and ceiling have thick insulation blocks. Heating such a large room is difficult. With electricity the only option, it was initially planned to have two expensive, high efficiency, high power electric radiators, but when the builders came to completing the work these were unavailable, so they were removed from the project to be added later, but in the end I went for an underfloor solution instead. The man cave was completed before the huge hike in electricity costs but even then it was quite expensive to heat in the winter. But now it pretty prohibitive, making it unusable in the winter. I'm currently looking at alternative means if heating. The OP has a half garage so an easier challenge than mine.

I have it now, to be fair, the customs part of it was very quick. The issue was that DHL parcel product used involved routing through Germany. The first flight was from Hong Kong to Heathrow and it was then meant to be forward onto Germany. But for some reason it sat for a week at Heathrow before a transfer flight to Germany was arranged. But when it finally flew to Germany, it arrived and then was immediately flown back to Gatwick where it was picked up by Royal Mail who delivered it the sane day. The issue in my case was that my parcel sat in a transfer warehouse for a week before a flight to Germany could be arranged.

It's at Gatwick now, welcome news, but who would have thought that the journey from Heathrow to Gatwick would require 800 miles of air travel. Cheers, Nigel

Ha Ha, Spoke to soon. It arrived at Heathrow a week ago, where it sat with a status of 'Flight Landed' This morning I saw that the status had moved on so I relaxed a little. But I have just an email from DHL in response to my query, saying that my shipment has actually be transferred to Germany. So a week ago, it was about 40 miles away from me, now it is hundreds of miles away. Crazy 🤪

Nope, replacement horizontal stabilizer because one half had the wrong size tube for the spar. Anyway, after a week of 'Flight Landed', checked this morning and it has updated to 'Passed onto our Handling Partner". So fingers crossed - and hopefully I won't get stung with taxes and courier fees - shouldn't because this is a warranty part to replace a faulty part that I had already been imported - but wouldn't put it past them.

Just tried and it works fine for me. Using https://bmfa.justgo.com/ for the portal. Classifieds then accessed off the portal menu.

Bought a plane from Hobbyking UK warehouse, arrived fine, but one part is faulty. Hobbyking have sent a replacement part, but had to send it from their Hong Kong warehouse. They provided a DHL tracking number, and to start it was great, I could follow the progress with frequent and detailed status updates. But then it arrived at Heathrow Airport with a status of 'Flight Landed' and it has been like that, unchanged for a week now. Is this normal, I've never had this sort of problem with parcels from China. I assume it is going through clearance, how long does that typically take.

But you could argue that if a manufacturer goes to the trouble and expense of releasing updated firmware then they would expect you to update. And if there was an accident and you had to admit that you weren’t flying with the latest firmware it would weaken your case regardless of whether than update truly was required. The difficulty is I wonder what proportion of flyers realise that the firmware on devices such as receivers, gyros, ESCs and senses can be updated.

This is going to be an unusual ‘how do I’, because I am going to start off telling my idea and then ask your opinion or for other ideas. I have just bought a Durafly Tundra V3 which has a reversing ESC. I’ve never had a reversing ESC before (well on cars, but not on aircraft) and my first thought is that it is a built of a gimmick, and I’m still not convinced it isn’t, but I have the spare channel needed so I am going to install it. The only use I can think of is for very short landings or to slow it down for very slow approaches or a very slow fly by. Any other uses. The ESC comes with the usual analogue throttle wire and a digital forward/reverse lead, each plugging into their own channel. You would map the forward/reverse channel onto a two way switch. But this is my thought. Most of the time the ESC will be set forward and only occasionally and then only for short periods would you switch it to reverse. So I’m thinking of mapping the forward/reverse to non-latching button on the back of my transmitter. If not pushed it is in forward mode and if pushed it is in reverse while held down. Does that make sense or would you do it differently?

Just received a Tundra V3 and I'd appreciate a little help with the undercarriage assembly. It is to do with the two plastic clamps that hold the gear legs in place on the fuselage. They are left and right handed, and the instructions say to make sure that they are fitted correctly, they are marked so no problem identifying which is which. My question is that I am holding the one marked 'left' but which is the left side of the aircraft. When I am looking at the underside, from above, from the front, from the back. I thought it would be easy to tell by the position it fits best in - but neither sit flush on either side - I guess they will when I tighten the bolts on each side - but I don't want to force the part on the wrong side. Any ideas?

Ordinary yellow tube uhu (not uhu por) or gorilla glue clear (not the brown expanding stuff).

Tongue in cheek, whenever I see reports of inappropriate drone usage (like over airfields, military bases, private property etc.) I think "simples, they just need to note the Operator ID which will lead them directly to the culprit". In the real world we all know that the vast majority of those that register and label their aircraft are those that do and have always behaved properly. I practically guarantee that when the Police finally identify a drone being inappropriately used there will be no Operator ID on it.

My apologies, yes I was. I have only ever done the CAA test and to be honest I always assumed that the BMFA one was the same questions but managed by the BMFA on behalf of the CAA. I know different now.

Mostly agree with you, but a lot of the questions do have a drone flavour. For example some refer to flying when out and about, trips in the country, hiking, mountain-biking. One mentions flying whilst cycling using a 'follow me' function. Other talking about being out with friends and using your drone to take selfies. Other talk about flying over festivals, and taking videos of properties and people. Now I agree that you could do this with a fixed-wing aircraft but very unlikely and would be very much the minority. Nor do the scenarios reflect the sort of environments most of us fly in, in a remote field at a BMFA registered club. Actually, I'd go as far as using follow me on a fixed wing whilst cycling would be extremely dangerous. Having said that, I don't have any issue with the questions, they are generally sensible and the correct answers mostly obvious. And if anyone is really bothered by the questions a quick Google will find the questions and answers before you attempt the test. And remember you can do the test as many times as you want.

Just seen the answer to my own question - although in the portal it states 'renews in 1 year' if I click on the card then it states valid until 21/2/2026.

Question about CAA renewal. Just renewed by BMFA and CAA memberships. In the past I have always processed my CAA membership directly with the CAA but this year I added it to my BMFA renewal. My CAA membership renewal was not due for another two months - I think this is because when it was first brought in BMFA members were given an extra two months before they needed to join. Now that I have renewed through the BMFA will renewal date be honoured or will it renew now, and I lose two months. Not bothered either way, just like to know For example, in the BMFA portal before renewal it stated that my CAA membership renews in 2 months, but now that I have renewed, it says renews in one year (rather than 14 months). Cheers, Nigel

You could have filed/sanded the wood slightly to open up the hole.

The BMFA had options - the cost of producing the magazine had skyrocketed - they could have kept it as 'free' and hiked up the subscription to cover it, or they could have made a digital edition available for free and offered the physical magazine as a paid extra. They chose the latter, which, personally, I think was the right thing to do. Memberships are already reducing, a price hike wouldn't help that situation. And people are different, you clearly prefer a paper copy. Others might prefer a digital copy. Then there will be many like me, 5 minute skim through it when it was paper, don't bother looking at the digital version.

I'd do an early war Mk IA with dark green / dark earth uppers and black / white / silver unders and a yellow gas detection diamond.

Yes it is easy to imagine that if you fit a ‘puller’ propeller backwards it will behave like a ‘pusher’ propeller but what you actually get is a less-efficient ‘puller’ propeller.

Looks interesting but can't find much about it. Anyone know whether it is easy to remove the paper covering or how light it is?