Nick Somerville

Yes for sure. Its only an hr and 10 for me. Nice venue.

Work on modifying the engine box area is almost complete. First 20mm was cut back from the sides and the mount plate had a trapezium shaped cut out to accommodate the carb. The engine needs to be mounted on standoff’s to allow for the fuel intakes to the cylinders. Quite handy as fine adjustment can be made using washers of varying thicknesses. Large penny washers will prevent the wood compressing. The distance between the rocker covers and the cowl is still marginal and until further work is done I won’t be sure that I will be in the clear, so to speak. At worst a slight modification to the lower shaped formers could allow a little deformation of the cowl top to bottom to give a few more mm clearance. I doubt if it would be noticeable, especially as there is an exhaust outlet at the bottom rear of the cowl for the lower cylinders. This is where I shall be mounting the Pitts style muffler. Bottom view The hole in the side of the box is for a screwdriver to access the idle screw. Top view I have a fan to fit behind the spinner and from what I have gleaned this negates the use of a baffle plate around the cylinders. Indeed if tight baffles are fitted when using a fan it can cause a drop in rpm due to back pressure. With the extra volume of air to disperse I am hoping that the lower exhaust exit, side exhaust exits and the cooling doors should be sufficient. On addition the gap around the carb will allow heated air to pass through the fuselage and out through the tailwheel area.

Went today and had an enjoyable time. £5 entry on the gate is ridiculously cheap for what for many would be a whole day’s entertainment. Lots of trade stands, which meant I could buy a number of sundries needed and some cheap bits and bobs from the ‘car booters’. The flight line appeared quite relaxed with a diverse range of models being flown. For modellers who like all aspects of the hobby there were an array of scale boats, model railway and military ground based displays (flipping big tanks trundelling around). Given the event is in it’s early years I reckon it was a pretty good do. Real Model Pilots had a 50% off their products for the show and 20% off for orders of pilots they didn’t have in stock. I ordered one of their specific ones for FW 190’s for my latest build 😀

Here is the now extended gun hood. Still a little more fill, sand repeat to go but getting there. This is a photo of how the inside of the real hood looks. and this is where I am at the moment after some serious faffing about. Fortunately the only time it will actually be seen is when opening to access switches etc.

I have the RS 200 sequencer. Apparently you can set it up without a data terminal but I rather suspect trying to would drive you mad, especially if sorting gear doors too. If you don’t plan on having doors then the cheapest one will do. I have a ixcoy data terminal (about £30 from Nexus) which made it somewhat easier to set up. You can also enter a manual mode so you can sort everything out without a transmitter. For some reason the RS 200 doesn’t allow adjustment for slow servo travel on the doors but I found a work around for that. I use a small Lipo battery for the controller and retracts which even a week after leaving switched on was still fully charged the other day. Probably 50+ gear cycles between charges. My P47 was in between E30 and E40’s but chose the E 40’s. They will be ideal for the Mustang.

I have a pair of E40 retracts in my Brian Taylor P47. Beautifully made and 100% reliable to date. I use the mid range sequencer they sell that sorts out the gear doors and timings. The units themselves are very powerful.

Don, it’s my only sport model a Wot4XL that is of course a tail dragger. There is plenty of clearance from the ground and it is positioned ideally for directing the oil residue away from the model.

There is a 45ish degree header. Looks a bit like it might not be man enough unsupported but the silencer is super light and the engine so so smooth it hasn’t been any problem. In my case the pressure nipple has been blocked off as the engine us pumped.

I have one of these fitted to an OS FS 120 mk2 pumped engine and its just superb. Such a soft note at all speeds and often commented on by club mates. https://www.westonuk.co.uk/Vpfs3-120-150fs-Silencer/

I have started to sheet parts of the fuselage and wanted to see how the supplied epoxy glass machine gun cover would fit. I happily cut away the flashing back to the clear edge line and then offered it up. Yikes that doesn’t look right, I say to myself, it’s short! A check at my reference material showed it was short by 23mm, which thankfully was more than the flashing I had trimmed back. If there had been an excess I could simply have blended the moulding line but building up the front was going to be needed now. In this photo the missing front portion is clearly shown with the rear correctly positioned at the hinge line just in front of the raked canopy front. To add to the front I first shaped some small balsa pieces to continue the final part of the gun blister. Next plastic sheet taped in place and then 3-4 layers of carbon cloth topped with glass cloth wetted out with laminating resin. The first and last piece under/over lapped the front edge by 5mm. Under the gun hood, that will have a scale hinge, I plan to mount battery switches, the air fill valve and Ignition kill switch and possibly the ignition unit too.

Cider Country 😬 Somerset

Any Stampe’s going to Popham this weekend?

As ever with modelling the second side took a quarter of the time to make up. Holes for the air to pass from the engine bay into the area behind the cooling doors have been cut and lightweight nylon snakes fitted to actuate the doors. Rather than sheet the area with balsa around the doors I have opted for G10 as thin edges around the openings look more realistic. Also some filling and shaping will need to be done later top and bottom and blending back to the G10 will be easier than if it were balsa.

I have had a fiddly few days in the workshop working on what is basically a a couple of pairs of Venetian blinds, or more correctly known in aviation as cooling doors. I could just have made them static in the open position but I considered working ones was worth a try. The louvres have been made from some curved dowel (soaked in mild ammonia solution) with G10 front and back. The dowels have 1.5mm carbon pins inserted top and bottom for pivots. Behind each there is a horn and an actuating arm connecting the three louvres. The actuating arms will have a link to either manual rods or some inexpensive servos, yet to be decided. The key to this exercise is that the doors will be one of a number of routes for hot air to escape the cowl. I have painted the area behind as once sheeted around the louvres I won’t be able to get there later.

