Richard Clark 2

Posted by Michael Crawforth on 26/05/2020 21:04:49: Hello All. Hope you are all staying safe. I am wanting so guidance on the glues that you guys would recommend these days because last time i did model building i was using cascamite glue. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I don't know if it's still made but Cascamite is an excellent wood glue. Far better than all this PVA stuff. The only epoxy I trust (and the only one I use) is the slow setting (12-24 hours depending on temperature) 'Araldite'. I use Deluxe Materials Aliphatic for most model plane stuff except for real high stressed areas, where I use the Araldite above.

Posted by Colin Leighfield on 26/05/2020 20:27:33: Don’t tell the gulls in Calpe, Spain, where we are frequently, that they don’t soar. For some reason on every day in late afternoon they congregate in large numbers flying in circles above the bay and fly upwards. They arrive close to the slopes of the 332 metre high “Penon de Ifach” , a huge rock that protrudes into the sea for about half a kilometre. They seem then to be using rising air currents to continue to circle until they are above the peak, in old money more than a thousand feet up. They don’t stop there, although some seem to progressively hold altitude at different levels and circle until eventually at probably around 1,300 ft there is just one and at that point they scatter and disperse in all directions. It’s an astonishing sight that I have been observing for many years, aometimes from the top of the Penon. Besides that they frequently use air currents to soar for prolonged periods over the bay. It’s clearly not related to feeding because they do that at sea level. Also albatrosses most definitely soar, they spend huge periods, days and weeks, in the air, almost certainly sleeping on the wing. Probably the best soarers of all birds. Low aspect ratio wings such as seen on the famous “Leprechaun” glider definitely are good for floating, but when it comes to maximum soaring efficiency the top sailplane designers of the world certainly don’t consider low aspect ratios as even starting to compete. Gulls and related birds are among the best soarers in the bird kingdom. Edited By Colin Leighfield on 26/05/2020 20:29:33 I didn't know that. But hawks/vultures spend a huge amount of time soaring. It's vultures main way of finding food. Maybe their only way. So they are very good at it. And if anyone believes glider designers are better at this stuff than millions of years of evolution I think they are wrong. Humans can be very conceited, despite we've not been around anywhere near a long enough time to show we are a 'successful' species. You of course may disagree.

Posted by Steve J on 26/05/2020 16:40:22: Posted by kc on 26/05/2020 13:17:13: An under rated WW2 fighter? An example of Betteridge's law of headlines (or in this case, subtitles). It was a poor aircraft for it's intended role (as were many of the aircraft in RAF service at the start of WWII). Very true. The Defiant was inflicted on the RAF, not chosen nor welcomed by them. A whole lot of aircraft that weren't much good for their designed purpose ended up in other roles, where they were merely 'better than nothing'. Alison engined P-51, Typhoon, Defiant, P-40, and the more recent Tornado are examples. Of course they achieved success against 'easy targets'. Eric 'winkle' Brown's initial report on the Defiant - "Access for the pilot is difficult. It should be made impossible"

Posted by Peter Miller on 26/05/2020 18:40:37: I can tell you that they are great thermal flyers.The current owner loves them.Especially when other glider pilots say "There is no lift around" and go home while the Easter Eagle senior spends half an hour floating around at height.(Half an hour is the limit for his neck muscles.) The hawks (an eagle is merely a large hawk) and the closely related vultures (the falcons are not closely related) are probably the best soarers in the world. Why? - several million years of evolution. Gulls, which are high aspect radio, can glide fast but rarely, if ever, soar. Nor do albatrosses, also high aspect ratio. From your chosen name of the models you obviously know this and were using the eagle/hawk aerodynamics, wingtip taper and all, but from their appearance NOT trying to make a convincing fake eagle. I rather admire you for this. Why do so many designers ignore such stuff? In another area of bird performance a peregrine falcon (peregrine mean wanderer - equals long distance traveller) can cruise at 100 mph for 100 miles on the energy from one mouse. What model plane can do that?

