Eric Robson

One cowl and nacelle covered in brown paper. I has added a lot of strength to the foam, I found I only had enough screws and nuts to mount 1 motor so hopefully the order will arrive today and I can c get the other side done. the cowl will be glued on when all is up and running, motor and esc cooling is taken in from the under side of the cowl and exits where the under carriage should be. hand launching on this one.

Some of the balsa on offer these days would be suitable for cricket bats.

Sanding is not my favourite pastime either

It's because there plain chocolate.

In the old American war films they call them ships,

Thank you for the comments, when it come to the engine cowls I made a profile of the side and top views and started building up the shape with laminations of 5mm foam this seemed to take forever so after the first quarter I looked for a different method. blue foam would be ideal but is now made as black foam, still called blue foam? but is not available at the moment. It's beginning to feel like WW2 everything is in short supply. I went to Wickes to see what they had and come out with a block of insulating foam 1200mm x 450mm x 50mm thick with foil on both sides just under £10. it sanded quite well but care needed as it can be damaged easily, I used a Permagrit block rough side to take it down near size then the smooth side to finish. It is not as strong as blue foam but I am going to cover it with brown paper which should strengthen it. The cowl and the three blocks for the nacelle weigh less than an ounce at this point. The one behind the cowl will be removable, the rear two will be fixed once the wiring is in.

The depron wrapping on the fuselage was formed cold round a vac cleaner extension tube when forming depron it has a grain which is not noticeable but one way it forms the other it splits.

Due to the shortage of balsa and Warbird Replicas Me 110 kits I decided to make one using Maker foam and Hobbycraft foam board and the last of some depron I had. It is a scaled down Brian Taylor plan of71" span, mine will be 57" span. the deciding factor was the availability of a Dynam canopy ( thank you Richard Wills) the basic fuselage is foamboard with f b formers covered mainly with 1/8" depron the wing is a simple maker foam flat bottom wing. I have a Flite test P38Lightning with this set up and it fly's very well.

Sorry Jon, I should have realised that after making a remark on the cocktail sticks, in my last reply I should have said fin not rudder or vertical stab if you prefer. there are many ways it can be held down while the glue sets, a length of string with equal weights on each end hung over the elevator will put pressure on . With the Mustang I used superglue on the fin to elevator then PVA for the blocks either side these were then pinned till the glue dried.

Early 20th century British workmanship was first class. the Titanic swimming pool is still full of water.

Great work as usual Danny, I hope you have a good supply of blue foam as it is a scarce as balsa now. in fact it is now black but out of stock.

Very good , both models. How many noticed the link to you tube?

Hi Jonathan, before you glue the tail on ,I assume you mean the elevator make sure it is level and in the correct position. This is best done with the wings on, put a pin in the centre of the fuselage at the rear of the cockpit or the engine bulkhead, using string measure the distance to the tip of the tail plane it should be equal distance to both tips as an extra check see if the distance from the wing to the tail is the same. also check that the tail plane sits level on the fuselage I use the mark one eyeball test for this looking from the rear, but you can put the plane on a flat surface propping it level, check that the height of the tail plane is equal, when satisfied I pin it on then mark the position then cut the covering away and glue it on checking and re checking before it dries. If you have not got a clamp big enough weight on the tail plane will do till it dries. when fitting the rudder make sure it is in line and use a square to check it is at right angles to the elevator. Having said all that Peter Miller's Insanity fly's ok, see Jan RCME. Regarding the canopy I shape mine till it fits snug on the fuselage then I use servo screws to fasten it on. Richard is selling Gordon Whitehead scale model building books, a mine of information. Cheers Eric.

Let's hope Leccyflyer can solve the problem. A bolt from the top and a nut to hold it would work but would have to be solid as if it started turning in the captive retainer you would not get the wing off easily.

John, if you can't remove the old retainers you could epoxy some 6mm studding in and use 6mm plastic nuts and washers to retain the wing.

Getting back to topic, Martin as no one has mentioned the C of G, I have a Duncan Hutson plan of a 56" span Magister . I can measure it and scale up if that will help. Cheers Eric.

Very interesting web site Andy, I particularly liked the Fairey Gordon, I have always been an advocate of light build aeroplanes, although I do have some heavier models that fly better in the strong winds we get too many of up in the North East.

Ivan Pettigrew designs very light large models, in the back pages of the current RCME there is pictures of Mike Roach's 120" Lincoln bomber built from his plans and it only weighs 7lb ready to fly.

Hi Kevin , Happy new year, it's going together well, good to see you saving weight at the tail end with the shorter bolts. I sent you an e.mail an it has not been delivered it comes up with delivery incomplete will try again in 18 hrs. Cheers Eric.

After masking the canopies ready for painting on the last day of the mild weather it started raining so I left it till the morning when the rain had turned to snow. It looks like it will be a while before they will see paint. Despite the long nose which is a thin ABS moulding the c of g is going to be a problem to achieve, there is not enough room in the nose for the batteries, they will go in the cockpit but that will mean no detail, still they won't be seen once in the air and balance is the priority. The motors I had in mind may not be powerful enough as the weight is creeping up to between 11 and 12 pound so I will have to see what I can fit in as the space is limited in the nacelles at the moment but moving the batteries to the centre will give me more space in the nacelles but I would have to move the bulkhead further back.

That did not take long Graham, very good ,what's next month's model?

I will find out this year Nigel when I fly my Tempest, the previous one lasted a while on grass but was badly damaged by a sick engine it would have been rebuilt but I was moving out of the area. Don, the under powered Merco did not help but the half a pound of lead did look for an escape route on impact. What ever engine was fitted the need to balance all gives extra strain on any airframe particularly the short nose variety. I do use ply doublers when called for but on some of the early scale plans mainly C.A.P where the used 1/8" ply I would use a sandwich of 1/16" balsa and 1/16" ply.

Brian Taylor never used ply doublers in his 10cc glow powered warbirds, the only ply he recommended was for the bulkhead and u/c mounts he only used hard balsa for dihedral reinforcing.

That's the ones with whistles not bells. The modern ones are all bells and whistles but the don't have them fitted.

The mild weather has given me the chance to get some paint on at last. Matt black rattle can from the motor spares shop, I had intended taking the masking off but on inspection in the better light there is some more paint to go one.