I had a feeling this wasn’t a first time offence!!! Same part just a different location.

Eagle eyed will have noticed on the previous post that the rudder was missing it’s balance tab. Error addressed and the hollowed addition covered to pretend I had never omitted it.

The tailplane has been glassed and glued in place and the basic fin structure built up. As the fuselage is yet to be sheeted some careful alignment checks were made and once again the little level with integral laser proved invaluable. The tail retract needed a lot of shoehorning as previously mentioned but I am happy with the geometry achieved and the runs for the rudder closed loop and tail steering closed loop have all worked out nicely with no chance of fouling. The elevator is actuated by a very stiff 6mm x 3mm carbon rod. The rudder has been constructed and covered along with stitching and pinked tapes as also have the elevators that were made some time back. The rudder linkage on the full size is hidden with the actuating horn just inside the fin shroud. With a width of only 22mm I just don’t think a closed loop set up will be rigid enough so I have fabricated a small horn giving 40mm between the connection holes that should be fairly innocuous. Next I need to consider whether a scale access hatch to the tail retract should be made. Even if I do constructed one I think extracting the retract and air cylinder would be fiendishly difficult so I am inclined to thoroughly test the unit and steering before sheeting the fin, and if 100% happy just simulate the hatch.

I joined a local club and paid a substantial one off joining fee. After a few weeks competently flying two models of around 7kg alongside some regulars I took over my 7.8kg new P47 for a maiden. The club safety officer came over to enquire its weight and when I told him he replied saying, “if you try to fly that here without a B certificate I will have you thrown out of the club. Not very friendly imo but undeterred I asked how I could test for the B Certification. I am one of the examiners he said. Returning home with the model unflown I revisited the club handbook/rules and no mention of the B requirement was present. A phone call to the safety officer didn’t go particularly well and he subsequently had the committee rewrite the rules to stipulate that members wanting to fly 7.5kg plus models required a B. The annoying thing was the disparity of my well sorted models and competent flying compared to many of the regulars who would turn up and play lawn darts with models that just were not airworthy. . Back to the joining fee. I obtained my B at a Buckminster Achievement Day and decided to leave the club after only a few months membership to join a different and more welcoming club. Would the club refund my £75 one off joining fee? Not a hope. So I for one do not agree with such charges. What about modellers who move home regularly for work reasons. Why should they be penalised every time they change clubs?

I purposely left out the lower rear stringers as I had read on the Radio Scale Builder Forum that Roy’s plan for the rear fuselage didn’t blend in to the lower trailing edge of the wing correctly and the area behind was not true scale. Trawling through all of my photographic docs and the Bentley drawings confirmed this, even before a trial mating of the wings to the fuselage. It’s a substantial error as the formers are pretty thin. However, by blending the required shape rearwards its only really the former at the trailing edge that needs significant reshaping. I cut the slots deeper to allow the stringers to follow the correct line and have glued them in place. Once set and rigid it should be easy to sand back the formers to the new shape. Further back the tailwheel assembly has been bolted to its former and glued in place.

You’re not wrong there Ron as including the former and fixings it’s about 5oz. My plan and parts came with the full set of Sierra retracts so seems a shame not to use the tail unit. That said the wheel doesn’t fully retract on the FW 190 and just sits up higher, so if I was really worried about the extra weight I could go for a fixed steerable wheel as per the plan. My Sea Fury has a similarly weighted tail retract and I still managed to achieve a sensible auw, so having spent the effort thus far I shall push on with it and do my best to keep the back end as light as possible to compensate.

I have been working on the installation of the Sierra tailwheel retract. It’s been a proper shoehorn job and a lot of material had to be fettled away for it to be able to lift up without fouling. To compensate I have added some carbon reinforcement on the outside which will be sandwiched when the balsa skins are added. Former 9 as supplied and shown on the plan had been positioned for a fixed tailwheel so a new one had to be made and positioned much further forward, also at a slight angle. With the amount of vertical movement at the steering horn this meant finding a suitable run for the pull pull cables was going to be tricky. I have opted for some long slots that providing the cables are spring loaded at the servo end and the cables leading towards the slots have exited guide tubes at a mid point of travel they should not over tighten in either the up or down position. I will however require a separate servo for the wheel steering that is programmed to switch off when retracted.

Steve, 15000’ would have been IFR flying into cloud as in the UK cloudbase doesn’t get that high. In 20 years of paragliding the highest in the UK I have achieved was just under 7000”. Some club mates have managed 8500’ on a few rare days after long hot summer spells. Others who have flown higher have dome so by flying into cloud, which is very disorienting if for more than a few minutes. BTW paraglider pilots regularly fly long distances in the UK (200km +) but 100km + triangle flights are only achievable on light wind days. Not glass ship performance by any means but when you consider a paraglider, harness and instruments pack up into a manageable rucksack of typically 15kg its a remarkable way to get airborne.

Sounds like a very sensible plan Steve.

Agree that it’s a very pricey route for only 3m. This looks much better value and from a very well respected manufacturer https://classifieds.bmfa.org/acadp_listings/let-models-asw-28-3m

Made a start on the fuselage. Basic box crutch technique with stringers. The projecting light aero ply sides were noted as needing an extra layer of the same 1/16 ply but as these were not supplied I chose to laminate with some carbon fibre and 1mm beech ply. I have left out the engine mounting plate for now but I intend to fit this 20m rearward of the plan position and then mount the engine on short standoffs so that various parts of it are not impeded. In the first photo note the red lines from the laser helping to square everything up. In this photo the air tank has been positioned and the fin post has been pinned to a balsa stay attached to one of my wall mounted tool caddy’s. No chance of loosing my square at the back!