Posted by Peter Miller on 22/05/2020 21:06:44: I uased Fleet in their 35Mhzdays and never had a problem Yes. Derek Olley, who was the designer/founder/owner of Fleet (named after the Hampshire town he lived in and where had a retail model shop) was a regular contributor of radio articles and circuits in Aeromodeller and the early years of RCM&E (which was a 'spin off' from Aeromodeller) right back to the single channel days. The recently deceased Idris Francis was similar but later. He wrote a series of build articles with circuits for his 'Super Dual Proportional' and founded 'Flight Link Controls' who's first product was a two-channel proportional plus 'positional' throttle (press the up or down button until you got the engine speed you wanted) system based on his articles. Both Fleet and FLC stuff worked ok, at least among the flyers I flew with. Idris was s regular. He was a useless flyer, even with modern equipment

I have a 'terminology' problem with these things. The OP's heading says "thermal soaring" and the video he posts says "glider". But in fact it isn't either. It's just a lightly loaded, high powered and strongly built powered aircraft so it can't help but have a very broad flight envelope. Very nice, but no big deal - it does exactly what one would expect. If it had wheels it could probably win an F3A competition too if it was flown by a good pilot.. I'm not really into such things but I do have an old Multiplex Grafitti. Quite small (about 70 inch) semi-scale version of a modern 'true' glider but electric with a folding prop, glass/epoxy fuselage, balsa covered spruce sparred foam wings with flaps and ailerons which can be switched to 'flaperons' any time you want and an all-moving tailplane. When it came out it wasn't very successful. The only motors that would fit and were readily available were the old brushed Speed 400s or 480s and there were only NiCad or Nimh batteries. With its small prop to match the motor it would slowly stagger around the sky after a very slow climb but that's all. Now, fitted with a geared Kontronik 480 size brushless motor, a 60 amp Kontronik ESC, a big folding prop, and a 3 cell 50C 2200 lipo it's terrific. The fasted and most aerobatic plane on the field and with the flaps and ailerons slightly down and only using the motor for short extremely rapid climbs it will stay up for more than an hour with no thermal assistance. Though of course the battery doesn't last long at full throttle continuously. But we shouldn't pretend these things are 'gliders' or 'thermal soarers'. And we aren't 'glider pilots' They are just broad spectrum regular model planes. Even my little Sig Rascal can 'soar' on a good day. But please don't get me wrong. The OP's video tempts me to buy  a bigger one Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 26/05/2020 05:10:57 Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 26/05/2020 05:12:34

Posted by MattyB on 24/05/2020 22:12:44: Posted by eflightray on 24/05/2020 18:55:35: Number 28 -- Ford Mercury V8 engine ? Perhaps they should have used the engine for propulsion. I know, what were they thinking carrying around that additional weight in order create a device to fractionally reduce the stall speed?!! Errr.... 😂 Edited By MattyB on 24/05/2020 22:13:03 The whole thing's barmy. The one in the cutaway is  an observation aircraft, pilot, observer, and some cameras. What use is an 'glider' observation aircraft that has to be towed to the desired location? And it's the enemy you observe, not your own side. So the plane, the crew, and the film, will fall into enemy hands every time. The people who sent it won't ever get to see the pictures they wanted taken   so what's the point? And as for that cast iron mooring block of an engine, even with the suction on the stalling speed is higher than the Victa Airtourer me and a mate used to own. Leave that heavy weight out and the stalling speed would probably be less than the stalling speed with all that junk running anyway. Nuts Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 25/05/2020 10:12:21 Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 25/05/2020 10:21:35 Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 25/05/2020 10:23:43

Any 8x4 or 8x5 should do. And if you use an 8x5 a two-blade one will be fine though you will need a new spinner.

