Phil Baker

Thanks Ian for that info. That could well be it, it's the right size and looks about right (difficult to be sure from their photo) but unlikely to be 2 models of same name so similar! I've ordered the back issue. Thanks again!

I wonder if anyone can assist! I have acquired from a well know and often expensive auction site, a nice ready to fly model which I'm told is a D. Boddington design called the "Thug"! It is a smallish 0.25 powered flat "slab" wing design a little like a Stick. It's a nice model but mine has no u/c and I wondered if anyone has come across the design and can provide any details like how it flies, or whether it might have had a u/c originally. I wondered whether I could put a small u/c and rubber band it or bolt it to a ply plate. Where would this go in relation to the CG?

I fink I'm talking to meself ere!

PPS... Anuvver tip! If you "ain't bovered" abaht comps and fings, (cos this ain't strictly legal like, know wot ah meen?) you might like to try really slipperying up your EPP by getting some super lightweight glass fibre matt (got mine off an EBay American geezer, cheap as chips and light so not much shipping) then apply it with.... weight for it!... not resin? Nah!... Polyurethane (water based) floor varnish innit? Slippery as jellied eels 'n' raw oysters! Do a search on the ol' Googley site. The yanks are heavily into all this stuff. I finally found a supplier of water based PU floor varnish! One of them posh hardwood block flooring suppliers. Had to buy a gallon (Je m'excuse... cinque litres!) cost me seventy-five knicker, but it'll see me aht, cos a brushful does a whole wing panel and it comes out all fin and light and shiney like ... and... it don't need no rubbin' dahn! And cleaning up? Wot cleaning up? Try it on one of your EPP shucks. It works. A gallon of floor varnish - every club should have one!

PS.. Why do we go on and on about the lightness of gliders? EPP? Slope soarers innit? Only fly in a good blow dunnI? Then need to add balast like! So weight? I ain't bovered!

Just to add my bit on the Spackle idea... Yep, the One Shot Filler is the way to go. Gets in between all the little EPP bubbles and fills the gaps. Rubs down in a flash (FINE wet and dry does not rip out the bubbly bits, but keep changing it so it is new and "sharp" or you will drag, not cut). A tip: add thinned PVA not just water then the resultant goo will be that little bit more flexible and will bond nicely to the EPP cells. Then when you bounce your Wildthing into terra (who put that there) firma, the spackle bits will not try to part company wiv the EPP. Next tip.. Try solartex over your EPP nose (no the plane ya fool!) cos it pulls in almost wrinkle free, then treat it to a thin coat of Clearcoat-result beautiful! Does not go brown and green when encountering grass and worse on the sheep grazed bits! And yes, I've built a Stan Yeo "Community Service Special" (Sorry Stan, great model honest) aka a Mayhem. Therapeutic all that wood spar tapering and slot routing. Then spackled it all over (legally of course), sanded it, spackled again, etc. etc. then butt jointed the fibreglass tape (steady hand needed), then Profilmed/Solartexed it, got it looking really nice. I'm convinced they go faster and if you've ever been to a full size glider field before a comp and watched all the floppy hat brigade WAXING their legs, sorry I mean their fuses, you'll know that less drag is good for everyone except SIR Barry Humphries! So Spackle away kiddies!

Who's got time to make a glider from scratch these days? Not me! Why not I hear you cry! Well actually I didn't hear you cos the TV drowned you out. Aha, that's why I don't have time, too much TV. Seriously, our cars are faster, we're more affluent and pay for everything to be done. When did you last change your own oil on the car? We've got gadgets to do everything quicker but we ALL say " I don't have time to..." Sorry to wax philosphical there! What I really meant to say was, assuming we are going to spend a ton of our easy come money on an ARTF glider, should we get the Thunder Tiger E-Hawk 1400 (agreesive, butch name - good start) with its included motor, esc and prop, nice colours, V-Tail (back end marketing a-la Renault!) for £79! OR... what about the JP Pretty 1500 (whoops who thought of that one then.. also available in pink, comes with matching shoes!) which actually includes a b/less motor, ESC, prop, pushrods installed, virtually RTF, for £79!!! So, come on chaps, never mind the names, who's flown em both, reckons they are worth the dosh etc. etc. I need to know, because I mistreated my old but fine Precedent Electra Fly by flying it low and fast.... into a rock that some idiot left up the mountain! Whoops, even the NiCds were wrecked - one cell was SPLIT and hissing!! That plane cost me more in covering and glue than the modern crop cost total! And it must have taken a million hours of balsa bashing to get it finished. BUT I loved it (Aaaah) because I made it! Right that's stirred the pot, who's digging in first??

