Trevor Crook

There was an article in the last year or so in Aeroplane magazine on the movie, sorry I can't remember which issue.

Could be worth a browse of the Als Hobbies website Rich. They sell Futaba and Spektrum so its a good place to compare prices and features. They are currently offering a 2 year warranty on Spektrum, presumably because they are official service agents.

Agreed Martin, especially if its something scale.

Martin, I had loads of great flights with a Frog Buccaneer, you could even get spares for it. Perfect for a 10 year old whose building skills were rubbish!

Wouldn't appreciate a curfew - my wife and I do our weekly shop in the local supermarket at 7pm, its lovely and quiet then so distancing is easy. I do miss the flying and socialising, even ar 2m. Hopeful for the Spring.

I've worn varifocals for 20 years or so, and find them great for flying and driving. When I worked, they were also fine for desktop or laptop use. However, for detail close-up modelling work I normally put on a pair of cheap, quite strong, reading glasses. In sunny weather, I use properly fitted clip-on polarised sunglasses. Like you, Nigel, I have had mild long distance correction since my late teens, then the near vision started going in my late 40s. Some other observations: I've used the same small opticians practice for 50 years, they aren't as cheap as High Street chains but according to a friend who recently moved there, take more care. Varifocals work best with larger frames - shallow, slitty styles have much smaller zones for the different prescriptions. It's worth paying the extra for the better quality varifocals - my current pair were about £400, but as I wear them all day every day the cost per hour is low. Finally, varifocals don't suit everyone - my wife couldn't get on with them and wears bifocals, but she has a very different prescription to me, being long sighted. Hope you get it sorted.

Thanks chaps, he will contact the membership sec.

As I am a BMFA B cert holder, I have responded to the email requiring a box to be ticked in the membership portal to confirm that I have read Article 16. My father in law is an A cert holder, but does not have internet access, so he does all his BMFA membership via paperwork with his club. The club sent him hard copy of Article 16 which he has read. Does anyone know if there is a mechanism for him to confirm this with the BMFA.

Windows Media Player? Not sure why you are using that. I've put a link to a video showing how to update firmware below, I think he says he is using Firefox as his browser. https://youtu.be/Dp3mnkwoD7M

Mine was valid until February I think, but I just renewed anyway.

Apart from a hiccup on the first day, when I tried again a couple of days later it all ran smoothly in early December.

Indeed. Though to put things in perspective, I'd have happily swapped 6 months worth of flying for spending Christmas day watching my grandchildren unwrapping their presents. If someone had told me a year ago that it would be illegal this year, I would have said they were mad!

Our club has set its electronic booking system to 2 people, plenty of room to spread out, but a bit cold and soggy for me at present. I would go flying with a clear conscience as I regard the risk of catching or spreading the virus while doing so is near zero. Never had an accident or breakdown in nearly 50 years of driving to the field. I see mixing with several people indoors as the main risk. Incidentally, the car parks at our local angling lakes are absolutely rammed.

Posted by Gary Murphy 1 on 21/11/2020 10:42:13: I think you guys are missing the point. Balsa is not used in the construction of the blades. The balsa is burned to power the Chinese factories that make them. Then me buy the wind turbines to save the planet,the same turbines that spend more time not spinning than spinning in the UK, well at least the ones near me. Well some must be spinning somewhere in the UK. Just checked a live power generation website at 10.15pm on Saturday evening, and wind power is generating 9.29 GW, 34.5% of the grid demand.

Martin, some of the blades are now over 100m long, and the offshore turbines they are used on produce 12 MW of electrical power. Looking forward to feedback from Barrie's contact.

Bob, the statement said "Certain types of hybrid would still be allowed". I'll wager these will be plug-ins, not those known by the ridiculous term "self charging". I bet a minimum electric-only range is specified, too.