Posted by Andy Stephenson on 24/05/2020 11:04:39: The OS manufactured Irvines are quite easy to spot because they have OS branded carbs. I have an original Irvine .53 and an OS Irvine .53 and the major parts are not interchangeable so they must have redesigned them for cost reasons. As far as I know, OS never made the .72 or a .39. Then they disappeared off the scene altogether as I guess they were competing too well with OS's own product. It makes you wonder why OS agreed to make Irvines in the first place. A. It does make you wonder why OS made some late Irvine engines. I never owned one myself so I never noticed the carb branding. Except for a couple of perfectly satisfactory (but rattly-sounding at tickover) RCV58 CD's I purchased when they were actually made in the UK I stick to OS as some of the Chinese copies are complete rubbish. EG - I had two 'well known' ones where the carbs were so leaky air still got in when the throttle was fully closed and you could not cut the engine. It's a shame that the choice of 'good' engines has decreased so much. And it started before electrics became so popular so it's not entirely due to that..

Posted by Paul Law on 24/05/2020 13:19:13: I think so, wealth of info out there, just a matter at the end of the day of deciding what best suits your needs. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, happy for what its worth that the post created a conversation 🤐 At the end of the day everybody's input on the forums is required to keep the hobby alive and dare i say it topical. Thanks all, you can be sure I will have more questions to test all your knowledge 👍 l Yes, there is. My personal choice of radio since the mid 1990s has been Multiplex. NOT that I expect everyone to agree it is the best possible choice. Also bear in mind these things are all 'consumer level' equipment', not military or medical, so the occasional failure is to be expected even though the failure of a model plane radio often has more expensive consequences than the failure of a TV. Personally I fly at a site will a large number of flyers though only a few are there at any one time. Since 2.4Ghz came out I have only heard of one failure that could definitely be put down to the radio. Stick with a 'well known' make of radio and it will be as reliable as any other. One make that isn't would not be 'well known' for long if it wasn't reliable. As for forums if we all aqreed with each other there would be little point having the forum at all. And if the OP has asked a direct question as you did, once it has been answered, more often than not with some disagreements, the thread often carries on even though the OP has got his answer.

The last Irvine engines were actually made by OS.

Posted by Phil Green on 24/05/2020 00:47:44: │ Posted by Richard Clark 2 on 23/05/2020 18:41:02: │ │ │ Posted by Phil Green on 23/05/2020 12:51:18: │ │ The radio is my hobby! │ │ The radio is a tool, that's all. No, Richard, the model is a tool to enjoy my latest homebrew radio. I have to agree with John: │ Posted by john stones 1 on 23/05/2020 13:58:34: │ │ Oddly enough YOU don't get to define what the hobby is, others have their own │ thoughts, and more power to them. │ www.singlechannel.co.uk Oh, you are THAT Phil. So: You not only fly toy planes, you collect old radios, as demonstrated by your asking for "donations" to add to your "collection". And while the two may be connected they do not have to be. As in there are a lot of people who collect antiques but do not use them for their originally intended purpose - old fishing rods can be far too valuable and fragile to actually fish with, for example. So it logically follows that collecting old toy plane radios can be a separate and totally unconnected hobby from flying toy planes. See the US 'Radio Control Hall of Fame' site for example, where he sometimes talks about often deceased people who used to fly toy planes but doesn't appear to do any toy plane flying himself, in the same way people talk about Ming dynasty china but don't drink their tea out of it. And I feel that some OpenTx fans, with their waffle about such things as 'scripts' and 'forks' etc. are much the same. Cheers

Posted by Phil Green on 23/05/2020 12:51:18: The radio is my hobby! The radio is a tool, that's all. But h I have to admit that I build more and more planes, all fitted with radio, that each one gets flown less and less. Though my main hobby seems to be trying to get the fan/motor/number of cells combination on a test rig mounted EDF anywhere near close to the published thrust claims

Posted by Mike T on 23/05/2020 16:54:56: None of the (5) Playboy senior plans on Outerzone mention the need for washout. Does the BB plan indicate exactly where this 1/2" should be measured from? The outer panel trailing edge, from the polyhedral break to the tip is almost entirely curved, so at what point would you pack up your 1/2" !? It would make more sense to pack the inner panel TE - except that no other plan asks for washout anywhere... It seems rathar a lot wherever you measure it.. I would have thought it unnecessary. (The problem with washout is that the wing as a whole can never operate at its optimum AoA as it hasn't got one.)