I reckon the guru who suggested the o ring in the needle valve is nearest the mark. I recently fired up a Blue Bird 0.46 (identical to the ASP, dist. by MFA in the 80s) started beautifully first turn of the starter. Only problem? On high revs you could see the fuel spraying out of the needle valve, round the threads, due to venturi effect. Conclusion ? O-ring deteriorated over time! At low revs? Idling nicely then CUT! Time and time again. Conclusion? Air getting in past the o-ring on the needle. If only I'd known about the bit of tube trick!! Will try that soon and see if it fixes things. If so I've got a 21 year old engine, twin bearings, loads of power, runs like an OS 46FX and is worth about a quid! Who cares if it does the job? Seriously, I used to work as an ind. chemist for Dunlop and one of the BIG bugbears for the "boffins" (Sun talk, sorry) was the effect that oil has in the long term on natural rubber products. It makes them "dry" and brittle and they lose their bounce! With an o-ring, no seal today. So the oil residues in your carb over the years have zonked your o ring. With great respect to the experts at Just Engines, I think there's no harm in trying a 10p new o-ring (try a decent car parts firm, or plumbers merchant, even our local DIY does a mixed bag of little o-rings) and see if its "Eureka" time. And if not, where's J.E.'s phone number?? PS I just invested in an OS FS70 Ultimate 'cos I's fed up of engine unreliability probs! Haven't run it in yet, but if it don't idle nicely then, I shall commit harikiri!

Mike, Thanks - looks just like the bits i've got so far. I guess that if the B.B is a scaled down version of a well established design, various suppliers would have jumped on the bandwagon! Got to admit it is a mighty handsome plane! Difficult to believe people were flying r/c on engines as small as 049. My biggest engine in the 70's was a K&B Stallion 35 (C/L stunt motor), cost £5, no throttle, no silencer and seemed huge and fearsome. It powered a Mercury Crusader! Now we reckon 40 - 60 is about average. Times change, but do we enjoy the hobby more? (Thought for the day). Phil

Mike, Thanks for trying with the image. I can see from Leccyflier's link that we've got the right model! Your file is a .png file, should it be a .jpg? Not that I'd know a j peg from a clothes peg!

Thanks for the offer Leccyflier, but I can't seem to email you! I'm a bit new to this forum game, but it tells me your details are private. Anyway I'd be very grateful if you could try for the B.B. plan, I'm on [email protected]. Cheers

Yes please, I would love the plan as I have to finish the Baby Birdie! I can cope with a change of scale if necessary!

Thanks for the info leccyflyer. I specially like the one with the canopy moved back behind the wing! I don't suppose you can get hold of a photocopy of the plan? I'd love to finish mine, which is obviously the 1/2A.

I did my usual - saw on EBay a model I remember from the dim and hazy days of drooling over mags (flying models not the Nuts type!) the "Baby Birdee". Looked a nice project and dirt cheap! Suitable for a leccy job thinks I! Whoops, no plans with it, parts missing etc. Box picture looks nice, kind of jet like! Anyone got a plan, or direct experience? Was there ever a grown up "Birdee"? I seem to remember a "Dirty Birdee" but maybee that was in a Nuts type mag!!

Interesting comments re Hummingbird. Mine is half built with zero deihedral and strip ailerons cut from the foam t.e. Wing looks the business and is really light. Fueslage also seems a good straightforward design, but not compared to the modern 3-D CNC thingies. They benefit from the use of light ply in geodetic designs with loads of lightening. To do this with a fretsaw would be like community service! (More use though!) I'm fitting a brushless of about 370 size which should power it nicely as a trainer/first aero model. The Chevron 2 is complete but yet to fly (don't think I can cope with tip stalls on take off yet!). The other day I bought a 20 yr-old Yamamoto with the GRP fuse and even the MFA distributed Blue Bird 46 engine. Engine started first flick after all that time and runs a belter. Busily restoring the wing covering and cleaning up the fuse. Tailplane will be replaced as fuel soaked. Generally a nice looking plane - better than many of the current crop. I learned on the original 3 channel wooden Yamamoto which flew extremely well, but met its end when the buddy lead came out and neither I nor the training guy had control. Sickening thud time! Anyone built the Islander 2? Mine is sitting waiting to see the light of day. Twin brushless??