Matty is right, there are just too many people. The lithium shortage thing is interesting. When I started driving in the early 1970s, it was confidently predicted that the oil would all be gone by 2000. When catalytic converters were introduced, it was said we would run out of platinum. A crucial difference between oil and batteries is that the latter are 90% recyclable. Once oil is burnt, it is gone forever. I know that batteries aren't the fuel, but renewable energy generation has been, and continues to be increasing rapidly. I don't know how we motorists will be managing in 2030, but I am reasonably optimistic that the technology will be there for us, as long as there is enough investment in infrastructure.

Indeed. The problem with mounting the retract unit deep in the nacelle to accommodate the wheel is that it makes the leg longer, which makes it more prone to bend, and puts more stress on the retract unit.

Geoff, that's exactly where I put my esc, very handy to have the ventilation holes underneath. As mine was built for leccy, it's got a firewall for the motor instead of bearers, but the plan side- and down-thrust have been incorporated. Even using quite chunky 3s 4000 packs, I've had to add a bit of lead in the nose, but I'm sure you were expecting that. Your covering does look pretty good in the photo.

Geoff, could you give the covering a really good clean, followed by a re-shrink if required? As you say, it's expensive and if it is sound, a bit of weathering makes it look more authentic. There's scope for some cockpit detail, I added some instruments and a spare Lewis gun ammo drum to mine.

Solly, by "severe vibration" I meant in comparison to an electric setup. I flew i.c. for over 30 years, and always balanced my props, used decent spinners etc. But I clearly remember the tailplanes on lighter construction models (such as the SE5A) oscillating while the model is on the ground with the engine at idle, probably due to harmonics with that single cylinder piston going up and down, and bang every other rev! A properly balanced leccy setup is turbine smooth by comparison, and things are far less likely to shake loose, although maintenance checks on screws etc. should still be conducted of course. I didn't intend stoking up an i.c. versus e.p. debate, so to redress the balance I'll confess that my SE5A is about the only model I fly that makes me slightly miss an i.c. engine during flight. Although not absolutely the right sound, the 4-stroke in my earlier example sounded in-character as it flew past. and the thin trail of smoke against a blue sky looked good! Such a shame the Flair Scouts are no longer available.

Gangster, I'd forgotten the prescribed method of holding the wing on with self-tappers - not good! That's why I used nylon machine screws into tapped hardwood. The threads are still fine after years of use. I used the same method on the kit built i.c. powered example I built many years ago, and it worked well on that, too. One of the many benefits of e.p. is that, due to the lack of severe vibration, things don't tend to come loose so much. My interplane strut screws are still tight after a flying session. Geoff, my elevators have a push rod and joiner link setup, which works fine, but if I were doing it again I would try to use a bifurcated rod with a horn on each elevator. Can't remember if the rudder linkage would get in the way of doing this.

Geoff, the top wing on mine is held on by 4 M6 nylon screws that engage in hardwood blocks which I drilled and tapped. Like you, I soldered nuts (M3) to the interplanetary strut plates, but I leave the struts attached to the bottom wing and fold them down, so only 4 screws to fiddle with. Since mine was built from scratch for electric, it's a bit lighter than yours at 6lb, and flies nicely on about 500W from 3s 4000 packs. The pic below shows the battery box, if that helps.

On the Greenstar you can also simply turn the knob to adjust the temperature at any time. When you do so, it will display the desired temperature for a short time, then revert to its default of showing the current room temperature. If it is set to auto, it will revert to the auto setting at the next time period. As Steve says, if you just leave it set ON, the thermostat will work like an old fashioned one and the boiler will just respond to manual temperature adjustments.   Edited By Trevor Crook on 28/10/2020 07:59:51

I can understand the appeal of ic motors for collectors and those who enjoy fiddling with them, and they certainly look more interesting. But as someone said earlier, electric is fine if you just want to pull a model around, which is all I want. I've never really got the noise thing in scale models. If my electric Spitfire were powered by a 4-stroke glow, the sound would replicate that of a Merlin to the same degree, that is nothing like it!