Duplicate Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 23/05/2020 18:17:52

Posted by Andy48 on 23/05/2020 15:05:01: Posted by Richard Clark 2 on 23/05/2020 11:47:03: As for OpenTx, while 'open' in theory, in practice, with only two makes supporting it, FrSky and (I believe) Turnigy, it isn't 'open' in the commonly accepted sense at all. Compare that with all TVs having an HDMI interface, for example. And its off-putting 'fanboyism' is nearly as bad as Apple's You have this completely the wrong way round. OpenTX is "open" because the source code is freely available and open to anyone to adapt and use for free. No transmitter manufacturers "support" it, though several make use of it. Well, yes. I know the difference between an interface, (hardware, such as an HDMI socket with its pins and voltage/current allocations), and 'support'. It was just an analogy and analogies are never exact or they wouldn't be analogies. 'Support' means, at a minimum, the ability to load it and run it. There was talk that the Multiplex Evo/Royal and Profi transmitters would be able to do this. But they didn't, which is a pity. Not only would it have been 'nice to have' as an option on their 'perceived' high-quality transmitter (remember the Horus wasn't in existence then) it would have been easy to do as they already support online updates including sufficient memory to hold two versions of the software, and it may also have expanded their market. In actual 'day to day' practice 'openness' not only means open source but a large variety of machines that will load and run it. . And that we don't have, unfortunately, even though it's simple enough to do. Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 23/05/2020 18:18:20

Posted by john stones 1 on 23/05/2020 13:58:34: Posted by Richard Clark 2 on 23/05/2020 13:51:36: Posted by john stones 1 on 23/05/2020 12:20:14: Nowt wrong with "Fanboys" we all fit in there somewhere, If you think you don't, you're most likely mistaken. I fly with a JR 9X with a FRSKY module in, It's the dogs Doodahs, I also own a Taranis That's even more capable, but unless I pester a club mate to set models up for me, I struggle with It, I am either too lazy to put the effort into learning, or too thick. I don't. Unlike 'fanboys' I justify things I buy, to myself only, BEFORE buying them. Not afterwards. Fanboys are just 'evangelists' - "Join MY religion, it's the only true one", Take radios. Shortly after they came out I bought a Multiplex Evo simply because the transmitter didn't look like a 1950's jukebox, as the 'Asian' ones do, JR particularly so, Was it any good? Well - it failed with an intermittent fault about 18 months later and the service people couldn't fix it in three attempts though they thought they had. Two crashes later I bought a new one only because I had about 20 receivers by then so I was stuck with the Multiplex system. The new one, which has a totally different main circuit board, has been fine now for about ten years. Would I recommend one to you? No. I don't want the blame if it develops a fault or you just don't get on with it. On your other comment, having spent the last 30 years plus in designing 'big' computer operating systems, your difficulty with the Taranis is not you being lazy or thick, it's because the Taranis has a 'user hostile' interface. You can tell that by all the nerdy questions people keep asking - the hobby is toy planes, not computer software. Oddly enough YOU don't get to define what the hobby is, others have their own thoughts, and more power to them. Same with the "BIG" stuff you helped design, it don't qualify you to define me, Taranis is good kit, I'm lazy and haven't put the effort in, I can say that, you've no way of knowing. You sound very worked up about not a lot. You want to get 'personal' about this, fine. I'm not going to.

