david miles 7

Thank you Don for your thoughts. Now it is time for me to concentrate on building it as well as I possibly can, and have some fun with my oldest son when I am able to see him, trying to get it to fly! David.

Thanks to Plummet, Don, PatMc and Martin, for answering my questions and pointing me to suppliers etc. You guys are a lot nicer that the ones on electronic forums! I will answer your questions as best I can, so that you can tell me if I am wrong! A) I am thinking of building wing in one piece, as I feel sure it would be stronger without a join and it will still fit in the boot of my car. B) First model flight ever with grown up son ( apart from launching home made hot air balloon with burner basket and home made boomerangs out over the road and back into our back garden twenty years ago! ) I just want to have an enjoyable/exciting experience C) site is top of gradient up a dirt track between arable fields height - don't know, possibly 100feet. Not bothered about farmers I did get to know one years ago that I liked a lot ( he lent me his JCB ) sadly he died of a heart attack aged 40 something. The rest I seem to dislike - for a good reason - I might just tell sometime! D) 8-10mph wind? How will I be able to gauge that? E) I am hoping that auto-rudder and fused D/T will keep it under control until I get confident Yes/No ? I wonder how many blunders I have made with my assumption? David.

Hippocket are unable to accept more members while they renovate their site. There are loads of discussions to browse. through though, using the search engine. Unfortunately I couldn't find an answer to my query, so I will ask all you guys. If you were a novice (like me ) starting to scratch build a F/F glider with 30" long fuselage and 46" wingspan, would you buy 36" lengths of balsa wood and try to cut out strips of small x sections, or would you try to buy everything pre cut to size, or just buy a jumbo pack of assorted 18" lengths and have scarf joint everything longer than 18"? Second question. I am going to scratch build a 46" W/S Tri-Star ( tried to paste a link to model plan, but it didn't work!) on the "outerzone" Tri-star plan page, at the middle/top of lower plan, it shows a small sketch of drinking straw/10swg wire - WING JOINER. I assumed that the wing would be made in one piece for strength. I do not understand what it means/how it works. If anyone has an idea, or can remember the glider, I would be grateful if they could explain it to me. Thanks. David.

Hello Don. Thanks for your reply. £10 for a radio D/T sounds more reasonable to me. As I said in previously, I am a novice who basically knows very little about flying model aircraft- although, I have picked up quite a bit of knowledge from this forum - I now know what a fuse and a D/T are! Can you expand on what you meant by your last paragraph? But as I've said before, while you go that route, I fail to see why you don't just fly the thing, and put a second servo in it. But I am also not a great supporter of the reintroduction of rotary engines.

Hello Don. Interesting what you said about range being different in the air/on the ground. About the £100 RDT, I only looked at one site/example. Can you tell me the average price on a RDT with a range of 2 miles plus? I still can't work out the transmitter against your head thing - perhaps one is becoming an extra aerial! David.

JDM, when I read your post, I assumed it was the 1st April!. How can holding the fob against your head make it transmit further? I have already got a few strange looks from car drivers whilst out walking my dog, waving my car key in the air at what must have looked like nothing. You want me to now stand on the pavement holding my car key fob against my head!!!? David.

I had another try this morning ( dog walking ) to find out the max range of my car key fob - it looks like 450 to 500 feet - not quite as good as 2 plus miles of competition grade radio D/T setups. Still, it all depends on the transmitter power. One could always beef up the transmitter power I suppose. Although I am now concentrating on thinking about starting to build a Tri-star glider, I have though, ( because I couldn't help myself! ) and because radio D/T setups look like they cost £100 plus, just bought on ebay, a Chinese transmitter receiver module ( two pcb's ) for 99p free postage!. I shall think about radio de-thermaslisers if I manage to get a F/F model in the air successfully! David.

Thanks to everyone's help/ideas about fuses and tissue covering. Thanks to PatMc's recommending the Tri-Star. Each time a member suggests a design,, I look and say to myself " YES,- this is the one!" Tri-Star now looks the best/easiest. About my wireless D/T idea. I tried to google wireless de-thermalisers to find out their range, but I couldn't get one hit on the subject ( perhaps I used the wrong search words ) So this evening I walked my dog to the end of my street - 400 feet and my car key fob unlocked my car doors - it may just have worked even further. Anyone know the range of these "expensive" competition D/T's? David.

Hello Plummet. thanks for your words. I did get some useful "fuse" answers that allowed me to work out what it all meant. On the subject of fuses though. I was thinking about them as I feel asleep last night. I have an interest in electronics and it occurred to me that it might be possible to make an electronic de thermaliser that is triggered by ones car fob ( I haven't seen how far away from ones car that these fobs work yet ) So you would be able to bring down your model when you decided rather than when the timer ran out. Do you/anyone know if D/T's like this exist? David.

Piers. About under-cambered wings. The Caprice plan instructions mention covering wings in tissue. I can't find anything ( youtube and google  explaining how to get tissue to sit tightly on under cambered wings. Can you point me to anything, or is there a way that all modelers know about? I did see a mention about ironing the under cambered wing covering, but I assumed that it couldn't possibly be for me - how could you use a clothes iron on a concave surface ! David.

Hello Piers. Thanks for your post. I had intended to buy a full size plan. I checked your link to the free plan download, but it was A4 size. Is it possible to get a full size copy free? Am I missing something - Am I able to "scale up" the A4 version somehow ? David.

Thanks Don. As the ribs don't have a flat base, I think I will probably will get some. David.

Thanks for everyones help and advice. Funnily enough, after looking at what seems to be hundreds of glider plans on "google images" I finally decided a "plank" type model was best to start, and had already decided that the "Caprice" looked a good one to start with. I do feel the slight pressure to start with a R/C model, but I feel that I would like to get the hang of basic making and flying first I must say that you guys are really useful to get a beginner started - Thanks. David.

Thanks for that Bob. You guys are really important to a "know nothing" person like me. I made what I thought were quite reasonable assumptions about things like auto- rudder and thermals, but I couldn't have been more wrong. I'm glad I asked the question. David.

If you have an "auto-Rudder" on your non powered free flight glider, does this mean that you will not need a "dethermalizer", because if you hit a thermal your glider will climb, but still circle the same and eventually come down on it's own? Am I wright or wrong? David.