Posted by john stones 1 on 23/05/2020 12:20:14: Nowt wrong with "Fanboys" we all fit in there somewhere, If you think you don't, you're most likely mistaken. I fly with a JR 9X with a FRSKY module in, It's the dogs Doodahs, I also own a Taranis That's even more capable, but unless I pester a club mate to set models up for me, I struggle with It, I am either too lazy to put the effort into learning, or too thick. I don't. Unlike 'fanboys' I justify things I buy, to myself only, BEFORE buying them. Not afterwards. Fanboys are just 'evangelists' - "Join MY religion, it's the only true one", Take radios. Shortly after they came out I bought a Multiplex Evo simply because the transmitter didn't look like a 1950's jukebox, as the 'Asian' ones do, JR particularly so, Was it any good? Well - it failed with an intermittent fault about 18 months later and the service people couldn't fix it in three attempts though they thought they had. Two crashes later I bought a new one only because I had about 20 receivers by then so I was stuck with the Multiplex system. The new one, which has a totally different main circuit board, has been fine now for about ten years. Would I recommend one to you? No. I don't want the blame if it develops a fault or you just don't get on with it. On your other comment, having spent the last 30 years plus in designing 'big' computer operating systems, your difficulty with the Taranis is not you being lazy or thick, it's because the Taranis has a 'user hostile' interface. You can tell that by all the nerdy questions people keep asking - the hobby is toy planes, not computer software.

Posted by Steve J on 23/05/2020 10:58:46: Posted by Nigel R on 22/05/2020 12:12:39: Lets not turn this thread into another brand bashing! One of the unwritten rules of this forum is that topics asking about radios have to include both Spekkie bashing posts and posts saying how great OpenTx is. Good comment. But to be fair the original Spektrums weren't very good. It's why they changed the transmission protocol from DSSS to a rather unusual both 'spread' and 'frequency hopped' system and so ended up with something very similar to Futabs's FASST. As for OpenTx, while 'open' in theory, in practice, with only two makes supporting it, FrSky and (I believe) Turnigy, it isn't 'open' in the commonly accepted sense at all. Compare that with all TVs having an HDMI interface, for example. And its off-putting 'fanboyism' is nearly as bad as Apple's

Posted by Doc Marten on 23/05/2020 09:53:47: How come the new Graupner trannies never get recommended? Easy. There doesn't appear to be an 'official' or notably enthusiastic UK importer so very little dealer representation and no regular supply. The few dealers are always going 'out of stock' of things, and that's long before the coronavirus. And other than the quite 'pretty looking' tray versions (and tray radios are not popular in the UK anyway) nothing that makes them stand out. And they weren't helped by the performance of the US designed XPS 2.4 RF system they used before HOTT.

Posted by Chris Bott - Moderator on 22/05/2020 19:45:17: Posted by Paul Marsh on 22/05/2020 12:22:03: Did have Taranis, but even I couldn't get round the logic, could not even reverse the throws on a basic 4ch model and Found that to reverse, you altered "weight" whaaat? does not compute! Absolutely incorrect, Paul (Although it would work). To reverse a channel you go to the outputs page, i.e. the one that relates to the output of each channel and you just reverse the direction. Couldn't be simpler. The mistake people make is looking to do it the same way as other makes with their prescriptive menu system. Get your head around OpenTx and what each of its few pages are for and it's pretty simple, really. Everyone is different though which is why different systems suit different people. Nothing wrong in that. Yes. it depends on what you are used to. The 'prescriptive' (restricted would be a better name but it wouldn't sell ) interfaces, such as Futaba, JR, and Spektrum are very different from the 'object orientated' (unrestricted) interfaces of Multiplex and OpenTx. Nobody who has used Multiplex would have a problem with OpenTx and vice-versa. And once the concept has 'clicked' in your head the object orientated systems are very intuitive. And far more flexible and 'powerful'. For example you can easily make retract sequencers using the servo 'curves' and 'servo slow' on a Multiplex so don't need a built in 'feature' of sequencers at all. I assume you can do something similar on OpenTx. As for 'minor' system, such as Tactic, Radiolink, etc. they may be low cost but they tend to appear on the market for a short time, then vanish - in my memory about ten of these things have briefly appeared/disappeared in the last few years. So if you want service or more receivers you are stuck and will then have to fork out for a 'known' system anyway.

Posted by Barrie Lever on 22/05/2020 10:35:11: Richard Yes you are right Richard Sharman. He is a very good friend of mine, in fact he emailed me this morning to say he is on the mend after a very serious illness, I will be speaking to him around lunchtime. I think he is an Hon. member of the British Computer Society, like you say clever people. Ian was flying up at Middle Wallop, don't know where he has migrated to now but he is flying. I am afraid I have taken the models very seriously over the years but I have really enjoyed it and even after more than 40 years of competitive flying I am still itching to get out and fly a fast model. Regards Barrie The fastest plane I've got is a 70 inch span hotliner, the Multiplex Grafitti, from the days when Multiplex made proper planes of glass and balsa with spruce spars. Grossly overpowered with a geared Kontronik '480' size brushless motor it's probably the fastest plane at Beaulieu, will do high-speed 'snap' manouvers on demand, and with the flaperons slightly down it will float around for about an hour if you do another fast climb every time it gets near the ground until the battery runs out It wasn't a successful model for Multiplex at the time it came out as motors to take advantage of its potential were not available then. Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 22/05/2020 11:12:14

Posted by Shaun Walsh on 22/05/2020 10:13:36: Another optimist! **LINK** That price is totally nuts! But you don't see many of them about, mainly because of the fragile ABS fuselage. I've got the near-identical Carrera (well-known for its bicycles and 'sports equipment' in general) Draco, which I bought when new in the 1970s and which I still fly. It has a woven glass/epoxy fuselage which is much more rugged. I think it cost about 60 quid at the time.

Posted by Barrie Lever on 22/05/2020 08:28:11: Richard There was another aerobatic pilot working at IBM Hursley around the same time as you, his name is also Richard. Sometime in the late 70's or early 80's he went to work for IBM in San Jose. He was still flying aerobatics in competitions until a couple of years ago. I only flew in the Beaulieu Trophy one year and that was with a model borrowed from Ian Burridge, a Phoenix 7 powered by a Webra 61 and with the brand new Futaba J series radio. The model flew well but I think Tom Airey or Clive Weller won. Regards Barrie That would be Richard Sharman. As well as being at Hursley he taught an evening, fairly high level, computer science course at Southampton Tech and I was one of his pupils. Regarding San Jose, I was there for a while too. You get moved around a lot at IBM, in fact you are expected to formally agree to such movements, particularly if you work in the development labs. He's the current, (and very effective) Chairman/Secretary of the Beaulieu Committee and in addition to F3A. he does a lot of EDF stuff. He wrote a leading 'paper' on the subject. Unlike some, he actually flies what he writes about. His brother Geoff was at IBM Hursley too, though we are all now retired. Geoff was my boss for a few years. Clever lot, the Sharmans, they've both got doctorates in proper 'hard sciences. Branches of physics, I believe. I remember the Burridges too. They were always good for a laugh. Like me they didn't take toy planes too seriously. Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 22/05/2020 10:25:31

Posted by Jon - Laser Engines on 21/05/2020 21:10:32: stepping on toes? Im a fan of enya engines myself and have...5? something like that. To me they are the best of the japanese brands for quality but are let down by the fact that their designs have not changed at all since the 1980's with most engines still using air bleed carbs and having utterly worthless exhausts. They also got really expensive. In general though they run really well and are very similar to Laser in terms of their design. Stripping them down is all very familiar to me and even the cam profiles and timing are almost identical. Enya engines were always good. We used to 'play' in an amateurish way at control line 'B' team racing and the Enya 29 went quite well. But my Eta 29's always trounced them